Between Two Empires: Japanese American History Book on Race and Transnationalism - Perfect for Asian American Studies & Immigration History Research

In his book, Professor Azuma develops his analysis of the transnational ideas and practices among Japanese immigrants from 1885 to 1941 focusing on the American West. He begins with his examination of the Issei (the first generation of Japanese immigrants)'s transnational identities, and in doing so, he employs "an inter-National perspective" (p5) to pay a special attention to the Issei's "interstitial" nature of their lives between their motherland and the U.S. According to Azuma's explanation, it is the Issei's shared experience of being a "racial Other in America" which "revealed the futility of the modernist belief that the Japanese should be able to become honorary whites through acculturation" (p61-2). With such a reality, Issei constructed their pioneer thesis with the elements of the racial ideologies from Anglo-American manifest destiny and imperial Japanese expansionism.What attracts my interest most strongly in this book is the author's detailed research on the transnational education of the Nisei (the second generation) in Japan which was given to them for the purpose of inculcating Japanese spirit upon them. With the rise of the concept of "Pacific Civilization" after World War I, Japanese educators came to believe that the center of the world was moving from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Amid such social trend, the Nisei, the American citizens with Japanese heritage, were forced to be educated as a "transpacific bridge" (p145) between Japan and the U.S. in the 1930s. Because they knew about America well and spoke English fluently, Nisei were given the propagandist mission and were used as valuable resources in propagating the fascism for Japan while, at the same time, they were also detested as "the public enemies inimical to national security" (p153) by their countrymen of their ancestral land.I am also impressed with Azuma's use of various types of cultural materials including newspaper article, illustration, picture, statistic data, true story of murder case, the Japanese immigrants' writings (poetry, essay, composition), and so on. Beginning his book by showing a Japanese immigrant student's essay which appeared on a yearbook published by the Japanese Student Association of the University of Southern California in 1912, Azuma draws his readers into the fascinating panorama of the lived experiences of Japanese immigrants.As I am a Japanese international student who has been studying in California, Professor Azuma's focus on the borderland of the American West (mostly California) is especially interesting for me. I strongly recommend this book.