Remaking the American Family: Asian Americans on Broadway during the Cold War Era

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Seunghyun Hwang, M.A.

Graduate Program in Theatre

The Ohio State University

2014

Thesis Committee:

Lesley Ferris, Advisor

Beth Kattelman

Jennifer Schlueter

Copyright by

Seunghyun Hwang

2014

Abstract

"Remaking the American Family: Asian Americans on Broadway during the

Cold War Era" adds to the extant literature of theatre history by showing how an examination of Broadway productions can serve as a portal to understanding the historical emergence of Asians in their journey to become full American citizens.

Based on three criteria: financial success, artistic success, and Asian content, I chose the following: South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951), The Teahouse of the

August Moon (1953), Flower Drum Song (1958), and A Majority of One (1959).

Through closely reading these Cold War Broadway productions, I discuss the ways in which the productions suggest a revision of the way the Asian family was co-opted into American family ideology after World War II. I investigate how concepts of ethnic groups, gender, education and American democracy are reinforced, revised, reshaped, and articulated by what I define as a Cold War "traditional family" structure and travel literature. I analyze aspects of the transforming family structure in three central chapters. In Chapter 2, "The American Family Portrait: Asians Move into the

Frame," I delineate a new definition of "American" that includes Asians as evidenced in the staging of these mainstream Broadway productions. In Chapter 3, "Interracial

Romances and Parental Responsibilities," the productions demonstrate Asians as responsible men and women who have the ability and desire to become good

American parents and citizens. Chapter 4, "Educating the Children," focuses on characters learning English intertwined with the tenets of American democracy. Such

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education was crucial to Asians to justify the possibility of their process of

Americanization. The concluding chapters summarizes my analysis and suggests future research possibilities.

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Dedication

Dedicated to my wife, father and mother, and parents-in-law

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Acknowledgments

A number of people have been instrumental to the completion of this dissertation. My deepest gratitude goes to Dr. Lesley Ferris who has tolerated my incalculable number of questions and has turned the darkness into bright light. She has helped me develop a deep interest in the research process and attentively mentored me. I deeply appreciate her for her helpful and productive feedback and enrichment of my understanding of this body of literature. I would like to thank Dr.

Beth Kattelman for her flexibility, perceptive comments, and ongoing efforts to help me be a better writer. Her creative productions inspired me in various ways. I offer thanks to her for providing me with access to special collections, particularly the

Leonard Spigelgass Collection at Lawrence and Lee Theatre Research Institute, The

Ohio State University. I am grateful to Dr. Jennifer Schlueter for providing me with a

model of scholarly research infused with insightful analysis. She enriched my

thinking about popular culture and generously shared her vast knowledge of the

history of American popular culture and critical concepts on theatre and culture.

I wish to thank my beloved wife, Youjoung Lee, for her sincere support and

thoughtful advice. I would like to express my undying gratitude to my father,

Soonhwan Hwang, for his love and support in all the most important ways during my

long and rocky transition to adulthood, and to my mother, Myungsook Lim, for

providing me a model of what a reliable person should be like. Also, I wish to thank

my parents-in-law, Byungmoo Lee and Sookhee Choi, for their commitment and love.

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Finally, I want to thank my dear friend, Rose Stough, who remained encouraging and full of productive and wise suggestions. I am deeply grateful to her who has always been a trusted mentor and friend.

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Vita

December 10, 1976...... Born in Seongnam, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea

2001...... B.A., English, Yonsei University, South Korea

2006...... M.A., English, Sunkyunkwan University, South Korea

2009...... M.A., Theatre, The Ohio State University

2009─Present...... Graduate Student, Department of Theatre,

The Ohio State University

Fields of Study

Major Field: Theatre

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Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii

Dedication ...... iv

Acknowledgments...... v

Vita ...... vii

List of Tables ...... ix

List of Figures ...... x

Chapter 1 Introduction ...... 1

Chapter 2 The American Family Portrait in Transition: Asians Move Into the Frame 32

Chapter 3 Interracial Romances and Parental Responsibilities ...... 62

Chapter 4 Educating the Children ...... 106

Chapter 5 In Hindsight: Concluding Thoughts ...... 138

Bibliography ...... 150

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Governmental Actions ...... 11

Table 1.2 Evidence of Financial Success and Artistic Success ...... 24

Table 1.3 Asian Characters and Content in Productions ...... 25

Table 3.1 Gender Roles in The Family Structure in TV Shows ...... 63

Table 3.2 Gender Roles in the Family Structure in Broadway Productions ...... 64

Table 3.3 Philadelphia Population, 1930-1950 ...... 73

Table 4.1 Child Characters in the Family Structure in TV Shows ...... 110

Table 4.2 Child Characters in the Family Structure Broadway Productions ...... 111

Table 4.3 Adults Who Are Childlike in the Broadway Productions ...... 125

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List of Figures

Figure 3.1 The Five Productions and Legal Congressional Acts...... 69

Figure 4.1 Norman Rockwell, "Going and Coming" ...... 117

Figure 4.2 School Begins ...... 124

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Chapter 1

Introduction

Stereotypes Revived

Asian Americans are the highest-income, best-educated and fastest- growing racial group in the United States. They are more satisfied than the general public with their lives, finances and the direction of the country, and they place more value than other Americans do on marriage, parenthood, hard work and career success, according to a comprehensive new nationwide survey by the Pew Research Center.

“The Rise of Asian Americans” Pew Research: Social & Demographic Trends (Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C., 4 April, 2013, p. v)

According to a 2013 Pew Research Center report “Asian Americans are the highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing racial group in the United States”

("Rise of Asian" v). The history of this significant American ethnic population has become a relevant research issue in many academic domains, including theatre history.

The diasporic journey of Asian people in the quest of American identity is chronicled in historical American cultural works, such as plays, songs, and fiction. Predominantly, the chronological continuum of Asian American identity has focused on discrimination. This discriminative oriented history raises a few questions about the contemporary state of Asian American identity. Do the stereotypes and racial prejudices of the past toward Asian-ness still survive in the United States today? Are

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they actively held by mainstream society?

Some people might insist that these kinds of questions are inappropriate because the U.S. now locates itself as a post-racial society due to the election of

African American Barak Obama as U.S. president. However, several current cases involving racial stereotypes of Asian Americans debunk this claim of a colorblind society. For example, the case of one professional basketball player illustrates that these questions are not outdated and that racial prejudice still exists in certain parts of daily life in America. In a series of games during the 2012 National Basketball

Association (NBA) season, Asian American Jeremy Lin became an active player and led his team, the New York Knicks, to an impressive winning streak. His dynamic presence in the NBA brought a phenomenal reaction from basketball fans internationally. The media even coined a new word, "Linsanity," for this passionate interest while they reported on his every move and performance (Hunt “LinSanity”).

