Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T15:52:20.317Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Good women for empire: educating overseas female emigrants in imperial Japan, 1900–45*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2013

Sidney Xu Lu
Sidney Xu Lu*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Pennsylvania, USA E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines two tutelage campaigns launched by Japanese social reformers targeting Japanese emigrant women in Manchuria and California in the first two decades of the twentieth century. It reveals how these two middle-class-based social campaigns jointly paved the way for the Japanese state's ‘continental bride’ policy in the late 1930s, which mobilized and exported women from across the nation to Manchuria on an unprecedented scale. Synthesizing the stories of Japan's colonialism in Manchuria and Japanese labour migration to the American Pacific coast, this study traces the convergence and flows between the women's education campaigns in Japanese communities on both sides of the Pacific. It moves the debate of Japanese imperialism beyond Asia and situates it in a transnational space encompassing the local, the national, and the global.

Keywords

continental brideemigrant womenJapanese imperialismJapanese Protestantspicture brideprostitutes
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , November 2013 , pp. 436 - 460
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I am deeply grateful to Frederick Dickinson, Eiichiro Azuma, Ayako Kano, Siyen Fei, Tak Fujitani for their insightful comments. I owe an intellectual debt to Rachel Throop, who has carefully read every word of the draft and offered invaluable challenges and discussions. I would also like to thank JGH editors and anonymous readers for their sage advice, which allowed me to substantially refine my arguments.

References

1 Jikiyo, Kanō, ‘Manshū to onna tachi (Manchuria and women)’, in Ōe Shinobu, ed., Bōchō suru teikoku no jinryū (Human flow of the expansive empire), vol. 5 of Iwanami kōza: kindai nihon to shokuminchi (Iwanami lecture series: modern Japan and its colonies), Tokyo: Iwanami Shutten, 2005, pp. 211–212Google Scholar

2 Kazuhiko, Aiba, Jin, Chen, Sachie, Miyata, and Jun, Nakashima, eds., Manshū ‘dairiku no hanayome’ wa dō tsukurareta ka (How Japanese ‘continental brides’ were made in Manchuria), Tokyo: Akashi Shotten, 1996, pp. 204–211Google Scholar

3 Ibid. pp. 13–14.

4 Gunpei, Yamamuro, ‘Manshu no jochu yushutsu (Exporting housemaids to Manchuria)’, Kakusei (Purity), 2, 6, July 1912, p. 32Google Scholar

5 Michiko, Kawai, ‘Tobei fujin wa seiko shitsutsu ari ya (Are Japanese women in the US successful?)’, Joshi Seinen Kai (Young Women of Japan), 13, 10, October 1916, p. 55Google Scholar

6 Azuma, Eiichiro, Between two empires: race, history, and transnationalism in Japanese America, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 17–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Young, Louise, Japan's total empire: Manchuria and the culture of wartime imperialism, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999, p. 331Google Scholar

8 Azuma, Eiichiro, ‘ “Pioneers of overseas Japanese development”: Japanese American history and the making of expansionist orthodoxy in imperial Japan’, Journal of Asian Studies, 67, 4, 2008, p. 1203CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Masterson, Daniel M. and Funada-Classen, Sayaka, The Japanese in Latin America, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2004, pp. 27–28Google Scholar

Endoh, Toake, Exporting Japan: politics of emigration toward Latin America, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009, pp. 59–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Ambaras, David, ‘Social knowledge, cultural capital, and the new middle class in Japan, 1895–1912’, Journal of Japanese Studies, 24, 1, 1998, pp. 1–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Garon, Sheldon, Molding Japanese minds: the state in everyday life, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997Google Scholar

Frühstück, Sabine, Colonizing sex: sexology and social control in modern Japan, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003Google Scholar

Lublin, Elizabeth Dorn, Reforming Japan: the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in the Meiji period, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010Google Scholar

12 Karen Colligan-Taylor, ‘Translator's introduction’, in Yamazaki Tomoko, Sandakan Brothel No. 8, trans. Karen Colligan-Taylor, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1999Google Scholar

