Eric K. Yamamoto and Liann Ebesugawa
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199291922
- eISBN:
- 9780191603716
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199291926.003.0008
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
How does a country repair its harm to a vulnerable minority targeted during times of national fear because of race? How did the United States redress its then popular yet unconstitutional WWII ...
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How does a country repair its harm to a vulnerable minority targeted during times of national fear because of race? How did the United States redress its then popular yet unconstitutional WWII incarceration of 120,000 innocent Japanese Americans in desolate barbed wire prisons without charges, hearings, or bona fide evidence of military necessity? In response to a Congressional inquiry, political lobbying, and lawsuits, the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 directed the President to apologize and authorized over one billion dollars in reparations. Congress also created a fund to educate the public about the government’s false assertion of “national security” to restrict civil liberties. Some considered redress a tremendous victory — rewriting history and personal healing. Others questioned reparations for one U.S. group but not others. Japanese American Redress served as a catalyst for reparations movements worldwide. This paper examines its genesis, legal implementation, and apparent effects. It also explores wide-ranging political mobilization and social meanings of redress and “unfinished business”. Reparations cannot be measured by laws alone. Diverse communities must engage contested questions of history, justice, and belonging. Reparations claims face often unforeseen benefits and limitations. The paper concludes with these “lessons learned” to date.Less
How does a country repair its harm to a vulnerable minority targeted during times of national fear because of race? How did the United States redress its then popular yet unconstitutional WWII incarceration of 120,000 innocent Japanese Americans in desolate barbed wire prisons without charges, hearings, or bona fide evidence of military necessity? In response to a Congressional inquiry, political lobbying, and lawsuits, the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 directed the President to apologize and authorized over one billion dollars in reparations. Congress also created a fund to educate the public about the government’s false assertion of “national security” to restrict civil liberties. Some considered redress a tremendous victory — rewriting history and personal healing. Others questioned reparations for one U.S. group but not others. Japanese American Redress served as a catalyst for reparations movements worldwide. This paper examines its genesis, legal implementation, and apparent effects. It also explores wide-ranging political mobilization and social meanings of redress and “unfinished business”. Reparations cannot be measured by laws alone. Diverse communities must engage contested questions of history, justice, and belonging. Reparations claims face often unforeseen benefits and limitations. The paper concludes with these “lessons learned” to date.
Ellen D. Wu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691157825
- eISBN:
- 9781400848874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691157825.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This introductory chapter describes the racial order in twentieth-century America—its evolution, consequences, and significance. Japanese and Chinese Americans, the largest ethnic Asian populations, ...
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This introductory chapter describes the racial order in twentieth-century America—its evolution, consequences, and significance. Japanese and Chinese Americans, the largest ethnic Asian populations, and the two that figured most prominently in the public eye between the 1940s and 1960s, are central to this investigation. Their trajectories unfold separately in order to illuminate their distinct histories. Yet Japanese and Chinese Americans also appear in tandem to emphasize the many parallels that account for their concurrent emergence as model minorities. As a mix of cultural, social, and political history, the chapter highlights how the discursive and the material mattered for Japanese American, Chinese American, and ultimately Asian American identity formation from World War II through the “Cold War civil rights” years.Less
This introductory chapter describes the racial order in twentieth-century America—its evolution, consequences, and significance. Japanese and Chinese Americans, the largest ethnic Asian populations, and the two that figured most prominently in the public eye between the 1940s and 1960s, are central to this investigation. Their trajectories unfold separately in order to illuminate their distinct histories. Yet Japanese and Chinese Americans also appear in tandem to emphasize the many parallels that account for their concurrent emergence as model minorities. As a mix of cultural, social, and political history, the chapter highlights how the discursive and the material mattered for Japanese American, Chinese American, and ultimately Asian American identity formation from World War II through the “Cold War civil rights” years.
Matthew M. Briones
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691129488
- eISBN:
- 9781400842216
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691129488.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter discusses how Kikuchi's diary and papers provide substantive evidence of interracial alliances and conflicts at a time when the theory and practice of democracy itself were rigorously ...
