Introduction
The Issei, Nisei, and Sansei experienced many hardships in identity formation as being connected with two cultures: Japanese and American. One of the most popular resources reflecting the culture and problems the Japanese experienced is the Nisei Daughter memoirs. Using the biographical format, Kazuko Monica Itoi describes her own process of personality formation. The historian’s work is exceptionally vital for the transferring cultural heritage of the Japanese Americans. Historian presents the experience of the American child born in a Japanese family providing the reader with the opportunity to understand the feelings of Issei and Nisei through the child’s eyes. The current paper analyzes the factors affecting the identity-forming of Kazuko. The young woman’s identity is neither Japanese nor American. Kazuko represented the new cultural identity that was formed under specific historical events and social forces such as World War II and Asiatic Exclusion League.
Book Summary
The book Nisei Daughter provides extensive information about the life of a child born in America in a family of Japanese immigrants. The parents of the young girl combined two different cultures raising her. For Kazuko, such an approach was painful in terms of self-identification. On the one hand, her parents put limitations on her following the cannons of the Japanese culture. On the other hand, she tried to match the popular American tendencies of that period. Such contradiction has significantly affected her personality and identity. Besides the different cultural aspects, many political and cultural events influenced young Kazuko. The author wrote the book in the form of memoirs, which allows the reader to understand Kazuko’s emotions better. The book is also valuable because it describes the entire process of personality forming under challenging historical and cultural conditions. Kazuko’s experience is a vital cultural heritage.
Kazuko’s Identity
Social and Cultural Forces
The integration of the Japanese family into American society caused no elimination of traditional Asian values. Even though Kazuko’s parents were concerned about the general image of their family, they preserved Japanese cultural identity and strived to transfer it to their daughter. For example, the girl visited a Japanese school: “Why did Father and Mother make such a fuss just because we had Japanese blood?” As a result, the girl was part of two communities.
First, she tended to associate herself with the American culture because of the additional study hours in Japanese school. “Terrible, terrible, terrible! So that’s what it meant to be a Japanese – to lose my afternoon play hours. I didn’t see how I could be a Yankee and Japanese at the same time,” wrote the author. Even though she hated school at first, later, she realized that it provided good cultural education for her. Analyzing the mentioned example, it is obvious that Kazuko was in doubt, unable to realize who he was. Later on, the girl faced discrimination problems, which also changed her opinion about America. Therefore, America’s discrimination policy, parents, two schools, and different cultural communities pressured Kazuko.
Kazuko’s Response
Kazuko and other children who experienced such distorted emotions adapted to different conditions. The girl first considered the Japanese lessons tedious and time-consuming. However, later she realized that they were fascinating: “Above everything, I didn’t want to go to Japanese school.” Later, she wanted to be part of American identity, forgetting her Japanese roots. Fashionable American movements and community affected the girl’s self-identification. “And now Mother was telling us we were Japanese. I had always thought I was a Yankee,” complained Monica. One of the most critical points of her personality formation is her father’s rejection of her dance classes. “In Japan, dancing was associated with geisha girls, and he would never consent to his daughter’s entering that profession,” Kazuko wrote.
Later, even after facing difficulties and limited job opportunities, girls still believed America was their home. “This America, where I was born, surrounded by people of different racial extractions, was still my home,” claimed the author of the book. The such reaction reflects Kazuko’s ability to estimate life conditions rationally. Her final choice was to accept America with all its disadvantages for the Japanese. Therefore, each situation changed the girl’s perception of her cultural identity. Such behavior is normal for young people, especially those under social and family pressure.
World II War and Personality Crisis
The most challenging periods for all Japanese in America were the Asiatic Exclusion League issue and World War II. Cruel discrimination against the Japanese caused significant reconsideration of moral values in Kazuko’s mind. The discrimination problem was complicated, evolving many governmental decisions and political events. One of them was the creation of the Asiatic Exclusion League, which caused prejudices against Asians. Kazuko wrote that the difficulties with work and disrespectful attitudes towards Japanese ethnicity grew at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is vital to consider because such an issue significantly modified the Americans’ image of the Japanese.
Before the war, US President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the forcible transfer of Japanese Americans from the West Coast to closed internment camps. American government considered every Japanese as a potential spy, ready and willing to assist in an invasion that seemed to take place at any moment. Many political leaders, officers, journalists, and ordinary people concluded that anyone with even a drop of Japanese blood should be evicted from the West Coast and isolated in special closed camps. Racial intolerance triumphed over social justice, with many American-born US citizens on the internment list.
Japanese faced the same discrimination in the United States that the Chinese had previously experienced. They were limited in their rights to acquire land and obtain citizenship. Issei had no right to obtain citizenship, but their child, Nisei, born in America, received citizenship automatically. The government’s disrespectful attitude to her parents and herself in limiting her job and education opportunities contributed to her valuing Japanese cultural identity. The war and other governmental decisions allowed Issei and Nisei to reveal the true nature of the Even though America is a country of migrants, in the dangerous period government decided to focus on the protection of the indigenous people. As a result, the Japanese suffered a lot because of the cruel attitude of the government. However, Kazuko was ready to accept such a reality. These problematic conditions brought her to a more profound understanding of America.
Key to Understanding Kazuko’s Identity
Kazuko spent most of her childhood in a doubtful position being under the pressure of two cultures. It was complicated for her to define her identity because she understood neither culture completely. In order to estimate herself as a member of a particular cultural identity, Kazuko needed to learn the positive and negative aspects. The difficult period allowed the young woman to access the characteristics of both cultures. She realized that American and Japanese cultures are inherent to her personality by only going through challenges. As far as she was a medium between two identities, she united her personality with both cultures through difficulties.
She accepted the negative aspects of the American cultural identity. “In spite of the war and the mental tortures we went through, I think the Nisei have attained a clearer understanding of America and its way of life, and we have learned to value her more,” claimed the author at the end of the book. As a result, the key to forming Kazuko’s identity is that it does not belong to either culture. She preserved the peculiarities of Americans and Japanese in her identity. She made a decision to live American life keeping Japanese values.
Conclusion
In the Nisei Daughter memoirs, the historian provides extensive material to analyze the historical forming of the cultural identity of Japanese immigrants in America. The cultural and social forces pressured the young girl between the two cultures, causing self-identification problems. Under the challenging conditions of World War II, the Asiatic Exclusion League impact, and other social and political forces, Kazuko formed a mixed cultural identity. However, these difficulties did not break Kazuko’s desire to define her identity. Even though she has experienced a crisis, she managed to create her own identity by combining both cultures. Through the acceptance and understanding of the fears and griefs of both cultures, she accepted herself as a personality. Through this work, the historian shows how is it difficult for an immigrant to define their social role and significance. The mixed cultural identity which Kazuko gained through the difficulties may be relevant for many migrants even today.
Bibliography
Sone, Monica. Nisei Daughter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995.
Young, Murray. Historical Memories of the Japanese American Internment and the Struggle for Redress. California: Stanford University Press, 2022.