13 Ikumi, Yanagisawa, ‘ “Shashin hanayume” wa “otto no dorei” datta no ka: “shashin hanayume” tachi no katari wo chūshin ni (Are “picture brides” their “husbands’ slaves”? Focus on the words of the “picture brides”)’, in Shimada Noriko, ed., Shashin hanayome sensō hanayome no tadotta michi: josei iminshi no hakkutsu (Crossing the ocean: a new look at the Japanese picture brides and war brides), Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 2009, p. 62Google Scholar

14 Kano, Ayako, Acting like a woman in modern Japan: theater, gender, and nationalism, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Ueno, Chizuko, Nationalism and gender, trans. Beverley Yamamoto, Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2004Google Scholar

Horiguchi, Noriko, Women adrift: the literature of Japan's imperial body, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2011Google Scholar

Ikuko, Suzuki, Feminizumu to sensō: fujin undōka no sensō kyōryoku (Feminism and war: Japanese feminists’ collaboration with war), Tokyo: Marujusha, 1997Google Scholar

Sentā, Tomisaka Kirisutokyō, Josei kirisutosha to sensō (Japanese female Christians and war), Tokyo: Kohro-sha, 2002Google Scholar

15 The Kantō administration refers to the Japanese civilian government. Established in 1906, it was in charge of the leased territories in the Liaodong Peninsula that Japan obtained from the Qing empire following the Russo-Japanese War.

16 Peiss, Kathy, ‘ “Charity girls” and city pleasure: historical notes on working-class sexuality, 1880–1920’, in Thomas Dublin and Kathryn Sklar, eds., Women and power in American history, vol. 2, 2nd edn, Harlow: Pearson, 2001, p. 74Google Scholar

17 Masanao, Kurahashi, Kita no karayuki-san (Japanese overseas prostitutes in the north), Tokyo: Kyoei Shobō, 1989, p. 38Google Scholar

18 Masanao, Kurahashi, ‘Kyūseigun no Dairen Fujin Home (The Salvation Army's Dairen Women's Home) (1)’, Kikkan Chūkoku (China Quarterly), 11, Winter 1987, p. 48Google Scholar

19 The ‘shame’ referred to Japanese prostitutes in Manchuria: see Fujin Shinpō (Women's Herald), 109, May 1906, p. 159.

20 ‘Manshū Fujin Kyūsaikai genjō (The current situation of the Japanese Women's Home in Manchuria)’, Fujin Shinpō, 110, June 1906, pp. 19–21.

21 Kurahashi, ‘Kyūseigun no Dairen Fujin Home (1)’, p. 54Google Scholar

22 Davidann, Jon Thares, A world of crisis and progress: the American YMCA in Japan, 1890–1930, Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 1998, pp. 112–117Google Scholar

23 Ibid., p. 113.

24 Masanao, Kurahashi, ‘Manshū fujin kyūsai to Masutomi Masasuke (Masutomi Masasuke and campaigns to save Japanese women in Manchuria)’, Rekishigaku Kenkyū (Journal of Historical Studies), 598, 10, 1989, pp. 36–39Google Scholar

25 Ibid., p. 40.

26 Masanao, Kurahashi, ‘Kyūseigun no Dairen Fujin Home (The Salvation Army's Dairen Women's Home) (2)’, Kikan Chūkoku, 12, Spring 1988, p. 48Google Scholar

27 Sei, Kiyama, ‘Hokushi oyobu Manshū dendō kaishi tenmatsu ryakki (A short report on the start of the evangelical missions in north China and Manchuria)’, Fujin Shinpō, 2140, 4 March 1937Google Scholar

Katsuhito, Kurahashi, ‘Manshū ni okeru karayuki kyūsai jigyō (The campaigns to save Japanese overseas prostitutes in Manchuria) (3)’, Kirisutokyō Shakai Mondai Kenkyū (Study of Christianity and Social Problems), 58, 2010, p. 23Google Scholar