The appearance of Jeremy Lin on the American sports scene highlights various issues related to American society and the Asian American community that constitute the central concern of this research. Many socio-cultural commentators have offered various opinions and theories on Lin’s presence in a highly competitive professional sports field. They conceptualized Lin as a model figure achieving the

American dream through spotlighting his Asian (Taiwanese Chinese) roots and his high-level educational background (Harvard University).

In stressing Lin’s Asian heritage, the media connected his ethnicity to the first

Asian American professional basketball player, Japanese American Wataru (“Wat”)

Misaka, who briefly played for the New York Knicks during the 1947-48 season of the Basketball Association of America (the original name of the NBA) (Wertheim 2

“Decades”). Referring to Lin’s educational background, an ESPN sports commentator praised his performance with the words “high IQ” inferring that Lin, who graduated from one of the most prestigious universities in America, made a smart move and scored during the game between the LA Lakers and New York Knicks on February 10,

2012. The intense media interest seemed to be based on race and kindled a telling question. If Lin was an African American basketball player would his presence in the

NBA warrant such attention? And would there be a highlighting of Lin’s education and IQ?

The initial positive press attention did not last. When the Knicks’s winning streak ended in the spring of 2012, Anthony Federico of ESPN criticized Lin’s less successful performance as a “Chink in the Armor,” employing a derogatory racial slur.

Similarly, ESPN anchor Max Bretos and several other anchors used the same denigrating phrase on the air. When criticized, ESPN made public excuses that it was not a racial slur but an honest mistake, then fired Federico and gave Bretos a month’s suspension (Dejohn and Kennedy "Jeremy Lin"). Only one week after these incidents,

the racial slur “gook” was used in another ESPN broadcast in reference to a Korean

professional soccer player, Dong-Gook Lee, supposedly as a shortening of his

given/first name (Seidl "Another ESPN"). Shortly after these incidences, Saturday

Night Live (SNL) started one show with a parody of racial slurs used by sports

broadcasters, primarily focusing on Asians ("Watch SNL spoof").

In the historical context of the early twenty-first century, the example of

Jeremy Lin demonstrates the continuing depth of racial prejudice aimed at Asian

Americans. It also reflects its two-fold nature, as positive and negative, of the myth of

the “model minority” which arose during the late1960s and persisted into the 1970s 3

and 1980s. In a 1966 essay “Success Story, Japanese-American Style” in The New

York Times, William Petersen portrayed a success story of Japanese Americans as a

"model" for other groups; this article influenced the development of the myth of the

“model minority." Two decades later, NBC Nightly News and the McNeil/Lehrer

Report reported Asian-American success stories (1986); CBS’s 60 Minutes in 1987 highlighted a story about the “model minority” centering on Asian Americans’ academic success: “Why are Asian Americans doing so exceptionally well in school?”

(qtd. in Takaki, Strangers 474). Seeing how this myth continues to play a role in the mass media aids in understanding the current mosaic of racial stereotypes in the U.S.

The term “model minority” is based on a proclivity for hard work and a strong desire for education amongst Asian Americans. The use of this term, though positive in nature, contains a less than positive implication and has been and continues to be used to identify Asian Americans as a defined minority that is separate and distinguishable from mainstream society and from other minorities.

The example of Jeremy Lin in conjunction with a model minority label demonstrates the longevity of racial attitudes in the U.S. Jeremy Lin's presence in the

NBA makes Asian Americans more visible and brings to the public consciousness the baggage that accompanies racial comments. Today the term "model minority" is perhaps less advantageous but the original use indicated a verifiable significant positive shift in Asian American identity away from previous negative connotations applied to Asians in America prior to the end of World War II.

The focus of my research is on the Cold War era images of Asians and Asian

Americans on the Broadway stage. However, it is imperative to overview the history of Asian identity in the U.S. in order to establish an historical perspective. In 4

Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture (1997), historian Robert G. Lee articulates a series of stereotypes he describes as the six faces of the “Oriental” in relation to popular culture. His study focuses primarily on popular culture such as newspapers, cartoons, magazines, novels, plays, and mainstream Hollywood films.

Lee makes references to political and economic contexts. His six stereotypes are the pollutant (in the late 1860s), the coolie (in the 1870s and 1880s), the deviant (in the

1870s and during the First World War), the yellow peril (at the turn of the century from the nineteenth to the twentieth), the model minority (in the late 1960s and

1970s), and the gook (since the 1970s) (R. Lee 8-12; 97). Employing these racial categories of the “Oriental” as an overarching guide, my research focuses on the time period encompassing a major shift in identity from the yellow peril (a definite negative image) to the model minority (a dubious positive image). Seemingly missing from Lee’s list is a transitional phase between the extremely negative and the extremely positive. A similar incongruity appears in the events surrounding Jeremy

Lin, who was born in America, believed himself to be a full-fledged citizen, yet, when he was publically referred to as "chink" by the press, recognized that his legitimacy as an American was in question.

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Who is American?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776

That any alien, being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof, on application to any common court record, in any one of the states wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least, and making proof to the satisfaction of such court, that he is a person of good character, and taking the oath of affirmation prescribed by law, to support the constitution of the United States.

An Act to Establish a Uniform Rule of Naturalization March 26, 1790 Quoted in Michael C. LeMay and Elliott Robert Iarkan U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Laws and Issues: A Documentary History (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1999, p. 11)

Since America was frequently defined as homogeneous “white,” the general culture was sensitive about granting American identity to non-white people because of an undercurrent history of racial discrimination. Thus, the narrative of white America strongly dominated American society and excluded people of Asian heritage. To that dominant group, Asians1 seemed the least acceptable for inclusion in the definition of

“American” since they had traditionally been regarded as foreigners or strangers. The

U.S. Constitution (1787) begins with the words “We the People of the United States”

1 People from Asian countries were discriminated against both as general Asians and as particular country ethnic groups. Therefore, at times the term Asian is used and in other instances specific ethnicities such as Chinese, Korean, or Japanese are used. 6

and it contains no essential definition of who is an “American.” Certain milestones in

American history initiated debate over the issue. Early consideration of immigration

resulted in the 1790 legislation "An Act to Establish a Uniform Rule of

Naturalization" which restricted citizenship to "free white persons [...] of good

character," redefining who could become American (LeMay and Barkan 11-12;

Takaki Strangers, 14). The American Civil War (1861-1865) led to other legislation

regarding citizenship such as the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that required the inclusion of African Americans as citizens (Sarna xii; LeMay xl).

In the late nineteenth century, Chinese workers became easy targets in the unstable and competitive job markets and victims of the Chinese Exclusion Act of

1882. Politicians like Denis Kearney and his Workingman’s Party used racial slogans such as “Chinese must go!” and other propaganda targeting Chinese workers. These

workers came to the U.S. to work on large construction projects like the

intercontinental railroad before the arrival of European workers from Poland and Italy,

yet they faced discrimination and anti-Chinese prejudice (Takaki Iron, 223-49).

