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Josephine Baker: a Chanteuse and a Fighter

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Josephine Baker: a Chanteuse and a Fighter UC Santa Barbara Journal of Transnational American Studies Title Josephine Baker: A Chanteuse and a Fighter Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4jq1f16w Journal Journal of Transnational American Studies, 2(1) Author Ara, Konomi Publication Date 2010-03-30 DOI 10.5070/T821006983 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Josephine Baker: A Chanteuse and a Fighter KONOMI ARA Introduction: The Adoption of an Occupation Baby Over half a century ago, in 1954, an African‐American known as ‘The Amber Queen’ visited Japan. She was Josephine Baker (1906–1975), the dancer and singer who had leaped to fame in Paris in the 1920s. The newspaper Asahi Shinbun described the feverish welcome she received on her first visit to the country: “The amber‐skinned singer Josephine Baker arrived from Paris on an Air France flight into Tokyo Haneda Airport at 9.40pm on the 13th. She has come to give fundraising performances for the abandoned mixed‐race children of the Elizabeth Sanders Home in Oiso in Kanagawa Prefecture. The airport was thronged with many fans, including young women and black American soldiers, who had flocked in spite of the fine rain. Dressed in a black suit and a blue overcoat, Mrs Baker was greeted in the lobby by the director of the Sanders Home, Mrs Miki Sawada, the First Secretary of the French Embassy Monsieur Travis and the Daiei Studio actress Noboru Kiritachi among others. When two children from the Sanders Home, seven‐year‐olds Toshikazu Sato and Misao Kageyama, presented her with a bouquet, she gave the half‐black boy and girl affectionate kisses on the cheeks. When she greeted all who had gathered, her voice was unexpectedly youthful for a 47 year old: ‘This is my first visit to Japan. Nothing could make me happier.’ She then headed for the Imperial Hotel with her pianist Milos Bartek and two others.” (14th April 1954) As the article states, the purpose of Josephine’s visit to Japan was to give charity performances in support of abandoned mixed‐race children. She had been invited by her friend Miki Sawada, the director of the Sanders Home, who was caring for the children known as ‘Occupation Babies’. The proceeds from Josephine’s performances around Japan would fund the construction of a boys’ dormitory at the Elizabeth Sanders Home, Baker Hall, and it still stands today although its use has changed. Josephine’s name and her words are carved at the bottom of a pillar on one of the corners of the building. However, Josephine had a more important personal reason for her visit: she was going to adopt a child from the Home. Indeed, upon her arrival at the airport she asked Miki: “Where is my child?” and she was keen to meet the boy whom it was already agreed she would adopt. So Miki changed their plan, which was for Josephine to meet the child, Akio Yamamoto, three days later at the Elizabeth Sanders Home in Oiso, and instead took him to the Imperial Hotel the very next day. In the evening edition of Asahi Shinbun on the 14th, there is a photograph of a smiling Josephine holding Akio alongside an article headlined: “The First Meeting with Little Akio”. Josephine subsequently visited the Elizabeth Sanders Home and adopted one more boy on the spur of the moment. Thus, the first two of Josephine’s 12 adopted children from different parts of the world and different cultural, religious and racial backgrounds, who would become known as The Rainbow Tribe, were from Japan. The youngsters would spend their childhoods at Josephine’s chateau, Les Milandes, in the Dordogne region of southwest France. ****** Miki Sawada and Josephine Baker The Princess from Big Business and the Black Girl from the Slums At the Elizabeth Sanders Home in Oiso, The long dark tunnel is still there. It is a strange frontier territory between the Home and the outside world. At one time, some mothers just abandoned their babies at the entrance of this tunnel. Others told their children: “Walk to the other end of the tunnel, a nice lady will be there,” as they let go of their infant’s hand. Those mothers then hurried away. The abandoned children had a skin tone that was either a little darker or a little lighter than that of ordinary Japanese children. This happened in countless cases around the 1950s, at the tunnel that was the entrance to the Elizabeth Sanders Home in Oiso. This home for infants was founded in February 1948. The institution, which became well known as a home for mixed‐race children, was a major project started by Miki Sawada. This eldest daughter of the Iwasaki family of the former Mitsubishi conglomerate, who had a privileged upbringing and who married the diplomat Renzo Sawada to