From DiscoverNikkei.org

Contents

Gender, Sexuality, and Family

Gender

Women

Picture Brides

War Brides

Female Labor Immigration

Shin Issei women

Draft paper for the workshop, Communication among Japanese Canadians: The Role of Non-profit and For-profit Organizations in Media and Educational Service Industries, University of British Columbia, 19 February 2005. Shibata is affiliated with the Centre for Japanese Research at the University of British Columbia.
"The research informing this working paper is based on the life histories and the narratives constructed by five groups of Nikkei (Japanese Canadian) women: 1) Issei, or prewar immigrants who migrated form Japan in the 1920s; 2) the Nisei, or daughters of the Issei; 3) the Sansei, the granddaughters of the Issei; 4) Shin-Issei, or postwar immigrants who immigrated in the late 1950s to mid-1970s; and 5) the Shin-Nisei, or daughters of the Shin-Issei. This small but complex and dynamic multicultural ethnic group of 72,000 (Statistics Canada 2001) with their 125 year history in Canada should be preserved as fully as possible. In this paper I shall focus on just two groups of Nikkei women by presenting ethnographic sketches of Shin-Issei and Shin-Nisei whose experiences are often excluded from studies of Japanese Canadians."
"A festival mainstay, the Cherry Blossom Queen Pageant has become the Cherry Blossom Queen Program, a purely semantic change aimed at overcoming stereotypes and easing the struggle to get the minimum of five young Japanese American women to enter."

Individuals

  • Tokyo Rose / Iva Ikuko Toguri (Nisei, United States)
  • Margarida Tomi Watanabe (Issei, Brazil)
渡辺トミ・マルガリーダ(PDF) (Kaigai Ijyu No. 611, December 2003)
Available only in Japanese. Biography of Margarida Tomi Watanabe (1900-1996), who migrated to Brazil when she was 11 years old and is known as 'Mother of immigrants'.
ブラジルの大地に生きて
Availbale only in Japanese. Book summary of ブラジルの大地に生きて--「日系移民の母」渡辺トミ・マルガリーダの生涯 (Brazil no Daichi ni ikite: Watanabe Tomi Marugarida no shogai, written by Yasuo Fujisaki.
  • Kotomi Iida (Issei)
飯田コトミ：移民の母―外国航路で活躍した看護婦
Available only in Japanese. Brief biography of Kotomi Iida, who served as nurse on the South America line of the passenger ship of Holland. She was the first woman to visit the Japanese colony in Paraguay.

Bibliography

Conferences

Special focus on the community of Seabrook, New Jersey, where more than 2,500 Nikkei relocated following their incarceration during World War II.


Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender

  • Kenji Murase, "The Resurrection of a Family". Nikkei Heritage XIV, No. 3 (Summer 2002). Posted to the website of Asian Pacific Parents, Families, Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
"The story of Alexander and Jane Nakatani, as told by Molly Fumia in her book, Honor Thy Children, is about the creation and destruction and, ultimately, the resurrection of a modern-day Japanese American family. In their heroic response to the loss of all three of their children--two to AIDS and the third to violence--the life of the Nakatanis exemplifies the redeeming power of love and the resiliency of the human spirit. It is also a story of the cost of homophobia, denial and self-deception."
  • "Spirituality & Homosexuality": Japanese American Citizens League Forum on Gays & Japanese Americans at San Fernando Valley Japanese American Center, October 19, 2002 (transcript). Posted to the website of Asian Pacific Parents, Families, Friends of Lesbians and Gays, May 2003.
"George Takei's public acknowledgment that he is gay is connected to a belief in speaking out about initiatives that would limit gay rights."


Family

"Finding Family Stories" (arts partnership project of the Japanese American National Museum)

"finding family stories is an Arts Partnership Project that was initiated as a three-year project by the Japanese American National Museum in 1995. The project is based on the premise that cultural institutions representing different ethnic communities in Los Angeles can learn from each other both organizationally and culturally by conceptualizing and working together on a project. Each year the project culminates with an exhibition, and extensive educational and public programs. The exhibition features the work of contemporary artists who explore cultural identity through the interpretation and incorporation of family stories and memories in their work." -- Claudia Sobral, Arts Partnership Project

Japanese-American Family History Resources

The resource guide primarily on researching Japanese American family history.

Bibliography: 高野嘉之 「カナダ在住日本人移民女性における家庭内暴力と虐待の経験とその克服について」 (『アディクションと家族』第２０巻２号、２００３年)

Research article about Japanese female immigrants, who experienced domestic violence by her partners in British columbia.

Marriage

Wedding. (ca. 1950s)
Wedding. (ca. 1950s)
"During the colonial period (1910-1945), Japanese government encouraged intermarriage between Koreans and Japanese, as an attempt to implement its integration policy. Many Japanese women who married Koreans during that period moved to Korea followed by their Korean husbands after World War II. Some of them who were already living in Korea during Japanese occupation continued to live in Korea up until now. Ever since they came to the area with their Korean husbands, they have informally formed a Japanese minority group in Korea."
"Eles ultrapassaram os 50 anos de casados, mas continuam vivendo como se fossem namorados: trocam olhares, abraços e até tímidos beijinhos. Três casais provam que é possível conviver com as indiferenças e fazer do casamento um eterno namoro."
"Afinidade é uma das principais características exigidas pelos nikkeis que procuram ajuda profissional para encontrar a cara-metade."
Describes dating services established by and for Nikkei in Brazil.
"As an increasing majority of Japanese Americans intermarry, some people are asking, how long will the JA community and Nikkei survive? What kind of vibrant future can we envision for the Nikkei and JA community? Despite such concerns, or perhaps because of them, many active Nikkei are committed to sustaining and developing J-towns with their Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines—preserving these and many other historical sites as a spiritual place, arena of interchange and mutual help, and as a fellowship cooperation with other communities (intercommunalism). Based on my search for a perspective on this question which has impacted upon my own identity, I would like to present a view on the evolution of Japanese people with a focus on the spiritual and cultural heritage of the Jomon people, a view based on an emerging picture shared by many top researchers who study this subject."

Children

"This is a selective bibliography of primary and secondary works dealing with the lives of Japanese American children during World War II."
Bibliographies of children's books with Japanese and Japanese American themes, including relocation/internment and immigration. The author is Japanese-German American.

Elders

Adult Day Services. (ca. 1996)
Adult Day Services. (ca. 1996)
Although this brief essay focuses on the history of Japanese migration to the United States, it frames this history as a way to understand gerontological differences among Nikkei of different generations, according to their experiences. Based on information in Gwen Yeo (et al.), <i>Cohort Analysis As A Tool In Ethnogeriatrics: Historical Profiles of Elders From Eight Ethnic Populations In the United States, published by the Stanford Geriatric Education Center.
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