Similarly, Japanese workers experienced racial discrimination such as the California

Alien Land Law of 1913 which banned ineligible aliens from owning agricultural land

(LeMay 213) and the Immigration Act of 1924 which prohibited Asian immigrants who had been classified as "aliens ineligible for citizenship" (LeMay xlii). This series of exclusive practices toward Asian people may be due in part to European immigrants’ ability to more easily assimilate. After changing their ethnically distinguishable names into American mainstream names, European immigrants were able to fit in, at least in appearance, while the appearance of Asian people was easily

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recognizable as non-white (Takaki Strangers, 12; Hook 319-44).2

In the early twentieth century a new concept of a "Melting Pot" seemingly

suggested a Eurocentric multi-racial America leading to a broader definition of

"American." Fifty five years before the musical Fiddler on the Roof (1964), The

Melting Pot (1909), written by Russian Jewish immigrant Israel Zangwill opened at

the Comedy Theatre and ran for 136 performances. For the same reason Russian

Jewish Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof leaves his homeland, David, the Russian Jewish

main character in The Melting Pot, flees from persecution in Russia and immigrates to

America where he marries a Russian Christian immigrant named Vera. The play

expressed playwright Israel Zangwill’s ideas about immigrants in America and their

need for personal changes to become an American. David proclaims, "America is

God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and

re-forming! [...] Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and

Russians ―into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American" (Zangwill

37). According to a 1998 Washington Post article, the play contains “the promise that

all immigrants can be transformed into Americans, a new alloy forged in a crucible of

democracy, freedom and civic responsibility” (Booth "One Nation"). In the melting

process “even if the specific contributions of different immigrant cultures could not be

precisely identified, they would nevertheless be present and influential. In such ways

would the melting pot, as Zangwill imagined it, change and refresh American

nationality” (Murrin 701). Sharing the message of a multi-racial America, Jerome

2 Hook explains many of European immigrants changed their surnames with various reasons. One of the reasons he suggested is having an “American” name in order to escape from an unhappy past. 8

Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s musical Show Boat (1927), which features the interracial romance of a Caucasian man and a mulatto woman, supports the idea of a multiculturalists’ view of the melting pot as a metaphor for a heterogeneous society.

Legislation like "the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the return, in the

1920s, of the Ku Klux Klan, which not only targeted blacks, but Catholics, Jews and

immigrants as well” (Booth "One Nation") put limits on the efficacy of the Melting

Pot metaphor. In the twentieth century, the narrative of white America continued to

strongly influence attitudes toward race, still proclaiming a homogeneous white

society and legalizing various racially discriminative practices such as the decision of

Takao Ozawa v. United States (1922) that declared that only Europeans could be

considered white (Takaki, Strangers 419). David Palumbo-Liu argues that the

eugenics movement of the early twentieth century, provided scientific "proof" which

gave authority to the exclusion and deportation of Asians, the legal practices of anti-

miscegenation laws, as well as the imprisonment or commitment to insane asylums

and forced sterilization of over twenty thousand Americans who did not fit the

definition of acceptable (Palumbo-Liu 24).

In conjunction with this scientific justification, various cultural artefacts, such as the John Chinaman folk songs, publicly displayed negative racial attitudes. For example, “John Chinaman’s Marriage” (1868) describes a relationship between a

Chinese immigrant man and a European immigrant woman, versions of which question Chinese masculinity (Moon 37-38). Similarly, another folksong “Big Long

John” terminates such an interracial romance with emasculation (Moon 51-53).

Fueled by the historically negative stereotype, the prejudicial narrative against

Asians continued into the World War II years. On February 19, 1942 President 9

Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 which forced Japanese immigrants and their descendants into internment camps and deprived them of land ownership because of unsubstantiated fears that they might support Imperial Japan in the Pacific Theater of

World War II. The act targeted mainly those of Japanese heritage and it did little if anything to those of German and Italian heritage who might support the enemy in the

European Theater of World War II (Takaki, Strangers 15).

This brief summary of prejudice and stereotyping of Asians and Asian

Americans provides background to this focus on mid-twentieth century issues of the

Cold War and theatre productions on Broadway.

Cold War Wind of Change

The negative racial attitude toward Asia began to slowly change, according to

Takaki, due to the need for additional military personnel during the war and the global transformations following this conflict. After World War II America needed time to recover both emotionally and physically. However, it immediately faced the rise of communism on two continents: Asia and Europe. The Chinese-Communist intervention in the Korean War caused anti-Chinese reactions in the U.S. and the "new peril was seen as yellow in race and red in ideology" (Takaki, Strangers 415) and the

Soviet occupation of eastern Germany caused alarm. A central critique of American democracy by communist nations was its blatant racism within its own territory. In fact half of the Soviets’ anti-American propaganda focused on racial issues (Klein 40).

Simultaneously, against this international tension the U.S. had to deal with explosive and complex racial uneasiness on its home front.

In the following Table 1.1, I provide a summary of the government actions that 10

specifically affected Asians and Asian Americans. The first is the 1882 Chinese

Exclusion Act which denied Chinese immigrants' citizenship. Two acts of the 1920s continued the denial of citizenship as well as restriction of Asian's citizenship. During

World War II, there were four government acts addressed: first, the president prohibited discrimination in the Pacific front. The next act, however, interned all

Japanese Americans for the duration of the war. In 1947, six years after President

Franklin Roosevelt declared racial discrimination in defense-industry employment illegal with Executive Order 8802 (Fair Employment Act), President Harry Truman founded the advisory Committee on Civil Rights with Executive Order 9808 to help protect civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution (Takaki, Strangers 406). By the

1960s the demand for civil rights by minorities fueled the explosive racial tension building in the country which eventually resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I will refer to these governmental actions in connection to the Broadway productions in the subsequent chapters.

