Title Representing Atomic Memory in the Japanese American Public Sphere Since 1945 Author(S) UCHINO, Crystal Citation

Representing Atomic Memory in the Japanese American Public Title Sphere Since 1945

Author(s) UCHINO, Crystal

Citation 人間・環境学 (2017), 26: 197-215

Issue Date 2017-12-20

URL http://hdl.handle.net/2433/235184

Type Departmental Bulletin Paper

Textversion publisher

Kyoto University 人間・環境学，第 26 巻，197-215 頁，2017 年 197

Representing Atomic Memory in the Japanese American Public Sphere Since 1945

Crystal UCHINO

Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8501 Japan

Abstract Over the last 70 years Japanese Americans have confrontedtheir complex historical relationship to the atomic bomb in overt and indirect ways, navigating changing political currents in society. Using media analysis, this paper examines public representations andrepressions of atomic memory in Japanese America through an examination of Japanese American news reporting on the anniversaries of the atomic bomb in the seven decades since 1945. By focusing on an under researched area of atomic memory, it also provides a new frame to interpret Japanese American subjectivity andhistory in relation to influences of suppression and political activism.

When the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima secondary, if not non-existent, comparedto the andNagasaki thousandsof American born Nikkei― valorization the of grandfatherʼs service in the MIS. In Americans of Japanese Ancestry―were residing in this context, I have wondered about histories which these two cities.1) Early Japanese American immigra- have been overlookedat the intersection of personal tion history additionally reveals that a disproportionate memory andpublic representation. Pierre Nora`s number of Japanese residing in the United States were Lieux de memoire, described the transformation of from Hiroshima prefecture. In fact, census statistics something into a symbolic element or site of by the Japanese consulate in Honolulu report that community heritage.3) Memory is a wordincreasingly nearly a quarter of the Japanese American population pairedwith history. 4) It has been conceptualizedas an emigratedfrom Hiroshima. 2) Therefore, in addition to apparatus of subjectivity formation anda site of those who experiencedthe bomb first -hand, a struggle.5) What does a hierarchy of memory considerable segment of the Japanese American valorizing Japanese American military service or population hadimmediatefamily living in, or close prioritizing the experience of interment ―both of relational ties to, Hiroshima during the time of the which have overwhelmingly constructedJapanese bombing, leading me to suggest that atomic bomb American loyalty andcitizenship ―tell us about memory is an important andunderexploredfacetof racializedcitizenship andJapanese American subjec- Japanese American history. tivity? Foucault`s Genealogical methodchallenges us Growing up with a hibakusha-Atomic bomb to deconstruct previously taken for granted truths in survivor- grandmother (Nagasaki) anda Nikkei order to critique power and the production of grandfather in the U. S. Army Military Intelligence knowledge. J. Halberstam, however, contends that Service (MIS), I developed an awareness that, even Foucaultʼs methodoverlooks the fact that marginalized within personal family history, there was a hierarchy of subjects often participate andperpetuate the very memory. My grandmotherʼs stories have been systems which subjugate them, a trendI will argue is 198 Crystal UCHINO clearly distinguishable in early Japanese American what has been remembered, but why (geopolitics), representations of the atomic bomb.6) how (narratives/representation) andwhat has been Discursive practices employedin atomic narratives left out (silence/discourse). These newspaper vi- have been examinedfrom a myriadof angles. For gnettes provide compelling insight into the unique example, studies have importantly addressed catego- ways that Japanese Americans have navigateda ries of race, national identity/citizenship, andgender trans-pacific politics of memory andcontribute to the in the construction of Japanʼs peace narrative, such as body of literature mentioned above that seeks to the exclusion of Korean hibakusha in Hiroshimaʼs destabilize dominant and colonial discourses of atomic peace park andJapanʼs continuedunwillingness to memory. confront its colonial crimes of the war years.7) Others For this paper, I focus my study on the Rafu Shimpo have drawn attention to the suppression of information andthe Hawai’i Hochi which were both formedin the anda lack of critical intellectual public dialogue early 1900ʼs. As part of the ethnic press in the United regarding the meaning of the atomic bomb and its States, Japanese American newspapers constitute an legacy in the UnitedStates. 8) Andstill others have important documentary source providing insight into approachedthe topic of atomic memory through the the Japanese American community, not only in what lens of nuclear colonialism.9) These perspectives draw was explicitly written, but also in what was not our attention to the trans-national andmulti -dimen- representedwithin its pages. These two papers were sionality of atomic remembering andforgetting, they selectedbecause of the presence of a large Japanese also open up questions about other untraversedroads American readership and the duration of their on the map of atomic memory. publication. In my analysis, I lookedfor common Addressing the public representations of the atomic themes in the framing of the stories, how much print bomb in Japanese America, in this article I analyze space was allottedto each article, what kindof story it Japanese American newspaper reports printedin the was (front page, editorial, etc.), who authoredthe Rafu Shimpo andthe Hawaii Hochi ― two of Japanese story, andhow the reporting changedover time. Americaʼs longest running newspapers ― from August 6, 1945 until the present. I begin my discussion by Decoding Representations in Nikkei Media contextualizing these two papers andtheir roles in their Frames of the Atomic Bomb respective communities (Honolulu, Hawaiʼi andLos Looking into ethnic and critical media studies, there Angeles, California) in the decades leading up to the seems to be a tendency to glorify the aspects of war. positive agency produced by ethnic media such as By examining shifts in the narrative of atomic those leading to participation and equality.10) memory representedin these two Japanese American Certainly this is an important aspect of ethnic media, newspapers, I explore how representation was consti- however, this inference still leaves questions about the tutedin the decadesfollowing the bomb. The usefulness of ethnic media as a documentary source newspaper articles I discuss are organized chronologi- because it fails to problematize the silences that exist cally. They illustrate the shifting dynamics of power alongside interpretive qualities in the concept of anddiscoursein Japanese American subjectivity representation. Yasuhiro Inoue andCarol Rinnert, in relating to three key elements of influence : censorship, their analysis of atomic bomb representation in both externally imposedandinternally sanctioned; international newspapers have observed, “In the frame social movements ; andJapanese American negotia- analysis of media content, the interpretive content is tion of public debates that surfaced during the 50th more important than the information in news anniversary. I have sought to understand not only stories.”11) This is because the content displayed also Representing Atomic Memory in the Japanese American Public Sphere Since 1945 199 conveys a message about the intent of the publisher. hadon the ethnic consciousness of the Japanese Salma Ghanem proposedthat mediaframes couldbe community. In January of 1952, the name was understood in four main ways : 1) the topic of the changedback to the Hawai’i Hochi, though it has been news item, 2) its presentation assessedby its size and pointedout that, “after the war, the Hochiʼs editorials placement, 3) cognitive attributes accounting for the were distinctly less radical than before.”17) details represented, and 4) affective attributes for which the tone of the reporting comes across.12) Rafu Shimpo (established 1903) Employing aspects of Foucaultʼs theories on discourse The Rafu Shimpo is the oldest and largest Japanese andtaking an interpretive approach to content analysis, community daily newspaper outside of Japan. It was I interrogate not only that which appears in overt print establishedin 1903 in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, but also that which has been omitted, made smaller or California. The paper began as a one-page mimeo- otherwise marginalizedto concludethat those silences graphedJapanese language newspaper producedby are also significant.13) several University of Southern California students : owner Toyosaku Komai (Henry T. Komai), Rippo Hawaiʼi Hochi (established 1912) Iijima, Masaharu Yamaguchi, andSeijiro Shibuya. 