Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates some testimonies of Okinawan Brazilian women and their marriages as a way to understand Okinawan Brazilian community.

Paper long abstract:

kinship and family are important categories in the constitution of okinawan community in Brazil. In their discourses about identity and in their day by day life women are supposed to nurture the okinawan family and maintain their traditions and family name. Based in the testimonies of some women this investigation is about how they found their partner, fell in love and constituted their own families. In some cases they must choose between a successful career or their marriage when there is no chance to keep both. This paper explores gender relations and sociability in and outside the okinawan community to understand their choices in a larger context post okinawan immigration to Brazil and over a background of discourses about identity. Also I understand the social marks of differences such as class, gender and race implicated in those discourses as important categories to visualize the maintenance of okinawan families and the immigration memories in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The ideas of family and ancestor worship are implied in the okinawan brazilian way to describe their culture and are essential to understand their sociability.