Table 1.1 Governmental Actions

Governmental Year Explanation Action "Congress enacts the Chinese Exclusion Act, prohibiting the immigration of Chinese laborers for ten 1882 Chinese years (later reenacted and extended in 1892 and 1904) Exclusion Act and denying Chinese eligibility for United States citizenship." (LeMay xl) Table1.1 continued:

11

Continued

"Congress passes the Cable Act assuring that the right of any woman to become a naturalized citizen of the United States shall not be abridged because of her sex or because she is married woman, unless she was wed to an alien ineligible for citizenship. The latter Cable Act 1922 provision was later repealed." (LeMay xlii) Ozawa v. United

States "The Supreme Court decides the case of Ozawa v. United States, upholding the constitutionality of restricting Japanese aliens from becoming naturalized citizens on the grounds that they were not Caucasian." (LeMay xlii)

"The act barred the admission of most Asians, who had 1924 Johnson-Reed Act been classified as "aliens ineligible for citizenship." (LeMay xliii)

"On June 25, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 (called the Fair Executive Order Employment Act), prohibited racial discrimination in 1941 8802 employment, especially in defense industries. This law (Fair gave good chances to Filipinos to work in defense Employment Act) industries for the Pacific front in 1942." (Takaki, Strangers 362)

"The president issues Executive Order 9066, leading to 1942 Executive Order the evacuation, relocation, and internment of Japanese 9066 and Japanese Americans into relocation camps." (LeMay xliii)

Chinese Exclusion Act "Congress, in recognition of the alliance with China in repealed the war against Japan, repeals the Chinese Exclusion 1943 Acts and authorizes a small quota and the naturalization rights of Chinese residents. In 1944 the president officially adds a quota of 105 to the immigration provisions." (LeMay xliii)

Table1.1 continued

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Continued "Enacted on December 28, 1945 the War Brides Act allowed the immigration of all non-Asian spouses, natural children and adopted children of U.S. military 1945 personal. Asians who had served in the military, War Brides Act excluding Japanese, during the war were given the option of becoming U.S. citizens. Approximately 10,000 Filipinos took this opportunity." ("Asian American History Timeline") "President Harry Truman founded the Committee on Civil Rights." (Takaki, Strangers 406)

"The President's Committee on Civil Rights was established by Executive Order 9808 on December 5, 1946, to strengthen and safeguard the rights of the Executive Order American people. The Government's policy, 1947 9808 announced in the same order, was that civil rights were (Committee on guaranteed by the Constitution and essential to Civil Rights) domestic tranquility, national security, the general welfare, and the continued existence of our free institutions. The advisory committee was chaired by Charles E. Wilson. The final report of the committee was published in 1947 as a one-hundred-and-seventy- eight page document entitled." ("Records of the President's Committee") "The War Brides Act, originally established at the end of WWII, was modified to no longer exclusionary to 1947 War Brides Act Asians. However, the ban was lifted only for spouses modified of U.S. military personnel, not children, and only if the marriage occurred no later than 30 days after the law’s enactment." ("Asian American History Timeline") "Congress enacts the Immigration and Nationality Act (The McCarran-Walter Act), which recodifies Immigration and 1952 immigration and naturalization law, maintains the Nationality Act quota system, sets up a quota for the Asia-Pacific

triangle, and removes all racial and national origin barriers to U.S. citizenship." (LeMay xliv)

Table1.1 continued

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Continued Long title: "An act to enforce the constitutional right to vote, to confer jurisdiction upon the district courts of the United States of America to provide injunctive relief against discrimination in public accommodations, to authorize the Attorney General to 1964 institute suits to protect constitutional rights in public Civil Rights Act facilities and public education, to extend the Commission on Civil Rights, to prevent discrimination in federally assisted programs, to establish a Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity, and for other purposes." ("Title VII of the Civil Rights Act") Congress enacts the Immigration and Nationality Act, amending the 1952 act by ending the quota system and establishing a preference system stressing family reunification and meeting certain job skill goals, 1965 Immigration and standardizing admission procedurs, and setting per Nationality Act country limits of 20,000 for Eastern Hemisphere nations, with a total of 170,000. The first ceiling on Western Hemisphere immigration─120,000─is also legislated. (LeMay xlv)

Broadway as Historical Cultural Marker

During the time period between 1945 and 1964 the United States witnessed major changes in American society in terms of Cold War policy, family structure, gender roles, and American identity. Mainstream Broadway productions reflected these changes in multiple ways. Much has been written about the ways in which high profile productions at that time had the potential to influence American culture as they

served a broad audience beyond the live performance through additional entertainment channels with the development of the long-playing record album,

television, and films (Woolf 8; Mordden Beautiful, 236-70). Therefore, to evidence

the shift in Asian American identity on stage, I consider the cultural context of the

early Cold War era through an examination of five key productions: South Pacific 14

(1949), The King and I (1951), The Teahouse of the August Moon (1953), Flower

Drum Song (1958), and A Majority of One (1959).

The five Asian content productions reflected this positive identification.

Three are musicals (South Pacific, The King and I, and Flower Drum Song) and two are comedies (The Teahouse of the August Moon and A Majority of One); the musical numbers and comical elements of the productions served as vehicles to "express what was otherwise unsayable within the typical serious drama" (Everett and Laird 174) and thus assisted the process of society's change in acceptance of Asians as members of the American societal family. I aim to present an argument for the ways in which these productions suggest a revision of the ways the Asian family was co-opted into

American family ideology during the first post-World War II decade. I use these productions as touchstones that illustrate this revision, which paved the way for a shift in identity for Asian Americans.

Certain elements were considered in the justification of the selection of these particular productions: all consider aspects of family and family relationships; all are set in Asian communities in the United States or in Asian countries and invite the

American audience into the imagined theatrical versions of the Asian world; all received considerable critical attention and were for the most part acknowledged as commercial and artistic successes; all were based on books written by American

authors.

In this dissertation, I analyze the selected productions, book scripts, and

original novels; meanwhile I utilize three major sources as methodological purpose.

First, this dissertation examines each production in detail through using a

historiographical analysis. This process leads this study to consider the silenced 15

hidden histories of Asian Americans behind the official histories. The target materials

are investigated through archives, libraries, and historical research centers. For

example, The Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. Lee Theatre Institute, The Ohio State

University, has the Leonard Spigelgass Papers which is a collection containing

various reviews of his play A Majority of One, on-and-off-stage pictures, and other

useful historical materials, presenting an argument outlining how the original

production supported the evolving identity of Asian Americans.

Second, I employ scholarly works in three categories─ theories of racial

stereotypes, social and historical criticism on musicals and plays, and sociological

studies of American family. A number of the studies concern Asian American

stereotypes. In order to understand the rise of the “model minority” discourse in the

early Cold War era, this study refers to the works written by Ronald Takaki and

Robert G. Lee. One of the most important books about Asian Americans is historian

Ronald Takaki’s Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans

(1989). Takaki describes how Asian Americans continue to be regarded as “strangers,”

even after having lived in America for over 150 years (Takaki, Strangers 3-4). His

research covers the history of Asian Americans from the first wave of Asian immigration in the nineteenth century to the myth of the “model minority.” Takaki scrutinizes the topic of the national narrative of Asian Americans with much historical evidence and provides important guidance for understanding Asian American subject matter in the passage of history. In Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture

(1997), historian Robert G. Lee analyzes the biased ways Asian Americans are portrayed, arguing that economic and social transformation caused racial constructions in popular culture. 16

There are many works that investigate cultural productions concerning stage representations of Asian Americans during the Cold War era. I refer to the studies by

Josephine D. Lee, Esther Kim Lee, Christina Klein, and John B. Jones. One of the prominent Asian American theatre theorists and experts, Josephine D. Lee, utilizes

Said’s theory of Orientalism in her analysis of portrayals of Asian Americans on stage.

