Takako Day

takako70

Takako Day, originally from Kobe, Japan, is an award-winning freelance writer and independent researcher who has published seven books and hundreds of articles in the Japanese and English languages. Her latest book, SHOW ME THE WAY TO GO HOME: The Moral Dilemma of Kibei No No Boys in World War Two Incarceration Camps is her first book in English.

Relocating from Japan to Berkeley in 1986 and working as a reporter at the Nichibei Times in San Francisco first opened Day’s eyes to social and cultural issues in multicultural America. Since then, she has written from the perspective of a cultural minority for more than 30 years on such subjects as Japanese and Asian American issues in San Francisco, Native American issues in South Dakota (where she lived for seven years) and most recently (since 1999), the history of little known Japanese Americans in pre-war Chicago. Her piece on Michitaro Ongawa is born of her love of Chicago.

Updated December 2016

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Japanese Women in Chicago

Part 6: Across the Pacific

By Takako Day
30 Apr 2023

Read Part 5 >> Did Fujinkai gradually change in character because the wives of Chicago Japanese consuls started becoming involved in local Japanese women’s activities as honorary presidents? According to a Japanese government report, the Japanese Women’s Society of Chicago (Fujinkai) was recorded as having been founded at the JYMCI (747 East 36th) in 1924.1 These members of Fujinkai in Chicago did not hesitate to address the issues of women in Japan, as Fujinkai was well connected to Japanese female activists from various organizations in Japan who came to C…

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Japanese Women in Chicago

Part 5: New Japanese Women as Comrades — Fujinkai

By Takako Day
23 Apr 2023

Read Part 4 >> The 1920s began with the success of American women’s suffrage movement, and, around this time, a new type of Japanese woman came to Chicago, almost as if sucked in by the energy of the incredible American women of those days. These Japanese were liberal women educated under the social influence of the Taisho democracy in Japan. Yone openly welcomed these forward-thinking women from Japan. In June 1920, Mrs. T. Matsumoto, Miss F. Koga, and Miss K. Tsutsumi, all visiting from Japan, joined Yone for a citizenship class at the Woman’s City Club and learned how…

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Japanese Women in Chicago

Part 4: World War I - Japanese Loyalty to the US

By Takako Day
16 Apr 2023

Read Part 3 >> Although they were not US citizens and could not get involved in political matters, as assimilated immigrants, Japanese were very eager to show their loyalty and contributions to the US, as well as to American society in general. This demonstration of loyalty was common on the West Coast as well. One Chicago newspaper reported the following message from Japanese in San Francisco with some surprise: “‘Our present duty is to help the United States with all our might and with the genuine spirit of loyalty which has been characteristic of our people throughout t…

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Japanese Women in Chicago

Part 3: For Mothers and Children—Haha No Kai

By Takako Day
9 Apr 2023

Read Part 2 >> With Yone, Misaki Shimazu founded Haha No Kai (Mother’s Home) in 1913 to supervise and take care of children. The home also served as the Shimazu’s own residence.1 One of the reasons they opened the home was that Yone herself became a mother; around 1913 the childless Shimazu couple adopted and began raising two Japanese children, a boy and a girl. When adopted, the girl, Fumiko, born in 1909 in New York, was four, and her brother, Yoshio, born in 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri, was six. The story of the two Shimazu children goes something like this: their moth…

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Japanese Women in Chicago

Part 2: For Women—Nihon Fujinkai

By Takako Day
2 Apr 2023

Read Part 1 >> Yone Shimazu formed Nihon Fujinkai, the Japanese Women’s Club in May 1911. The aim of the club was “charitable, beneficial to unfortunate Japanese, promoting friendship among the Japanese ladies, building individual character.” The club had about forty members and it was comprised of Japanese women and American women who were married to Japanese men. The club held meetings at the JYMCI (Japanese Young Men’s Christian Institute), where they enjoyed reading, talking, knitting, crafting, American cooking, music, learning English. Yone told a repor…

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Japanese migrants and their descendants

Takako Day

Japanese Women in Chicago

Japanese Women in Chicago

Japanese Women in Chicago

Japanese Women in Chicago

Japanese Women in Chicago

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