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  • Historia cultural de los hispanohablantes en Japón by Araceli Tinajero
  • Chloe Huh Prudente
Tinajero, Araceli. Historia cultural de los hispanohablantes en Japón. New York: Escribana books, 2019. 305 pp.

Araceli Tinajero's Historia cultural de los hispanohablantes en Japón (2019) highlights the contributions and cultural achievements of Spanish speakers in Japan during the contemporary era through a careful examination of media outlets and literature. Her work is an effort to bring forth the recent history of Spanish-speaking communities in Japan by looking at recent developments in scholarship and cultural production. The author continues her engagement with the topic of the East-West cultural dialogue, initiated in her seminal work on Hispanic orientalism, Orientalismo en el modernismo hispanoamericano (2004), and continued in her memoir Kokoro: una mexicana en Japón (2012, translated into English in 2017). [End Page 311]

The introduction of Historia cultural de los hispanohablantes en Japón begins with Tinajero's return to Japan in 2009 while she was still working on the memoir, where she noticed a plethora of Spanish-speaking culture that had not been present during her stay between 1981 and 1984. The thirty-year period (1990-2020) examined in this work is marked by historical events including the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan, and various earthquakes and tsunamis, along with the prospects of the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics, which will now take place in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Tinajero, what makes this period special is the increase in the number of Spanish speakers, including Japanese descendants from Latin America who are the second (nikkei) and later generations (sansei) of Japanese immigrants. This movement of people happened concurrently with other global and transnational movements (15).

As can be inferred from the title of the book, the community Tinajero describes is built on the use of a shared language more than on national origin. The Spanish language unites migrants from different Spanish-speaking countries, who also share the experience of being blue-collar workers when they first arrived in Japan, regardless of their place of origin. Like Japanese immigrants in Brazil, Hispanic immigrants in Japan have found magazines and publishing companies that allow them to communicate and share their experiences, while also providing resources for learning Japanese to help new immigrants assimilate to the mainstream society.

The work is divided into four chapters with an introduction and an epilogue, followed by the bibliography. Tinajero begins the first chapter, entitled "Intelectuales," with a discussion of the professionals and scholars who contributed to and facilitated the conversation between Japan and the Spanish-speaking world. This chapter also introduces a wide range of media outlets, including magazines, Spanish television programs, and newspapers, to be covered in detail in the next chapters. While the foundation of Confederación Académica Nipona, Española y Latinoamericana (CANELA) and the installation of Instituto Cervantes de Tokyo in 2008 have promoted intercultural communication, many professionals and translators have taken active roles in publicizing cross-cultural relations. Tinajero's engagements with important translators like Montse Watkins, Elena Gallego Andrada, and Gregory Zambrano demonstrate how they established strong ties to Japanese culture through their efforts to capture the meanings in the original language and bridge the gap between Japan and Latin America as cultural ambassadors. The interview with Marcela Lamadrid reveals the functions media resources have in educating new immigrants about the culture, customs, and mentality of Japan while building a community of trust (73). This first chapter establishes the groundwork by introducing the variety of media for the following chapters to examine in detail.

The second chapter, "Los medios de comunicación," is dedicated to the newspaper, magazines, and the radio. Tinajero highlights the newspaper International Press, which covers Japanese and Hispanic music, community building, and education. Tinajero explains the purpose as follows: "Como se puede observar, el periódico le cedía la plataforma a diversas expresiones artísticas y culturales que si no se hubieran publicado quizás habrían quedado en el olvido" (103). The second part of the chapter provides a detailed analysis of Spanish-language magazines, including [End Page 312] Revista Mujer Latina and Latin-a...

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