In her book, Performing Asian America: Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary

Stage (1997), she “undertakes the complex project of investigating ‘the shared strategies by which plays and playwrights make performance, dramatic form, and audience response inseparable from the meaning of race and ethnicity’ ” (qtd. in Pao

538). While Said’s work focuses on the field of Middle Eastern studies, Lee applies

Said’s theory to her research in the critical traditions of performance and theatre studies in Asian American cultural research. She discusses a wide range of matters, including a good many models of theatrical institutions and practices, and strategic representations of ethnic and cultural identities. To help develop and support my ideas, it is productive to refer to Lee’s critical examination of how Asian actors are represented in theatrical space and how their Asian body intrudes and occupies the space of Asian stereotypes. Furthermore, Lee’s analytic interpretation of the new trend of conceptualizing Asian Americans in American society in each field of literature and theatre provides me with an improved conceptualization of what is “Asian American.”

Based on Lee’s new definition of “Asian American,” my research focuses on a broader context of social networks in the Asian American community and transnationalism or trans-Pacific movements. In A History of Asian American Theatre

(2006), historian and critic, Esther Kim Lee offers a comprehensive view of the history of Asian American Theatre. This book is valuable primarily for my 17

dissertation research as it is the first fully detailed account of Asian American theatre.

It provides a history of Asian American performance from pre-1965 through the 1990s, making a valuable contribution to American theatre history, Asian American studies, and other academic fields of research, with analyses and descriptions of multiculturalism, cultural nationalism, and racial representation on the American stage.

Using more than seventy interviews and archival research, Lee provides detailed experiences of racially biased casting practices in the 1950s which connects to my

Cold War era focus.

Many books and research focus on the Cold War era in America. Among them, I refer to Christina Klein’s Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow

Imagination, 1945-1961 (2003) regarding Asian Americans and family formation in the early Cold War era. In particular, Klein’s interpretation of the musical South

Pacific highlights American parental responsibilities to take care of Asian children.

Klein’s scrutiny of Cold War musicals and movies, such as The King and I, South

Pacific, and Flower Drum Song by Rodgers and Hammerstein, and her method of case studies serve as a critical tool for my research. Moreover, Klein’s research explores the nature of America's essential fascination with and imagination of Asia, particularly in the aftermath of World War II, and the counterpart perspectives of middlebrow culture and policy-making in the urgent situation of the early Cold War.

Klein draws on the research of Elaine Tyler May, who investigated Cold War culture and its influences on American women; Andrew Rotter, who examined gender and

U.S. relations with India; and Melani McAlister, who explored American images of the Middle East. One of the book's major strengths is Klein’s deep understanding and use of novels, plays, and movies about the Cold War. She makes the connection 18

between those who made policy and those who shaped and conditioned culture through productions of key works.

Historian John B. Jones’s book, Our Musicals, Ourselves: A Social History of the American Musical Theater (2003), describes the sources of national sentiment and re-examines musicals as a sort of objective correlative of the zeitgeist. His book helps me to understand social influences of American musicals, especially by Rodgers and

Hammerstein. Jones suggests a different trajectory that traces the origins of the majority of Broadway musicals in opera or operetta up through the British mega- musical invasion in the 1980s and he emphasizes the social elements that underlie the creation of this American musical art form (Hoffman 338). Because "the musical theater developed primarily as mass entertainment, the vast range of material [Jones] addresses ─ studying the country's social history as it informed developments in the

American musical ─ illuminates much about who and where we were" (Gagnon 163).

Highlighting politics and culture, Jones attempts to trace a link between American life and American popular entertainment.

The last scholarly work is sociological studies of American family. The two books selected here are American Families: A Multicultural Reader (2008) edited by

Stephane Coontz, Maya Parson, and Gabrielle Raley and Homeward Bound:

American Families in the Cold War Era (2008) written by Elaine Tyler May. These books support my dissertation with their common point, the diversity of the

“American family” against the “traditional American family.” Both books insist that the “American family” did not become diverse but it was originally diverse, and the books continue that the Cold War era in American history highlighted a discourse of the “traditional American family” such as “the legendary white middle-class family of 19

the 1950s” (May 13). American Families is an introductory book with case studies of diverse American families. The editors collected the writings of important scholars who address one of the most crucial issues in my dissertation, the growing diversity of

American families during the Cold War era. The book contains thirty four articles organized into six sections, beginning with a historical perspective on inequality and

American families and moving into issues of race, ethnicity, class, and gender in family theory. Coontz’s book highlights “patterns of difference [between families] created by conflict, accommodation, and interaction among groups of differing power, cultural acceptance, and socioeconomic status” (2). My dissertation closely scrutinizes specific articles in American Families concerning a series of changes from the “traditional” American family to new and diverse forms of family. These forms include Asian American families in the early Cold War era. The selected articles discuss how Asians in America struggle to become a part of American families and how they survive.

I refer to the second book, Homeward Bound by May, to concretize my theory of revised Cold War family ideology. This book characterizes postwar America as the domestic version of containment. May argues that the American government’s fear of the expansion of communism on the global stage developed a sense of global insecurity and resulted in domestic fear and insecurity. Thus, the U.S. government stressed domestic security by foregrounding images of secure families in magazines,

TV shows, and movies. May points out, “containment aptly describes the way in which public policy, personal behavior, and even political values were focused on the home” (16). This domestic version of containment was strictly gendered. It highlighted domestic security through repeating traditional family roles, such as a 20

breadwinning father/husband and a housekeeping mother/wife.

Third, in the process of this research along with academic publications, I have broadly reviewed original research sources such as productions programs, flyers, newspaper articles, magazines, photographs, and films. One very useful source was

The 1950s: Building the American Dream exhibition at the Ohio Historical Center in

Columbus, Ohio. Opening in 2013 this exhibit contained an actual Lustron house, a prefab dwelling produced in the 1950s, decorated with artefacts and filled with the sounds of 1950s radio and television shows. Walking through this interactive exhibit gave me a sensation of the atmosphere of a comfortable home life in the 1950s, a time when a housewife did her daily chores in the kitchen and the backyard was full of happy children wearing coonskin caps and roller skates attached to their shoes as they played with toys which promote the theme of the beneficial and safe atom. A description board in the exhibit noted:

While the destructive power of the atom was feared, atomic power also

promised untold possibilities for unlimited free energy. Americans were

torn between the fear of nuclear weapons and optimism for the future

that atomic technology could provide. The atom was everywhere, in

children's toys, popular movies, books, advertising, interior design, and

architecture. ("Our Friend the Atom")

The family enjoyed reading Readers' Digest and Life magazine in the living room or bedroom. The exhibit countered this pervading sense of tranquility with the developing awareness of nuclear threat with the display of a bomb shelter door in the 21

backyard. The 1950s atmosphere, with period appliances and vintage clothing included, was another dimension that gave me an understanding of the productions and the historical time period that influenced the American people. Grounding my research in these sources helped guide my interpretation to be less skewed by a modern perspective and helped me to more fully comprehend the concept of a postwar nuclear family.

