In this presentation, Newhouse Center faculty fellow Koichi Hagimoto discusses his latest research project, in which he explores the little-known history of Japanese immigration in Argentina. In so doing, he complicates the discourse of multiculturalism in the country.

Hagimoto’s emphasis on the Japanese in Argentina illustrates an alternative history of Japanese diaspora in Latin America, especially in comparison to Brazil and Peru, the two nations with the largest Japanese communities in the region. By comparing Argentina to its neighboring countries, Hagimoto challenges the temptation to homogenize the Japanese diasporic narrative or to simplify their experience through historical reductionism. He seeks to shed light on the ways in which the emerging Nikkei voices have both contributed to and resisted the grand narrative of Western modernity in Argentina.

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