During the summer 2014, I was able to conduct a seven weeks preliminary research in São Paulo, Brazil towards my dissertation project on the changing relationship that Brazilian Nikkeis – Japanese emigrants to Brazil and their descendants – have with Japan and Brazil over a longue durée. While my dissertation project will examine a longer period of time, I have specifically focused on the pre-WWII development of their cross-border connections with Japan in this summer research opportunity. I explored the archival materials that inform the way in which Brazilian Nikkeis have developed and maintained ties with their homeland in Brazil between 1908 and 1945. I identified that the two archives, Centro de Estudos Nipo-Brasileiros (CENB) and Museu Histórico da Imigração Japonesa no Brasil (MHIJB), both of which are in São Paulo city, hold a significant proportion of historical records such as ethnic newspapers, old statistical records, emigrants’ memory books, and settlement (colônia) records. Although I did not have time to deeply examine the materials, some records of Japanese settlements in different locations in São Paulo state informed that their relationships, both in degree and kind, to Japan differed not only between urban and rural but also across rural locations. This preliminary finding led me to consider a more nuanced theorization of the socio-economic and institutional processes underlying Brazilian Nikkeis’ cross-border connections to the homeland. In this sense, I have no doubt that the preliminary research, funded in part by a CLACLS Summer Travel Fellowship, gave me an opportunity to gain necessary insights to progress my dissertation project further.