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This chapter discusses how Kikuchi's diary and papers provide substantive evidence of interracial alliances and conflicts at a time when the theory and practice of democracy itself were rigorously being tested and redefined. During the first stage of this period, or the early years of the internment (1942–1943), Japanese Americans experienced an extreme form of prejudice, oppression, and segregation, while fellow minorities initially feared for their own welfare, understandably hewing to shibboleths of unqualified patriotism. Eventually, though, the absurd arbitrariness of the evacuation compelled other American minorities to consider their own possible futures. In the second stage—the resettlement of Japanese Americans, circa 1943–1945—growing populations of job-seeking minorities struggled over and negotiated the restricted urban spaces they were now forced to share with recently freed Japanese.Less
This chapter discusses how Kikuchi's diary and papers provide substantive evidence of interracial alliances and conflicts at a time when the theory and practice of democracy itself were rigorously being tested and redefined. During the first stage of this period, or the early years of the internment (1942–1943), Japanese Americans experienced an extreme form of prejudice, oppression, and segregation, while fellow minorities initially feared for their own welfare, understandably hewing to shibboleths of unqualified patriotism. Eventually, though, the absurd arbitrariness of the evacuation compelled other American minorities to consider their own possible futures. In the second stage—the resettlement of Japanese Americans, circa 1943–1945—growing populations of job-seeking minorities struggled over and negotiated the restricted urban spaces they were now forced to share with recently freed Japanese.
Matthew M. Briones
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691129488
- eISBN:
- 9781400842216
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691129488.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter examines how the resettlement of West Coast Japanese Americans in the Midwest and Northeast after internment irrevocably transformed the population of Japanese Chicagoans. As both Allan ...
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This chapter examines how the resettlement of West Coast Japanese Americans in the Midwest and Northeast after internment irrevocably transformed the population of Japanese Chicagoans. As both Allan Austin and Gary Okihiro have demonstrated, many young Nisei managed to leave the camps earlier than expected by filing education waivers. They matriculated predominantly at midwestern and East Coast schools, and some of their campmates were recruited for Japanese-language immersion at the Military Intelligence Service Language School, based at Camp Savage, Minnesota. Yet residual delinquency among Nisei bachelors and the lack of children's playgrounds still made the North Side area less than appealing to Nisei families; hence, another critical mass of Japanese Americans congregated on the South Side.Less
This chapter examines how the resettlement of West Coast Japanese Americans in the Midwest and Northeast after internment irrevocably transformed the population of Japanese Chicagoans. As both Allan Austin and Gary Okihiro have demonstrated, many young Nisei managed to leave the camps earlier than expected by filing education waivers. They matriculated predominantly at midwestern and East Coast schools, and some of their campmates were recruited for Japanese-language immersion at the Military Intelligence Service Language School, based at Camp Savage, Minnesota. Yet residual delinquency among Nisei bachelors and the lack of children's playgrounds still made the North Side area less than appealing to Nisei families; hence, another critical mass of Japanese Americans congregated on the South Side.
Ellen D. Wu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691157825
- eISBN:
- 9781400848874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691157825.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter discusses the ways in which Nisei zoot-suiters became a lightning rod for the prescriptions of resettlement's stakeholders, and how this illuminates critical features of wartime culture ...
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This chapter discusses the ways in which Nisei zoot-suiters became a lightning rod for the prescriptions of resettlement's stakeholders, and how this illuminates critical features of wartime culture that operated to reset the terms of Japanese American citizenship after Exclusion. A professed political loyalty to the United States overshadowed the reimagining of Nikkei as assimilable Others. Gender and sexuality especially figured prominently in determining the contours of postcamp social standing. Scattered evidence indicates that community members tagged Nisei women regarded as morally wayward as yogore—derived from the Japanese verb yogoreru (to get dirty). The chapter shows how yogore expressed an alternative masculinity that deviated manifestly from dominant expectations of male citizens during wartime.Less
This chapter discusses the ways in which Nisei zoot-suiters became a lightning rod for the prescriptions of resettlement's stakeholders, and how this illuminates critical features of wartime culture that operated to reset the terms of Japanese American citizenship after Exclusion. A professed political loyalty to the United States overshadowed the reimagining of Nikkei as assimilable Others. Gender and sexuality especially figured prominently in determining the contours of postcamp social standing. Scattered evidence indicates that community members tagged Nisei women regarded as morally wayward as yogore—derived from the Japanese verb yogoreru (to get dirty). The chapter shows how yogore expressed an alternative masculinity that deviated manifestly from dominant expectations of male citizens during wartime.
Ellen D. Wu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691157825
- eISBN:
- 9781400848874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691157825.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter illustrates how the experience of World War II was very different for Japanese and Chinese Americans. Configured as enemy aliens, Nikkei endured mass removal, internment, the effective ...
