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The Chrysanthemum and the Song: Music, Memory and Identity in the South American Japanese Diaspora. By Dale A. Olsen. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2004. [xxviii, 342 p. ISBN 0-8130-2764-0. $65.] Illustrations, notes, appendices, glossary, bibliography, index.
When thinking about immigrants, we in the United States tend to think first about Europeans migrating to North America. Dale Olsen's new book shows that the immigrant experience applies equally as well to the Japanese of South America. Olsen, a distinguished ethnomusicologist, has given us a detailed musical ethnography of the South American Japanese diaspora, showing how music has been a central force for creating and sustaining their ethnic identity. The UtIe of this book is a variation on the tide of Ruth Benedict's seminal ethnography, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1946). The chrysanthemum, found in the Japanese imperial crest, symbolizes the "rough" aspects of Japanese immigrant life; the hard, mostly agricultural labor they endured. Song and music in general symbolize the "gentle" aspects of immigrant life; those diversions providing a means of expressing spirit and pride in their ethnic heritage.
There are very few studies in ethnomusicology that cover an entire region of the world, or that compare the same ethnic group across several countries. Olsen's study accomplishes both, while also tackling the complex issues of identity, cultural memory, and ethnicity. Olsen paints with the broadest possible brush. He looks at all the Japanese immigrants in the region, through multiple generations, with all their varieties of music. This undertaking is extremely complex. He uses the term NiMei, to denote all people of Japanese heritage outside Japan. The Nikkei in South America are of at least two varieties: the Naichi, or people from the main Japanese island group, and the Okinawans, who are culturally distinct. In addition to this there are the various generations of Nikkei, the issei,...