28 Frühstück, Colonizing sex, p. 35Google Scholar

29 Ibid., p. 36.

30 Fisher, Galen, Japanese young men in war and peace, New York: The International Committee of Young Men's Christian Associations, 1905, pp. 5–6Google Scholar

31 Frühstück, Colonizing sex, p. 37Google Scholar

32 Takeshi, Fujinaga, ‘Nichiro sensō to nihon ni yoru ‘manshū'e no kōshō seido ishoku (The Russo-Japanese War and Japan's translation of the licensed prostitution system to Manchuria)’, in Kairaku to kisei: kindai ni okeru goraku no yukue (Pleasure and licence: the path of entertainment in modern times), Osaka: Osaka Sangyō Daigaku Sangyō Daigaku Kenkyūjo, 1998, pp. 72–77Google Scholar

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid.

35 Kurahashi, ‘Kyūseigun no Dairen Fujin Home (1)’, p. 55Google Scholar

36 Manshū Nichinichi Shinbun, 10 August 1910.

37 Gunpei, Yamamuro, ‘Manshū ni okeru fujin kyūsai (The campaigns to save Japanese women in Manchuria)’, Kakusei, 2, 6, 1912, p. 30Google Scholar

38 See above, n. 18.

39 Masano, Kurahashi, ‘Kyūseigun no Dairen Fujin Home (2)’, pp. 46–49Google Scholar

40 Masasuke, Masutomi, ‘Manshū ni okeru nihon shogyōfu (Japanese prostitutes in Manchuria) (1)’, Yorozu Chōhō (Yorozu News), 8 December 1907Google Scholar

Kenichi, Yuhara, ‘Kyokudō ajia e no nihonjin imin to shōfu (Japanese emigrants and prostitutes in East Asia)’, Aichi Ronsō (Aichi Forum), 79, 2005, p. 21Google Scholar

41 Hakuyō, Shibata, ‘Mankan ni okeru santantaru shugyōfu (The wretched Japanese prostitutes in Manchuria)’, Kakusei, 1, 5, November 1911Google Scholar

Hakuyō, Shibata, ‘Dairen no fūki’, Kakusei, 2, 4, April 1912, p. 165Google Scholar

Ketsu, Shin and Masami, Nagaoka, eds., Shokuminchi shakai jigyō kankei shiryōshū: Manshū/Manshūkoku hen (Documents relating to social issues in Japanese colonies: Manchuria/Manchukuo), Tokyo: Kingendai Shiryō Kenkōkai, 2005, vol. 9, p. 144Google Scholar

42 Manshū Nichinichi Shinbun, 22 November 1907.

43 Kurahashi, ‘Kyūseigun no Dairen Fujin Home (2)’, p. 46Google Scholar

44 Manshū Nichinichi Shinbun, 24 July 1912.

45 Kurahashi, ‘Kyūseigun no Dairen Fujin Home (1)’, p. 53Google Scholar

Shin and Nagaoka, Shokuminchi shakai, vol. 6, p. 294Google Scholar

46 Asobu, Yanagisawa, Nihonjin no shokuminchi keiken: Dairen nihonjin shōkō gyōsha no rekishi (Japanese people's experience of the colonies: a history of Japanese manufacturers and businessmen in Manchuria), Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, 1999, pp. 23–26Google Scholar

47 Michiko, Shimizu, ‘Jochu’ imeiji no katei bunkashi (A cultural history of the development of the housemaid's image), Tokyo: Sekai Shisōsha, 2004, pp. 77–78Google Scholar

48 Yamamuro, ‘Manshū ni okeru fujin kyūsai’, p. 32Google Scholar

49 Masanao, Kurahashi, ‘Kyūseigun ni yoru Manshū e no “jochū” no yushutsu no kuwadate (The Salvation Army's attempt to export housemaids to Manchuria)’, Aichi Kenritsu Daigaku Bungakubu Ronshū (Forum of the Faculty of Literature at Aichi Prefecture University), 39, 1991, pp. 21–22Google Scholar

50 ‘Manshū shugyōfu no fukuin: Yamamuro Taisa no dan (Good news for Japanese prostitutes in Manchuria: the words of the Reverend Yamamuro)’, Manshū Nichinichi Shinbun, 3 May 1912.

