Japanese America on the Eve of the Pacific War An Untold History of the 1930s

by Ueda, Kaoru; Azuma, Eiichiro

• ISBN13: 9780817926052
• ISBN10: 0817926054
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2024-02-01
• Publisher: Hoover Institution Press

Summary

The era sandwiched between the 1924 US Immigration Act and the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor marks an important yet largely buried period of Japanese American history. This book offers the first English translation of Yasuo Sakata’s seminal essay arguing that the 1930s constitutes a chronological and conceptual “missing link” between two predominant research interests: the pre-1924 immigration exclusion and the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

The anthology pays tribute to Sakata’s role as a foremost historian of early Japanese America and transpacific migration while providing an opportunity for a younger generation of scholars to reflect on his contributions and carve out a new area of research in Japanese American history. Original and translated essays from scholars of varied backgrounds and generations explore topics from diplomacy, geopolitics, and trade to immigrant and ethnic nationalism, education, and citizenship. Together, they attempt to catalyze further research and writing based on the thorough and careful analysis of primary-source materials, an effort that Sakata spearheaded in both the United States and Japan.

Author Biography

Kaoru Ueda is a research fellow and the curator of the Japanese Diaspora Collection at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives. She is the editor of Fanning the Flames: Propaganda in Modern Japan and On a Collision Course: The Dawn of Japanese Migration in the Nineteenth Century.

Eiichiro Azuma is professor of history and Asian American studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Between Two Empires: Race, History, and Transnationalism in Japanese America and In Search of Our Frontier: Japanese America and Settler Colonialism in the Construction of Japan’s Borderless Empire.

Table of Contents

Foreword Eric Wakin Acknowledgments Introduction: Yasuo Sakata and Japanese American History Eiichiro Azuma Part I: Yasuo Sakata’ s Place in Migration and Nikkei Studies 1 Fifty Years after World War II and the Study of Japanese American History: The Untold 1930s Yasuo Sakata / Translated by Kaoru Ueda 2 Migration Studies in Japan— Development and Future Masako Iino Part II: Japanese Americans in 1930s’ California 3 The Kibei Movement of the 1930s in Relation to US Nationality Law Teruko Kumei / Translated by Kaoru Ueda 4 Kibei Transnationalism and Japanese American History in the 1930s Michael R. Jin Part III: Japanese Americans in 1930s’ Hawaii 5 Perceptions of the 1930s in Local Japanese American Newspapers in Hawai‘ i: The Nikkei Community and Japan as Portrayed in the Maui Shinbun Toshihiko Kishi / Translated by Kaoru Ueda 6 Crafting Japanese Immigrant Nationalism: Imon Bukuro, Imon Bun, and Senninbari in 1930s’ Hawai‘ i Mire Koikari 7 Subjection and Citizenship: 1930s Nikkei Citizenry and Japanese-Language Education in Hawai?i Rashaad Eshack Part IV: Nikkei and US-Japan Relations 8 The Outbreak of the Pacific War and Japanese Companies in the United States: Morimura Bros. & Co. Masato Kimura / Translated by Kaoru Ueda 9 Rupture of Diplomacy: Japan’ s Path to War with the United States Tosh Minohara 10 American Surveillance of Japanese Americans, 1933– 1941 Brian Masaru Hayashi Afterword Kaoru Ueda Glossary About the Contributors Index