Yasuo Sakata

In five meticulously researched essays, Yasuo Sakata examines Japanese migration to the United States from an international and deeply historical perspective. Sakata argues the importance of using resources from both sides of the Pacific and taking a holistic view that incorporates US-Japanese diplomatic relationships, the mass media, the American view of Asian populations, and Japan's self-image as a modern, westernized nation. In his first essay, Sakata provides an overview of resources and warns against their gaps and biases; those that remain may reflect culturally based inaccuracies. In the other essays, Sakata examines Japanese migration through a multifaceted lens, incorporating an understanding of immigration, labor, working conditions, diplomatic relationships, and the effects of war and mass media. He further emphasizes the distinctions between the dekasegi period, the transition period, and the imin period. He also discusses the self-image among Japanese as distinct from the Chinese, more westernized and able to assimilate—a distinction lost on Americans, who tended to lump the Asian groups together, both in treatment and under the law. Japan's Meiji era brought the opening of Japanese ports to Western nations and Japan's eventual overseas expansion. This translated volume of Sakata's well-researched work brings a transnational perspective to this critical chapter of early Japanese American history.

The Dawn of Japanese Migration in the Nineteenth Century

On a Collision Course

Yuji Ichioka

Nobuya Tsuchida

Eri Yasuhara

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.

An Annotated Bibliography of the Japanese American Research Project Collection

A Buried Past

Kaoru Ueda

Masako Iino

Yasuo Sakata

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