Working for Equality: Activism and Advocacy by Blind

WORKING FOR EQUALITY: ACTIVISM AND ADVOCACY BY BLIND INTELLECTUALS IN JAPAN, 1912-1995 By Chikako Mochizuki Submitted to the graduate degree program in History and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________ Chairperson Eric C. Rath ________________________________ Co-Chair William M. Tsutsui ________________________________ J. Megan Greene ________________________________ Michael Baskett ________________________________ Jean Ann Summers Date Defended: September 4, 2013 ii The Dissertation Committee for Chikako Mochizuki certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: WORKING FOR EQUALITY: ACTIVISM AND ADVOCACY BY BLIND INTELLECTUALS IN JAPAN, 1912-1995 ________________________________ Chairperson Eric C. Rath ________________________________ Co-Chair William M. Tsutsui Date approved: September 4, 2013 iii Abstract This dissertation examines advocacy by blind activists as the primary catalysts in fighting for equal access to education and employment for blind people in Japan from 1912-1995. Highlighting profiles of prominent blind activists, the chapters describe how they used successful Western models of education and legal rights for the blind to fight for reforms in Japan. Chapter 1 explains how the influence of Christianity and the invention of Japanese braille by Ishikawa Kuraji led blind activists to examine and adapt these western models to Japan. Chapter 2 describes Iwahashi Takeo’s advocacy for greater access to education and employment and the founding of the Nippon Lighthouse Welfare Center for the Blind in 1922. He invited Helen Keller to Japan in 1937 to help promote the importance to society of active participation by blind people. The third chapter examines the career of Honma Kazuo who founded the National Library for the Blind in 1940. Losing his eyesight in childhood, he experienced first-hand the scarcity of books in braille, which drove him to establish a library for blind people with broader offerings. The fourth chapter depicts government attempts in 1950 to improve welfare services for blind people by enacting welfare laws for the disabled. Although these laws guaranteed in principle all legal rights of people with disabilities, , accessing higher education and equal employment opportunities remained challenging hurdles. Chapter 5 focuses on Matsui Shinjiro, a blind war veteran. The advocacy work of Matsui and supporters in the mid-1980s resulted in opening all governmental employment exams to blind people. Blind activists continue working for equal access to education and employment in Japan, and this dissertation emphasizes the essential role played by blind advocates in leading these reforms. iv Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Eric Rath, Dr. William Tsutsui, Dr. J. Greene for guidance and support for me throughout my research and writing work to complete my manuscript. I also would like to thank Ms. Iwahashi Akiko, Ms. Hayase Makiko, Nippon Lighthouse Welfare Center for the Blind in Osaka, Japan National Braille for the Blind, Japan Vocational Development Center for the Blind for providing abundance of resources I needed for my research. Finally I would like to thank my parents and all of my friends who generously provided emotional support throughout my graduate years at the University of Kansas. v Table of Contents: Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Social Change and Blind People: Break-up of Tōdōza and the Beginning of Advocacy for the Education of Blind People, 1600-1912 14 Chapter 2: Self Advocacy to Group Advocacy, 1912-1937: The Leadership of Iwahashi and the Lighthouse Welfare Center for the Blind 47 Chapter 3: Honma Kazuo and the Japan Library for the Blind 78 Chapter 4: Welfare Laws for Disabled and Blind People in Japan, 1950-1995 113 Chapter 5: Matsui Shinjiro: Working toward Equal Access to Education and Employment 147 Conclusion 179 Bibliography 188 1 Introduction A history of blind people in Japan from 1912 to 1995 is a history of self-advocacy. My dissertation paints the positive picture of advocacy that was carried out primarily by blind people themselves. Simultaneously, blind activists worked with others to strengthen their advocacy network. Struggling to rebuild their lives after the Meiji Restoration and the abolishment of the guild system, blind people were forced to face their challenges to improve their situation for the benefit of themselves and the younger generation of blind people. The direction Japan as a nation took to learn from the advancements of Western countries in order to bring the country into the modern age also worked in favor of blind people. The Japanese elite, influenced by the West, realized that one important part of bringing the country up to the level of other powerful Western countries would be to pay serious attention to the welfare of people with disabilities. To educate blind people according to the standard set by the government meant establishing schools for people with disabilities. The education system implemented during the Tokugawa period through the todoza was not operative after the breakup of the guild system in 1868. Literacy was also an essential part of education, and this essential goal led to the invention of Japanese braille in 1890 modeled after the braille alphabet invented in France in 1837. The first school for the blind was founded in Kyoto and Tokyo 10 to 13 years after the abolishment of the guilds, and the invention of Japanese braille occurred 22 years after the Meiji Restoration. These first steps in modernizing the education of blind people was taken at a fairly fast pace. Partially this happened because of the impact of imported Western influences that Japan was being exposed to and partially because of sudden changes blind people faced with the breakup of the paternalistic guild system. Both influences pushed them to take action to improve 2 their situation. As they took these first steps successfully, blind people desired further advancement and began to look to the West to learn about development of welfare system and services existed in western countries to strengthen what they already had such as occupation of acupuncture and massage therapy. A combination of new learning and the old knowledge and skills of Moxibustion, acupuncture, massage therapy, storytelling, and music performance helped shape and motivate blind people to self-advocate for their welfare. Blind advocates chose to work with well-known social reformers such as Helen Keller to appeal to society about the necessity of improving welfare services for people with disabilities instead of remaining in their exclusive social circle that stood apart from the whole of Japanese society. Instead of rebuilding an old guild-like social network for blind people, these activist leaders decided to find ways for blind people to become active participants in mainstream society. They became the catalysts for the growth of self-advocacy, and they got others involved in their projects to broaden the influence of their ideas and accomplishments. They were not afraid to use what they learned from outside Japan to advance welfare services for people with visual disabilities. A number of scholarly works have been published about the plight of blind people in Japan, but none have addressed the pivotal role played by Japanese blind people themselves in taking the initiative and leading the fight to gain their equal rights to society’s benefits and the chance to contribute as full members of that society. The process by which welfare services for people with visual disabilities advanced have been discussed in biographies of well-known blind social reformers such as Iwahashi Takeo, Honma Kazuo, and Matsui Shinjiro. However, there has not been a major historical work published that discusses the history in particular of activism and advocacy for blind people in Japan. Taniai Susumu, an independent scholar and an advocate for the blind (whose work the writer of this manuscript uses as a reference throughout) is the 3 author of a significant work published in 1979 entitled The History of the Blind (Mojin no rekishi) which gives a historical survey of activism and advocacy work by blind people in Japan from the Meiji period of 1868 through the early 1970s. Although this work describes the struggles that blind people overcame in their fight for equality and a fully active role in society, it does not address why such advocacy work was needed and why it was necessary for blind people to take up the fight themselves. Kato Yasuaki, who is a scholar of anthropology and social Education studies received doctoral degree in education from Tōkyō University of Education (Tōkyō Kyōiku Daigaku) examined the social history of blind people in pre-modern Japan. His work, Study of the Social History of Japanese Blind People (Nihon mojin shakaishi kenkyu), focuses on the social status of blind people in the guild system during the Tokugawa period (1600-1868). His study describes how blind people were directly involved in the development and prosperity of their guild, known as tōdōza. They created a supportive network and welfare system within the tōdōza to aid those members who lacked sufficient financial and material resources. They also used patronage that they received from high-ranking samurai for their advantage to advance their occupations or to increase the overall prosperity of the guild. He illustrates the interaction

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