Cultural Keepers: The Sansei from Colonia Urquiza and Reinventing the Identity

Irene Isabel Cafiero, Estela Cerono

(National University of La Plata, Argentina)

Abstracts: This report is a preliminary research that focuses on the sansei, the grandchildren of the first Japanese immigrants who settled in Colonia Justo José de Urquiza in the 1960s. Together with their parents, but mainly with their grandparents, they take a close look at into the Japanese cultural roots. And It is through interviews that we get immersed in the field of interest of both children and youngsters who grow up within a Western background away from the city but interested in the language, the music, the traditional dances, the food and customs of their ancestors with the intention of seizing an Eastern identity and reinvent it.

Key words: sansei, cultural identity, transmission