18) The Hawai’ i Hochi was startedby Frederick The Densho Encyclopedia project has called the Rafu Kinzaburo Makino, a Yokohama native who immi- Shimpo : “one of the most influential print media in gratedto the UnitedStates in 1899. Ten years later Japanese America since its inception.”19) The Rafu Makino openeda drugstore in Honolulu anda few Shimpo began with an original circulation of 250 years after that a law office above the drug store. readers. By the 1920ʼs the Rafu Shimpo’s circulation Despite not having a law degree, Makino felt that in exceeded 8,000 daily readers. Importantly, the Rafu the absence of Japanese lawyers during that time, Shimpo coveredacts to ban Japanese from owning land Japanese immigrants needed to have someone to andbringing over bridesfrom Japan as well as other consult about immigration andother legal problems anti-immigration acts. In 1926, the paper even they were facing.14) The Hawai’i Hochi was founded challenged, “why do people hate the Japanese?”20) in much the same amateur, one might even say Komai, the paperʼs publisher was arrestedand haphazard, style as his law practice, “Makinoʼs answer internedby the FBI in 1941 following the attack on [to inadequate news reporting] was to start his own Pearl Harbor. Komaiʼs son, Akira, kept the paper newspaper to protect the civil rights of Japanese running until April 1942, when mass incarceration of immigrants.”15) Unwaveringly, Makino andthe Japanese Americans to concentration camps swept the Hawai’i Hochi were politically vocal andinfluential west coast.21) On January 1, 1946, the Rafu Shimpo about issues affecting the Japanese community in became the first Japanese language paper to resume Hawaiʼi such as immigration andcitizenship laws, printing, contributing to its rise as “the most influential labor issues, andlanguage schools. Japanese ethnic publication in the continental United The Hawai’i Hochi, as well as all other Japanese States in the postwar period” with its readership newspapers, was temporarily shutteredby Hawaiʼiʼs reaching over 20,000 by the endof the year. 22) wartime martial law government from December 11, 1941 to January 8, 1942.16) Following this period, the A-Bomb in the Japanese American Press During Hochi was allowedto resume publication, under the Internment Era censorship. Makino also changedthe paperʻs name to the Hawai’i Herald in order to deflect anti-Japanese My discussion of atomic bomb representation in sentiment. This demonstrated the influence the war Japanese America begins with an arresting headline 200 Crystal UCHINO appearing on August 6, 1945 on the front page of the Japanese American press in Hawaii may have Hawai’ i Hochi (Figure 1) announcing : “NEW employeda similar reasoning as a strategy to shield TERROR FOR JAPS” with the subheading “20,000 against oriental andracist logics which allowedfor the tons of TNT hurtledfor the first time against Japan. ”23) classification of tens of thousands of individuals as enemy aliens basedsolely on ancestral origins. 28) Between the years of 1942 and1946 nearly all west coast Japanese Americans were mass incarceratedand forcibly relocatedinto concentration camps. During this time, federal government and military officials, conflating “race” with “culture” andequating “Japanese Americans” with “Japanese” assigned Japanese American loyalty to Japan. This is plainly Figure 1 August 6, 1945 Hawai’i Hochi, Front-page headline articulatedin General DeWittʼs justification for the internment, “The Japanese race is an enemy race and The article that followedsensationalizes the destruc- while many secondandthirdgeneration Japanese born tive power of the bomb while playing up the scientific on UnitedStates soil, possessedof UnitedStates victory of the UnitedStates, “no praise is too great for citizenship, have become ʻAmericanized, ʼ the racial the efforts, brilliant achievement andcomplete strains are undiluted.”29) In the context of this devotion to the national interest of the scientists of this Japanese liminality, multiple realities of ʻencodingʼ country.” Stuart Hall states that messages have a and ʻdecodingʼ become possible. “complex structure of dominance” because there are For example, as we might argue that the resolve by institutional-societal relations being reproduced at all the Japanese American press to run this article stages of communication.24) This structure of domi- implicates them in reproducing the dominant-hegem- nance is clearly defined in the days and months onic position, complicit in imposing a racist rhetoric on following August six andnine 1945. GHQ censorship its Nikkei readership. On the other hand, it is also was severe. During this time U. S. media outlets in possible to inscribe a subversive quality, a subaltern general hadlimitedresources available to them to coding perhaps, whereby the Japanese American Press inform their reports about the bomb.25) Asaresultof inverts the flow of communication relaying a message this censorship, most newspapers hadlittle option but from its constituent to the officers, conveying an intent to rely on the press releases coming from the war to distinguish a Japanese American loyalty for the department for their reporting, the Hawai’i Hochi was Nikkei of Hawaiʼi.30) no exception.26) However, the decision to display this In the days following August 6, atomic bomb news headline with its blatantly anti-Japanese racial slurs, in permeatedthe front pages of the Hawai’ i Hochi, boldcapital letters, as its feature story servedmultiple generally focusing on its destructive capacity. The functions unrelatedto news reporting. Bruce Lincoln only reports I founddivergingfrom this trendwere tells us that the degree to which a person identifies with several articles appearing in the Hawai’ i Hochi the sentiments of others (the dominant) is the degree between August six to ten, before Japanʼs Surrender. to which they will be integratedinto any given These reports discussed comments made by Radio society.27) Twentieth century racial formation in the Tokyo andJapanese national newspapers such as the UnitedStates proves Lincolns theory to be overly Asahi, Yomiuri Hochi, andthe Mainichi. In one simple, full of contradictions, and also likely wrong. August 8 article, borrowing the voice of the Japanese However, under conditions of strict censorship, the press, the bomb is representedas “a violation of the Representing Atomic Memory in the Japanese American Public Sphere Since 1945 201 code of humanity.”31) These reports were quickly the sequence of injustices.”34) Many in the camps dismissed as Japanese war propaganda by the immediatelycontactedappointedpersonnel to findout American mainstream media who responded by about the welfare of their family andfriendsin printing racist cartoons. Hiroshima.35) Similar rebuttals, however, were not reprintedin the Interviews about internment experiences reveal the Hawai’i Hochi, perhaps alluding to the use of silence personal trauma sufferedby Japanese Americans after for the oppressedvoice. We can also interpret it in the bomb. Mitsue Matsui, remembering the atomic another way, the absence of a Japanese American bomb says, “that was devastating, it was a shock . . . it voice in early post bomb coverage is consistent with really shockedme. I knew then andthere that some of theconceptofanabsent presence of Japanese my relatives had died. And they did actually.”36) Americans in Postwar America put forwardby Marita Many Japanese Americans with family members or Sturken andCaroline Chung Simpson. Here the friends in the atomic stricken cities did not learn of exclusion of Japanese American experiences, such as their fate until months or even years later. Kay those of internment, from American history becomes Matsuoka discusses what it was like for her family an evocative presence in its absence, telling us receiving news of the bombing of Hiroshima andtheir something about the structuring of remembering. reaction : Many questions remain about how Japanese Well, they didnʻt know who got killed or anything Americans felt reading these news stories of the atomic until after all this passedandthe letters started bomb and how they decoded these messages.32) coming. Andthen we foundout that different ones of our relatives, how they hadperishedin Personal Sentiments about the Atomic Bomb that atom bomb. Andʻcourse, when we went in Americaʼs Concentration Camps back in (1967) to visit them for the first time, then our uncleʻs only daughter, and then like my Some records exist in internment memoirs convey- side,I hadone uncle that was an artist, andhe was ing the complex sentiments of internees upon hearing teaching art in school, andthey hadall perishedin news of the atomic bombings. For example, Mary this atom bomb.37) Matsuda Gruenwald in her book Looking like the These connections andperspectives however seemed Enemy wrote : to be absent from the newspaper articles I read. In the When I saw the pictures of Japanese people past, the Hawai’i Hochi hadconsistently given print burnedandcharredby the atomic blast, I was space to editorial columns on controversial issues. In heartbroken for them. I was an American by the wake of the bombing, however, editorials seemed birth, but at that moment, I was Japanese . . . My to holdmore of a cautionary tone towardsJapanese tears were a mix of relief andanguish. Even Americans than be representative of the actual views though part of me was gladthe UnitedStates won heldby community members : the war, the Japanese part of me was speechless The Japanese people in Hawaiʼi, who have with grief andhorror. 33) endured security restrictions without physical In her book Years of Infamy : The Untold Story of protest andwho have donetheir utmost to help in Americaʼs Concentration Camps Michi Nishiura the war effort, still have a tremendous job before Weglyn writes that, “nearly a thirdof the Japanese them. Many face the future with courage and American immigrants incarceratedat Tule Lake had new hope, but there are others who wouldlook on come from Hiroshima.” For them news about the the darker side of the mirror. The postwar world atomic bomb was seen as the “final nightmare stage in will be a better place to live in, but it will be no 202 Crystal UCHINO

