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5 Guyo Tajiri Out from the Shadows Th is c h a pt er c ov er s, or rather recovers, the writing of Marion Guyo Tajiri, whose role as columnist and editor of the Paciἀc Citizen has been largely obscured. Guyo was Larry’s sole colleague on the journal during the war years, and even though her salary was only one-third of his, her surviving correspondence (portions of which are reproduced in this chapter) indicates that she was a full partner in its operation. Nevertheless, her name remained absent from the Paciἀc Citizen’s masthead, even as virtually all of her book reviews and columns—until she began her dispatches from the Tokyo Rose trial—appeared either pseudonymously or under the initials “M. T.” or “M. O. T.” (Marion Otagaki Tajiri). Her husband did not mention her contributions in his columns or even in his private letters. This resolute silence is disturbing, as Guyo had training and experience in journalism and was a salaried (if underpaid) employee in her own right. To be sure, female concealment in husband-and-wife teams was far from unusual in mid-century America, where male chauvinism reigned. Indeed, apart from a few celebrated cases in which both spouses took equal credit— historians Charles and Mary Beard, screenwriters Albert and Frances Hackett, sociologists Robert and Helen Lynd—the husband was often the team’s sole visible partner, while the wife was content (or constrained) to stay in the background. Still, while the reader may wish to tax Larry with sexism and ingratitude to his wife, the evidence also suggests that Guyo herself wished to remain out of sight, since even in later years she remained exceedingly reticent and modest about her contributions. (When I asked her how it was that she had been selected as correspondent for the Tokyo Rose trials, she responded facetiously, “Because I came cheap!”) In spite of her (self-)effacement, Guyo Tajiri was a skilled reporter, and her prose was admirably sharp, as the writings reproduced here demonstrate. After a word portrait of New York that Guyo penned for Nichi Bei, the selections start with examples of her contributions to the wartime Paciἀc Citizen. In addition to a sensitive portrait of sculptor Isamu Noguchi, they include a few of the ongoing columns that Guyo wrote under the name “Ann Nisei,” which constituted some of the Paciἀc Citizen’s most popular features. As Ann Nisei, Guyo presented information for women on adjusting to camp conditions , including such topics as makeup, romantic problems, and family life. Her cheeriness and emphasis on seemingly frivolous matters, to the point of offering decorating tips for barracks, today appear almost a grotesque parody of women’s magazine pabulum. She was not altogether starry-eyed, though. In other Ann Nisei columns, she underlined the importance of Nisei women’s growth and independence and recounted some of the difficulties they faced. Still, it is in Guyo’s postwar articles that her tough-minded side comes more to the fore. Her extended article “What Price Slum Clearance?” which examines the false promises of “slum clearance” and the racial dimension of “urban renewal,” anticipates by nearly a generation similar analyses by advocates of African Americans and the poor. Similarly, her book reviews are attentive to small touches and include keen appreciation for the struggles described by the authors. For example, her account of Miné Okubo’s camp memoir, Citizen 13660, expressed the indignities of mass removal, and her piece on Karen Kehoe is frank in mentioning the “humiliation and agony” of the camps. The centerpiece of this chapter is a set of extracts taken from the series of dispatches that Guyo submitted as a correspondent at the 1949 treason trial of Iva Toguri d’Aquino, a Nisei woman charged with treason and accused of having broadcast for Japan as “Tokyo Rose.” As mentioned earlier, Guyo initially traveled to the trial assuming that Toguri was guilty and fearing the backlash that Toguri’s actions would trigger against loyal Nisei. However, in the course of the trial, Guyo—like the other correspondents present—became convinced that the defendant’s guilt was far from certain and that she should be released. Her judgment also shifted her husband’s views, as can be seen in his article “Punishing a Legend” (in chapter 6 of this volume). After the Tokyo Rose trial, Guyo increasingly withdrew from the Paciἀc Citizen and largely ceased writing, though she (like Larry) did contribute...

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