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This chapter illustrates how the experience of World War II was very different for Japanese and Chinese Americans. Configured as enemy aliens, Nikkei endured mass removal, internment, the effective nullification of their citizenship, and a coercive dispersal. Whereas the Chinese enjoyed sounder social footing as a result of their real and presumed ties to China, the United States' partner in the Pacific War against Japan. For all these disparities, however, war mobilization impacted Japanese and Chinese American lives in comparable ways. Most fundamentally for both groups, geopolitical forces opened up novel opportunities for national belonging. Encouraged by the outpouring of wartime racial liberal sentiment, Chinese Americans, especially the native-born cohorts just coming of age, asked new questions and desired new answers about life in the United States.Less
This chapter illustrates how the experience of World War II was very different for Japanese and Chinese Americans. Configured as enemy aliens, Nikkei endured mass removal, internment, the effective nullification of their citizenship, and a coercive dispersal. Whereas the Chinese enjoyed sounder social footing as a result of their real and presumed ties to China, the United States' partner in the Pacific War against Japan. For all these disparities, however, war mobilization impacted Japanese and Chinese American lives in comparable ways. Most fundamentally for both groups, geopolitical forces opened up novel opportunities for national belonging. Encouraged by the outpouring of wartime racial liberal sentiment, Chinese Americans, especially the native-born cohorts just coming of age, asked new questions and desired new answers about life in the United States.
Ellen D. Wu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691157825
- eISBN:
- 9781400848874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691157825.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter talks about how the Nisei soldier, the Japanese American Citizens League's (JACL) brainchild, answered various race and citizenship imperatives in the 1940s and 1950s. For all Japanese ...
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This chapter talks about how the Nisei soldier, the Japanese American Citizens League's (JACL) brainchild, answered various race and citizenship imperatives in the 1940s and 1950s. For all Japanese Americans, Nisei fighters guaranteed their claims to assimilability and national belonging by responding to the call to arms, recasting them from enemy aliens to loyal citizens in the process. As the pinnacle of wartime masculinity, soldiering allowed Japanese American men in particular to rebut deep-rooted popular beliefs that the gender identities of “Oriental” men were feminized, ambiguous, or deviant. For JACL, the ascendance of the warrior persona, recognized and lauded by the public and policymakers, offered reassurance that its orientation was indeed the righteous path to redemption for both itself and the ethnic community.Less
This chapter talks about how the Nisei soldier, the Japanese American Citizens League's (JACL) brainchild, answered various race and citizenship imperatives in the 1940s and 1950s. For all Japanese Americans, Nisei fighters guaranteed their claims to assimilability and national belonging by responding to the call to arms, recasting them from enemy aliens to loyal citizens in the process. As the pinnacle of wartime masculinity, soldiering allowed Japanese American men in particular to rebut deep-rooted popular beliefs that the gender identities of “Oriental” men were feminized, ambiguous, or deviant. For JACL, the ascendance of the warrior persona, recognized and lauded by the public and policymakers, offered reassurance that its orientation was indeed the righteous path to redemption for both itself and the ethnic community.
Ellen D. Wu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691157825
- eISBN:
- 9781400848874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691157825.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter examines how, in seeking to produce new envisagements about Japanese Americans, Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) spoke to mid-twentieth-century liberals' confidence in the ...
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This chapter examines how, in seeking to produce new envisagements about Japanese Americans, Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) spoke to mid-twentieth-century liberals' confidence in the ability of educational campaigns and social science to transform existing ideas about race and alter the country's racial order. Constituents of the era's race relations complex identified Nikkei citizenship as an American dilemma to be repaired in order to prove the nation's capacity for righting its wrongs, thereby protecting the United States' global position. The celebration of Japanese Americans as model minorities seemed to vindicate the assimilationist approach to rehabilitating Nikkei citizenship as espoused by JACL and its allies. Yet at the same moment, the emergence of this image undermined the league's dominant position within the Nikkei community.Less
This chapter examines how, in seeking to produce new envisagements about Japanese Americans, Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) spoke to mid-twentieth-century liberals' confidence in the ability of educational campaigns and social science to transform existing ideas about race and alter the country's racial order. Constituents of the era's race relations complex identified Nikkei citizenship as an American dilemma to be repaired in order to prove the nation's capacity for righting its wrongs, thereby protecting the United States' global position. The celebration of Japanese Americans as model minorities seemed to vindicate the assimilationist approach to rehabilitating Nikkei citizenship as espoused by JACL and its allies. Yet at the same moment, the emergence of this image undermined the league's dominant position within the Nikkei community.
Jane Naomi Iwamura
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199738601
- eISBN:
- 9780199894604
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199738601.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
1950s mass media representations of D.T. Suzuki and the American “Zen Boom” are the focus of this chapter. The specific way that Suzuki is portrayed—as engaging, yet ineffable Oriental—and the medium ...
