Mental Health of Latin Americans of Japanese Descent -Through the Investigation of Nikkei University Students-

作者将MMPI西班牙语版和葡萄牙语版应用于获得政府奖学金赴日留学的拉美日裔学生。通过对16名男学生和32名女学生的访谈，笔者收集了他们的资料，结果表明，他们对一年或两年的日本生活普遍适应得很好，他们的MMPi的各个量表的平均值都与日本人的平均值非常接近，这可能是因为他们有学识，并且对在日本的生活没有任何担忧。另一个因素是，他们是母国的本科生或研究生。这意味着他们已经确立了自己的社会地位，但另一方面，他们总觉得自己在日本和自己的国家之间存在着潜在的身份冲突。有些学生抱怨说，他们既不属于日本，也不属于拉美国家。这种民族认同的冲突可能会在未来产生一些心理或精神问题，也会影响他们的家庭成员。我们日本研究者有义务对他们的人格和身份进行进一步的研究。

The author applied the MMPI Spanish and Portuguese versions to Latin American students of Japanese descent who have obtained the government scholarship to continue thier studies in Japan. Interviewing them the author collected the data of 16 male and 32 female students.The results showed that they are generally well adapted to Japanese life of one or two years presenting their MMPi means of almost every scale very similar to Japanese means.This is probably because they have scholarship and have no worries about their living in Japan. Another factor is that they are undergraduate or graduate students in their mother countries. It means that they have already established their social status.On the other hand, they always feel that they are between Japan and their country having potentially a conflict of Identity. Some students complains that they belong to neither to Japan nor to thier country of Latin America.This conflict of national identity can produce in the future some psychological or psychiatric problems also influencing their family members.We, Japanese investigators are obliged to proceed further studies about thier personality and identity.