Rediscovering America

In this extraordinary collection of writings, covering the period from 1878 to 1989, a wide range of Japanese visitors to the United States offer their vivid, and sometimes surprising perspectives on Americans and American society. Peter Duus and Kenji Hasegawa have selected essays and articles by Japanese from many walks of life: writers and academics, bureaucrats and priests, politicians and journalists, businessmen, philanthropists, artists. Their views often reflect power relations between America and Japan, particularly during the wartime and postwar periods, but all of them dealt with common themes—America’s origins, its ethnic diversity, its social conformity, its peculiar gender relations, its vast wealth, and its cultural arrogance—making clear that while Japanese observers often regarded the U.S. as a mentor, they rarely saw it as a role model.

Peter Duus is Professor Emeritus of History at Stanford University. He is the author of The Japanese Discovery of America: A Brief History with Documents; The Japanese Wartime Empire; Modern Japan; and The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895–1910 (UC Press). Kenji Hasegawa is Assistant Professor of History at Yokohama National University.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. Illusion and Disillusion
Sugiyama Shigeru, “On Relations among Nations” (1878)
Shiba Shiro, “Strange Encounters with Beautiful Women” (1885–1887)
Inoue Enryo, “Religion in America” (1889)
Uchimura Kanzo, “First Impressions of Christendom” (1893)
Kotoku Shusui, “Letters from San Francisco” (1905–1906)

2. Students and Immigrants
Katayama Sen, “Advice on Going to America” (1901)
Noguchi Yonejiro, “My Life in California” (1911)
Aoyama Tetsushiro, “Home Life in America” (1916)
Sasaki Shigetsu, “Excluded Japanese and Exclusionist Americans” (1920)
Anonymous, “The Soul of America” (1921)
Shibusawa Eiichi, “On the Anti-Japanese Movement in America” (1924)

3. Modan America
Ashida Hitoshi, “America on the Rise” (1925)
Maida Minoru, “The Characteristics and Peculiarities of the Americans” (1925)
Abe Isoo, “Baseball and the American Character” (1925)
Noguchi Yonejiro, “American High Society” (1925)
Sasaki Shigetsu, “The Troublesome American Woman” (1927)
Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke, “Motion Pictures: The Americanization Machine” (1929)
Kiyosawa Kiyoshi, “America, the Land of Speed” (1929)

4. The American Enemy
Konoe Fumimaro, “My Impressions of Washington and New York” (1934)
Kada Tetsuji, “American Perspectives on Japan, and Vice Versa” (1941)
Sawada Ken, “On the History of American Imperialism” (1941)
Muneo Matsuji, “America’s Race Problem” (1941)
Miyake Daisuke, “Remembering American Baseball” (1941)
Matsushita Masatoshi, “The American Home Front” (1942)
Nakano Goro, “The Will to Annihilate the American Enemy” (1943)
Sakanishi Shiho, “Why Do Americans Break the Law?” (1944)
Roundtable Discussion: “Grasping the Reality of the American Enemy” (1944)

5. The American Occupiers
Home Ministry, “Illegal Behavior by American Soldiers” (1945)
Kagawa Toyohiko, “Whence the American Sense of Morality?” (1945)
Ito Michio, “Culture and the Arts in America” (1945)
Asahi shinbun, “Remembering General MacArthur” (1951)
Symposium, “What We Have Gained from America and What We Have Lost” (1952)
Sato Tadao, “What Is America to Us?” (1967)

6. America Ascendant
Ishigaki Ayako, “The American Housewife” (1951)
Goto Yonosuke, “The Dynamic Logic of American Capitalism” (1956)
Tsuru Shigeto, “America after Fourteen Years” (1956)
Oda Makoto, “The Other Side of American Society” (1961)
Yasuoka Shotaro, “Living in Nashville” (1960–1961)
Eto Jun, “America as I See It” (1963)
Eto Jun, “The Old Face of America” (1964)
Oe Kenzaburo, “Dealing with Pearl Harbor” (1967)

7. America in Decline
Oda Makoto, “Americans: Between War and Peace” (1965)
Honda Katsuichi, “Traveling through the Deep South” (1970)
Kirishima Yoko, “The Lonely American” (1971)
Yoshida Ruiko, “Hot Days in Harlem” (1972)
Kosaka Masataka, “A Proposal for Encouraging America” (1980)
Shimomura Mitsuko, “Glorious America, Where Are You?” (1980)
Saeki Shoichi, “Rediscovering America’s Dynamic Society” (1987)
Yomota Inuhiko, “Koreans in New York” (1989)
Morita Akio, “The Trouble with the American Economy” (1989)

Notes