Gosei (Japanese diaspora)

Gosei (五世, transl. 'fifth generation') is a Japanese diasporic term used in countries, particularly in North America and South America, to specify the great-great-grandchildren of Japanese immigrants (Issei). The children of Issei are Nisei (the second generation). Sansei are the third generation, and their offspring are Yonsei.^[1] The children of at least one Yonsei parent are called Gosei.^[2]

The character and uniqueness of the Gosei are recognized in its social history.^[3] The Gosei are the subject of on-going academic research in the United States and Japan.^[4]

The earliest organized group of Japanese emigrants settled in Mexico in 1897.^[5] Today, the four largest populations of Japanese and descendants of Japanese immigrants live in the United States, Canada, Brazil and Peru. Gosei is a term used in these geographic areas outside Japan. Gosei characterizes the child of at least one Yonsei (fourth generation) parent. Differences among these national Gosei developed because of the varying historical processes through which their Japanese emigrant forebears became Nikkei.^[6]

The lives of Japanese-Americans of earlier generations contrast with the Gosei because they have English-speaking grandparents.^[7] According to a 2011 columnist in The Rafu Shimpo of Los Angeles, "Younger Japanese Americans are more culturally American than Japanese" and "other than some vestigial cultural affiliations, a Yonsei or Gosei is simply another American."^[8]

Japanese-Canadian Gosei are entirely acculturated, as is typical for any ethnic group.^[9]

Japanese-Peruvian (Nipo-peruano) Gosei made up less than 1.0% of the Nikkei population in 2000. They are represented by the Asociación Peruano Japonesa.^[10]

Japanese-Brazilians (Nipo-brasileiro) make up the largest Japanese population in South America, numbering an estimated less than 242,543 (including those of mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity),^[11] more in the 1.8 million in the United States.^[12] The Gosei are a small part of the ethnic minority in that South American nation in the last decades of the 20th century.^[13] In 1990, 0.8% of the Nipo-Brasileiros community were Gosei.^[14]

The term Nikkei (日系) encompasses all of the world's Japanese immigrants across generations.^[15] In North America, the Gosei are among the heirs of the "activist generation" known as the Sansei.^[16]

• Masterson, Daniel M. and Sayaka Funada-Classen. (2004), The Japanese in Latin America: The Asian American Experience. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-07144-7; OCLC 253466232
• Nomura, Gail M. (1998). "Japanese American Women," in The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History (Mankiller, Barbara Smith, ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 9780618001828; OCLC 43338598

• Björklund, Krister. (2007). "Migration in the Interests of the Nation," Siitrtolaisuusinstituuti, Web Reports No. 25.
• Nabão, Rosangela Martins. "O estudo de nomes próprios de Nipo-Brasileiros: geração issei e geração nissei" ("The study of names of Nipo-Brazilians: Issei generation and Nissei generation"), Revista Trama (Brasil). Vol. 3, No. 5. 1º Semestre de 2007, pp. 181–192.

• Japanese American National Museum; JANM generational teas
• Embassy of Japan Archived 2019-02-16 at the Wayback Machine in Washington, DC
• Japanese American Citizens League
• Japanese Cultural & Community Center of Northern California
• Japanese American Community and Cultural Center of Southern California
• Japanese American Historical Society
• Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project
• Japanese American Museum of San Jose, California
• Japanese American Network
• Nikkei Federation Archived May 12, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
• Discover Nikkei
• Asociación Peruano Japonesa, El Museo de la Inmigración Japonesa al Perú