The Five Broadway Productions

Considering that theatre productions require collaboration, their success begins with the stories that become the stage productions. For this research, I chose five Broadway stage productions which embrace the idea of introducing Asian-ness into the American family portrait. To qualify the production needed not only to be inclusive of Asian-ness and value American culture but also they needed to be successful cultural productions that could influence the American general public, especially middlebrow culture. From the many possible ways to measure success of stage productions, this research utilizes two measures for determining success: financial and artistic (Chapman 3). Thus the three criteria for inclusion were financial success, artistic success, and Asian content. Financial success is determined by the number of performances; artistic success is measured by artistic awards such as

Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award.

Artistic success involves evidence of artistic value of the productions in connection with critic's choice, literary values, and a broad range of readers and audiences. All of the productions achieved a high level of artistic success on

Broadway. All five became successful Hollywood films which is also a measure of 22

success. According to Jack Gaver, any theatrical production in the 1950s which ran only 100 performances could be considered a failure and around 250 performances was not enough to cover the costs of the original production (Gaver 18). If a production could not survive long enough to make money, then most likely it would not be a strong influence on the general public and American middlebrow culture. The performance number evidences how much the theatergoers enjoyed the performance and accepted the messages of the productions. Abe Laufe argues that being an awarded work does not necessarily mean being successful in the theatre industry, evidencing that some awarded works did not result in commercial success with a large number of performances (Laufe 22). All of the chosen productions achieved a high level of financial success on Broadway. Table 1.2 shows the measures of financial and artistic success for the Broadway productions chosen for this research. The table contains the number of performances (minimum 500 performances) and the awards the selected productions achieved.

23

Table 1.2 Evidence of Financial Success and Artistic Success

Number of Production Performances Awards (minimum 500)

1950 Tony Awards for Best Musical, Libretto, Best Original Score, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Featured Actress, South Pacific 1,925 Producer, and Best Director. 1949 Tony (1949) Award for Best Scenic Design

1950 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

1952 Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best The King and I 1,246 Actress, Best Featured Actor, Best Scenic (1951) Design, and Best Costume Design.

The Teahouse of 1954 Tony Awards for Best Play, Best Actor, the August Moon 1,027 and Best Scenic Design (1953) 1954 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

1959 Tony Awards for Best Conductor and Musical Director, Best Musical (nominee), Flower Drum Song Best Actor (nominee), Best Actress 600 (1958) (nominee), Best Costume Design (nominee), and Best Choreography (nominee). 1959 Theatre World Award.

1959 Tony Awards for Best Actress, Best A Majority of One Scenic Design, Best Actor (nominee), and 556 (1959) Best Direction (nominee) 1959 Theatre World Award

Source: Internet Broadway Database (IBDB)

The third requirement was that the content of the productions must be related to Asian culture and Asian people. Content was determined by whether the production

24

contained Asian major characters and an Asian country or Asian American community setting. Denigrating native language in dialogue can generate a negative stereotype so another necessity involved how a native language was presented. Table 1.3 shows that all of the productions had Asian major characters, Asian-ness settings and no denigrating native language dialogue.

Table 1.3 Asian Characters and Content in Productions

Asian Characters and Content Production Major Native Setting Character Language

Pacific South Pacific (1949) Bloody Mary none islands

Symbolized by The King and I (1951) King Siam music

The Teahouse of the August Sakini Okinawa Japanese Moon (1953)

Madame Liang Chinatown, San Flower Drum Song (1958) none Mei Li Francisco

A Majority of One (1959) Mr. Asano Japan Japanese

Each of the plays and musicals count Asians among the major characters and locate

the plot in an Asian country or an Asian community in the U.S. These Broadway

productions deal with the native languages of the Asian characters in various ways.

For example, in The Teahouse of the August Moon and A Majority of One Japanese

25

dialogue is spoken, and in both South Pacific and Flower Drum Song no native language is included. In The King and I the stage direction determines the native language as music: “At this point, and throughout the play, the Siamese language will be represented by certain sounds made in the orchestra. Siamese words will never be literally pronounced. Music will symbolize them” (9). In all five productions, many of

the Asian characters communicate using English in various levels from limited

English, like pidgin English, to advanced English. According to linguists Pieter

Muysken and Norval Smith, pidgin languages are “speech-forms which do not have native speakers, and are therefore primarily used as a means of communication among people who do not share a common language” (Arends, Muysken, and Smith 3), and

"[t]he use of pidgins is often limited to certain situations, e.g. trade, or communication among multilingual communities without a common language" (Arends, Muysken, and Smith 26).

In the Broadway productions, instead of pidgin English speaking characters who might be considered as unwilling or unable to learn English, the Asian characters in linguistic terms are second language (L2) or English as a Second Language (ESL) learners who have various proficiency levels of English in terms of vocabulary and syntax. For example, in South Pacific (1949) Bloody Mary’s language skill level with errors in pronunciation and syntax/grammar is higher than a beginner level: “I am rich.

I save six hundred dolla’ before war. Since war I make two thousand dolla’ … war go on I make maybe more” (120); in The King and I the King also knows more that a beginner but makes some syntax/grammar errors: “Certain parties who would use this as an excuse to steal my country. Suppose you were Queen Victoria and somebody tells you the King of Siam is barbarian. Do you believe?” (68); in The Teahouse of the 26

August Moon Sakini shows a similar level of proficiency: “She say she think she like to go to America. There everybody happy. Sit around and drink tea while machines do work” (71); in Flower Drum Song Madame Liang shows a higher proficiency level: "I am proud to be both Chinese and American" (61) and newly arrived Mei Li is even able to use her language skill to explain her situation: "I came into this country illegally―across the Pacific Ocean" (139); and finally, in A Majority of One (1959)

Mr. Asano possesses an advanced command of English and he uses a Jewish term immediately right after he learns it from Mrs. Jacoby:

MRS. JACOBY (Smiling) How can I explain kwelling? Well, kwelling is

the way you look and the way you feel when something wonderful

happens to somebody you love. It's ─ well, it's like when Alice graduated

from Smith with the highest honors. It's pride ─ no, it's more ─ it's ─ it's

kwelling!

MR. ASANO Kwelling would be an excellent addition to the Zen

Buddhist vocabulary.” (53)

Seemingly, by severely limiting or not selecting pidgin English dialogue for the Asian characters the writers insinuate that Asians are capable of learning to “speak words in ordinary usage in the English language,” which was a requirement for becoming a naturalized citizen in McCarran-Walter Act (LeMay 220-25).