51 Yamamuro, ‘Manshū ni okeru fujin kyūsai’, p. 32Google Scholar

52 Kurahashi, ‘Kyūseigun ni yoru Manshū’, p. 32Google Scholar

Garon, Sheldon, ‘The world's oldest debate? Regulating prostitution and illicit sexuality’, in Molding Japanese minds, p. 95Google Scholar

53 Kurahashi, ‘Kyūseigun ni yoru Manshū’, pp. 20–21Google Scholar

54 Michiko, Shimizu, ‘ “Hashutsufu” came in: modification of the image of jochū (housemaid) between the two world wars’, Bulletin of Kansai University of International Studies, 4, March 2003, pp. 148–149Google Scholar

55 Kurahashi, ‘Kyūseigun ni yoru Manshū’, p. 18Google Scholar

56 Ibid., pp. 22–6.

57 Mihalopoulos, Bill, ‘Mediating the good life: prostitution and the Japanese Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 1880s–1920s’, Gender & History, 21, 1, 2009, p. 21CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Shin and Nagaoka, Shokuminchi shakai, vol. 1, pp. 26–29Google Scholar

58 Garon, ‘World's oldest debate?’, pp. 88–114Google Scholar

59 Gunpei, Yamamuro, Shakai kakusei ron (On abolishing prostitution in society), Tokyo: Keiseisha Shotten, 1914, pp. 384–392Google Scholar

60 Michiko, Kaiwai, ‘Nihon fujin no sekai hyō (Remarks on Japanese women in the world)’, Joshi Seinen Kai, 16, 3, March 1923, p. 1Google Scholar

61 Ibid., p. 2.

62 Isoo, Abe, Hokubei no shin nihon (A new Japan in North America), Tokyo: Hakubun Kan, 1905, pp. 62–69Google Scholar

63 Yanagisawa ‘Shashin hanayome’, p. 6Google Scholar

64 Ibid., pp. 6–7.

65 Takako, Takanashi, ‘Shashin kekkon no hanashi (On picture marriage)’, Joshi Seinen Kai, 16, 4, April 1919, pp. 21–24Google Scholar

66 Ibid.

67 Michiko, Kawai, ‘Enjeru shima no ichinichi (One day on the Angel Island)’, Joshi Seinen Kai, 12, 8 and 9, September 1915, p. 50Google Scholar

68 Hideko, Ishuin, ‘Sōkō tayori (Report from San Francisco)’, Joshi Seinen Kai, 14, 2, February 1917, p. 30Google Scholar

69 Yonako, Abiko, ‘Zaibei Nihonjin Kirisutokyō Joshi Seinen kai sōritsu no shidai (On the establishment of the Japanese Young Women's Christian Association in the US)’, Joshi Seinen Kai, 9, 9, October 1912, pp. 17–18Google Scholar

70 Kono yiwa no ue ni: Yokohama YMCA hachijū nen shi (On this rock: seventy years of the Yokohama YMCA), Yokohama YMCA, 1993, p. 10.

71 Abiko, ‘Zaibei Nihonjin Kirisutokyō Joshi Seinen’, p. 16Google Scholar

72 ‘Chihō no tokōsha no katagata e (To those who go to the US)’, Joshi Seinen Kai, 16, 7, July 1919, p. 36.

73 Kei, Tanaka, ‘Japanese picture marriage in 1900–1924 California: construction of Japanese race and gender’, PhD thesis, State University of New Jersey, 2002, pp. 214–219Google Scholar

74 Michiko, Kawai, ‘Tobeisha no shiori (Guide for people going to the US)’, Joshi Seinen Kai, 14, 6, June 1917, pp. 23–27Google Scholar

75 ‘Tobeisha no shiori’, July 1917, p. 37; ‘Tobeisha no shiori’, Joshi Seinen Kai, 14, 8, August 1917, pp. 52–3.

