Before Internment: Essays in Prewar Japanese American History(Asian America)

This is a collection of the last essays by Yuji Ichioka, the foremost authority on Japanese-American history, who passed away two years ago. The essays focus on Japanese Americans during the interwar years and explore issues such as the nisei (American-born generation) relationship toward Japan, Japanese-American attitudes toward Japan's prewar expansionism in Asia, and the meaning of "loyalty" in a racist society - all controversial but central issues in Japanese-American history. Ichioka draws from original sources in Japanese and English to offer an unrivaled picture of Japanese Americans in these years. Also included in this volume are an introductory essay by editors Dirlik and Azuma that places Ichioka's work in Japanese-American historiography, and a postscript by editor Chang reflectingon Ichioka's life-work.

Table of Contents:
@fmct:Contents @toc4:Note on the Translation and Transliteration of Japanese Names and Words iii Preface iii Editor's Introduction: Yuji Ichioka and New Paradigms in Japanese American History @tocca:Eiichiro Azuma iii @toc1:Part One @toc2:1. Author's Introduction 000 2. Dai Nisei Mondai: Changing Japanese Immigrant Conceptions of the Second-Generation Problem, 19021941 000 3. Kengakudan: The Origin of Nisei Study Tours of Japan 000 4. Kokugo Gakko: The Debate over the Role of Japanese- Language Schools 000 5. A Study in Dualism: James Yoshinori Sakamoto and the Japanese American Courier, 19281942 000 @toc1:Part Two @toc2:6. "Unity Within Diversity": Louis Adamic and Japanese Americans 000 7. The Meaning of Loyalty: The Case of Kazumaro Buddy Uno 000 8. Japanese Immigrant Nationalism: The Issei and the Sino- Japanese War, 19371941 000 9. National Security on the Eve of Pearl Harbor: The 1941 Tachibana Espionage Case and Implicated Issei Leaders 000 10. "Attorney for the Defense": Yamato Ichihashi and Japanese Immigration 000 11. The Death of Dr. Honda Rikita: A Tragic Wartime Story 000 @toc1:Part Three @toc2:12. The Future of Japanese American Studies: Prospect of Comparative Historical Perspectives on Nikkei in North and South America 000 13. A Historian by Happenstance 000 Epilogue: Remembering Yuji @tocca:Gordon H. Chang 000 @toc4:Select Bibliography of Japanese Americans During World War II 000 Index 000

About the Author :
The late Yuji Ichioka was the founding father of the scholarly study of Japanese-American history. His book on the immigrant generation in America. The Issei: The World of the First-Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885-1924 (1988), is considered a classic. He invented the term Asian American, and trained many of the scholars now teaching Asian American history at colleges and universities.

Review :
"Yuji Ichioka invented the term "Asian American..." This posthumous collection of essays - most of which were selected by Ichioka for a book project similar to his first book, Issei - takes a good look at where Ichioka came from as a scholar and activist, and... offers a new window on Japanese history, and the relationship between the government and overseas Japanese. Several of these chapters would work very well in immigration or ethnic studies courses, and the whole should be required reading for graduate students and scholars interested in the past or future of Asian American studies." - H-Net Reviews "Ichioka's ability to comprehend the complexity of the situation raises many fresh, thought-provoking quesitons in a field that appeared near saturation point."Japanese Studies