Several studies have analyzed the languages, identities, and social integration of Nikkei Japanese migrants, primarily from Brazil and Peru, who have settled in Japan as a result of changes in the Japanese immigration system that encouraged the migration to Japan of "ethnic Japanese" from Latin America: (e.g., Hirataka, Koishi, & Kato, 2000; Serrano & Shibuya, 2019; Lagones, 2021). We build upon these and other studies by analyzing how Spanish and Portuguese languages find a place in plurilingual repertoires in intergenerational Brazilian and Peruvian Japanese families living in Japan. We present two research questions:
- How do participants use Spanish and Portuguese in their daily lives in Japanese society?
- How are powerful social discourses and identities negotiated through plurilingualism in intergenerational families?
We understand multi-/plurilingual practices within families as a coming together of external factors and discourses and internal beliefs, practices, and differences between generations (Spolsky, 2012). And it is through these multigenerational practices that individuals employ plurilingual repertoires that are: uneven in terms of competence, fluid along life paths, closely related to social context and pluricultural competence, and that range from mixing languages hybridly to dual monolingualism with little mixing and borrowing (Coste, Moore, & Zarate, 1997, 2009; Coste & Simon, 2009; Marshall, 2021; Marshall, Moore, & Himeta, 2020).
Data were collected via interviews with family members about their language practices and identities: with parents and grandparents whose dominant languages were Spanish and Portuguese and whose competence in spoken and written Japanese was often limited, and with their adult and younger children who have been educated in Japanese secondary and tertiary education.
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