5. Back In The United States: Japanese American Interpretations Of Their Experiences In Japan

2019 ◽  
pp. 126-146
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Japanese American

Constitutional Law in 1942–1943: The Constitutional Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Term, 1942

1944 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-288
Author(s):  
Robert E. Cushman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
West Coast ◽  
The United States ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
Circuit Court ◽  
Court Of Appeals ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Right

On February 15, 1943, Wiley B. Rutledge, Jr., a judge of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, took the seat on the Supreme Court vacated by the resignation in October, 1942, of Mr. Justice Byrnes. There were no other changes in the Court's personnel. Disagreement among the justices abated somewhat. In only a dozen cases of importance did either four or three justices dissent, as against some thirty cases in the last term. The Court overruled two earlier decisions, both recent; and the reversal in each case was made possible by the vote of Mr. Justice Rutledge.A. QUESTIONS OF NATIONAL POWER1. WAR POWER-CIVIL VERSUS MILITARY AUTHORITYWest Coast Curfew Applied to Japanese-American Citizens. In February, 1942, the President issued Executive Order No. 9066, which authorized the creation of military areas from which any or all persons might be excluded and with respect to which the right of persons to enter, remain in, or leave should be subject to such regulations as the military authorities might prescribe. On March 2, the entire West Coast to an average depth of forty miles was set up as Military Area No. 1 by the Commanding General in that area, and the intention was announced to evacuate from it persons of suspected loyalty, alien enemies, and all persons, aliens and citizens alike, of Japanese ancestry.

Japanese American Buddhism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michihiro Ama ◽  
Michael Masatsugu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
The United States ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
World War ◽  
Japanese Buddhism ◽  
American Buddhism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Jodo Shinshu

Japanese Buddhism was introduced to the United States at the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago in 1893, but the development of Japanese American Buddhism, also known as Nikkei Buddhism, really began when Japanese migrants brought Buddhism with them to Hawaii and the continental United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It has been influenced by, and has reflected, America’s sociopolitical and religious climate and the US relationship to Japan, to which generations of Japanese Americans, such as Issei (literally, first generation, referring to Japanese immigrants), Nisei (second-generation American-born offspring of the Issei), and Sansei (third generation), responded differently. While adapting to American society, Japanese American Buddhists maintained their cultural practices and ethnoreligious identity. The history of Japanese American Buddhism discussed in this article spans from the late-19th Century to the 1970s and is divided into three major periods: the pre-World War II, World War II, and the postwar eras. Japanese American Buddhism is derived from the various Buddhist organizations in Japan. The Nishi Hongwanji denomination of Jōdo Shinshū, a form of Pure Land Buddhism known as Shin Buddhism in the West, is the oldest and largest form of ethnic Japanese Buddhism in the United States. In Hawaii, Nishi Hongwanji founded the Hompa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii (HHMH) in Honolulu in 1897. On the continental United States, it established the Buddhist Mission of North America (BMNA) in San Francisco in 1898, currently known as the Buddhist Churches of America (BCA). Other Japanese Buddhist organizations also developed in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. They include the Jōdo-shū, another sect of Pure Land Buddhism; Higashi Hongwanji, another major denomination of Jōdoshin-shū; Sōtō-shū, a Zen Buddhist school; Shingon-shū, known as Kōyasan Buddhism; and Nichiren-shū. The characteristics of Japanese American Buddhism changed significantly during World War II, when approximately 120,000 persons of Japanese descent living in the West Coast states were incarcerated because of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. The postwar period witnessed a rapid transformation in the status and visibility of Japanese Buddhism in the United States. This transformation was driven by the promotion of ethnonational Buddhism by Nisei and by the growth of interest in Zen Buddhism among the general American public. The positive reception of Japanese Buddhism in the United States reflected and reinforced the transformed relationship between the United States and Japan from wartime enemies to Cold War partners. While they experienced greater receptivity and interest in Buddhism from nonethnics, they could no longer practice or espouse Jōdo Shinshū teachings or adapted practices without clarification. Debates concerning the authenticity of Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism and Japanese American Buddhist practices were interwoven within a longer history of American Orientalism. By the 1960s, Japanese American Buddhist communities were transformed by the addition of a small but vocal nonethnic membership and a new generation of Sansei Buddhists. Demands for English-speaking ministers resulted in the creation, in 1967, of the Institute of Buddhist Studies, the first graduate-level training program in the United States endorsed by Nishi Hongwanji. This article is an overview of Japanese American Buddhism with a focus on the development of the Nishi Hongwanji Shin Buddhist organizations in the United States. English scholarship on the development of other Japanese Buddhist organizations in the United States is still limited. Throughout the history of Japanese American Buddhism, Nikkei Buddhists negotiated with America’s political institutions and Christian churches, as well as with Euro-American Buddhists, over Buddhist and cultural practices to maintain and redefine their ethnoreligious tradition. Buddhist temples provided the space for them to gather and build a community of shared faith and cultural heritage, discuss their place and the role of Buddhism in American society, and express their concerns to America’s general public.

