Absent Presence

Simpson Caroline Chung Simpson

Description

There have been many studies on the forced relocation and internment of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. But An Absent Presence is the first to focus on how popular representations of this unparalleled episode in U.S. history affected the formation of Cold War culture. Caroline Chung Simpson shows how the portrayal of this economic and social disenfranchisement haunted-and even shaped-the expression of American race relations and national identity throughout the middle of the twentieth century.Simpson argues that when popular journals or social theorists engaged the topic of Japanese American history or identity in the Cold War era they did so in a manner that tended to efface or diminish the complexity of their political and historical experience. As a result, the shadowy figuration of Japanese American identity often took on the semblance of an "absent presence." Individual chapters feature such topics as the case of the alleged Tokyo Rose, the Hiroshima Maidens Project, and Japanese war brides. Drawing on issues of race, gender, and nation, Simpson connects the internment episode to broader themes of postwar American culture, including the atomic bomb, McCarthyism, the crises of racial integration, and the anxiety over middle-class gender roles.By recapturing and reexamining these vital flashpoints in the projection of Japanese American identity, Simpson fills a critical and historical void in a number of fields including Asian American studies, American studies, and Cold War history.

Sujets

• Histoire
• USA
• Social group
• Cultural studies
• History of the Americas
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 07 janvier 2002
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822380832
• Langue: English

Extrait

A N A B S E N T P R E S E N C E

N E W A M E R I C A N I S T S A Series Edited by Donald E. Pease

A N

A B S E N T

P R E S E N C E

Japanese Americans in Postwar American

Culture, 1945–1960

C A R O L I N E C H U N G S I M P S O N

Duke University Press

Durham & London 2001

2001 Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of

America on acid-free paper

Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan

Typeset in Scala by Wilsted & Taylor

Publishing Services

Library of Congress Cataloging-

in-Publication Data appear on

the last printed page of this book.

For my mother,

Ann Marie Simpson,

with love for the past

and the daily struggles

and

In memory of my father,

Edward Glynn Simpson,

whose struggles were not

in vain

. . .

‘‘Homemade, homemade!

But aren’t we all?’’

— B I S H O P ,E L I Z A B E T H

‘‘Crusoe in England’’

C O N T E N T S

ix

1

12

43

76

113

149

186

195 216 226

Acknowledgments

Introduction

O N E ‘‘That Faint and Elusive Insinuation’’: Remembering Internment and the Dawn of the Postwar

T W O The Internment of Anthropology: Wartime Studies of Japanese Culture

T H R E E How Rose Becomes Red: The Case of Tokyo Rose and the Postwar Beginnings of Cold War Culture

F O U R ‘‘A Mutual Brokenness’’: The Hiroshima Maidens Project, Japanese Americans, and American Motherhood

F I V E ‘‘Out of an Obscure Place’’: Japanese War Brides and Cultural Pluralism in the 1950s

Epilogue

Notes Bibliography Index

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

The enormous wealth of good will and intelligence needed to complete a book comes from many sources, some of them far removed from the author herself. I begin by thanking my earliest supporters, without whom I would never have thought to venture this far. They include my graduate school colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin, Lisa L. Moore and Neil Nehring, who persevered in the face of much con- servative political resistance to this project within my own department. I am indebted to the initial advice and encouragement of Susan Glenn, who remains a respected colleague and friend and an exemplar of femi- nist teaching and scholarship. The early years of my thinking about this project were also enabled by the friendship and love of a worthy group of women, including members and fans of the ‘‘Yam Queens’’ women’s softball team: Kathryn Baker, Kate Adams, Kim Emery, Shelly Booth Fowler, Denise Majorca, and Gail McDonald. Many friends and scholars took the time to comment on or o¤er much needed criticism of this book as I was completing it. I am espe- cially grateful to members of my feminist writing group, including Priscilla Wald, Susan Glenn, Christine di Stefano, Shirley Yee, and An- gela Ginorio, for reading every draft of every chapter that appears here, and then some. I am warmed by their company and instructed by their conversation. Very special thanks go to Priscilla Wald, who more than anyone else promoted my work on this topic and remains a valued col- league. Carolyn Allen was peerless in her unwavering support of me as both friend and colleague. I will never forget her tireless support of and commitment to untenured feminist scholars at the University of Wash- ington, and I will certainly never be able to express properly just how grateful I am for her example.