Teaching Mikadoism: The Attack on Japanese Language Schools in Hawaii, California, And Washington, 1919-1927
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Teaching Mikadoism is a dynamic and nuanced look at the Japanese language school controversy that originated in the Territory of Hawaii in 1919. At the time, ninety-eight percent of Hawaii's Japanese American children attended Japanese language schools. Sugar plantation managers endorsed these schools, but after witnessing the assertive role of the Japanese in the 1920 labor strike, they joined public school educators and the Office of Naval Intelligence in labeling them anti-American and urged their suppression. Thus the "Japanese language school problem" became a means of controlling Hawaii's largest ethnic group. The debate quickly surfaced in California and Washington, where powerful activists sought to curb Japanese immigration and economic advancement. Language schools were accused of indoctrinating Mikadoism to Japanese American children as part of Japan's plan to colonize the United States.
Previously unexamined archival documents and oral history interviews highlight Japanese immigrants' resistance and their efforts to foster traditional Japanese values in their American children. They also reveal complex fissures of class and religion within the Japanese communities themselves: The language school debate in Hawaii originated with the rivalry between elite Christian assimilationists who opposed such schools and Buddhist plantation laborers who strongly supported them. A comparative analysis of the Japanese communities in Hawaii, California, and Washington presents a clear picture of what historian Yuji Ichioka called the "distinctive histories" as well as the shared experiences of Japanese Americans. Within this framework, the history of the Japanese language school is central to the Japanese American struggle to secure fundamental rights in the United States.
Eight decades later, the Japanese language school debate remains relevant in the context of ethnic diversity in education today. Teaching Mikadoism! shifts the focus of research on Japanese language schools from an institutional perspective to a more layered approach that provides a deeper historical background to civil rights issues in a multicultural America.
About the Author
Noriko Asato is associate professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Teaching Mikadoism: The Attack on Japanese Language Schools in Hawaii, California, And Washington, 1919-1927,Noriko Asato,University of Hawaii Press,0824828984,20th century,Education and state,Emperor worship,Ethnic Studies - Asian American Studies,History,History - General History,History - U.S.,History: American,Japan,Japanese,Japanese language,Study and teaching,United States,United States - State & Local - General,United States - State & Local - West,American history: from c 1900 -,California,Hawaii,History of specific racial & ethnic groups,Inter-war period, 1918-1939,Washington state
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