Positions In-Between

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Ryûken Williams
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
First Generation ◽  
American Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
Know How ◽  
Green Card ◽  
The Past ◽  
Permanent Residency ◽  
Registration Card

In reflecting on my positionality vis-à-vis Japanese American studies, one of the first things that come to mind is the multiplicity of positions that make up my identity. I am neither fully Japanese nor American nor Japanese American. Given that my father is British and my mother Japanese, my heritage is at least dual. Given that I was born and brought up in Japan initially as a British citizen with an alien registration card and then as a dual citizen from fifteen to twenty years old, and since twenty, as solely a Japanese citizen, it is sometimes hard to know how to define my position to Japanese America. Yes, I have lived and worked in the United States on various visas, and more recently, with a green card for the past twenty-five years. So I suppose that as a person with a Japanese passport who has permanent residency in the United States, I am technically an Issei, a first-generation Japanese immigrant to the United States....

Shifting Grounds in Japanese American Studies

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasuko Takezawa
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
American History ◽  
American Studies ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Matter Production

By taking the examples of translations associated with “race” and “class” used in early Japanese American history, this chapter calls attention to the changes of the meaning and associated epistemological transformations through the translation of these terms from Japanese to English. It also provides the historical context in which Japanese American studies developed in Japan and discusses the strength and weakness of the field in Japan and in the United States with focus given to such issues as subject matter, production of knowledge, and socio-political context.

Psychology, Context, and the Risk of Genocide

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
George R. Mastroianni
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Pearl Harbor ◽  
Japanese Americans ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
Psychological Conditions ◽  
Predisposing Conditions

Chapter 11 compares the attitudes of some Americans toward Japanese and Japanese Americans in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor with German attitudes toward Jews. Theories of genocide generally posit predisposing psychological conditions and then examine instances of genocide to confirm whether or not those predisposing conditions were present. The case of the Japanese American confinements offers an opportunity to examine a case in which at least some of the suspected predisposing conditions were present but genocide did not follow. This suggests that there were significant differences between America and Germany in the intensity and penetration of anti-Japanese and anti-Semitic attitudes, respectively, and also that important legal and political safeguards against minority mistreatment that were compromised in Germany remained at least partially intact in the United States.

Early Japanese American Literature, 1815–1900

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Way Leong
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
Literary Magazines ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
Japanese Descent ◽  
Japanese American Literature

Early Japanese American literature is not just the sum total of literary works written by the first persons of Japanese descent in the United States. Nor is it just a set of texts where two pre-existing categories of “Japanese” and “American” national literature happened to overlap. Early Japanese American literature is best understood as an ideological terrain, an arena where later, taken-for-granted ideas about the boundaries of identities and literatures known as “Japanese” and “Japanese American” were first constructed. Due to the enduring legacies of single-nation and monolingual approaches to the study of modern literatures, only a handful of scholars have devoted serious comparative attention to the long history and formal breadth of literary production by persons of Japanese descent who traveled to or resided within the continental United States. In linguistic terms, early Japanese American literary production includes works written in Japanese, English, and other languages, such as classical Chinese, German, and Russian. In historical terms, the emergence of early Japanese American literature extends from travel narratives produced by castaways in the 1820s to the publication of full-fledged literary magazines and newspaper sections in the 1890s. In formal terms, early Japanese American literature includes literary forms that readers more familiar with European contexts might associate with early modernity, such as phrasebooks, essays on education, spiritual autobiographies, and diplomatic guides.

Asian Americans: Japanese

2013 ◽  
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.

