The double yellow danger: the anti-japanese discourse in Brasil (1908-1934)

Abstract

The period before Japanese immigration in 1908 was marked as a period in which the discourse related to the unknown was emphasized, highlighting the different, the other. With the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants, the representations were transformed and elements such as the “whitening” project, thought by Brazilian eugenics politicians, regarding the issue of assimilation and the idea of the “yellow danger”. Therefore, the objective of this research is to analyze how the Anti-Japanese discourse was transmuted and gained new elements in its composition, besides being institutionalized by law in the Constitution of 1934.