Akemi Kikumura Yano
Dr. Akemi Kikumura-Yano é Diretora Geral y presidente do Museu Nacional Japonês Americano, e é “Chefe de Projeto” do Projeto do Legado Nikkei, responsável pelo website Discover Nikkei. Ela tem doutorado em antropologia da Universidade da Califórnia em Los Angeles, e é autora e teatróloga premiada. Seu livro mais conhecido é Through Harsh Winters: The Life of a Japanese Immigrant Woman (“Através de Invernos Rigorosos: A Vida de uma Imigrante Japonesa”).
Atualizado em fevereiro de 2008
Stories from This Author
Issei Pioneers - Hawaii and the Mainland 1885-1924 - Part 5
31 de Janeiro de 2011 • Akemi Kikumura Yano
Read Part 4 >>THE GREAT JAPANESE STRIKE OF 1909In 1900, Japanese laborers were involved in 20 of the 22 significant strikes recorded by the United States Labor Commissioner. Four years later, the workers demonstrated greater organization and solidarity when approximately 1,600 Japanese struck Oahu Sugar Company in Waipahu. However, the Great Japanese Strike of 1909 stood apart from the rest in the scope, duration, and organization. The strike lasted four months, involving five major plantations in Oahu, 7,000 workers, and …
Issei Pioneers - Hawaii and the Mainland 1885-1924 - Part 4
24 de Janeiro de 2011 • Akemi Kikumura Yano
Read Part 3 >>“OI OKINAWA”On most plantations, different nationalities were housed in separate camps Although they adopted one another’s food, clothing, and speech, the various ethnic groups did not socialize with one another. Even within the same ethnic group, a separation of sorts existed based on regional and prefectural differences. Among the Japanese the greatest distinction existed between the Naichi, people from the main islands of Japan, and the Uchinanchu, people of Okinawa. The Okinawans were treated as outcasts and …
Issei Pioneers - Hawaii and the Mainland 1885-1924 - Part 3
17 de Janeiro de 2011 • Akemi Kikumura Yano
Read Part 2 >>PLANTATION LIFE AND LABORAs the last ethnic group to be recruited in the nineteenth century, the Japanese entered at the very bottom of the plantation system. In 1892, they constituted more than 65 percent of the workforce but received the lowest wages and were given the poorest housing. Skilled and supervisory positions were almost exclusively reserved for whites.1 “The gap between plantation managers and immigrant workers was wider than that existed between the lord and peasant during …
Issei Pioneers - Hawaii and the Mainland 1885-1924 - Part 2
10 de Janeiro de 2011 • Akemi Kikumura Yano
Read Part 1 >>CONDITIONS IN JAPANWhile the migrants undoubtedly cursed the loneliness and hard word, payday reminded them why they left their homeland. “Four hundred yen in three years,” they assured themselves. To save the same amount in Japan, a day worker would have had to work for seven years and a silk mill worker ten years. In 1884, a Hiroshima farmer’s annual earnings was 14.48 yen and 9.98 yen in 1885, while a plantation worker earned the equivalent of …
Issei Pioneers - Hawaii and the Mainland 1885-1924 - Part 1
3 de Janeiro de 2011 • Akemi Kikumura Yano
1. JOURNEY TO HAWAIIThere was great excitement aboard the steamship City of Tokio as dawn broke on Sunday, February 8, 1885. Land had been sighted at last. Chika Saka and her husband Shohichi awakened their sons, Eizo and Yoshitaro. The family hurried on deck to watch the lush green mountains surrounding Honolulu harbor take form on the horizon as the ship approached its destination. Almost two weeks had passed since the weary travelers had left Japan. In Yokohama, Shohichi Saka …
Mukashi Banashi - Part 4
9 de Dezembro de 2010 • Akemi Kikumura Yano
Read Part 3 >>Today, there are approximately 100 Japanese American families living in the Fowler vicinity. Only three families continue to farm as their main economic source. Approximately 90 percent of these families belong to the Buddhist Church where church-related activities seem to be the recognized unifying force in the community. However, many residents have voiced their concerns over the community’s future since increased education, lack of job opportunities, changing cultural values, interracial marriages, and greater social acceptance by the …
Mukashi Banashi - Part 3
2 de Dezembro de 2010 • Akemi Kikumura Yano
Rear Part 2 >>The children cradled the hopes of the Japanese community, for as American-born citizens, they would be entitled to the rights that the Issei were denied. But, as social and economic barriers continued to plague the community, the future of the second generation did not appear very promising. In 1913, the state had passed the first Alien Land Law, aimed particularly at the Japanese, forbidding them to own land and limiting leases to a period of three years. …
Mukashi Banashi - Part 2
25 de Novembro de 2010 • Akemi Kikumura Yano
Read Part 1 >>>When the women finally arrived in Fowler, they found a thriving Japanese community dominated by the interests of a predominantly male population. Like many towns in the county, Fowler’s Japanese community was situated on “the other side of the tracks” along with the Chinese who had settled there before them, and who, in the 1870s numbered five hundred, the largest immigrant group in Fresno County. Racial antagonism had compelled the Japanese and Chinese, as well as other …
Mukashi Banashi - Part 1
18 de Novembro de 2010 • Akemi Kikumura Yano
In the summer of 1981, I drove through the Tehachapi Pass from Los Angeles and descended onto the flat, dry floor of the San Joaquin Valley, one of the largest valleys in the world and once the bed of a vast inland sea, stretching approximately 250 miles long and 40 to 65 miles wide, extending from Sacramento in the north to Kern County on the south, and bounded by Mount Diablo Spur on the west and Sierra Nevadas on the …
Desafios atuais das comunidadades Nipo-Americanos
14 de Fevereiro de 2008 • Akemi Kikumura Yano
Atualmente, existe um grande número de desafios para as comunidades nipo-americanas nos Estados Unidos. O ponto principal destes desafios é o fato de que as comunidades nipo-americanas estão se tornando cada vez mais complexas, dispersas, e distintas. Não podemos mais categorizar as comunidades nipo-americanas por gerações – issei, nisei, sansei – as quais compartilham de crenças e experiências históricas. Velhas definições do que é um “nipo-americano” parecem agora completamente inadequadas já que em cada três nipo-americanos um é de etnia …
