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DTSTART:20120128T000000Z
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DESCRIPTION:\nOn October 13\, 1955\, Pan American World Airways stunned the
  commercial aviation industry by ordering the largest fleet of jet aircraf
 t in the world\, officially ushering in the Jet Age. In that same year\, t
 he airline embarked on a new personnel program\, hiring Japanese American 
 women to serve its Tokyo-bound and famed round-the-world flights. Although
  the airline claimed to hire these women to speak Japanese\, in order to c
 ompete with Japan Air Lines which began international air travel in 1954\,
  Yano&rsquo\;s analysis shows that beyond language\, the women added the l
 ook of the exotic Asian woman. With Honolulu as their base\, these women w
 ere informally dubbed Pan Am&rsquo\;s &ldquo\;Nisei&rdquo\; (second-genera
 tion Japanese American) stewardesses\, even if not all of them were second
 -generation or Japanese American. Rather\, by calling these women &ldquo\;
 Nisei\,&rdquo\; Pan Am drew upon the cultural capital of Nisei war veteran
 s and their minority patriotism. These women were among the first non-whit
 e stewardesses in Pan Am and other airlines&rsquo\; employ. However this b
 reaking of the racial barrier came not as a matter of civil rights\, but a
 s carefully drawn corporate strategy to expand Pan Am&rsquo\;s global domi
 nation utilizing some of the drawing power of the Asian woman.\n\nThis tal
 k analyzes Pan Am&rsquo\;s &ldquo\;Nisei&rdquo\; stewardess project from i
 ts inception in 1955 to 1972\, when the women themselves instigated the en
 d of their closed-base status in order to gain more employee rights. This 
 study situates Pan Am&rsquo\;s &ldquo\;Nisei&rdquo\; stewardesses within a
 n era of postwar American empire tied to newfound mobilities symbolized pa
 rticularly by jets and Asian American women. Through interviews with the w
 omen and archival research\, Yano juxtaposes Pan Am&rsquo\;s ambitions wit
 h individual aspirations and experiences. Yano argues that both share mutu
 ally constitutive &ldquo\;airborne dreams\,&rdquo\; embedded within the na
 scent cosmopolitanisms of this frontier era known as the Jet Age.\n\nPan A
 m&rsquo\;s &ldquo\;Nisei&rdquo\; stewardesses provide an important lens up
 on a particular period in American history filled with the complexities of
  assimilationist rhetoric and racialized hiring. Becoming corporate person
 s in a prestigious American company at the forefront of a global industry 
 &ndash\; in particular for Japanese Americans only ten years following the
  end of World War II &ndash\; called upon assimilation within the gendered
  domain of &ldquo\;model minority&rdquo\; femininity and professionalism.\
 n\n<a href="http://janmstore.com/151273.html"><em>Airborne Dreams</em>&nbs
 p\;is available to purchase from the Museum Store &gt\;&gt\;</a>\n\nFree w
 ith Museum admission. Reservations recommended to rsvp@janm.org or 213.625
 .0414 at least 48 hours prior.\n\n<a href="http://www.janm.org/" target="_
 blank">www.janm.org</a>\n
DTSTAMP:20240423T225902Z
SUMMARY:BOOKS & CONVERSATIONS: Airborne Dreams: “Nisei” Stewardesses an
 d Pan American World Airways by Christine R. Yano
URL:/en/events/2012/01/28/books-conversations-airborne-dreams-nisei-st/
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