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2016 Midterm2 (assignment) Index to Sample Student Midterm2 Answers Part 3. Research Report Starts |
LITR 4340
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Madi Coates
The
Beginning of the End: Japanese-American Immigrants
Japanese-Americans reside all over America, but most live on the
West-Coast. Most culture about Japanese-Americans has been preserved in the
West, but there are still people here, like my family, who make up part of that
culture. The immigration of the Japanese started much later in the short history
of America, around 1860. My Japanese grandmother told me stories about how
people from all over Japan immigrated to Hawaii as paid labor and later went
even further to America to live all over California and up to Washington. I’ve
always been fascinated with the stories about the immigrations of Japanese. One
resources I have used in my preliminary research is a suggestion from Dr. White
from The Washington Post about the Japanese war brides. The other resource I am
using is from the Japanese American Nation Museum.
In the article from The Washington Post about the Japanese war brides
“The Untold Stories of Japanese War Brides” by Kathryn Tolbert, it talks about
the lives that these brides created in their unique circumstances. These women
came to America and became the brides of American men enlisted in the service.
They were stripped of their identity as Japanese. Some were not allowed to speak
Japanese around their husband and families; they were often renamed to be more
American, such as Suzie; and most importantly they had to live in a home with a
man they did not know very well and raise his children. The life of the war
bride is about assimilation in the harshest way. They sacrificed their identity
as a Japanese, but they are never considered to fully become Americans because
they do not connect with American society like other white American women. They
also had the difficulty of raising American children who they could not relate
to due to the difference in cultural identity.
While the identity of the war bride is about being washed away or
alienated, the story that Walter Muramoto’s Collection of black and white images
from internment camps tells another story of identity. The photographs taken by
Muramoto are a catalogue of the time that Japanese-Americans spent in the
Japanese internment camps in Rohwer, Arkansas. The pictures are a mixture of
Japanese-Americans in Americanized clothes and then traditionally Japanese
garments. American history classes often gloss over the time that
Japanese-Americans spent in these internments camps, but what flourished her was
the preservation of their culture. They forced into segregation, but they found
a way to preserve their culture and continue to live their lives. Another set of
images shows young Japanese-Americans playing baseball and football, which are
considered American sports. This mixture of identity shows the struggle of
finding an identity in America, while also continuing to cultivate a past
heritage and culture.
My main focus through my research report is to focus on the identity that
Japanese-American immigrants took on as new world immigrants. I want to map out
the unique identities that Japanese-Americans have taken on in the past, the
present, and what the future looks like. I had wondered if my own grandmother
had been a war bride, but my father explained to me that Mimi had in fact not
been a war bride, but was actually the one who had decided to immigrate to
America with my grandfather from Japan. The narrative of the Japanese-American
is rich and I want to continue exploring more and learning about the culture
that is rife with history.
Work
Cited
Kathryn Tolbert. “From Hiroko to Susie: The Untold Stories of Japanese War
Brides.” Washington Post. The
Washington Post, 22 Sept. 2016. Web. 29 Oct. 2016.
“Walter Muramoto Collection.” Japanese
American National Museum. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2016.