better than what each individual contributes America, they fought gallantly in Europe, and towardit. 38) their bravery shined. We are so proud of our The enforcedgovernment censorship of Atomic Bomb own, the 100th Infantry Battalion andthe 442nd reporting in general under the GHQ, and of the Regimental Combat Team.43) Japanese American press under Hawaiiʼs wartime martial law provides one possible explanation for the lack of a critical Japanese American voice in representations andreporting on the bomb. 39) A further application of the frames analysis offers another interpretation, namely, the public reckoning with the fact that Japanese Americans were living in an environment that was hostile to their homeland. This put Japanese Americans in a difficult position throughout the war with their loyalty constantly called into question andpoliced,on psychological andliteral levels in the years leading up to and during the war. Privately, unincarceratedJapanese Americans burned or hidphotographs, books andother things, which couldimplicate their Japanesenes. 40) Publicly, the war Figure 2 Hawai’i Hochi, August 9, 1946 Article celebrating provided fuel for the discursive propaganda of return of the 442 Japanese loyalty vociferously inscribedin the story of Japanese American service in the military. DavidYoo has arguedthat efforts to establish Japanese American loyalty by groups such as the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) ledto the erasure of internment camps from public memory.41) I suggest that it did the same to the memory of the atomic bomb. The Hawai’i Hochiʼs post bomb/postwar coverage as well as the advertisements run by local Nikkei businesses continuedto contextualize the message of Nikkei Americanism andloyalty in a framework that Figure 3 Hawai’ i Hochi, August 9, 1946 advenerating simultaneously valorizedmilitarism. Advertisements return of the 442 frequently thankedthe armedforces for their services andencouragedreadersto “keep buying bonds.” The This eclipsing of atomic memory in Japanese America first anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki by the valorization of the 442nd andJapanese American receivedno press coverage in the Hawai’i Hochi.In war heroes is the foundation for post-war domestic its place appearedcoverage of the return of the 442 nd confinement of Japanese American subjectivity. Infantry Regimental Combat team (Figure 2),42) Steven HowardBrowneʼs observations that immi- including a full page advertisement (Figure 3) run by grants confront the past in ways that non-immigrants local Nikkei businesses celebrating their return. The might take for granted is helpful in understanding the adreads: post war memory of the atomic bomb in Japanese A feat of valor. An honor for all eternity. For America. In particular, some questions immigrants Representing Atomic Memory in the Japanese American Public Sphere Since 1945 203 might struggle with are “whether the past is indeed apocalyptic imagery in the media and popular culture worth remembering” ...“Shall I so assimilate myself when a Japanese fishing boat was exposedto the to the present that I will, if possible, forget my former fallout of a U. S. thermonuclear test bomb in the Bikini self.”44) Certainly, the obliteration of Japan by atomic Atoll. That same year the Japanese cult classic film andother bombings ; andits protective role as Gojira, or Godzilla, which has been widely analyzed homelandmust have brought these kindsof questions for its references to the Lucky Dragon incident as well into an unavoidable focus for the Japanese Diaspora. as the atomic bombings of Hiroshima andNagasaki, The lack of attention to the anniversary of the atomic became the eighth most attended film in Japan. An bombs couldalso be describedasa productof what G. interesting point to note is that while Godzilla was later Mitchell Reyes has calledthe “taken-for-granted, revisedfor American audiences,the original version normative force of whiteness in conventional public was popular in theatres catering to Japanese American memories.”45) audiences in the latter half of the 1950s and into the The fact that thousands of American citizens (of 1960s.48) Japanese ancestry) were killedor sufferedinjuries in Reflecting the growing unrest about nuclear weap- the Hiroshima andNagasaki bombings didnotfit into ons andalso appearing in stark andradicalcontrast to the white American myth of exceptionalism espousing all other printedrepresentations of the atomic bomb on that the bomb endedthewar andsavedlives, which the anniversaries of Hiroshima andNagasaki, was an Lifton andMitchel argue remainedan article of faith August 6, 1955 anonymous editorial. The Hawai’ i throughout the 20th century, is suggestive of the Hochi editorial, “Remembering Hiroshima,” provides insidious ways that conflicts over race, nationality and some of the only public evidence archived in the loyalty continuedto cast a shadowon the economy of newspaper articles I readthat the Japanese American Japanese American representation in the postwar consciousness hadbeen deeplyaffectedby the years.46) Judith Butlerʼs ʻlivable identityʼ tells us that dropping of the bomb. Its opening paragraph reads “a life for which no categories of recognition exist is Today is the tenth anniversary of the atomic not a livable life, so for a life for which those bombing of Hiroshima. Far be it from our categories constitute unlivable constraint is not an intention to commemorate this day. Inasmuch as acceptable option.”47) Americans who worked/lived it symbolizes the most horrible, most devastating in Hiroshima andNagasaki or who couldtrace intimate mass murder in the history of mankind. Most lay familial ties to Japan were outside the limit of Americans wouldno doubtfeel justification for ʻAmerican-nessʼ conditionedonrecognition shapedby this in their hearts as they “remember Pearl the racializedandgenderedcitizenship. The erasure of Harbor.” Then, too it is almost axiomatic that the A-bomb memory became a condition of recognition as killing of a hundredthousandhumanbeings with an American citizen in the immediate post-war years. one bomb is no different from killing one man with a rifle or handgrenade,not the fighters. Or Ruptures Coming into View During so at any rate runs the common belief.49) the ColdWar Although the editorial represents a significant rupture in the silence characterizing public discourse of the As the ColdWar intensifiedwith the successful atomic bomb suggesting a kindof haunting in Japanese detonations of thermonuclear bombs by both the America regarding the atomic bomb, it seemed to pass UnitedStates (1952) andthe Soviet Union (1955),an with no further public discussion. In the following anti-nuclear movement rose up across nations. In years Hawai’i Hochiʼs articles were much smaller such 1954 the infamous Lucky Dragon Incident incited as the three paragraph August 9, 1957 article that 204 Crystal UCHINO stated “Atom Blamedfor Increase Lung Cancer. ” psychological andphysical effects of the bomb in an These divergent frames suggest an internal struggle American environment insensitive to their trauma. within Japanese America regarding the meaning of Problems such as language barriers anda general lack atomic bomb memory as well as its absence in the of knowledge and understanding of American doctors public sphere of 1950ʼs Japanese America. about atomic bomb relatedcomplications andillnesses The 1950s saw radical changes in matters concern- was exacerbatedby insurance companies callous ing nuclear energy andnuclear weapons which ledto a policies. Tokuso Kuramoto, for example, reportedthat growing tension in the memory of the atomic bomb in his insurance policy included a clause stating, the 1960s. In my observation, the 1960s saw an “conditions arising from act of war or atomic bomb expansion of representational difference in reporting in explosion, or radiation from any nuclear sources shall the Hawai’ i Hochi andin the Rafu Shimpo.For not be covered.”53) example, several 1960 reports in the Rafu Shimpo In 1971, after several years of informal social seemedto reproducethe rhetoric of the Eisenhower gatherings by the hibakusha friendship group a formal (1953) coldwar “Atoms for Peace” propaganda organization was establishedcalledthe Committee of program whereby the bomb becomes a trailblazer for Atomic Bomb Survivors (CABS) in the UnitedStates. “producing electric power, making fresh water from It was incorporatedas a non -profit organization in the sea, seeking cures for cancer andthe common cold, 1972, with the objectives of surveying for, informing increasing foodproduction, ” in essence, commemorat- the American public about, andcampaigning for ing the commercial application of nuclear energy and medical assistance for U. S. hibakusha.54) Between looking “forwardto a happy future, not back to that 1972 and1979, CABS lobbiedfor the introductionof bomb 20 years ago.”50) In contrast in 1966 Hawai’i ten separate pieces of legislation in congress in effort Hochiʼs reports offereda local angle, broadlyoutlining to secure medical assistance from the United States for the cooperation andhospitality of local Japanese U. S. hibakusha (citizens or permanent residents).55) American officials andorganizations in a series of Bills such as H. R. 2894 introduced on January 21, reports on Hiroshima high school students on a 1973 andSB 15 introducedonDecember 2, 1974 at “goodwill tour.”51) times specifically targetedHiroshima andNagasaki Juxtaposedagainst the backdropof news articles in atomic bomb survivors, andat other times sought the 1950ʼs and60ʼs, that in many ways seemedto be rights for a broadgroup of “radiation survivors” as a more about forgetting or smoothing over the memory legislative strategy : of the bomb in Japanese America, was an advertise- A BILL to provide reimbursement to certain ment in the Rafu Shimpo intended for Hiroshima and individuals for medical relief for physical injury Nagasaki A-bomb survivors inviting them to a sufferedby them that is directlyattributable to the meeting to organize a hibakusha friendship group.52) explosions of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and The hibakusha friendship group advertisement would Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945 andthe be the prelude to shifts in the dynamics of atomic radioactive fallout from the explosions. (H. R. memory unfolding within Japanese America stimu- 2894) latedby social organizing andsocial movements This bill provides that any California resident who beginning in the 1970s. suffers from atomic radiation as a result of exposure to atomic rays due to any wartime Committee of Atomic Bomb Survivors activity, or who was exposedto radiationon the Japanese American Hibakusha hadspent over job or who was exposedto radiationby being in twenty years in relative seclusion struggling with the the vicinity of a nuclear radiation accident, or who Representing Atomic Memory in the Japanese American Public Sphere Since 1945 205