In Defense of Justice

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eileen H. Tamura
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Japanese Americans ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
World War ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

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.

New Women in the New Pacific: Japanese–American Romances in the Context of U.S. Empire

Prospects ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 395-418
Author(s):  
Gretchen Murphy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Woman ◽  
The United States ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
The West ◽  
Japanese Men ◽  
New Women ◽  
Cultural Status ◽  
The New Woman ◽  
Influential Book

In the title of a 1903 American Journal of Sociology essay, Ernest W. Clement announces a new phenomenon: “The New Woman in Japan.” By this title, he quickly explains, he does not mean to satirically compare this Japanese sociological development to the American “parody of man” usually associated with the phrase, because “such a creature as that called the ‘new woman’ in the Occident has not yet appeared to any great extent among the Japanese.” Although sometimes in Japan “the process of the new woman's evolution may be disfigured by some accident” producing “a sickening sort of person,” Clement's interest is not in particular aberrations, but rather in “the abstract, legal new woman” created by recent changes in Japan's civil code. In this abstraction Clement sees improvement on previous Japanese laws that “relegat[ed] woman to an abnormally inferior position.” Clement thus assures readers that, although Japan's modernization hinges upon its women's legal and cultural status, female advancement in Japan will not approach the “abnormal” excesses of the United States. Quoting Alice Mabel Bacon's influential book Japanese Girls and Women to stress this point, Clement explains that Japanese men are adopting many Western habits and opinions, but they still “shrink aghast, in many cases, at the thought that their women may ever become the forward, self-assertive, half-masculine women of the West.” Yet still, many of these Japanese men express “a growing dissatisfaction with the smallness and narrowness of the lives of their wives and daughters — a growing belief that better educated women make better homes.”

The Imamura Families and the Making of American Buddhism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michihiro Ama
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
Japanese Immigrants ◽  
American Buddhism ◽  
Imperial Japan ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Japanese Descent

The Imamura families primarily refer to Emyō Imamura (1867–1932) and Kanmo Imamura (1904–1986), who each made great contributions to “American Buddhism.” Although a definition of American Buddhism is open to discussion, it began to develop at the turn of the 20th century because of the efforts of Euro-American Buddhist converts and ethnic Buddhists. While serving the Nikkei (persons of Japanese descent) Shin Buddhist community in Hawaii, Emyō introduced Buddhism to a group of Euro-Americans and a member of the royal Hawaiian family. Emyō maintained traditional Japanese temple practices and the political ideology of imperial Japan for the Issei (the first generation, referring to Japanese immigrants), emphasized Buddhist education for the Nisei (the second generation, referring to the children of the Japanese immigrants), and created a Nisei ministry program. He related Buddhist egalitarianism to American democracy and pluralism, which allowed him, together with his congregation, to oppose discriminatory and oppressive policies of the then territory of Hawaii. Emyō defined Buddhism as a form of cosmopolitan religion and spread the universal aspect of Shin Buddhist doctrine. For him, creating American Buddhism was inseparable from redefining Shin Buddhism. Emyō Imamura’s progressive Buddhist vision and conservative Buddhist practices were supported by his family. His wife, Kiyoko Hino Imamura (1884–1962), helped him in his ministerial duties and led the largest association of Buddhist women in Hawaii. Their first son, Kanmo Imamura, served a Buddhist community in Berkeley, California, and promoted the interaction between Japanese American Buddhists and Euro-American Buddhist converts in the Bay Area during the 1950s and 1960s. Kanmo was greatly supported by his wife, Jane Matsumura Imamura (1920–2011). The Buddhist propagation of Emyō and Kanmo exemplified the practice of a Shin Buddhist temple family by which husband and wife work together to promote Shinran’s teaching and the father is succeeded by the first son. At the same time, their efforts created a tension between a sectarian form of Buddhism that persons of Japanese descent practiced in America and a Universal Buddhism that Euro-American Buddhist converts sought. As leaders of the largest ethnic Buddhist organizations in the United States, Emyō and Kanmo responded to the needs of fellow immigrants and Japanese American Buddhists and Euro-American Buddhist converts and sympathizers. The demand of Euro-American Buddhists, together with the strong presence of Christianity and the sociopolitical conditions in the United States at the time, caused Emyō and Kanmo to maintain, redefine, and transform Shin Buddhist practice.

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