Nisei Designs: Cultural Producers Negotiating Identities During the Cold War
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NISEI DESIGNS: CULTURAL PRODUCERS NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES DURING THE COLD WAR A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICAN STUDIES MAY 2017 By Sanae Nakatani Dissertation Committee: Mari Yoshihara, Chairperson Vernadette V. Gonzalez Karen Kosasa Yujin Yaguchi Christine R. Yano Keywords: Japanese Americans, U.S.-Japan relations, art, architecture, Cold War Table of Contents Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................ iii Abstracts ........................................................................................................................ v Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 “Successful” Nisei: Politics of Representation and the Cold War American Way of Life ......... 28 Chapter 2 Emotional, Spiritual, Poetic: Nisei Cultural Producers’ Strategic Formations of Professional Identity ......................................................................................................................................... 62 Chapter 3 Blueprints for New Designs: Japanese American Cultural Ambassadorship during the Cold War ............................................................................................................................................. 113 Chapter 4 Negotiating Japaneseness: Mixed-Race Nisei Artist Isamu Noguchi in U.S.-Occupied Japan ...........................................................................................................................................142 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 182 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 190 Acknowledgments I could not have written this dissertation without the help of my professors, friends, and family. First, I would like to thank my committee members for their mentorship, without which this project would not have been possible. Mari Yoshihara guided me throughout my writing process, always acknowledging the work I had done and clearly explaining what I still needed to do. Her sincere and disciplined attitude toward teaching and advising motivated me to study harder than I imagined I could. Through taking Vernadette V. Gonzalez’s classes and serving as her graduate assistant, I learned important pedagogical practices to enhance students’ learning experiences. Her dedication to teaching inspired me to work toward becoming a better educator. Karen Kosasa always carefully read my drafts and gave me detailed comments. It was a pleasure that the more I studied about art and architecture, the more topics we had in common to discuss. Through her engaging classes and public talks, Christine R. Yano opened my eyes to new approaches to studying Japanese American communities and U.S.-Japan cultural relations, which stimulated my own research. Yujin Yaguchi at the University of Tokyo helped me build my foundation as a graduate student. He believed in my potential and encouraged me to work on my Ph.D. with the professors at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He never failed to advise me over a meal every time he visited Hawai‘i. These five professors are my role models, and I hope someday I can be like them and effectively support students in pursuit of their academic goals. I would also like to thank the individuals who have helped me in many ways. The members of my writing group supported me at every stage of developing this dissertation project. I deeply appreciate their constant encouragements and constructive comments. My student life in Hawai‘i was greatly enriched by Seiji Kawasaki, Lynn and Mel Murata, and their families who let me experience their parties, fishing excursions, Hawaiian music, and many more. I thank iii them for their friendship and their advice on life and teaching. I am also grateful to Kazuyoshi Oshiumi, Tellme and John Uyesugi, and Steve and Junko Dyer for providing moral support through heartwarming conversations and meals. My deep appreciation goes to all the institutions that provided me with financial support, without which I could not have begun or continued my study abroad: the Fulbright Program, the Rotary Foundation, the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, and the East-West Center. I would also like to thank the archivists and librarians at the Noguchi Museum, the James A. Michener Art Museum, the National Archives, the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian, Wayne State University’s Walter P. Reuther Library, and the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s Hamilton Library for making my research activities smooth and enjoyable. Finally, I would like to mention my parents who have been the oldest and most faithful cheerleaders—listening to my uncooked ideas, reading some of the books I was reading, and trying to understand what I felt passionate about. My family patiently encouraged me throughout my studies in Hawai‘i, finding joy in my academic progress. I thank them from the bottom of my heart. iv Abstract This dissertation examines the lives and works of three Nisei cultural producers— sculptor Isamu Noguchi, woodworker George Nakashima, and architect Minoru Yamasaki— during the Cold War. The three men deployed their malleable identities through their productive activities and challenged seemingly fixed boundaries of race, ethnicity, culture, and nation. The three Nisei men became both subjects and agents of the discursive force of Cold War Orientalism, which Christina Klein defines as America’s desire to consume Asia and integrate it into the Western sphere of influence. The three men’s successes became objects of consumption as they were weaved into a Japanese American version of the popular American dream narrative: while they suffered from prewar and wartime racism, their endurance, diligence, and entrepreneurship helped them become successful in competitive American society. The three men did not completely subscribe to the notion of color-blind meritocracy; instead, they criticized race issues and took a defiant attitude toward being passively represented as model minorities who were perpetually foreign and obedient to the status quo. Being Americans of Japanese ancestry worked to their advantage when Japanese culture regained popularity after World War II, but it also made them and their works vulnerable to critics’ and consumers’ Orientalizing lens. They were often expected to provide “authentic” Japanese designs. They carefully promoted the understanding that their works were a combination of their imaginative interpretations of ideas from Japan and their workmanship based on Euro-American education and training. They claimed that this fusion of concepts and methods resulted in a truly second-generation American creation rather than an obsolete v eclecticism. Thus, they defied the discursive power that attempted to Other them and their works as exotic. The experiences in different parts of the world led Noguchi, Nakashima, and Yamasaki to reflect on the Eurocentric practices and views of the American architectural and art worlds. While the three Nisei men took advantage of their unique image as the bridge between the East and the West to stimulate potential clients’ interests in their works, they also rejected working merely as instruments of Cold War Orientalism. They occasionally challenged the assumed cultural hierarchy of Euro-American cultures over the others and argued the importance of learning from non-Western forms of expressions and values. vi Introduction The germ of this dissertation began to form about ten years ago when I found Masayo Duus’s Isamu Noguchi: shukumei no ekkyosha on a library shelf.1 Reading the book, I was struck by the dramatic life that this mixed-race Japanese American sculptor led. Because of Noguchi’s distinguished cultural capital and his extraordinary family background, which differentiated him from the majority of his generation, few scholars treated his life as a part of Japanese American history. Duus, going against the grain, thoroughly examined Noguchi’s records and shed light on his complicated identity as a second-generation Japanese American, or Nisei. As I further researched scholarship on Nisei cultural producers, I found two other men who had several credentials similar to those of Noguchi: woodworker George Nakashima and architect Minoru Yamasaki. First, they had their autobiographies published both in English and Japanese. Secondly, they had archival documents collected and organized under their names. Lastly, they received the Nisei of the Biennium Award from the Japanese American Citizens League (hereafter referred to as JACL), arguably the most powerful and historical institution organized by an elite Nisei group. Nakashima and Yamasaki, in addition to Noguchi, turned out to be rare figures who left a rich body of materials, written by themselves and by others, that enabled me to take a close look at their lives and explore an aspect of Japanese American history that has not been fully uncovered heretofore. Despite the continued interest in these individual Nisei cultural producers, there has hardly been an attempt to comparatively discuss their lives and works in the context of Japanese American