is the natural childby birth of a parent who was in survivors connectedtheir struggles to the broader the vicinity of an atomic bombing or direct political critiques of the time, “Billions of dollars are vicinity of a nuclear radiation accident, shall be usedto produceweapons like the H -bombs, poison gas eligible for treatment, at no cost, at the institute. andchemical bombs to kill anddestroyhuman beings. (SB 15) The survivors of the A-bomb are requesting a very None of these bills were ever enacted. However, as I small amount to ease their agonies.”57) Still, with no will discuss, social activism in the 1970ʼs and 80ʼs ― rights to medical assistance secured, the hibakusha such as the organizing efforts by CABS andthe Asian were reluctant to become involvedin broader American movement ― succeeded in confronting the anti-nuclear political activities, fearing that it might hegemonic discoursesin society andtransformedthe further hinder their objectives. parameters of atomic memory, discourse and policy across racial andethnic boundaries. This activism Intersections of Asian American Movement and changed the discourse in Japanese American media, atomic memory in the 1970ʼs and 80ʼs which in turn fosteredsupport for the activists. The 25th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Under the headline “Hibakusha no longer Hiroshima andNagasaki in 1970 was commemorated ashamed,” the Rafu Shimpo’s September 4, 1974 issue during the height of the Vietnam War and the rise reportedon the Japanese American Hibakusha and of the Asian American movement (AAm).While their struggle : continuednuclear threats duringthe ColdWar fueled Stigmatized,proudandapprehensive, they kept an international peace movement that frequently their secret hurt to themselves. Only in the last invokedthe horrors of Hiroshima, it also servedas a three years have some of them been willing to backdrop for Asian Americans in the movement to step into the public spotlight andunveil their re-examine race, andfor Japanese American activists secret scars risking disapproval of friends and in particular to examine their historical relationship to employers.56) Hiroshima andNagasaki. In this article, Yukiko Watanabe of San Diego tells Contrary to Paul Boyerʼs argument that the reporters that when neighbors ask about the heavy antinuclear movement faded into apathy in the 1970s, I welts of radiation burns on her neck, she tells them that contendthat nuclear issues continuedto be an they were causedby “a fire in my home years ago.” important catalyst for many activists.58) In particular, Watanabe hadbeen reluctant to tell her story because in the Asian American movement, Hiroshima and of her grandsons, stating, “I donʼt want them to bear Nagasaki became a significant trans-national rallying the shame I was made to feel.”(Ibid.) With this and point for radical Asian American politics. Throughout other reports, the 1970ʼs ended a relative thirty- year the late 1960s andinto the early 80s, within the silence of a Japanese American perspective in the predominantly white middleclass anti-nuclear move- framing of atomic bomb memory by the Nikkei press. ment, groups such as the Asian American Ad-Hoc Although international anti-nuclear movements Committee on Hiroshima andNagasaki, Asian continuedto grow throughout this time, American Americans for Peace, Asian Americans for Action, hibakusha were cautious of being usedfor political Asian Americans for Nuclear Disarmament, Asian purposes by anti-nuclear groups. Notwithstanding, Americans for Nuclear Awareness andothers were testimony such as the one offeredby Kanji Kuramoto, formed. Activists argued that the same racism that president of CABS, before the State Subcommittee enabledreal estate profiteering off of JA internment Hearing : Plight of Atomic Bomb Survivors on May 4, was part andparcel of the nuclear attacks on Japan and 1974 shows that Japanese American atomic bomb the successive U. S. atrocities in Asia against Koreans, 206 Crystal UCHINO

Chinese, andIndochinese. Yuri Kochiyama ― a country today.” Through the publication of these and prominent activist at the forefront of AAm, whose other materials, Gidra accomplishedin several issues political consciousness in many ways was galvanized what the previous 25 years of Japanese American through her experiences supporting the Hiroshima journalism hadfailedto do: ask questions about the maidens―gave annual Hiroshima Day speeches which meaning of the bomb in Asian America, andattempt to condemnedthebombing of Hiroshima andNagasaki. answer them.60) She drew connections from the atomic bombs to Despite much evidence in the records of AAm American domestic racism as well as atrocities being history attesting to the critical engagement with enactedin Vietnam. In her inaugural speech on nuclear politics, this phenomenon has receivedlittle August 9, 1969 during the Hiroshima- Nagasaki week attention. A recent study by Go Oyagi lamented the Rally in Central Park which pavedthe way for an lack of research probing the meaning of Hiroshima and Asian American critical atomic memory, Kochiyama Nagasaki by AAm scholars andoffereda compelling declared, “we Asian-Americans participating in thesis in which he contends that AAm activists todayʼs Hiroshima-Nagasaki observance address our- connectedto atomic bomb memory through a Third selves to the issues involving Asia.”59) Worldinternationalism in orderto make powerful Popularly totedas the voice of the Asian American critiques on U. S. foreign anddomesticpolicy. 61) movement, between 1969 and1974 the Gidra Although ownership andinvocation of a critical atomic documentedandstimulatedtheradicalAsian memory is enunciatedover andover again across the American imaginary, dramatically reshaping the spectrum of AAm, this Asian American Inter- culture of Asian America. The 1970 issue of the Gidra nationalism that hadmadea critical nuclear politics commemoratedthe 25 th anniversary of the Atomic personal, rarely extended its discourse to or made bombings with a full-page picture of the mushroom personal the erasure of Japanese American material cloudabove Hiroshima andreportedon events being ties to Hiroshima. organizedby Asian American movement activists. The critique by Michael Jin of a U. S. -centered Gidra staff, Bruce Iwasaki, as part of his report on the immigrant paradigm, one which confines itʼs analysis 1970 Hiroshima-Nagasaki commemorative weekend of immigrant history within North American political meetings heldin San Francisco, disclosedthatfor him and cultural boundaries, is a useful to understand the it hada personal meaning. He wrote, “a historical irony of the material disconnects in the international- perspective on the bomb provides insights into his ism of AAm.62) When Yuji Ichioka tells his audience (Iwasaki, speaking in thirdperson ) Asian identity, and in 1970 “ . . . of Hiroshima andNagasaki, events to the nature of the tensions between his post-World which were contemporaneous with our camps experi- War II generation andthe generation of his parents. ” ence, I cannot remember anything. I cannot recall This issue also included the complete address given by raising questions about the atomic bomb.”63) And Yuji Ichioka, historian andco -founder of UCLAʼs when Joanne Miyamoto accuses Japanese Americans Center for Asian American Studies, on August 7, of “remembering little”, they are touching on the of the during the Hiroshima-Nagasaki commemorative consequences of this paradigm.64) Consequently, Joy weekendmeetings heldin San Francisco. In his Kogawaʼs 1981 novel, Obasan, artfully illustrates the address, Ichioka called on his audience to raise nuances of a politics at play that kept dormant the questions about the bombing of Hiroshima and material connections to an atomic memory in Japanese Nagasaki alongside questions regarding JA camp (North) America. Throughout the story, the main experiences, instructing that the answers to both of protagonist struggles with the absent memories of her these questions “will tell us something about our mother who disappeared during her childhood. Representing Atomic Memory in the Japanese American Public Sphere Since 1945 207