The degree of popularity of these types of productions implies a trend in the thought of the American public during that time period. Alan Pasco suggests that

“literature can provide a reliable window on the past. Used carefully ─ and 27

remembering that reality is never pure, simple, or linear ─ literature and the arts can bring fresh light to our perception of history" (374). Thus examining the development of the productions from best seller list book to Broadway musical/play to Hollywood

film affords insight into the global awareness and expanded ethnic/racial identity that

America was experiencing in the early Cold War period.

Chronologically, the first production is the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical

South Pacific (1949), loosely based on James A. Michener’s 1948 Pulitzer Prize-

winning fiction, Tales of the South Pacific. The musical includes the story of a

romance between a young lieutenant and a beautiful island girl who had a very

entertaining entrepreneurial mother. South Pacific premiered in 1949 at the Majestic

Theatre and continued for 1,925 performances (Green 560) and won various awards

(Table 1.2). The musical’s success was repeated in Joshua Logan’s 1958 film by the

same name.3

The King and I (1951), also by Rodgers and Hammerstein, followed with

similar success. Based on Margaret Landon’s 1944 novel, Anna and the King of Siam,

this musical illustrates a British schoolteacher’s experiences in the early 1860s in

Siam (now Thailand) when the king wanted to modernize his country. The King and I

premiered at the St. James Theatre on Broadway and ran for 1,246 performances

between 1951 and 1954 (Green 579) and won many awards (Table 1.2). Subsequently,

it spawned a 1956 film version, for which Yul Brynner won an Academy Award.

The 1951 novel, The Teahouse of the August Moon, by Vern Sneider, was

3 The musical launched a five-year tour to 118 U.S. cities between 1950 and 1955; the original cast album of the musical released on seven shellac records; and more popular vinyl 33 rpm disks sold more than a million copies, Gold Record Status (Block 122). 28

adapted by John Patrick into a Broadway hit play (1953) and later a film (1956). This work looks at the American military reconstruction of the island of Okinawa after

World War II. The play ran for a respectable 1,027 performances and won many awards (Table 1.2). Later, The Teahouse of the August Moon was adapted once again into the 1970 unsuccessful Broadway musical, Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen, with lyrics and music by Stan Freeman and Franklin Underwood.

Flower Drum Song opened a window on San Francisco’s Chinatown for the

American public. The original novel by Chin Yang Lee, published under the name C.

Y. Lee, became a bestseller in 1957. The novel depicts the life struggles, particularly intergenerational and cultural conflicts, experienced by Chinese immigrants during the early Cold War era (Lewis 28). The commercial success of the novel caught the attention of producers in the American theatre, and a musical version of the book was produced on Broadway in 1958. The production, by Rodgers and Hammerstein, was a critical success, with six Tony Award nominations; however, it only won a single award for Best Conductor and Musical Director (Table 1.2). Like the previous two productions, this musical was made into film in 1961.

Unlike the other productions, A Majority of One began as a Broadway play.

Written by Leonard Spigelgass, an American film producer and playwright, A

Majority of One portrays the story of a Jewish widow, who lost her son during World

War II. The widow travels to Japan and meets a Japanese businessman. Their interracial romance presents interesting political and economic issues through incidents concerning the widow’s son-in-law who happens to be a U.S. Foreign

Service officer. The play premiered in 1959 at the Shubert Theatre and ran for 556 performances at both the Shubert Theatre and Ethel Barrymore Theatre. It won Tony 29

Awards for Best Actress in a Play (Gertrude Berg) and for Best Scenic Design

(Donald Oenslager). A Majority of One was adapted into a film by the same title in

1961 by Mervyn Leroy.

Chapter Breakdown

This dissertation adds to the extant literature of theatre history by showing how an examination of Broadway productions can serve as a portal to understanding

the historical emergence of Asians in their journey to become full American citizens.

Using these Broadway productions, I discuss the ways in which the productions

suggest a revision of the way the Asian family was co-opted into American family

ideology after World War II.

In Chapter 2, "The American Family Portrait: Asians Move into the Frame," I argue that the five Broadway musicals and plays produced during the early Cold War years started to stage Asians in such a way to make them familiar to mainstream

America. In order to obliterate negative illusions and stereotypes, a revised narrative

about Asian-ness in the travel literature was important for the U.S. policymakers to

switch gears in order to change racial discriminative practices. In Chapter 3,

"Interracial Romances and Parental Responsibilities," the five Broadway productions demonstrate Asians as responsible men and women who have the ability and desire to become good American parents and citizens. This section contains an analysis of the newly configured diverse American family structure during the Cold War era with an emphasis on interracial couples and responsible parents and how the influence of anti-

miscegenation laws affected the portrayal of parental figures as short-term or

permanent couples. In consideration of these two types of couples, I categorize the 30

parent figures into two major representations: interracial couples and Asian/Asian

American parents. These productions reflect how Asian or Asian American parents were perceived as acceptable American family members. Moreover, the interracial romances portrayed in these productions reveal the very complicated subject matter of race, gender, and law, such as immigration acts regarding G.I. brides and anti- miscegenation laws, prominent in the U.S. at that time. In Chapter 4, "Educating the

Children," I focus on the ways Asians are staged as capable of learning to be

upstanding citizens within American society. The issue of learning English and the

tenets of American democracy was crucial to Asians in immigration to justify the

possibility of Asians' Americanization. The productions portray scenes of ideological

and lingual education. The scenes have two categories of Asian people in need of

education: small children (including teenagers) and adults, who share childlike

characteristics. These Asian children (young and old) assimilate primarily through a

process of education. The final chapter examines the ramification of stereotypes in the

present day. The five Broadway productions reflect the U.S. society in the transition

of Asian American identity from foreigners to citizens, however, the stereotypes of

Asians still persistently survive in contemporary American society.

31

Chapter 2

The American Family Portrait in Transition: Asians Move Into the Frame

Asians in the American Family Portrait

When people look to the "Ozzie and Harriet" ideal of the 1950s as the traditional American family, not only do they ignore the existence of other family forms and values in different economic, racial, or ethnic groups, but they also forget that this was a new norm even for the white middle class...[T]he postwar male-breadwinner family model was [...] largely a product of government-funded educational, employment, and housing policies, many of which were unavailable to non-whites. Stephanie Coontz Introduction, American Families: A Multicultural Reader (New York: Routledge, 2008, p.7)

To effectively organize this research around a family structure a working

definition of "family" must be determined. Oxford Dictionaries Online (ODO) traces

the origin of the word "family" to the Latin word familia ("family"). Assorted dictionaries define the word "family" in various ways. First, some clarify the word as a group of people affiliated by consanguinity or bloodline. Second, some describe it as a group of co-habitants. Third, others define family as a primary social unit.

Dictionary.com defines family as (a) "a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not"; (b) "a social unit consisting of one or more adults together with the children they care for"

("Family"). Collins English Dictionary presents the meaning as "a primary social group consisting of parents and their offspring, the principal function of which is 32

provision for its members" ("Family"). Considering these dictionary definitions, the working definition of family for this research is a primary social unit consisting of an adult couple who have entered into a social contract of marriage and their natural or adopted children.