76 ‘Tobeisha no shiori’, August 1917, pp. 54–5; ‘Tobeisha no shiori’, Joshi Seinen Kai, 14, 9, September 1917, pp. 39–41; ‘Tobeisha no shiori’, Joshi Seinen Kai, 14, 10, October 1917, pp. 27–9.

77 See ‘Chihō no tokōsha no katagata e’, p. 36; ‘Tobeisha no shiori’, October 1917, p. 29.

78 Ichioka, Yuji, ‘Amerika nadeshiko: Japanese immigrant women in the United States, 1900–1924’, Pacific Historical Review, 9, 2, 1980, pp. 347–348Google Scholar

Yanagisawa, ‘Shashin hanayome’, pp. 64–65Google Scholar

79 Yasutake, Rumi, Transnational women's activism: the United States, Japan, and Japanese immigrant communities in California, 1859–1920, New York: New York University Press, 2004, p. 125Google Scholar

80 Rokuichi, Kusunoki, ‘Beikoku kashū engan no dōhō (Our brethren in California in the US)’, Joshi Seinen Kai, 11, 7, July 1914, p. 8Google Scholar

81 Yasutake, Transnational women's activism, p. 133Google Scholar

82 Rokuichi, Kusunoki, ‘Beikoku’, pp. 7–8Google Scholar

83 Yanagisawa, ‘Shashin hanayume’, pp. 69–76Google Scholar

84 Ibid., p. 77.

85 Tanaka, ‘Japanese picture marriage’, p. 211Google Scholar

Kawai, ‘Tobei fujin’, p. 11Google Scholar

86 Azuma, Between two empires, pp. 8–9Google Scholar

87 Zaibei Nihonjin Kai (Japanese American Association), ‘Shin tobei fujin no shiori (A new guide for women migrating to the US)’, 1919, p. 2Google Scholar

88 The passing of the 1924 Exclusion Act shut the American gate against any further Japanese migration.

89 Azuma, Between two empires, pp. 65–81Google Scholar

90 Kusunoki, ‘Beikoku’, pp. 7–8Google Scholar

91 Michiko, Kawai, ‘Kichō no aisatsu (Greetings after returning to Japan)’, Joshi Seinen Kai, 13, 9, October 1916, p. 5Google Scholar

92 Shizue, Miyagawa, ‘Shiberia shisatsu no ki (Note on the tour of investigation in Siberia)’, Fujin Shinpō, 261, April 1919, pp. 9–16Google Scholar

93 Katsuhito, Kurahashi, ‘ “Karayuki” to fujin kyōfūkai: Kyūshū no ichi chiiki joseishi no shikaku kara (2)’, Kirisutokyō Shakai Mondai Kenkyū, 52, 2003, p. 91Google Scholar

94 Seien, Nunokawa, ‘Shimabara Amakusa no kenkyū (A study of Shimabara and Amakusa)’, Fujin Shinpō, 267, October 1919, pp. 12–16Google Scholar

95 Miyagawa, ‘Shiberia’, p. 14Google Scholar

96 ‘Kirisutokyō Fujin kyōfūkai dainijunanakai daikai kiroku (Report of the Japanese Women's Christian Temperance Union's twentieth annual meeting)’, Fujin Shinpō, 262, May 1919, p. 25.

97 Kurahashi, ‘ “Karayuki” to fujin kyōfūkai (2)’, p. 90Google Scholar

98 Ibid., p. 89.

99 Ochimi, Kubushiro, ‘Shakai kaizen no kanki (Joy for the improvement of society)’, Fujin Shinpō, 291, December 1921, p. 5Google Scholar

100 Kurahashi, ‘ “Karayuki” to fujin kyōfūkai (2)’, p. 93Google Scholar

101 Lu, Sidney Xu, ‘The shame of empire: Japanese overseas prostitutes and prostitution abolition in modern Japan, 1880s–1920s’, positions: asia critique (forthcoming)Google Scholar