become Miki Sawada, was moved by the problem of mixed‐race children in the wake of the War and decided to provide for such abandoned youngsters herself. At its inception, Miki could not have imagined that the Home would turn into such a large‐scale project with such longevity; but well over 1000 children subsequently arrived at and left this nest. Even today, the Home, a little altered, at any one time is home to almost 100 children whose birth parents have not been able to take care of them. Although the Home is no longer caring for ‘Occupation Babies’, the humanitarian spirit that forms the basis of its nurturing philosophy has not changed. One of the most powerful connections Miki formed was with the internationally famous African American performer Josephine Baker. Baker, who visited Japan for the first time in 1954, adopted two boys, Akio Yamamoto and Teruya Kimura, from among the mixed‐race children known as ‘Occupation Babies’. The friendship between Miki Sawada and Josephine Baker dates back to the 1930s, when the two first met in Paris. It continued throughout their lives, until Josephine’s sudden death in 1975. There were no common elements between the social circumstances of Miki, who grew up like a princess in the Iwasaki mansion, and those of Josephine, who was born in the slums of St Louis, a large city in Missouri; who became a dancer in her early teens without having received sufficient education; and whose journey to success started with barnstorming. Nevertheless, what each woman recognised in the other was a common instinctive sentiment that transcended their races, religions and social positions, as well as the geographical distance between them. They possessed an intrinsic strength that easily overcame, dissolved and rendered insignificant the social conditions and mutually alien cultural circumstances that separated them. The special nature that they shared in common was what led them to tackle, and to make great strides in, social projects that were beyond the abilities of ordinary people. The social work that Miki and Josephine undertook was the difficult task of bringing up abandoned children. Miki cared for the abandoned mixed‐race children of American soldiers and Japanese women in a postwar Japan that was impoverished and under occupation. Josephine, on the other hand, having experienced the deep‐ rooted racism of her native St Louis and the United States in general, dreamed of a society without racism and determined to adopt children of various origins and raise them together from a very young age. She believed that the children’s early environment and education would create a new kind of human being, as it were, who would not be conscious of racism or skin color. Wishing that one day the world would be without discrimination, Josephine dubbed her chateau in the Dordogne in southwest France “the Capital of the World”, and there she started to build a new ‘family of humanity’, made up of the 12 children she adopted from various countries. This new family was called The Rainbow Tribe. Miki and Josephine had different objectives in their plans and different means of achieving them. The fact that they nevertheless trusted each other and supported one another when they hit difficulties was based on the fact that, even if their methods were different, they shared common ground on a fundamental level in terms of their ideals and how they chose to live their lives. The Meeting in Paris Miki Sawada first met Josephine Baker in Paris. Miki had moved to the city in 1932 with her husband Renzo, who was posted as a counsellor of the Japanese embassy. According to the book This is Your Mother by Sumi Kozakai (1988), Miki and Josephine met at a party at the home of a Russian émigré. In his essay “The Amber Dancer,” Renzo Sawada describes in detail how the two women went on to become good friends.1 According to this essay the Sawadas were often invited to stay at Josephine’s residence in Le Vésinet near Paris where they spent weekends of luxury. It was in this period that Josephine’s popularity continued to rise, even as that of the chanson singer and dancer Mistinguette (1875‐1956), who had been overwhelmingly popular until Josephine’s arrival, faded. Renzo Sawada’s essay refers with admiration to Josephine’s progress from dancer to a singer, revealing her “outstanding skills” by starring in the Offenbach operetta ‘La Créole’ in 1934. We learn too that “the eagerness with which she studied French was extremely touching and she showed extraordinary progress.” Sawada also mentions how Josephine would fill an open‐ top car with “a few hundred small baskets” containing sweets, fruit and toys, and visit the local orphanage on a regular basis. When Miki heard about Josephine’s visits, she asked if she could accompany her.
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