Publisher Description

In the early twentieth century, historical imaginings of Japan contributed to the Argentine vision of "transpacific modernity." Intellectuals such as Eduardo Wilde and Manuel Domecq GarcÍa celebrated Japanese customs and traditions as important values that can be integrated into Argentine society. But a new generation of Nikkei or Japanese Argentines is rewriting this conventional narrative in the twenty-first century. Nikkei writers such as Maximiliano Matayoshi and Alejandra Kamiya are challenging the earlier, unapologetic view of Japan based on their own immigrant experiences.

Compared to the experience of political persecution against Japanese immigrants in Brazil and Peru, the Japanese in Argentina generally lived under a more agreeable sociopolitical climate. In order to understand the "positive" perception of Japan in Argentine history and literature, Samurai in the Land of the Gaucho turns to the current debate on race in Argentina, particularly as it relates to the discourse of whiteness. One of the central arguments is that Argentina's century-old interest in Japan represents a disguised method of (re)claiming its white, Western identity.

Through close readings of diverse genres (travel writing, essay, novel, short story, and film) Samurai in the Land of the Gaucho yields a multi-layered analysis in order to underline the role Japan has played in both defining and defying Argentine modernity from the twentieth century to the present.  

Author Biography

Koichi Hagimoto is an associate professor of Spanish at Wellesley College.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Foreword by Ignacio LÓpez-Calvo
• Introduction
• Part I: Transpacific Modernity: An Asia-Latin America Perspective
• 1. Argentine Chronicles on Japan: Hygiene, Aesthetics, and Spirituality in Eduardo Wilde and Jorge Max Rohde
• 2. Empire Across the Sea: Narratives of Japanese Imperialism in the Writings of Manuel Domecq GarcÍa and Yoshio Shinya
• Part II: Nikkei Literature as Counternarrative
• 3. Hybrid Nikkei Identity in HÉctor Dai Sugimura's Buscadores en mis Últimas vidas and Maximiliano Matayoshi's Gaijin
• 4. Gendering Orientalism and Female Agency in Anna Kazumi Stahl's Flores de un solo dÍa and Alejandra Kamiya's Los Árboles caÍdos tambiÉn son el bosque
• 5. Visual Representations of Japan in Contemporary Argentine Cinema
• Conclusion
• Notes 
• Bibliography
• Index

Review

"This is an excellent and most needed study. Hagimoto's knowledge of Transpacific Studies and languages (English, Japanese, and Spanish) is unequaled by his peers."- Anceli Tinajero, author of A Cultural History of Spanish Speakers in Japan (2021)

Review Quote

"This is an excellent and most needed study. Hagimoto's knowledge of Transpacific Studies and languages (English, Japanese, and Spanish) is unequaled by his peers." -- Araceli Tinajero , author of A Cultural History of Spanish Speakers in Japan

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