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1950s mass media representations of D.T. Suzuki and the American “Zen Boom” are the focus of this chapter. The specific way that Suzuki is portrayed—as engaging, yet ineffable Oriental—and the medium in which these depictions first appear—the fashion magazine—mark Eastern spirituality as a “stylized religion” and consumable object. The various “characters” that emerge in the unfolding of Zen Buddhism mid-century are explored: Alan Watts and Jack Kerouac as Suzuki’s most famous pupils and spiritual heirs; Arthur Koestler as Zen’s skeptical critic and; Mihoko Okamura, Suzuki’s long-time assistant, who figures the problematic representation of Asian Americans in the scheme of American conceptions of Asian religions. These real-life personalities and the debates and drama that ensue over Zen’s legitimacy and significance prefigure and establish a Virtual Orientalist narrative that is still popular today.Less
1950s mass media representations of D.T. Suzuki and the American “Zen Boom” are the focus of this chapter. The specific way that Suzuki is portrayed—as engaging, yet ineffable Oriental—and the medium in which these depictions first appear—the fashion magazine—mark Eastern spirituality as a “stylized religion” and consumable object. The various “characters” that emerge in the unfolding of Zen Buddhism mid-century are explored: Alan Watts and Jack Kerouac as Suzuki’s most famous pupils and spiritual heirs; Arthur Koestler as Zen’s skeptical critic and; Mihoko Okamura, Suzuki’s long-time assistant, who figures the problematic representation of Asian Americans in the scheme of American conceptions of Asian religions. These real-life personalities and the debates and drama that ensue over Zen’s legitimacy and significance prefigure and establish a Virtual Orientalist narrative that is still popular today.
Karen M. Inouye
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780804795746
- eISBN:
- 9781503600560
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804795746.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This book maps the terrain of memory in the wake of large-scale injustice, using five case studies of how the unjust wartime imprisonment of Nikkei in North America has reverberated in both Canada ...
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This book maps the terrain of memory in the wake of large-scale injustice, using five case studies of how the unjust wartime imprisonment of Nikkei in North America has reverberated in both Canada and the United States over the past six decades: politically engaged sociological writing in the 1960s and 1970s, the rise of personal disclosure during American efforts at redress, the political and cultural questions that arose in Canadian redress work, the ritualized commemoration of suffering in the Manzanar pilgrimages and in the codification of Fred Korematsu Day, and the pursuit of retroactive diplomas for Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians forced from their high schools, colleges, and universities in 1942. Building on these case studies, the book offers a transnational study of how Nikkei strive not to lay their past to rest, but instead to perpetuate it in ways that encourage direct, empathetic, and muscular political engagement across often profound cultural and political divides. In this respect, it follows a particularly important thread that binds people together, allows them to coexist, and, thereby, to become more fully human.Less
This book maps the terrain of memory in the wake of large-scale injustice, using five case studies of how the unjust wartime imprisonment of Nikkei in North America has reverberated in both Canada and the United States over the past six decades: politically engaged sociological writing in the 1960s and 1970s, the rise of personal disclosure during American efforts at redress, the political and cultural questions that arose in Canadian redress work, the ritualized commemoration of suffering in the Manzanar pilgrimages and in the codification of Fred Korematsu Day, and the pursuit of retroactive diplomas for Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians forced from their high schools, colleges, and universities in 1942. Building on these case studies, the book offers a transnational study of how Nikkei strive not to lay their past to rest, but instead to perpetuate it in ways that encourage direct, empathetic, and muscular political engagement across often profound cultural and political divides. In this respect, it follows a particularly important thread that binds people together, allows them to coexist, and, thereby, to become more fully human.
Ellen D. Wu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691157825
- eISBN:
- 9781400848874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691157825.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This concluding chapter discusses how, by the twilight of the civil rights era, the success stories of Japanese and Chinese America had themselves become success stories. The cross pressures of ...
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This concluding chapter discusses how, by the twilight of the civil rights era, the success stories of Japanese and Chinese America had themselves become success stories. The cross pressures of exigencies and desires both within and beyond the ethnic communities had effectively midwifed the rebirth of the Asiatic as the model minority. Since then, the model minority has remained a fixture of the nation's racial landscape, ever present yet constantly evolving to speak to a host of new imperatives in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first. Recent iterations depart from the original in notable ways, but retain many of the themes that first coalesced in the postwar period: self-reliance, valorization of family, reverence for education, and political moderation.Less
This concluding chapter discusses how, by the twilight of the civil rights era, the success stories of Japanese and Chinese America had themselves become success stories. The cross pressures of exigencies and desires both within and beyond the ethnic communities had effectively midwifed the rebirth of the Asiatic as the model minority. Since then, the model minority has remained a fixture of the nation's racial landscape, ever present yet constantly evolving to speak to a host of new imperatives in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first. Recent iterations depart from the original in notable ways, but retain many of the themes that first coalesced in the postwar period: self-reliance, valorization of family, reverence for education, and political moderation.