Towards the end of the book she learns that her mother gains by activists in the 70s considerably influenced actually died as a result of the atomic bombing of discourse and representations of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki, a secret that was kept from her by those who the Japanese American press in the following decades. knew. Engagement in critical nuclear memory by individuals and activists in AAm significantly shifted Representing the Atomic bomb in the 1980s the discourse of remembering the atomic bomb. Coverage of the atomic bombings increasedin the Moreover, although the activism of AAm andCABS is 1980s in both the Hawai’i Hochi andthe Rafu Shimpo. arguably disconnected in the 1970s, it increasingly Significantly, stories spotlightedlocalizedactivism to overlaps in the 1980s. remember the bomb such as the Friends of Hibakusha While AAm engageda critical atomic memory to project that resultedin the declarationof August 5 -9as criticize U. S. foreign policy, Japanese American Hiroshima/Nagasaki Commemoration week andthe hibakusha fought to change domestic policy in the hanging of one thousandpaper cranes in the San U. S. to secure care for hibakusha across a broad Francisco City Hall. One report excavatedthe categorization. In both cases, these groups employed recollections of American born Masayuki Kodama. an ownership of atomic memory to connect to Kodama was two miles away from the epicenter so he, marginalizedpeoples domesticallyandabroad. himself, was not injured, but he searched for weeks to As Naoko Wake adeptly points out, Japanese findthe remains of his deadauntanduncle. “I could American hibakusha succeeded in establishing a hear screams―no, they were more like moans. But I “trans-pacific network of care” that transcended ethnic didnʻt know where they were coming from because andnational boundarieswhen they negotiatedbi -annu- there were so many bodies.”66) This story of Masayuki al medical visits by doctors in Hiroshima specializing Kodama, a California native who had been in in atomic bomb treatment.65) Additionally, the Hiroshima as part of the Japanese military when the Japanese Supreme Court in 1978 extended special bomb was detonated, and later became an interpreter medical treatment for hibakusha (previously only for the occupying U. S. forces, demonstrates just how, accessibly to “Japanese” hibakusha) to atomic bomb fraught negotiating these politics in the public sphere survivors from any foreign country, irrespective of was. their status or citizenship. In the endthey were also In just a few short paragraphs Kodama who starts able to win over the sympathy of many in America. out as an enemy alien is transformedinto a loyal Significantly, the congressional bills initiatedby the citizen through his work assisting the U. S. forces after hibakusha receivedvarious endorsementfrom some of which he is able to reunite with parents andsiblings in the first Japanese andAsian American political California. Kodamaʼs work with the U. S. occupying representatives to gain office, such as Senator Daniel forces in this article demonstrates the endurance of Inouye, Senator Sparks Matsunaga, Congressman Japanese American insecurity on the loyalty question Robert Matsui, Gordon J. Lau, Paul T. Bannai, Floyd with regardto wartime memories. Of note, the Hawai’ Mori, andYori Wada. In November, 1974, the San i Hochi featuredstories by local Japanese American Francisco andFremont Chapters of JACL adopted reporters. For example, Larry Sakamotoʼs feature resolutions to support CABS, andeventually the JACL “Survivor Recalls Horror of A-bomb Drop On establisheda national committee on the issue of Hiroshima” exploredthe story of Marjorie Ayako hibakusha. The organizing efforts of CABS also won Nakata, a resident of Honolulu who survived the over endorsements by prominent organizations such as atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima.67) the NAACP, Service for Asian American Youth and In addition to activism by CABS and AAm in the several chapters of the Hiroshima Kenjinkai. These 1970s, changes in 1980ʼs reporting can be attributedto 208 Crystal UCHINO several factors coming from within the Japanese buildup, nuclear accidents such as Three Mile Island American community, national influences, as well as (1979) andChernobyl (1986) politicizedmany international ones. Internally, it couldbe arguedthat Americans, causing them to question nuclear the secondwave of Japanese American representation policies.70) It also servedas a catalyst for many was a significant stimulus.68) This wave was charac- Japanese Americans to re-examine race andtheir terizedby the redressmovement of the early 1970s and historical relationship to Hiroshima andNagasaki. 80s that officially “broke the silence” surrounding This createda bridgebetween Asian American historical traumas of the internment camps. The movements andanti -nuclear movements. It also partial vindication of Japanese American traumas createda bridgebetween Japanese Americans andtheir endured during the war with the passing of the 1988 forgotten past. Civil Liberties Act undoubtedly shifted the power dynamics in Japanese subjectivity, recovering agency Radiation Survivors Congress and hidden terrains of Japanese American perspectives. One significant moment in the history of U. S. Transnationally, the Hibakusha Travel Grant Pro- hibakusha activism was the Radiation Survivors gram (米人記者の見たのヒロシ・ナガサキ com- Congress heldin October of 1984. Not only was it the monly referredto as the 1979 Akiba Project ) was first time that all four chapters of CABS (US) met begun with the aim to bring American reporters from together, this gathering, co-organizedby Dorothy local newspapers to Hiroshima andNagasaki to speak Legaretta, Nobuaki Hanaoka andJean Quan, also with hibakusha. The goal was to “understand their brought together hibakusha ; atomic vets ; production experiences on a human level” so that they wouldwrite workers ; Nevada Test site victims ; down-winders ; about the experiences of hibakusha andshare their Navajo uranium miners ; andPacific Islanders. From thoughts andfeelings about the bombings. 69) As one locations in the U. S., Japan, Korea andthe Marshall of the first recipients of the travel grant John Spragens Islands individuals came together to share information, of the Corsicana Daily Sun, a Texas paper, contributed resources andexperiences. 71) “The radiation Congress a series of A-bomb stories between August 26 and is the first time survivors have met on a national and September 2, 1979. “Survivors of the atomic international level to develop joint strategies for bombings of Hiroshima andNagasaki face a variety of recognition, health care, andcompensation for radia- obstacles as they try to communicate their memories of tion illnesses,” reportedthe Nichibei Times. the realities of nuclear war andtheir urgent hope that Nikkei hibakusha activist in the U. S. were able to these weapons will never be usedagain, ” wrote transcendethnic boundariesthrough their work. Spragens. The Akiba project lastedfor ten years and Similarly, this gathering, which brought together annually brought several print andbroadcastjournal- hibakusha ; atomic vets ; production workers ; Nevada ists to Hiroshima in August resulting in the production Test site victims ; down-winders ; Navajo uranium of many news stories in the UnitedStates by reporters. miners ; andPacific Islandersfrom the U. S., Japan, Their writings reflecteda “connectedness” to the Korea andthe Marshall Islandsto share information, atomic bomb history through their experiences in resources andexperiences. It succeededinexpanding Japan andinteractions with hibakusha. the social justice framework of participants by Finally, in addition to the failure of the first SALT encompassing a trans-national politic of collective (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) negotiations in liberation. Transcending dominant formulaic dis- 1979 as well as the Reagan administrationʼs Strategic courses that teach Atomic Bomb=SavedLives =End Defense Initiative (SDI) andacceleratednuclear War ; andAtomic Bomb =Peace=Anti-war, this confer- Representing Atomic Memory in the Japanese American Public Sphere Since 1945 209

the U. S.