102 Akane, Onozawa, ‘Daiichiji sekai daisengo ni okeru haishō undō no kakudai: Nihon Kirisutokyo Fujin Kyōfū Kai no katsudō wo chūshin toshite (The expansion of the prostitution abolition movement after the First World War: the activities of the Japanese Women's Christian Temperance Union)’, Kokusai Kankeigaku Kenkyū (Studies of International Relations), 26, 1999, p. 60Google Scholar

103 Yōko, Watanabe, Kindai Nihon joshi shakai kyōiku seiritsu shi (A history of the establishment of women's education in modern Japan), Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1997, p. 109Google Scholar

104 Aiba, et al., Manshū, pp. 291–301Google Scholar

105 Ibid., p. 286.

106 Ibid., pp. 280–3.

107 Ibid.

108 ‘Yokohama iminbu no hataraki no ichibu (A section of the emigration organization in Yokohama)’, Joshi Seinen Kai, 16, 2, February 1919, p. 41.

109 Michiko, Kawai, ‘Nagasaki yuki (Heading for Nagasaki)’, Joshi Seinen Kai, 14, 10, November 1917, pp. 21–24Google Scholar

Michiko, Kawai, ‘Kyūshū yuki (Heading for Kyūshū)’, Joshi Seinen Kai, 14, 11, December 1917, pp. 24–29Google Scholar

110 Keisen Jogakuen gojūnen no ayumi (Fifty-year review of the Keisen School for Young Women), Tokyo: Keisen Jogakuen, 1979, p. 27. The school also had a special department for ‘overseas students’ (Ryūgakusei bekka), which provided training in housework skills and Japanese culture to nisei (second-generation) Japanese American female students.

111 Davin, Anna, ‘Imperialism and motherhood’, History Workshop Journal 5, 1, 20 March 1978, pp. 9–66Google Scholar

McClintock, Anne, Imperial leather: race, gender and sexuality in the colonial contest, New York and London: Routledge, 1995, p. 47Google Scholar

112 While my discussion focuses on the discourse surrounding ‘good’ women, as we can see, ‘bad’ women such as prostitutes were equally, if not more, necessary for the empire, though the latter demand was carefully hidden by the emphasis on respectable females.

113 Takumushō Takubeikyoku (Department of Northern Development, Ministry of Colonization), Joshi takushokusha teiyō (A guide for female colonists), 1942, pp. 124–5.

114 Ibid., p. 124. Purity-centred racial ideology was just one discourse on race in the history of the Japanese empire. Recent scholars have shown that Japanese racism was much more complicated than a belief in the homogeneity of the Yamato race. In Race for empire: Korean as Japanese and Japanese as American, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2011, Takashi Fujitani demonstrates a strong multi-ethnic racial discourse in Japan during the Asia-Pacific War. This discourse attempted to grant imperial citizenship to people in the colonies in order to mobilize all resources throughout the empire for the war.

115 Watt, Lori, When empire comes home: repatriation and reintegration in postwar Japan, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009, p. 111CrossRefGoogle Scholar

116 As demonstrated in an article in Asahi Shinbun on 24 April 1946, cited in ibid., pp. 111–12.

117 In two major repatriation centres in Hakata and Sasebo, the numbers of abortions conducted were 1,200–1,300 and 400–500 respectively (ibid., p. 120). Some of these women died in the abortion process (ibid., p. 115); others committed suicide owing to social pressure (ibid., p. 116).

118 Abortion was not legalized in Japan until 1948; the government-sponsored abortions among the female repatriates were conducted around 1945 and 1946. Ibid., p.119–20.

119 Ibid., p. 113. As Watt further observes (p. 125), this discourse also resulted in the collective silence of the repatriate women about the atrocities that they experienced in the post-war era. In contrast to some comfort women who eventually came forward to uncover the war crimes committed by the Japanese military, the assaulted repatriates had ‘nothing to gain and a great deal to lose by confirming suspicions of the violation’, since this would do nothing but further reinforce their otherness in Japanese society.