Anne M. Blankenship
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469629209
- eISBN:
- 9781469629223
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469629209.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
Anne M. Blankenship's study of Christianity in the infamous camps where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II yields insights both far-reaching and timely. While most Japanese ...
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Anne M. Blankenship's study of Christianity in the infamous camps where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II yields insights both far-reaching and timely. While most Japanese Americans maintained their traditional identities as Buddhists, a sizeable minority identified as Christian, and a number of church leaders sought to minister to them in the camps. Blankenship shows how church leaders were forced to assess the ethics and pragmatism of fighting against or acquiescing to what they clearly perceived, even in the midst of a national crisis, as an unjust social system. These religious activists became acutely aware of the impact of government, as well as church, policies that targeted ordinary Americans of diverse ethnicities.
Going through the doors of the camp churches and delving deeply into the religious experiences of the incarcerated and the faithful who aided them, Blankenship argues that the incarceration period introduced new social and legal approaches for Christians of all stripes to challenge the constitutionality of government policies on race and civil rights. She also shows how the camp experience nourished the roots of an Asian American liberation theology that sprouted in the sixties and seventies.Less
Anne M. Blankenship's study of Christianity in the infamous camps where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II yields insights both far-reaching and timely. While most Japanese Americans maintained their traditional identities as Buddhists, a sizeable minority identified as Christian, and a number of church leaders sought to minister to them in the camps. Blankenship shows how church leaders were forced to assess the ethics and pragmatism of fighting against or acquiescing to what they clearly perceived, even in the midst of a national crisis, as an unjust social system. These religious activists became acutely aware of the impact of government, as well as church, policies that targeted ordinary Americans of diverse ethnicities.
Going through the doors of the camp churches and delving deeply into the religious experiences of the incarcerated and the faithful who aided them, Blankenship argues that the incarceration period introduced new social and legal approaches for Christians of all stripes to challenge the constitutionality of government policies on race and civil rights. She also shows how the camp experience nourished the roots of an Asian American liberation theology that sprouted in the sixties and seventies.
Takeyuki Tsuda
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781479821785
- eISBN:
- 9781479834976
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479821785.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This book explores the contemporary ethnic experiences of Japanese Americans from the second to the fourth generations and the extent to which they remain connected to their ancestral cultural ...
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This book explores the contemporary ethnic experiences of Japanese Americans from the second to the fourth generations and the extent to which they remain connected to their ancestral cultural heritage. As one of the oldest groups of Asian Americans in the United States, most Japanese Americans are culturally assimilated and well-integrated in mainstream American society. However, they continue to be racialized as culturally “Japanese” foreigners simply because of their Asian appearance in a multicultural America where racial minorities are expected to remain ethnically distinct. Different generations of Japanese Americans have responded to such pressures in ways that range from demands that their racial citizenship as bona fide Americans be recognized to a desire to maintain or recover their ethnic heritage and reconnect with their ancestral homeland. This ethnographic study argues that the ethnicity of immigrant-descent minorities does not simply follow a linear trajectory in which increasing assimilation gradually erodes the significance of ethnic heritage and identity over generations. While inheriting the assimilative patterns of previous generations, each new generation of Japanese Americans has also negotiated its own ethnic positionality in response to a confluence of various historical and contemporary factors. In addition, this book analyzes the performance of ethnic heritage through taiko drumming ensembles, as well as placing Japanese Americans in transnational and diasporic contexts.Less
This book explores the contemporary ethnic experiences of Japanese Americans from the second to the fourth generations and the extent to which they remain connected to their ancestral cultural heritage. As one of the oldest groups of Asian Americans in the United States, most Japanese Americans are culturally assimilated and well-integrated in mainstream American society. However, they continue to be racialized as culturally “Japanese” foreigners simply because of their Asian appearance in a multicultural America where racial minorities are expected to remain ethnically distinct. Different generations of Japanese Americans have responded to such pressures in ways that range from demands that their racial citizenship as bona fide Americans be recognized to a desire to maintain or recover their ethnic heritage and reconnect with their ancestral homeland. This ethnographic study argues that the ethnicity of immigrant-descent minorities does not simply follow a linear trajectory in which increasing assimilation gradually erodes the significance of ethnic heritage and identity over generations. While inheriting the assimilative patterns of previous generations, each new generation of Japanese Americans has also negotiated its own ethnic positionality in response to a confluence of various historical and contemporary factors. In addition, this book analyzes the performance of ethnic heritage through taiko drumming ensembles, as well as placing Japanese Americans in transnational and diasporic contexts.