Latent August-Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki Fifty Years Later

Coverage of the atomic bomb in the 1990ʼs culminatedin 1995 on the 50 th anniversary of the anniversary of the atomic bombs. Articles in 1995 demonstrate the ability of ethnic media to accomplish something that the mainstream press simply couldnot. This is particularly visible in the Rafu Shimpo which ran a special Series called “Now andThen : How WWII has affectedus. ” In contrast to many of the previous years, many of the articles were written by Figure 4 Report on the Radiation Survivors Congress in FOHʼs Japanese Americans. This series also included Paper Crane courtesy of Friends of Hibakusha perspectives by Chinese andKorean American staff who complicatedthe bomb story by bringing into ence centeredthe story of the bomb within a complex frame Japanʻs colonial history, illustrating how Asian web of racial domination, colonialism and citizenship. American relations are raveledin andaffectedby In her book Conquest, Andrea Smith details colonial multifacetedaccounts of the past. aspects of nuclear violence that are often neglected, In 1995, articles depicting Japans story appeared calling attention to the nuclear industryʼs practices of secondary compared to the personal reflections of the testing, dislocation and exploitation of resources and Rafu Shimpo’s editorial staff. In one article entitled labor of bodies.72) During the congress, Diana Ortiz of “Fifty years is long enough” Rafu Staff writer Julie Ha the Indian Health and Radiation Project in New discusses Korean-Japan relations. “Itʼs strange how Mexico saidthat “much of the uranium minedin the U. indelibly linked we are to our interwoven ancestral S. is foundon or near Indianlandwhere native miners histories, how what happened50 years ago, which may have died of cancer or are suffering from radiation not even have affectedsome of us directly,stays with -relatedillnesses. ”73) Other attendees drew attention us through generations.” She wrote, “I never really to the Nevada Test site for which there have been 928 understoodwhymy parents couldspeak some American and19 British nuclear explosions on land Japanese, why my grandmother is fluent in the known to the Western Shoshone as Newe Sogobia. language.”74) Reflecting on her own personal experi- The Western Shoshone National Council has classified ences, Ha recountedhow a Korean -born man once these explosions as bombs not “tests,” leading many questionedher motherʼs approval of her working for indigenous leaders and activists to rightfully call the the Rafu Shimpo. Ha tiedthis story back to the atomic Western Shoshone nation the most heavily bombed bomb : nation in the world. Although the focus of this paper is Some worry that Japan is being paintedas the on Japanese American subjectivity in relation to enemy in the remembrances of the war now, that atomic memory, this gathering is significant because it all this talk about the comfort women andthe war shows how in the 1980s activists recognizedthe atrocities committedby the Japanese in china and intersection of indigenous struggles with those of other Asian nations only give people more hibakusha as part of the racial project of the bomb in justification for the atomic bombings. But, at its 210 Crystal UCHINO

core, this is really about truth anddealingwith version of the past,” 81) is not only right, but in its that truth. Andthe UnitedStates ―andthose in articulation from a Japanese American subject, we see charge of the Enola Gay exhibit couldlearn a how these debates also opened up a space for Japanese lesson or two in the truth department as well.75) Americans to reconsider and revisit their unique The Enola Gay exhibit referencedby Ha was a positionality within the politics of atomic bomb significant time in history when wide public discus- memory. sions critically confronting the memory of the atomic In the end, the original director, Harwit, resigned bomb occurredin America. 76) Curators began plan- andthe resulting presentation skirtedthe atomic issues ning for an Enola Gay exhibit correlating to the 50th that hadstirredsuch powerful andcontroversial anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and feelings in the public.82) Although the wider American Nagasaki at the National Air andSpace Museums in public retreatedfrom confronting the historical gaps in 1988. The aim of the curators was to address four American memory of the bomb, the National Japanese main gaps in history by creating an exhibit which American Historical Society (NJAHS) steppedup to would: 1 ) demonstrate multiple motivations behind the task with their own exhibit, “Latent August : The the bombs use, 2) create sympathy for hibakusha, 3) legacy of Hiroshima andNagasaki. ” Rosalyn Tonai of discuss the implication of the bomb on world history, NJAHS, discussing the exhibit explained, “Americans and4 ) create space for the inclusion of alternatives to tendto view the bomb from the sky as an aerial the bomb in the debate.77) Before this exhibit was target-this beautiful mushroom cloud, Japanese view realized a controversy erupted. On one side of the the bomb from the groundup, its devastationto the debate, veterans argued that the presentation made the people andthe environment. We try to bring the two U. S. look like an aggressor. On the other side viewpoints together.”83) Describing the exhibit, educatorsandactivists arguedthat an analysis of the NJAHS said that in addition to an installation featuring decision to drop the bombs and its consequences were the wartime experiences of Japanese American important new steps towards understanding history. Survivors of the Bomb, the exhibit wouldalso Edward Linenthal, commenting on the Smithsonian highlight Japanese American members of the armed controversy said, “fiftieth anniversaries intensify forces, demonstrating the continued practices of argument over any form of remembrance [because they Japanese American leaders to encode hegemonic are] the last time when you have massive groups of frames of loyalty into war memories. veterans or survivors who are able to put their imprint In addition to reports confronting memories of the on the event.”78) In the debates concerning the Enola bombings andof the war, Rafu contributor Shawn Gay exhibit, all past historical scholarship was called Olsen examined1995 coverage of the atomic bomb in into question, as was the legitimacy of that Nikkei media. His report suggests that the editorial scholarship.79) On one handof the debate,it was stance of the Hawai’i Hochi reflects a reluctance to arguedthat the exhibit sought to explore the full story talk about Hiroshima, noting : “the paper insteadwas of the atomic bomb. Opponents of the exhibit argued commemorating 50 years of peace since 1945.”84) A that none of the curators heldexpert knowledgein the spokesperson for the Hawai’i Hochi statedthat this fields concerning the Pacific War, the Japanese editorial stance was “in part due to the sensitivity of decision to surrender, the Truman administration, etc., the topic.”(Ibid.) Other Nikkei newspapers discussed rendering impossible an accurate portrait of the reflectedsimilar editorialstances, for example the bombings.80) DavidYooʼs critique that the contro- Nichibei Times said that in addition to coverage of the versy exposeda “disturbing political trend against Hiroshima physicians visit, their paper was going to anything that might detract from a patriotically correct “focus on the role of the Japanese Americans in the Representing Atomic Memory in the Japanese American Public Sphere Since 1945 211

UnitedStates Military Intelligence andtheir role in police the boundaries of these memories. Significantly, ending the war in the pacific.”(Ibid.) Japanese Americans have also encoded their own set of Olsonʼs article reveals that despite a much more political messages for appropriation into the dominant dynamicandbroadframing of atomic memory in the narrative. For example the ubiquitous foregrounding 1995 Nikkei press coverage, an inability of Japanese of Japanese American military service in the retelling Americans to come to terms with the meaning of the of atomic bomb stories. bomb persisted, as did the tendency to frame the bomb This study has also demonstrated that memory, like alongside Japanese American loyalty. This was also culture, is not stagnant. There are as many possibil- demonstrated in the Latent August exhibit through ities for decoding memories as there are for reinscrib- emphasizing the memory of Japanese Americans ing them. Rafu Shimpo’s pre-war coverage couldbe military service during WWII. This insistence in interpretedas being conservative in comparison to the attaching Japanese American loyalty constructedin Hochi, however mainlandJapanese American framing this narrow way with atomic bomb memory seems, to of the atomic bomb became more radical over time. In me, to be a misplacedallegiance to the modelminority particular, this occurredduringandfollowing the myth and a code badly in need of negotiation. Asian American andredressmovements. This shift Successes by American born Japanese to assimilate was particularly reflectedin the critical politics and andovercome discriminationwere not just built off of social justice framing in the Rafu Shimpo on the 50th a hardwork ethic, but also includedactsof political anniversary of the atomic bombings. amnesia. Thus, while many haddirectconnections to Since the March, 2011 nuclear power plant the bombing such as family or friendrelations in catastrophe in Japans Fukushima prefecture, new Hiroshima, they simultaneously distanced themselves mnemonic trends are taking root and reshaping the from a postwar politics that wouldlink them to a losing landscape of atomic memory. This study only ancestry. examinedrepresentations of the atomic bombings on August six, nine, andin some cases in the surrounding Conclusion dates leaving ample room for holes in interpretation. As we continue to probe and decode history in the 21st Analysis of Nikkei news coverage over the last century in trans-national ways, further investigations seventy years reveals as much about Japanese America into atomic bomb memory in Japanese America seems in the silences andwhat was not written, as it doesin particularly pertinent. overt print. The vignettes of atomic representation of the anniversary of the Hiroshima andNagasaki Notes bombings printedin two prominent Japanese American 1 ) Throughout this paper I use the terms Nikkei and newspapers, demonstrate how Japanese America has Japanese American interchangeably to refer to publicly navigateda complex politics of memory in Americans of Japanese ancestry. I avoidthe use of relation to influences like censorship, social activism, classifications such as Issei, Nisei, andother distinctions which tend to oversimplify individualsʼ andcontroversy. Japanese Americans have occupieda subjectivity as well as overlook the fact than many in unique position in the production, distribution and the pre-war years possesseddualcitizenship. For a discussion of Japanese American dual citizenship, see consumption of atomic memory. Cherstin Lyon, Prisons and Patriots : Japanese Social activism in the 1970ʼs and80ʼs challenged American Wartime Citizenship, Civil Disobedience, the silence andlack of Japanese American representa- and Historical Memory, (Temple Press, 2011). 2 ) Quotedin Masanori, Higa, “The Sociolinguistic tions of Hiroshima andNagasaki. The persistent Significance of BorrowedWordsin the Japanese global politics of race, however, have continuedto Spoken Language in Hawaii,” Vol. 2 (9)(Working 212 Crystal UCHINO

