University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2013 Japan's Asia-Pacific Migrations and the Making of the Japanese Empire, 1868-1945 Sidney Xu Lu University of Pennsylvania,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Asian American Studies Commons, and the Asian History Commons Recommended Citation Lu, Sidney Xu, "Japan's Asia-Pacific Migrations and the Making of the Japanese Empire, 1868-1945" (2013). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 892. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/892 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/892 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Japan's Asia-Pacific Migrations and the Making of the Japanese Empire, 1868-1945 Abstract This dissertation argues that the Japanese modern nation was formed not only from the inside but also from the outside, through nationalizing Japanese emigrants around the Pacific Rim. The study examines critical roles of Japanese overseas emigrants in shaping the ideologies and social movements in the Japanese empire. It discusses how the efforts made by Japanese thinkers and social educators in nationalizing these dispersed and marginal subjects were crucial to the creation of Japanese modernity. This study defines Japanese imperialism as diasporic" " in three dimensions. First, it illustrates the close and dynamic connections Japanese migration to the empire's Asian colonies and to other parts of the world. In particular, it highlights the important yet unexpected ways in which Japanese American migration influenced and transformed Japan's colonial expansion in Asia. Second, the study examines how the Japanese diasporic communities on both sides of the Pacific shaped the Japanese nation and empire at home.