Exploring the history of Japanese American literature is a task fraught with uncertainty, as so much of it is a matter of definition. To begin with, who and what count as “Japanese American”? Is the category restricted to works by Japanese in America, or does it include works about them by non-Japanese? Is there a definable spirit that infuses works by Nikkei writers, no matter what their particular subject may be, or is it made up only of works about ethnic Japanese?
More broadly, as with any other category of writing, there remains the question of defining what counts as “literature.” Here we may ask how intentional a piece must be to be considered as creative writing—or does that even matter?
One landmark case is that of Ulysses S. Grant’s Civil War memoirs, which the former president, bankrupt and dying of throat cancer, dictated rapidly from his deathbed in order to earn money for his family. Published posthumously in 1885, Grant’s work was not only an immediate bestseller, but came to be hailed by writers from Mark Twain to Gertrude Stein as a foundational text of modern American literature.
Viewed from this angle, an eminent candidate for inclusion among founding works of Nikkei writing would be the memoir A Japanese Boy, by Shiukichi Shigemi. First published in 1889, just four years after Ulysses Grant’s Personal Memoirs, it was likewise written primarily to raise needed money for the author, a mission in which it succeeded—albeit on a much smaller scale than Grant. Unlike the former General, however, its youthful author did not address the American Civil War. Instead, he offered a charming portrait of childhood in Meiji-era Japan.
Before discussing the book, let us examine the life of the author. Shiukichi (AKA Shinkichi) Shigemi was born at Imbari, Japan, on the island of Shikoku, on November 21, 1865, the son of a businessman. He spent his childhood in Imbari, which he presented as a happy time, full of festivals and sports. However, before he completed primary school, his father’s business failed, and young Shiukichi was sent to work in a grocery store, “so I could be a credit to myself as a business-man’s son.”
While he was apprenticed to a pair of trades, he was so miserable that he persuaded his father to let him return to school. During this time, he was converted to Christianity by an American missionary, who also began teaching him English. He later recounted that his family was at first distressed by his conversion—his father would throw the tracts he brought home into the fire—but that ultimately his parents and two siblings also converted.
In order to pursue his studies, the teenager went to Kyoto, where he spent five years at the new Doshisha English Academy (the future Doshisha University). While he later claimed to have “struggled” through his studies, he graduated with honors in September 1884. He decided to pursue his education in the United States. After borrowing money, he left Japan, booking passage on a Chinese tea steamer. He sailed along the China coast, across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean Sea, and across the Atlantic, he arrived in New York around Christmas 1884.
By the time he landed, Shigemi was almost penniless, and was unable to find a job. However, using letters of introduction from distinguished missionaries in Japan, he met Timothy Dwight, the President of Yale University. With Dwight’s support, he decided to attend Yale, with the announced goal of becoming a missionary teacher in Japan.
In January 1885, Livingston W. Cleveland, a lawyer and judge, published a letter in the New Haven Morning Journal Courier asking whether some Christian family could house Shigemi. He apparently found housing, as well as a teacher at the local Hillhouse High School who tutored him without charge. After passing his entrance examinations, he enrolled at Yale in summer 1885.
Before the start of term, Shigemi spent his summer lecturing and working on a farm in Vermont. In October, the 19-year old published an article in a local newspaper, The Caledonian. Titled “Japanese Beverages,” it was a long essay on the sale and drinking of sake, “that magical water which enchants Japs to dance in frolic.” (Surprisingly, to 21st century eyes, he notes “[Sake] is seldom drunk cold. No matter if it is a blazing noon of summer or a snowy morn of winter, Japanese warm their sake.”)
Though the author expressed some affection for the social role played by sake, he explained that he was a Christian supporter of temperance and deplored the effects of drunkenness. He mentioned that he had tried it in his childhood, when he had attended a town meeting, and it had made him ill and hungover.
Once settled at Yale, Shigemi pursued a major in Biology at Sheffield Scientific School. Although he was one of only two students in his class from outside New England, and the only international student, Shigemi soon achieved popularity. His short stature and spare build gave him an endearingly boyish look—some sources claimed that he was only five feet tall and 90 pounds, though that was probably an understatement.
He was selected as the coxswain for the freshman rowing crew. He grew sufficiently popular that in fall 1886, at the start of his sophomore year, he was elected vice-president of his class. In 1887 he was selected to deliver a humorous recitation at the Sheffield Debating Society.
When he delivered a lecture on Japanese customs and society, complete with slide show, at a meeting at New Haven’s Davenport Church, an article in the Morning Journal Courier remarked, “His gentle, winning ways have won him many friends in this, to him, strange land; and finding that he had come only with a willing heart, instead of a full purse, his friends are doing what they can to enable him to fulfill his purpose to fit himself for service as a teacher in the missionary school in Japan.”
