Eiichiro Azuma
Eiichiro Azuma is the Alan Charles Kors Term Chair Associate Professor of History and Asian American Studies at University of Pennsylvania. He is author of Between Two Empires: Race, History, and Transnationalism in Japanese America (Oxford University Press, 2005) and co-editor of Yuji Ichioka, Before Internment: Essays in Prewar Japanese American History (Stanford University Press, 2006). Professor Azuma is also currently at work with David Yoo in the editing of the Oxford Handbook of Asian American History. Between 1992 and 2000, he worked as a Curator/Researcher at the Japanese American National Museum and has an MA in Asian American studies and a PhD in history from UCLA.
Updated July 2013
Stories from This Author
Japanese American Sumo in the Continental United States, 1900-1941 - Part 1
March 27, 2014 • Eiichiro Azuma
Sumo—in which two hefty, virtually naked men push, shove, and throw each other—probably looks like an exotic sport to most Americans. Young Japanese Americans, like other Americans, are likely to think that sumo is part of traditional Japanese culture, not Japanese American culture. Yet before World War II sumo was an important part of life in Japanese American communities, especially in Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley. Issei and Sumo: From a Village Tradition to a Locus of Issei …
Brief Historical Overview of Japanese Emigration, 1868-1998
Feb. 28, 2014 • Eiichiro Azuma
Background of Japanese Overseas Migration The overseas migration of Japanese started with the opening of the island nation to the rest of the world and its entry into modernity in 1868. Becoming a part of the international network of labor, capital, and transportation, the Japanese suddenly found themselves in the middle of rapid socio-economic change, thereby creating a rural population ready for domestic and international migration. Beginnings of Overseas Migration In 1868, an American businessman sent a group of approximately 148 …
