Mis/Representations of Asian/Americans in the Curricula: Perspectives from Second-Generation Japanese American Youth

AbstractDuring World War II, the United States government imprisoned approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were American-born citizens, half of whom were children. Through ethnographic interviews I explore how fragile youthful memories, trauma, and the soundscape of the War Relocation Authority (WRA) Incarceration Camps shaped the artistic trajectories of three such former “enemy alien” youth: two pianists and a koto player. Counterintuitively, Japanese traditional arts flourished in the hostile environment of dislocation through the high number ofnisei(second generation) participants, who later contributed to increasing transculturalism in American music following resettlement out of camp. Synthesizing Japanese and Euro-American classical music, white American popular music, and African American jazz, manyniseiparadoxically asserted their dual cultural commitment to both traditional Japanese and home front patriotic American principles. A performance of Earl Robinson and John Latouche's patriotic cantata,Ballad for Americans(1939), by the high school choir at Manzanar Incarceration Camp demonstrates the hybridity of these Japanese American cultural practices. Marked by Popular Front ideals,Ballad for Americansallowedniseito construct identities through a complicated mixture of ethnic pride, chauvinistic white Americanism allied with Bing Crosby's recordings of theBallad, and affiliation with black racial struggle through Paul Robeson's iconicBalladperformances.

Download Full-text

Comparison of Suicide Rates Among Asian Americans in 2000 and 2010

OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying ◽

10.1177/0030222816678425 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 77 (4) ◽

pp. 404-411 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Yusuke Kuroki

Keyword(s):

Asian Americans ◽

Asian American ◽

Mortality Data ◽

Japanese American ◽

Ethnic Variation ◽

Filipino American ◽

Indian Women ◽

American Women ◽

Suicide Rates ◽

Suicide Behaviors

This brief report used the mortality data to separately examine suicide rates of the six largest Asian American groups: Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. In 2000, Japanese American men (13.8 per 100,000) showed significantly higher suicide rate than Chinese, Indian, and Vietnamese American men (7.3, 4.0, and 6.1 per 100,000), whereas Chinese, Korean, and Japanese women (3.7, 3.9, and 4.3 per 100,000) showed higher suicide rates than Indian women (1.2 per 100,000). In 2010, Korean and Japanese American men (19.9 and 15.7 per 100,000) showed higher suicide rates than men of other Asian groups. Korean and Japanese American women (8.1 and 5.0 per 100,000) showed higher suicide rates than Indian and Filipino American women (1.5 and 1.8 per 100,000). The findings challenge the notion that Asian Americans are at low risk for suicide and underscore the importance of examining ethnic variation in suicide behaviors among Asian Americans.

Download Full-text

Melodrama and Asian American Performance

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.931 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Eunha Na

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Asian Americans ◽

Asian American ◽

Public Perception ◽

Japanese American ◽

American Theater ◽

The Public ◽

Social And Emotional ◽

Uncle Tom's Cabin ◽

Wedding Banquet

American theater has long used melodramatic elements to shape the contour of racial dynamics and its representations for white mainstream audiences. Recurrent tropes of racial melodrama have appeared in such works as George Aiken’s stage adaptation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1858) and Dion Boucicault’s The Octoroon (1859), asserting a strong influence on the public perception of the ethical flaws of slavery and the ambiguity of racial identities. With its sympathetic portrayals of racial minorities as virtuous, innocent victims of social injustice, racial melodrama engaged white viewers in stories of racialized characters that aroused basic human feelings of compassion and sympathy as well as a sense of moral righteousness that encouraged and mobilized political actions, such as abolitionist movements, well beyond the theater. Modern and contemporary Asian American dramatists have adopted formal and thematic elements of melodrama and its affective strategies as a way to gain public visibility and re-articulate prevailing ethnic stereotypes formulated within a binary framework peculiar to melodrama. Melodrama’s emotional intensity and stylistic excesses effectively help to convey the historical, social, and emotional experiences of Asian Americans, including migration, displacement, and injustices such as Japanese American World War II incarceration. At the same time, Asian American dramatists’ critical revision of the melodramatic mode complicates the gendered and racialized dynamic that has defined the cultural identity of Asian Americans against white, mainstream America. The clearly melodramatic characteristics in Gladys Ling-Ai Li’s The Submission of Rose Moy (1924) seemingly reaffirm the stark division between Asian and American identities, only to reveal their ambiguities and uncertainties. While Velina Hasu Houson’s Asa Ga Kimashita (1981) and Tea (1987) render the suffering of Japanese American female characters emotionally relatable to the viewer as a universal experience, Asian female victimhood also serves as a melodramatic sign of national abjection under the violence of American racism and imperialism. Melodrama meets stage realism in Wakako Yamauchi’s The Music Lessons (1980) and in Philip Kan Gotanda’s The Wash (1985), where melodramatic pathos is facilitated through the plays’ attention to socio-political and psychological realism. Contemporary Asian American culture’s continued use of melodrama is most notable in transnational films such as The Wedding Banquet (1993) and Saving Face (2004), works that explore the potentials and limitations of melodrama as a critical aesthetic strategy.

Download Full-text

Asian Americans: Japanese

Encyclopedia of Social Work ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780199975839.013.521 ◽

2013 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Yoosun Park

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Social Work ◽

Asian Americans ◽

Current Literature ◽

The United States ◽

Japanese American ◽

Social Work Research ◽

History Of

This overview of the Japanese American community includes a brief history of the community in the United States, an overview of some distinct characteristics of the community, and a review of current literature highlighting the particular issues of the community salient to social work research and intervention.

Download Full-text

Relevance of Race: Children and the Shifting Engagement with Racial/Ethnic Identity among Second-Generation Interracially Married Asian Americans

Journal of Asian American Studies ◽

10.1353/jaas.2013.0019 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 189-221 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Kelly H. Chong

Keyword(s):

Ethnic Identity ◽

Asian Americans ◽

Second Generation ◽

Racial Ethnic

Download Full-text

"Incontestable Proof Will Be Exacted": Historians, Asian Americans, and the Medal of Honor

The Public Historian ◽

10.1525/tph.2002.24.4.11 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 24 (4) ◽

pp. 11-33

Author(s):

James C. McNaughton ◽

Kristen E. Edwards ◽

Jay M. Price

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Asian Americans ◽

Public Memory ◽

Pacific Islanders ◽

Japanese American ◽

World War ◽

The U.S

For more than a century the Medal of Honor has served as a revered symbol of valor and service to the nation. In the 1990s Japanese American veterans requested a review of their service in World War II to determine whether the U.S. Army has overlooked any of their number for the award. In 1996 a team of historians began a review of all Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who fought in that war. Their work resulted in the award of twenty-two new Medals of Honor in June 2000. The review was also a revealing journey into the challenges of amending public memory.

Download Full-text