Abstract

Abstract:

This article explores representations of Japan found in the travel journal of a Japanese American woman, Yoshiko Higuchi, who participated in a Nisei study tour in 1933. Organized by Hokubei Butokukai, an association on the U.S. West Coast that taught kendo, it was one of several educational tours of Japan for Nisei, or second-generation Japanese Americans. In organizing such tours, Issei leaders among the Japanese immigrant community expected the Nisei to serve as representatives of Japan in the United States and to foster good relations between the two countries. To that end, the Issei believed it necessary for the Nisei to have first-hand experience of the Japanese empire and an education in Japanese culture. Although historians have examined these educational tours as part of the history of Japanese American education, the accounts of the Nisei who traveled to Japan, and the subjective experiences they describe, remain unexplored. Through an examination of Higuchi’s travel account, this paper illuminates the interplay between gender and national identity, the generational gap between Japanese Americans and the Issei, and the ways in which Higuchi’s transcultural reflections contributed to presenting US imperial supremacy and legitimization of Japanese imperialism in the early twentieth century.

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