Kazuo Kawai: Transnational Scholar and Journalist
This series recovers the life and writings of Kazuo Kawai, a Nisei public intellectual, historian and journalist who taught at UCLA in the prewar era. Kawai was the first member of the Second generation to be a regular professor at a major West Coast University. Trapped in Japan by the coming of war, he distinguished himself as a journalist in Tokyo during the war years. Kawai returned to the United States in the 1950s, and served as a professor at Ohio State University. His book Japan's American Interlude, which combined history with personal observation, remained a classic study of the U.S. Occupation of Japan.
Stories from this series
Part V: A Postwar Academic Career
June 1, 2025 • Greg Robinson
Read Part IV In 1949, after eight years in Japan and two years as official editor-in-chief of Nippon Times, Kazuo Kawai left the Nippon Times and moved back to the United States to take up a position as a visiting lecturer in history and political science at Stanford University. Officially he remained as editor and was described as “on leave”—his departure was not reported in its pages. However, when he was interviewed by reporters upon his arrival in San Francisco, …
Part IV: Wartime exile in Japan and the Nippon Times
May 25, 2025 • Greg Robinson
Read Part III In Spring 1941, Kazuo Kawai was promoted by UCLA to the rank of assistant professor of history, a move that became official in July 1941. It might have seemed that his life and career had reached a new level. However, he would never teach a class at UCLA after attaining his new rank. Meanwhile, his personal life was turned upside down. During the 1930s Kazuo’s wife Yuri was a visible presence in campus activities, and in sponsorship …
Part III: Navigating the US-Japan Conflict
May 18, 2025 • Greg Robinson
Read Part II Even more difficult for Kazuo Kawai to navigate during the 1930s than the balance between teaching and research were the dilemmas he faced in his role as a public intellectual. As previously noted, Kawai’s expressed mission as a Japanese American was to promote mutual understanding and better relations between the United States and Japan, and his path to advancement rested on his status as an academic expert on the Far East. Indeed, it was on the basis …
Part II: Prewar Nisei Spokesperson
May 11, 2025 • Greg Robinson
Read Part I In 1932, Kazuo Kawai arrived at UCLA to take up a position as visiting instructor in geography and history—the two departments divided his services. The hiring made the young Kawai, then just 27 years old, one of only two dozen Nikkei to hold teaching positions at American universities. He was arguably the first from the Nisei generation. In the succeeding years, Kawai taught courses in Far Eastern History, and also European History. According to Mike Mansfield, the …
Part I: The Education of a Nisei
May 4, 2025 • Greg Robinson
One notable figure among the prewar Nisei generation was Kazuo Kawai. Historian Jere Takahashi has referred to Kawai as one of the chief exponents of the ideology that Nisei, despite the prejudice against them in American society, could serve as a “bridge” between the United States and their ancestral Japanese homeland. Kawai first became known in the 1920s, when he worked for the Survey of Race Relations sponsored by the University of Chicago. During the 1930s, Kawai was among the …
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