Abstract
The end of World War II marks a set of major transformations in Brazilian social thought. Racial and eugenic theories rapidly lose ground to interpretations of cultural and economic nature. This article examines part of these transformations through the perspectives on Japanese immigration to Brazil by two intellectuals with important parliamentary roles: the psychiatrist-eugenicist Pacheco e Silva and the sociologist Gilberto Freyre. Japanese immigration was the subject of intense debate in the 1930s and 1940s, even prompting restrictive or prohibitive amendments in the 1934 and 1946 constitutions. This study analyzes the parliamentary activities of both intellectuals over this period and demonstrates the influence of their respective social thoughts on their political endeavors. This article also examines the transformations that took place in the 1950s, including shifts in Pacheco e Silva’s thinking, a greater influence of Freyre’s ideas, and a reconfiguration of the role of Japanese immigration in parliamentary discourse.
japanese immigration; Brazilian social thought; eugenics; Pacheco e Silva; Gilberto Freyre