Eiichiro Azuma
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195159400
- eISBN:
- 9780199788545
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195159400.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter explores the wartime and post-war phases of Japanese American history. The Pacific War led to the demise of transnational immigrant history. The collective world view that inspired Issei ...
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This chapter explores the wartime and post-war phases of Japanese American history. The Pacific War led to the demise of transnational immigrant history. The collective world view that inspired Issei to search for a pioneer past and strive for a better future vanished with the collapse of the Japanese settlement communities and industries in the American West — tangible markers of racial development. The post-war phase of Japanese American history diverged from the Issei's original designs. Under the War Relocation Authority (WRA) policy, the leadership of the community fell into the hands of the second generation, notably senior members of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). Along the line of the WRA-JACL collaboration, integration into mainstream society, rather than racial development, became the central concern of the ethnic community in the wake of internment.Less
This chapter explores the wartime and post-war phases of Japanese American history. The Pacific War led to the demise of transnational immigrant history. The collective world view that inspired Issei to search for a pioneer past and strive for a better future vanished with the collapse of the Japanese settlement communities and industries in the American West — tangible markers of racial development. The post-war phase of Japanese American history diverged from the Issei's original designs. Under the War Relocation Authority (WRA) policy, the leadership of the community fell into the hands of the second generation, notably senior members of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). Along the line of the WRA-JACL collaboration, integration into mainstream society, rather than racial development, became the central concern of the ethnic community in the wake of internment.
Eiichiro Azuma
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195159400
- eISBN:
- 9780199788545
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195159400.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
The related themes of the Issei as pioneers and the Nisei (second generation) as carrying on Japanese development in the United States were central discourses in the upbringing of many American-born ...
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The related themes of the Issei as pioneers and the Nisei (second generation) as carrying on Japanese development in the United States were central discourses in the upbringing of many American-born youths. However, neither the Issei pioneer thesis nor its interpretation by Nisei orators provided a concrete picture of what the future might hold for the new generation of Japanese Americans. How did Issei leaders expect the American-born to carry on Japanese development in the face of racial subordination? In what ways did immigrant parents attempt to enable their children to do this? What did Nisei “duty” really mean? The answers to these questions are to be found not so much in the intellectual productions of immigrant historians as in their social practices. This chapter explores some of the key community-wide efforts made by immigrant leaders and parents to promote a positive prospect for the Japanese minority in America in the postexclusion era.Less
The related themes of the Issei as pioneers and the Nisei (second generation) as carrying on Japanese development in the United States were central discourses in the upbringing of many American-born youths. However, neither the Issei pioneer thesis nor its interpretation by Nisei orators provided a concrete picture of what the future might hold for the new generation of Japanese Americans. How did Issei leaders expect the American-born to carry on Japanese development in the face of racial subordination? In what ways did immigrant parents attempt to enable their children to do this? What did Nisei “duty” really mean? The answers to these questions are to be found not so much in the intellectual productions of immigrant historians as in their social practices. This chapter explores some of the key community-wide efforts made by immigrant leaders and parents to promote a positive prospect for the Japanese minority in America in the postexclusion era.
Jonathan Y. Okamura
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824839505
- eISBN:
- 9780824868444
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824839505.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Pacific Studies
This book discusses both the historical and contemporary experiences of Hawaiʻ's Japanese Americans and interprets these experiences from racial and ethnic perspectives. The transition from race to ...
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This book discusses both the historical and contemporary experiences of Hawaiʻ's Japanese Americans and interprets these experiences from racial and ethnic perspectives. The transition from race to ethnicity is demonstrated in the transformation of Japanese Americans from a highly racialized minority of immigrant laborers to one of the most politically and socioeconomically powerful ethnic groups in the islands. The book has produced a racial history of Japanese Americans from their early struggles against oppressive working and living conditions on the sugar plantations to labor organizing and the rise to power of the Democratic Party following World War II. It goes on to analyze how Japanese Americans have maintained their political power into the twenty-first century and considers the recent advocacy and activism of individual yonsei (fourth-generation Japanese Americans) working on behalf of ethnic communities other than their own. The book's analysis elucidates the differential functioning of race and ethnicity over time insofar as race worked against Japanese Americans and other non-Haoles (Whites) by restricting them from full and equal participation in society, but by the 1970s ethnicity would work fully in their favor as they gained greater political and economic power. The book reminds that ethnicity has continued to work against Native Hawaiians, Filipino Americans, and other minorities—although not to the same extent as race previously—and thus is responsible for maintaining ethnic inequality in Hawaiʻi.Less
This book discusses both the historical and contemporary experiences of Hawaiʻ's Japanese Americans and interprets these experiences from racial and ethnic perspectives. The transition from race to ethnicity is demonstrated in the transformation of Japanese Americans from a highly racialized minority of immigrant laborers to one of the most politically and socioeconomically powerful ethnic groups in the islands. The book has produced a racial history of Japanese Americans from their early struggles against oppressive working and living conditions on the sugar plantations to labor organizing and the rise to power of the Democratic Party following World War II. It goes on to analyze how Japanese Americans have maintained their political power into the twenty-first century and considers the recent advocacy and activism of individual yonsei (fourth-generation Japanese Americans) working on behalf of ethnic communities other than their own. The book's analysis elucidates the differential functioning of race and ethnicity over time insofar as race worked against Japanese Americans and other non-Haoles (Whites) by restricting them from full and equal participation in society, but by the 1970s ethnicity would work fully in their favor as they gained greater political and economic power. The book reminds that ethnicity has continued to work against Native Hawaiians, Filipino Americans, and other minorities—although not to the same extent as race previously—and thus is responsible for maintaining ethnic inequality in Hawaiʻi.