Throughout his undergraduate studies, Shigemi relied on outside aid to finance his education. White supporters were active in raising money. In March 1886, a set of New Haven Christian Ladies, led by Winifred Long and Hattie Peck, organized a musicale at the Atheneum as a benefit for Shigemi. The evening featured piano music by Liszt and Brahms (both then living composers) and impressions. The young student appeared during intermission (in costume with a large boutonnière), and sang a Japanese song. The evening netted him $205 for his education. In April 1887, Dr. T. T. Munger, pastor of the United Church in New Haven, delivered a lecture, “From Greylock to Tacoma,” as another benefit to Shigemi.
Meanwhile, he continued lecturing, both to earn money and to introduce his listeners to Japanese culture. In January 1886, he lectured at the Humphrey Street Church on “Religious Rites and Customs in Japan.” The following month, he spoke at The Church of the Redeemer. In March 1886 he spoke at a Congregational Church in Easthampton, with a reported audience of 600. He lectured at Trinity Church, New Haven and in Northampton, MA on Japan and Japanese customs. In April he lectured in North Haven.
In May 1886, he gave an address on Japan at English Hall. He likewise lectured at the Congregational Church in Oxford, CT in March 1887. In March 1888 he delivered a lecture, “Three Cities in Japan,” at the local branch of the YWCA. In summer 1888, he delivered a set of lectures on Boston, then spent a week in Martha’s Vineyard and delivered two lectures.
Shigemi received his greatest publicity from an article on the seven Japanese students at Yale that appeared in the national press in 1888. It featured a sketch of the young student, whom the article described as one of the scientific school’s brightest scholars, who would soon graduate with honors. It also stated, “He has become a society favorite in New Haven, speaks English fluently, and is a pleasing conversationalist.” Contrary to his earlier expressed intention to return to Japan and teach in a missionary school, the 1888 article noted that he would be giving summer lecture tours about Japan, a country to which he had no thought of returning.
In fall 1888, after receiving a Ph.B. in Biology, Shigemi enrolled at Yale Medical School. He seems to have done very well. In 1891, he submitted a thesis on “Jacobson’s Organ” and received his MD from Yale.
Once Shigemi was in medical school, his need for money for his support became sufficiently pressing that he decided to write a book describing his youth in Japan and to sell copies as a way of making money. The resulting book, A Japanese Boy, was first published by E. B. Sheldon, a local New Haven Press, in 1889.
It apparently sold well enough that Henry Holt, a mainstream publisher in New York, put out its own edition of the work one year later. It cost 75 cents. This more elaborate edition may not have done as well as the author hoped. When in September 1891, after receiving his MD from Yale Medical School, Shigemi traveled to lecture in nearby Meriden, he reported that he still had a hundred unsold copies of the book.
In fall 1891, Shiukichi Shigemi returned to Japan, travelling overland to Vancouver and then by steamer across the Pacific. After arriving in Japan, he took up teaching in the Tokyo Charity Hospital’s Medical School. In 1894, the same year that he married Kazu Nakazawa, Shigemi opened a medical practice with an office in Kyoto. He later moved to Tokyo.
Alongside his medical career, he maintained his interest in English language and literature. He taught English at various private schools and was hired as a teacher in the Peer’s College (today’s Gakushuin University): according to one source, he beat out Soseki Natsume to get the job. In 1892, he published an article as a “special correspondent” for the New York Press.
The article, titled “A Queer Japanese Crime,” told the story of a man who murdered his wife out of filial piety, as he hoped to feed his mother a human liver to help save her failing sight. He meanwhile sent a letter to the Japan Daily Mail with his English translations of short poems by the Emperor and Empress of Japan. The Emperor’s read: “Oft, as I read in tomes of old/How kingdoms fell and kingdoms rose/Unconsciously, my arms I fold/And thinking of my realm, I pause.”
Even after leaving Yale, he remained popular with his classmates. He was present at the Class Triennial Reunion in 1891, for which he carried the 1888 class banner. When he returned to Japan, the Morning Journal Courier published an article lamenting his departure.
“Dr. Shigemi leaves many friends behind him in the new world who will wish him abundant prosperity and happiness and regret his departure, having learned to highly esteem him and his winning genial ways. He will be much missed by many warm personal friends in New Haven…and numbers among his warm friends some of our leading people of refinement and culture.”
When the class had a ten-year reunion, one toaster expressed the hope that that future classes would always have “a little Shiukichi to do the talking.”
His old connections ultimately served him in good stead when the great Kanto earthquake of 1923 devastated Shigemi’s Tokyo medical practice, damaging the building and instruments and scattering his patients. In despair, he wrote to the secretary of his Yale class. His old classmates donated over $1000 in donations, which relieved his distress.
At a Yale class dinner, Charles G. Miller read a letter from Shigemi telling of the improvement of conditions and thanking his Yale friends for the sympathy and encouragement shown him. According to Edward Hume of the Baltimore Sun, when a Yale professor visited Japan the following year, Shigemi went down to the harbor to welcome him personally in token of his gratitude.
Shiukichi Shigemi died on January 20, 1928, aged 63.
© 2025 Greg Robinson
