The Traditional and the Modern : the History of Japanese Food Culture in Oregon and How It Did and Did Not Integrate with American Food Culture
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Portland State University PDXScholar Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses 2009 The traditional and the modern : the history of Japanese food culture in Oregon and how it did and did not integrate with American food culture David P. Conklin Portland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds Part of the Food Studies Commons, History Commons, and the Japanese Studies Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Conklin, David P., "The traditional and the modern : the history of Japanese food culture in Oregon and how it did and did not integrate with American food culture" (2009). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 3786. https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.5670 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. THESIS APPROVAL The abstract and thesis of David P. Conklin for the Master of Arts in History were presented April 30, 2009, and accepted by the thesis committee and the department. COMMITTEE APPROVALS: Kenneth Ruoff, Chair ThomasM L Laurence R · K ommz. / DEPARTMENT APPROVAL: Thomas M. Luckett, Chair Department of History ABSTRACT An abstract of the thesis of David P. Conklin for the Master of Arts in History presented April 30, 2009. Title: The Traditional and the Modern: The History of Japanese Food Culture in Oregon and How it Did and Did Not Integrate with American Food Culture. The study of food and foodways is a field that has until quite recently mostly been neglected as a field of history despite the importance that food plays in culture and as a necessity for life. The study of immigrant foodways and the mixing of and hybridization of foods and foodways that result has been studied even less, although one person has done extensive research on Western influences on the foodways of Japan since 1853. This paper is an attempt to study the how and in what forms the foodways of America-and in particular of Oregon-changed with the arrival of Japanese immigrants beginning in the late-nineteenth century, and how the foodways of the first generation immigrant Japanese-the Issei-did and did not change after their arrival. In a broad sense, this is a study of globalization during an era when globalization was still a slow and uneven process and there were still significant differences between the foodways of America and Japan. \ I THE TRADITIONAL AND THE MODERN: THE HISTORY OF JAPANESE FOOD CULTURE IN OREGON AND HOW IT DID AND DID NOT INTEGRATE WITH AMERICAN FOOD CULTURE by DAVID P. CONKLIN ,\ A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS m HISTORY Portland State University 2009 i Acknowledgements Among the many people that need to be mentioned for their assistance and inspiration in creating this work there are two that should be mentioned first; my advisor and the person who not only suggested the topic for this research and encouraged me throughout but also got me interested in Japanese history, Dr. Ken Ruoff, and my wife, Fumiko Yano-Conklin, who has helped and supported me in ways too many to mention and has been patient with me throughout. She has also helped give me a first-hand knowledge of Japanese food that has hopefully given me insights into the subject matter that have made for a much better paper. Thanks must also be given to the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center for their help, especially in making their records readily available to me; to the people at the Oregon Historical Society Library; to Atsuko Richards for her help in reading old Japanese documents; and to the local Nikkei community, especially Homer Yasui, for their information and assistance. Special thanks must also be given to the Yasui family for the preservation of records and artifacts from the Yasui Brothers' Store of Hood River. Thanks also to people such as Alice Sumida, Yoji Matsushima, and, in Japan, Dr. Nobuo Harada for taking time to sit down with me and tell me their stories and answer my questions; To Professors Larry Kominz, Tom Luckett, and Linda Walton; to Molly Blalock-Koral and the other librarians at P.S.U; and to my friends and family for giving me places to stay when I visit Portland. Thanks also for friends in Japan that have helped, including Shimamoto Shuji, his wife Mito, and Sen So-oku. Thanks with apologies should also be given to everyone whose help and information I was not able to include due to a lack of space, in particular Eileen Ota. 11 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ............................................................................... .i. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1. CHAPTER I: Differences between the food ................................................... 8. Food in Japan ............................................................................ 19. The Arrival of Perry .................................................................... 22. Dekasegi Laborers and Why People Left Japan .................................... 25. Food on Board Ships and in Detention ................................................ 32. CHAPTER II: Early Issei in America .......................................................... 38. Canned Goods ..........................................................................55. Rice ....................................................................................... 66. CHAPTER III: The Second era of the Issei .................................................... 74. Changing Foodways ...................................................................76. Forces for and Against Integration ................................................... 94. Restaurants ............................................................................. 101. Sukiyaki .................................................................................. 109. CHAPTER IV: Beverages ..................................................................... 114. Tea ....................................................................................... 114. Issei, Tea, and Coffee .................................................................. 129. Alcohol/Sake ........................................................................... 134. CHAPTER V: Anti-Japanese Laws and Food ............................................... 148. CONCLUSION ................................................................................. 154. WORKS CITED ................................................................................. 162. 1 INTRODUCTION Today most people who live in the Pacific Coast states of the United States, including Oregon, are probably aware that a wide variety of Japanese foods are available. Items such as shiitake mushrooms, sake, bent6, tofu, soy milk, teriyaki, and sushi should in many, if not most instances, be familiar to people, even if they had never tasted them. Few people, however, probably realize how these foods, and many others from Japan, came to be in America. Nor do people likely realize that most of these foods have been available in much of Oregon since the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, ever since the first Japanese people arrived. While the subject matter of this paper is primarily the history of Japanese food in Oregon, it is also about the globalization of the food and foodways, how the foods and people of Japan and the United States interacted and were received when these two cultures intersected in North America. Although people have written about food for over two thousand years, it has not been until relatively recently that the role of food in development and culture has become a field of historical study. Food is important in forming cultural and social relationships and has a great influence on a wide variety of historical forces including, in particular, the shaping and marking of cultural identities. Although food consumption is indispensible, the specific foods consumed are the choice of individuals with tastes and preferences that are shaped by a variety of forces and also made possible by global economic forces. The study of Japanese food in America presents some opportunities not available with other immigrant food cultures. Unlike the foodways of most other cultures, Japanese food was introduced to America quite suddenly, making it much 2 easier to observe patterns of diffusion and hybridization than with food cultures that were integrated incrementally over long periods of time. Japanese food and food culture is also very different from "American" and Western food in general, the differences much greater than between any other major food cultures. 1 These differences often extend not just to how people view the food but also to how people perceive the culture associated with it. When the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss developed his "culinary triangle" to explain the relationship between food and civilized culture he failed to consider that raw foods such as those found in Japanese cuisine could be the product of a highly civilized culture, a mistake likely born out of basic ethno-centrism. 2 The study of American immigrant food culture is an aspect of globalization that is only just now beginning. In the case of early Japanese immigrants it has not been done until now. Only one person, Katrarzyna Cwiertka, might be considered