Desmond King
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195306439
- eISBN:
- 9780199850617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195306439.003.0008
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This chapter shows how the State Department succeeded in stopping the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's (NAACP) initiative at the United Nations designed to bring the ...
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This chapter shows how the State Department succeeded in stopping the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's (NAACP) initiative at the United Nations designed to bring the position of African Americans to international attention. It also examines three ways in which the narrative of American nationhood continues to unfold in a non-teleological fashion shaped by historically formed group divisions and government institutions. First, the way in which the American nation absorbs new members reveals how pivotal group categories and communities to this process are. Second, how the legacies of earlier injustices perpetrated upon some citizens enter the politics of nation-building is discussed with examples drawn from the experiences of American Indians and Japanese Americans. And lastly, the way in which government policies and institutions, such as the Census, structure public discourse in terms of group identities based on race, ethnicity, and national background is reviewed.Less
This chapter shows how the State Department succeeded in stopping the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's (NAACP) initiative at the United Nations designed to bring the position of African Americans to international attention. It also examines three ways in which the narrative of American nationhood continues to unfold in a non-teleological fashion shaped by historically formed group divisions and government institutions. First, the way in which the American nation absorbs new members reveals how pivotal group categories and communities to this process are. Second, how the legacies of earlier injustices perpetrated upon some citizens enter the politics of nation-building is discussed with examples drawn from the experiences of American Indians and Japanese Americans. And lastly, the way in which government policies and institutions, such as the Census, structure public discourse in terms of group identities based on race, ethnicity, and national background is reviewed.
Ronald Y. Nakasone
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195167962
- eISBN:
- 9780199850150
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195167962.003.0014
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Although Japanese and Japanese Americans believe in and rely on the efficacy of modern medical practices and pharmacology, their cultural traditions are important resources for health maintenance, ...
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Although Japanese and Japanese Americans believe in and rely on the efficacy of modern medical practices and pharmacology, their cultural traditions are important resources for health maintenance, healing, aging, dying, death, and grieving. In an attempt to reconcile its traditional culture with its modern American experience, the Japanese American community of San Francisco, California initiated a unique experiment in community-based education for elder care as part of the newly built Kokoro Assisted Living Facility. In envisioning a seamless blend of modern medicine and spirituality in caring for Japanese American elders in a multicultural and multifaith setting, the Japanese America Religious Federation of San Francisco (JARF) commissioned the design and implementation of a graduate course called “Spirituality and Aging in the Japanese Experience”, offered through the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley in partnership with Sanford Geriatric Education Center in Palo Alto. This chapter describes the context, conceptual framework, implementation, and outcomes of the course. It traces the history of JARF and its role in responding to the housing needs of the Japanese community.Less
Although Japanese and Japanese Americans believe in and rely on the efficacy of modern medical practices and pharmacology, their cultural traditions are important resources for health maintenance, healing, aging, dying, death, and grieving. In an attempt to reconcile its traditional culture with its modern American experience, the Japanese American community of San Francisco, California initiated a unique experiment in community-based education for elder care as part of the newly built Kokoro Assisted Living Facility. In envisioning a seamless blend of modern medicine and spirituality in caring for Japanese American elders in a multicultural and multifaith setting, the Japanese America Religious Federation of San Francisco (JARF) commissioned the design and implementation of a graduate course called “Spirituality and Aging in the Japanese Experience”, offered through the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley in partnership with Sanford Geriatric Education Center in Palo Alto. This chapter describes the context, conceptual framework, implementation, and outcomes of the course. It traces the history of JARF and its role in responding to the housing needs of the Japanese community.