Papers in Linguistics, 1970), 127. http : //files.eric. Shaw, D. ; Weaver, D, (Mahwah, NJ : Lawrence ed.gov/fulltext/ED054656.pdf. Erlbaum, 1997),3-14. 3 ) Pierre Nora, “ʻBetween Memory andHistory : Les 13) Michel Foucault andRobert Hurley, The History of Lieux de Memoire.,ʼ”, University of California Press Sexuality : An Introduction. (New York : Vintage 26, no. Special Issue : Memory andCounter - Books, 1990), 27. Memory (Spring 1989) : XVII, http : //www.jstor. 14) Kelli Nakamura, “Hawaii Hochi (Newspaper),” org/stable/2928520. Densho Encyclopedia, accessed October 27, 2013. 4 ) Klein, Kerwin Lee, On the Emergence of Memory in http : //encyclopedia. densho. org/Hawaii%20Hochi Historical Discourse. Representations, No. 69, Spe- %(Newspaper)/. cial Issue : Grounds for Remembering (Winter, 15) Tom Brislin, “A Brief Chronicle of the Newspapers 2000), (University of California Press), 126. andNewspeople Who have ShapedMore than 150 5 ) Paul Antze, andLambek Michael, Tense Past : Years of Hawaiiʼs Journalism History” (University Cultural Essays in Trauma and Memory, (Great of Hawaii, n. d.), httt : //www2.hawaii.edu_˜jour/ Britian : Routledge, 1996), vii. ; Kelli Nakamura, history/. accessedOctober 30, 2013. “Hawaii Hochi (Newspaper),” Densho Encyclope- 16) DavidYoo, “ReadAll About It ” : Race Generation, dia. Accessed October 27, 2013, http : //encyclope andthe Japanese American Ethnic Press, 1925 -41” dia.densho.org/Hawaii%20Hochi%20(Newspaper/. Amerasia Journal : 1993, Vol. 19 (1),69-92. 6 ) J. Halberstam, TheQueerArtofFailure(Durham : 17) This observation has not been directly linked to a Duke University Press, 2011), 150. continuation of wartime oppression. 7 ) For an in depth discussion of discursive practices 18) Iris Yokoi, “LITTLE TOKYO : Extra! Extra! Rafu surrounding Hiroshima memory see : Lisa Shimpo is 90,” Los Angeles Times, September 19, Yoneyama, Hiroshima Traces : Time, Space, and the 1993. Dialectics of Memory. (University of California 19) Azuma Eiichiro, “Rafu Shimpo (newspaper),” Press, 1999) ; Yoshikuni Igarashi, Bodies of Memo- Densho Encyclopedia, accessed October 27, 2013, ry : Narratives of War in Postwar Japanese Culture, http : //encyclopedia. densho. org/Rafu%Shimpo% 1945-1970 (Princeton, N. J : Princeton University 20(newspaper)/. Press, 2000). 20) Theresa Watanabe, “L. A. ʼs Little Tokyo Looks to 8 ) Robert Jay Lifton andGreg Mitchell, Hiroshima in Save Struggling Newspaper,” Los Angeles Times, America : A Half Century of Denial (New York : March 10, 2010. Avon Books, 1996). 21) Yokoi, “LITTLE TOKYO : Extra! Extra! Rafu 9 ) Nuclear colonialism has been conceptualizedas a Shimpo is 90” kindof environmental racism in which a dispropor- 22) Eiichiro, “Rafu Shimpo (newspaper).” tionate amount of nuclear weapons testing, mining 23) Chiles Coleman, “NEW TERROR FOR JAPS,” and dumping occurs on indigenous land. See Ward Hawaii Hochi, August 6, 1945. Churchill, Struggle for the Land : Native North 24) Stuart Hall, “Encoding/Decoding,” in Culture, Me- American Resistance to Genocide, Ecocide, and dia, Language Working in Cultural Studies, 1972-79 Colonization (Winnipeg : Arbeiter Ring, 1999).; (London : Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, Andrea Smith, Conquest : Sexual Violence and University of Birmingham, 1980), 117-28. American Indian Genocide (Cambridge, MA : South 25) For a discussion of atomic censorship see : Atsuko EndPress, 2005 ). I am aware of some of the Shigesawa, Genbaku to Ken’ etsu : Amerikajin controversy surrounding Churchill and Smith. To my Kishatachi Ga Mita Hiroshima, Nagasaki. (Tokyo : knowledge the scholarship presented in these two Chuo Koron Shinsha, 2010),i-iv ; Lifton and books has not been calledinto question andpresents a Mitchell, Hiroshima in America, 25. valuable framework on the history andconcept of 26) DavidYoo, Growing up Nisei : Race, Generation, nuclear colonialism. and Culture among Japanese Americans of Califor- 10) Mark Deuze, “Ethnic Media, Community Media and nia, 1924-49, The Asian American Experience Participatory Culture,” Journalism 7, no. 3 (August (Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 2000). 1, 2006) : 262-80. 27) Bruce Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of 11) Yasuhiro Inoue andCarol Rinnert, “Editorial Reflec- Society : Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and tions on Historical/ Diplomatic Relations with Japan Classification (New York : OxfordUniversity Press, andthe U. S. : International Newspaper Coverage of 1989), 171-74. the 60th Anniversary of the Hiroshima Bombing,” 28) Hayashi, Democratizing the Enemy : The Japanese Keio Communication Review 29 (2007), 61. American Internment, 9. 12) Salma Ghanem, “Filling the Tapestry : The Second 29) RonaldT. Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore : level of Angenda Setting” in Communication and A History of Asian Americans, (Boston : Little, Democracy : Exploring the Intellectual Frontiers in Brown, 1998), 391. Agenda-Setting Theory, edited by Mc Combs, M ; 30) Hall, “Encoding/ Decoding.” Representing Atomic Memory in the Japanese American Public Sphere Since 1945 213

