Imigrantes italianos e japoneses em narrativas da Amazônia

Abstract

During the Rubber Cycle, the Brazilian Amazon received immigrants in search of work and better living conditions. Foreigners did not find the El Dorado they dreamed of in the region. On the contrary, they had to overcome “thistles and weeds” to feed themselves in the new land. The “immigrants, humble and poor pionnieri”, as Alberto Rangel describes, were conceived as participants in the environmental totality and left traces in Amazonian literature, as seen in the novel Sementes do sol, by Ademar Ayres do Amaral (2012) and in a short story by Marques de Carvalho, “Um como tantos”, from Contos do Norte, consisting of narratives that allow us to examine the presence of Japanese and Italian immigrants in the northern region of Brazil. This article, making a theoretical and critical contribution, followed the studies of Batista (1976), Souza (2019), R. Bourneuf and R. Ouellett (1976), among others.