Eileen H. Tamura
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037788
- eISBN:
- 9780252095061
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037788.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
As a leading dissident in the World War II concentration camps for Japanese Americans, Joseph Yoshisuke Kurihara stands out as an icon of Japanese American resistance. In this biography, Kurihara's ...
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As a leading dissident in the World War II concentration camps for Japanese Americans, Joseph Yoshisuke Kurihara stands out as an icon of Japanese American resistance. In this biography, Kurihara's life provides a window into the history of Japanese Americans during the first half of the twentieth century. Born in Hawaiʻi to Japanese parents who immigrated to work on the sugar plantations, Kurihara was transformed by the forced removal and incarceration of ethnic Japanese during World War II. As an inmate at Manzanar in California, Kurihara became one of the leaders of a dissident group within the camp and was implicated in “the Manzanar incident,” a serious civil disturbance that erupted on December 6, 1942. In 1945, after three years and seven months of incarceration, he renounced his U.S. citizenship and boarded a ship for Japan, never to return to the United States. Shedding light on the turmoil within the camps as well as the sensitive and formerly unspoken issue of citizenship renunciation among Japanese Americans, this book explores one man's struggles with the complexities of loyalty and dissent.Less
As a leading dissident in the World War II concentration camps for Japanese Americans, Joseph Yoshisuke Kurihara stands out as an icon of Japanese American resistance. In this biography, Kurihara's life provides a window into the history of Japanese Americans during the first half of the twentieth century. Born in Hawaiʻi to Japanese parents who immigrated to work on the sugar plantations, Kurihara was transformed by the forced removal and incarceration of ethnic Japanese during World War II. As an inmate at Manzanar in California, Kurihara became one of the leaders of a dissident group within the camp and was implicated in “the Manzanar incident,” a serious civil disturbance that erupted on December 6, 1942. In 1945, after three years and seven months of incarceration, he renounced his U.S. citizenship and boarded a ship for Japan, never to return to the United States. Shedding light on the turmoil within the camps as well as the sensitive and formerly unspoken issue of citizenship renunciation among Japanese Americans, this book explores one man's struggles with the complexities of loyalty and dissent.
Emily Roxworthy
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824832209
- eISBN:
- 9780824869359
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824832209.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This book contests the notion that the U.S. government’s internment policies during World War II had little impact on the postwar lives of most Japanese Americans. After the curtain was lowered on ...
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This book contests the notion that the U.S. government’s internment policies during World War II had little impact on the postwar lives of most Japanese Americans. After the curtain was lowered on the war following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many Americans behaved as if the “theatre of war” had ended and life could return to normal. This book demonstrates that this theatrical logic of segregating the real from the staged grew out of the manner in which internment was agitated for and instituted by the U.S. government and media. During the war, Japanese Americans struggled to define themselves within the web of this theatrical logic. The political spectacles staged by the FBI and the American mass media were heir to a theatricalizing discourse that can be traced back to Commodore Matthew Perry’s “opening” of Japan in 1853. The book provides a detailed reconstruction of the FBI’s raids on Japanese American communities. It also makes clear how wartime newspapers framed the evacuation and internment so as to discourage white Americans from sympathizing with their former neighbors of Japanese descent. The book juxtaposes analysis of these political spectacles with a look at cultural performances staged by Issei and Nisei at two of the most prominent “relocation centers”: California’s Manzanar and Tule Lake. The camp performances enlarge our understanding of the impulse to create art under oppressive conditions. Taken together, wartime political spectacles and the performative attempts at resistance by internees demonstrate the logic of racial performativity that underwrites American national identity.Less
This book contests the notion that the U.S. government’s internment policies during World War II had little impact on the postwar lives of most Japanese Americans. After the curtain was lowered on the war following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many Americans behaved as if the “theatre of war” had ended and life could return to normal. This book demonstrates that this theatrical logic of segregating the real from the staged grew out of the manner in which internment was agitated for and instituted by the U.S. government and media. During the war, Japanese Americans struggled to define themselves within the web of this theatrical logic. The political spectacles staged by the FBI and the American mass media were heir to a theatricalizing discourse that can be traced back to Commodore Matthew Perry’s “opening” of Japan in 1853. The book provides a detailed reconstruction of the FBI’s raids on Japanese American communities. It also makes clear how wartime newspapers framed the evacuation and internment so as to discourage white Americans from sympathizing with their former neighbors of Japanese descent. The book juxtaposes analysis of these political spectacles with a look at cultural performances staged by Issei and Nisei at two of the most prominent “relocation centers”: California’s Manzanar and Tule Lake. The camp performances enlarge our understanding of the impulse to create art under oppressive conditions. Taken together, wartime political spectacles and the performative attempts at resistance by internees demonstrate the logic of racial performativity that underwrites American national identity.