31) Lifton andMitchell, Hiroshima in America,8-21. 48) Steve Ryfle, Japan’s Favorite Mon-Star : The Unau- 32) Marita Sturken, “Absent Images of Memory : Re- thorized Biography of “The Big G” (Toronto, Ont., membering andReenacting the Japanese Intern- Canada : ECW Press, 1998),19-60. ment,” Positions : East Asia Cultures Critique 5, no. 3 49) “Remembering Hiroshima,” Hawaii Hochi, August (December 1, 1997), 687-707. ; Caroline Chung 6, 1955. Simpson, An Absent Presence : Japanese Americans 50) Bill Rawlins, “Study on Atomic Harms Continue at in Postwar Culture, 1945-1960. (Durham : Duke Oak Ridge,” Rafu Shimpo, August 6, 1960. University Press, 2001). 51) “7 Hiroshima Students Due,” Hawaii Hochi, August 33) Mary Matsuda Gruenewald, Looking Like the 6, 1966. Enemy : My Story of Imprisonment in Japanese- 52) Rinjiro Sodei, Were We the Enemy? : American American Internment Camps (Troutdale, Ore : New- Survivors of Hiroshima. (Boulder, Colorado : West- Sage Press, 2010), 190. view Press, 1998), 88. 34) Michi Weglyn, Years of Infamy : The Untold Story of 53) Ibid, 92. America’ s Concentration Camps (New York : 54) “Testimony Before State Subcommittee Hearing : Morrow, 1976), 250. Plight of Atomic Bomb Survivors, Los Angeles, May 35) Hayashi, Democratizing the Enemy the Japanese 4, 1974.” University of California, Los Angeles. American Internment, 40. 55) Committee of Atomic Bomb Survivors in the United 36) Mitsue Matsui, Interview with Marvin Uratsu. States of America, “American Atomic Bomb Sur- Seattle, Washington. December 12, 1997, Densho vivors, A Plea for Medical Assistance,” January 1, Digital Collection, accessedDecember 16, 2013. 1978. http : //archive.densho.org. 56) “Hibakusha No Longer Ashamed,” Rafu Shimpo, 37) Kay Matsuda, Interview with Alice Ito. Seattle, September 4, 1974. Washington. December 29 and30, 1999, Densho 57) Kanji Kuramoto, “Testimony before the State Visual History Collection, accessedDecember 16, Subcommittee Hearing : Plight of Atomic Bomb 2013. http : //archive.densho.org. Survivors,” May 4, 1974, Friends of Hibakusha, UC 38) “Japanese Aggression Ends,” Hawaii Hochi, Septem- Berkeley Oral History Center. ber 1, 1945. 58) Paul Boyer, “From Activism to Apathy : The Ameri- 39) Yoo, Growing up Nisei,75-76. can People andNuclear Weapons, 1963 -1980,” The 40) Shigeo Uchino, JA Living Legacy Collection, 2006, Journal of American History 70, no. 4 (March Center for Oral andPublic History, California State, 1984) : 821-44. Fullerton. 59) Yuri Kochiyama, “Speech,” Published in Asian 41) DavidYoo, “Captivating Memories : Museology, Americans For Action Newsletter, October 1969, Concentration Camps, andJapanese American His- NYU Kishi collection. tory” (American Quarterly, 1996), 680-99. 60) Gidra, vol. II, 7 (Los Angeles, Calif : Gidra, 1970), 42) The 442 was a segregatedcombat unit composed courtesy of Gidra Collection ; Selected article titles : almost entirely of Japanese Americans during WWII. “Chicago” (Warren Furutani, p. 5), “Hiroshima, The 442 is considered to be the most heavily Nagasaki, Twenty-Five Years Ago” (Yuji Ichioka, decorated infantry regiment in history. Most notably p. 6-7), “Peoples Page : Hiroshima-Nagasaki Re- rememberedfor their role in the Rescue of the Lost visited” (Joanne Miyamoto andFoo Gwah, p. 8 -9). Battalion in Germany, in which the 442nd suffered 61) Go Oyagi, “Over the Pacific : Post-WorldWar II casualties several times the number of the men they Asian American Internationalism” (Doctoral Disser- had rescued. 200 soldiers were killed in action and tation, University of Southern California, 2013). over 800 seriously wounded. 62) Michael Jin, “BeyondTwo Homelands: Migration 43) “Advertisement,” Hawaii Hochi, August 9, 1946. andTransnationalism of Japanese Americans in the This translation is my own. Pacific, 1930-1955” (Doctoral Dissertation, 2013), 44) Browne, Steven Howard, “On the Borders of 4. Memory.” in Public Memory, Race, and Ethnicity. 63) Yuji Ichioka, “Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Twenty-Five Edited by G. Mitchell Reyes. (Newcastle, UK : Years Ago Speech” (Gidra, August 1970), Courtesy Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), 18. of Gidra Collection. 45) Reyes. 64) Joanne Miyamoto, “Peoples Page : Hiroshima- 46) Lifton andMitchell, Hiroshima in America, 266 ; Nagasaki” (Gidra, August 1970), Courtesy of Gidra Elena Tajima Creef, Imaging Japanese America : The Collection. Visual Construction of Citizenship, Nation, and the 65) Wake, “Gender and Science in Hiroshimaʼs After- Body. (New York : New York University Press, math : A Cross-Cultural Approach.” 178-86. 2004),6-7. 66) “Nikkei Recall Hiroshima Holocaust,” Rafu Shimpo, 47) Judith Butler, Undoing Gender (New York ; Lon- August 6, 1980. don : Routledge, 2004),8. 67) Larry Sakamoto, “Survivor Recalls Horror of A- 214 Crystal UCHINO

Bomb Drop on Hiroshima,” Hawaii Hochi, August 5, Memories of the Enola Gay : Strategies of Remem- 1985. brance at the National Air andSpace Museum, ” 68) For more on the secondwave see Creef, Imaging Rhetoric & Public Affairs 1, no. 3 (1998), 363-85. Japanese America, 93. 77) Ibid. 69) 広島国際文化財団 (Hiroshima International Cul- 78) Lifton andMitchell, Hiroshima in America, 276. tural Foundation)米人記者の見たのヒロシマ…ナ 79) Most of this discussion revisited questions and ガサキ (Hiroshima andNagasaki Through the Eyes arguments centeredon the bombs necessity, and of the American Reporters) 1979 Akiba Project”(被 whether or not it savedlives. It is not within the 爆者資料館図書室，1979． scope of this thesis to discuss these arguments, 70) Herbert P. Kitschelt, “Political Opportunity Struc- however it is worth noting that many of the arguments tures andPolitical Protest : Anti -Nuclear Movements brought into consideration previously classified in Four Democracies,” British Journal of Political documents that had only recently become available. Science 16, no. 01 (January 27, 2009), 57. 80) Robert P. Newman, Causerie at NASM : Must We 71) Radiation Survivors Congress, “Radiation Survivors Deconstruct the Enola Gay Narratives Forever? Congress : Resolutions, Summary, Resources. Oc- Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Volume3, Number 2, tober 12-14, 1984,” n. d. ; “Friends of Hibakusha Summer 2000, (Michigan State University Press), Letter to Supporters,” September 1984, University of 277-283. California, Los Angeles. 81) Yoo, “Captivating Memories : Museology, Concent- 72) Smith, Conquest. ration Camps, andJapanese American History. ” 73) Gina Hotta, “Radiation Survivors Congress” The 82) “Atomic Memories of the Enola Gay : Strategies of Paper Crane, A Publication of Friends Of Hibakusha, Remembrance at the National Air andSpace A Support Organization for Japanese American Museum.” Survivors of the Atomic Bomb Volume 2, Number 1. 83) Annie Nakao, “Exhibit Offers Complete Picture of (1985),1. Japan Bombing,” San Francisco Examiner, July 21, 74) Julie Ha, “Fifty Years Is Long Enough,” Rafu 1995. Shimpo. August 6, 1995 84) Shawn Olsen, “Nikkei Press Puts Its Own Spin on 75) Ibid. A-Bombings,” Rafu Shimpo, August 6, 1995. 76) Bryan HubbardandMarouf A. Hasian Jr., “Atomic Representing Atomic Memory in the Japanese American Public Sphere Since 1945 215

1945 年以降の日系アメリカ人の原爆に関する公的記憶

内野クリスタル

京都大学大学院人間・環境学研究科共生文明学専攻〒 606-8501 京都市左京区吉田二本松町

要旨戦後 70 年の間，日系アメリカ人は原爆との複雑な歴史的関係に時には公然と時には間接的な形で向き合い，社会の変化し続ける政治潮流をくぐり抜けてきた．1945 年以降の日系アメリカ人の新聞における原爆の日に関する記事の分析を通じて，本論文は日系アメリカ人の原爆の記憶についての表象と抑制を分析する．また，まだ十分な研究がなされていない原爆に関する記憶の領域に焦点を当てることによって，本研究は，日系アメリカ人の主体性と歴史をアメリカ社会からの抑圧と政治的アクティビズムとの関わりから解釈する新たな枠組みを提供する．