Nikkei in the Pacific Northwest: Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians in the Twentieth Century

6. "The Nail That Sticks Up Gets Hit": The Architecture of Japanese American Identity in the Urban Environment, 1885-1942

6 I "THE NAil THAT STICKS UP GETS HIT" The Architecture of Japanese American Identity in the Urban Environment, 1885-1942 GAIL LEE DUBROW S cholarsofAmerican ethnicstudiesand architectural history rarely have been in dialogue, yet both groups share overlapping concerns that would benefit from the conversation. While literature, film, and the fine arts frequently have been studied as expressions ofethnic identity, the meanings of architecture remain largely unexplored by scholars of Am.erican ethnic studies. Meanwhile, scholarship by architectural historians on the expression ofethnic cultural traditions in thebuiltenvironment has not always benefitedfrom recent conceptual advances in American ethnic studies . As a result, architectural historians often have overlooked or misinterpreted signs of ethnicity in the built environment. The study of Japanese American architecture in Seattle's Nihonmachi, or Japantown, however, suggests the value ofbringing scholars of these two fields into dialogue, which would result in a more complex interpretation of the meaning of ethnic signs in the urban landscape. Whether examining the adaptation ofRhenish bam-building traditions in Pennsylvania or the sole surviving joss house in a rural California Chinatown , most studies ofvernacular architecture have taken the presence of ethnic signs to indicate the robustness of cultural traditions and their dynamic adaptation in a new land, while their disappearance generally has been taken as evidenceofcultural assimilation. While the conventionalwisdom suggests that Japanese immigrantsquickly "lost" ethnic traditions and rapidly conformed to American architectural practices, findings from this study suggest that racism played a powerful role in persuading Japanese immigrants to abandon or mask outward signs of ethnicity in the architectureofonewestern Washington Japantown, even while the interiorspaces contained robust expressions of cultural identity. Japanese immigrants "THE NAIL THAT STICKS UP GETS HIT" 121 adopted a strategyofblending into the American cultural fabric in an effort to ward offracist hostility from exclusionary federal inImigration policies, restrictive statelandlaws, and discriminatorycityordinances. Unfortunately, these effortsto minimize cultural differencesproved unsuccessful in the face of a wave of anti-Japanese sentiment that swept the western states in the early decades of the twentieth century. Movingbeyond the simple paradigmofassimilation theorythathasdominated the studyofethnic cultural traditions in vernacular architecture, this paper suggests that a fuller conceptualization of racism is needed to understand the architectural historyofethnic communitiesofcolor in the United States. Furthermore, it suggests that community responses to racial discrimination , particularlystrategies of resistance, are critical to interpreting the meaning of ethnic signs in the built environment. In western cities with a population ofJapanese immigrants large enough to sustain the development ofNihonmachi, the design and construction of key community institutions were occasions when collective decisions had to be made about how much to stand out as Japanese immigrants or blend in as potential Americans. Seattle's Japanese community adopted a strategy of blending into the American cultural fabric in the design of its secular institutions. such as the language school and community hall, hoping their Americanization efforts would counter racist perceptions of them as inassimilable aliens and ward offexclusionary policy initiatives. In defense, the community pursued a strategy of architectural assimilation, a kind of "strategic invisibility." The architectural metaphor of a popular Japanese proverb, "Deru kugiwa utareru," captures the thought perfectly. Translated into English, it reads: "The nail that sticks up gets hit.» If building facades by and large were exercises in "passing" safelyin a hostile environment, their interiors-into which few Caucasians passed-more openly expressed the Issei's deep commitment to ensuring continuity in cultural practices. Onelikelyfactor shapingthe choiceofwestern rather than Japanese forms for the civic institutions established bySeattle's Nikkei communitywas the adoption ofEuropean andAmerican bulldingpractices in thedesign ofpublic buildings in Japan during the Meiji era. Beginning in 1861, Western-style buildings were erected in Japan as part ofthe Meiji government's efforts to adjust treaties with England and the United States on more favorable terms.l Foreign architects were commissioned to design the most important new public buildings of the period.2 Western styles became normative for new construction in the publicsphere, even while Japanese architectural styles persisted in the private realm of domestic architecture} 122 GAIL LEE DUBROW Far-reaching reforms of Japan's educational system during the Meiji era, emphasizing universal education, meant that primary schools were a focus of new Western-style construction.4 The Issei responsible for establishing cultural institutions such as the Seattle's Japanese Language School and the Nippon Kan or Japanese community hall were Meiji men who accepted the notion ofemploying western conventions in the design ofpublic buildings, even as the spaces...