Throughout American history the family structure was open to various forms such as the extended family, single mother, single father, and childless family with no fixed standard. Yet, the assumed standard family type was reconfigured differently over time during periods of social transformation. During the 1950s one concept of family structure emerged as the dominating norm with a breadwinner father, the full- time housewife/mother whose job was to safeguard the well-being of the family and their children.

George Peter Murdock offers further elaboration of family as a "social group characterized by common residence, economic cooperation and reproduction. It contains adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship, and one or more children, own or adopted, of the sexually cohabiting adults" (Murdock 1). Additionally, the postwar male-breadwinner family model was "a product of government-funded" policy (Coontz 7). Thus the nuclear family was established as the norm and was assumed to be racially white, and in concept and in practice the 1950's American family became institutionalized and standardized as the nuclear family which was also assumed to be racially white.4

Various media displayed images of the ideal family portraying a father, a mother, and

4 It should be noted that in more recent years the nuclear family has changed configuration to include alternative groupings as evidenced on various TV shows such as the TV comedy Modern Family. 33

well-behaved children living in a comfortable, spotlessly clean house. By repetitively stressing this family structure, the cultural media of the era, such as newspapers, advertising, radio, and pioneering television, greatly influenced the acceptance of that family form (Coontz 7).

In the Cold War context, the family was the important basic social unit for two purposes in relation to guarding against communism: communal link and domestic security.5 Family was connected to a larger social unit, the community, in contrast to

the unconnected aspect of the masses. Totalitarian regimes transform an individual

into a mass man and systematically break every communal link including family in

order to bind an atomized or isolated individual directly to the controlling power

(Macdonald 8-9). Among the masses, each individual loses his link to other

individuals in society, which David Riesman calls "the lonely crowd" (qtd in

Macdonald 9). In contrast, the family unit guards against this type of isolation.

Only a few years after the war, the United States witnessed ideological tension

toward the Soviet Union and the rise of communism worldwide. The fear of the

communist enemy and a sense of national insecurity caused the passage of the

National Security Act of 1947 which established the National Security Council and

the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In this period, policymakers promoted codes

of conduct and public policies, and Americans started to see "the family as a bastion

of safety in an insecure world" (May 9). As one of the codes of conduct and public

5 Although Macdonald addresses the tendency of modern industrial society transforming an individual to a mass man, he stresses that a totalitarian regimes creates the mass man and systematically breaks communal links such as family, church, and regional loyalties. Thus I place the mass man and masses concept in U.S.S.R and communism in opposite to an individual and community concept in the U.S.A and democracy. See Macdonald 8-9. 34

policies, the government strongly stressed the image of the white middle-class family of the 1950s in the name of "traditional" family.6 Consequently, if within this white

framework Asian appearing people were included in the American family portrait, it

would be evidence of an essential step in accepting Asians as American citizens,

legally and culturally, thus allowing their inclusive passage into the communal links

and through domestic security screening.

Building on these combined definitions of family and family structure and

using the nuclear family as a baseline of the Cold War era, I project a shift in the

image of Asians in America which was embraced by specific theatrical

representations. In particular I am interested in the ways that minority ethnicities,

particularly Asians, enter the picture frame of the American family portrait and disturb

the apparent tranquility of the white nuclear family. By exploring five mainstream

theatre productions in which Asians play crucial central roles, I examine the ways that

presenting Asian-ness on stage diversifies the standard family picture. An outcome of

such diversification is that white America gains the opportunity to witness and adopt

compatible elements of a culture different from their own. Through repetitive

exposure to key musicals and stage plays, Asians became more familiar and less

foreign, and subsequently more normal and more acceptable as part of the American

family circle, a nuclear white family. A popular main stream example is the comic

strip The Family Circle (later renamed The Family Circus), which was drawn by

World War II veteran Bil Keane, originally depicted a nuclear white family with a

6 Elaine Tyler May stresses this family type as "the legendary white middle-class family of the 1950s, located in the suburbs, complete with appliances, station wagons, backyard barbecues, and tricycles scattered on the side-walks." See May 13. 35

World War II veteran father, mother, and their four children.7

I argue that the five Broadway plays and musicals which were produced

during the early Cold War years, delineate Asians respectfully and pave a path of

familiarization of Asian-ness which assisted in the admittance of Asians into the

American family portrait. This was not easy, however, since Asian-ness was neither

familiar nor familial to the American sense of family structure. Accepting Asians as

American family members was not possible without mishap though because of

enduring stereotypes of Asian people that were deeply rooted in American culture and

the public sphere.

Narrative of Travel Literature

[W]hen we hear the music, see the dancing, view their home décor, fashions and other attitudes of daily living in Japan, and find them agreeable and understandable, that is carrying national policy to its destination. Alice Hughes "A Woman's New York" Reading Eagle, March 25, 1954: A25

After World War I (1917-1918), U.S. society experienced a variety of

attempts to spread literature of "high" culture to a wider range of the reading public

with an extension of newspaper and literary reviews; this phenomenon led to the

7 See Mark Pattison, "Bil Keane, creator of 'Family Circus' comic strip, dies at age 89," Catholic News Herald, 8 March 2012, Web. 8 August 2013 . See Amanda Lee Myers, "Obituaries: Thelma Keane; Wife of Cartoonist Bil Kearne," The Washington Post, 27 May 2008. Web. 10 August 2013 . 36

emergence of American middlebrow culture which was definably different from highbrow and lowbrow culture. Middlebrow refers to the "men and women, fairly civilized, fairly literate, who support the critics and lecturers and publishers by purchasing their wares"; middlebrow represents "a majority of reader" which is placed between highbrow and lowbrow (qtd in Rubin xii-xiii).8 Many critics devaluated

middlebrow culture as purposeless and having only commercial value. Virginia Woolf

criticized the middlebrow as in pursuit of no single object while she respected

highbrow as aiming at art itself and lowbrow as chasing life (Woolf 176-86). Dwight

Macdonald criticized middlebrow culture as Masscult and Midcult, that is to say as

orienting market values and consumerism by copies and manipulations (Masscult) and

threatening highbrow culture by adulterating and abusing high culture (Midcult)

(Macdonald 3-75). According to the criticism, the middlebrow in the 1950s and 60s had two elementary natures: accessing books of highbrow culture and selling books as commercial products. The middlebrow culture expanded among the American population, who closely examined and accessed highbrow culture. For example,

Book-of-the-Month Club, founded in 1926, provided readers with information of current publications and with reviews about published readable works judged by experts. One of the Book-of-the-Month Club's selections was Edna Ferber's Show

Boat (1926), which was adapted in 1927 by Oscar Hammerstein into a well received mixed-race musical and considered the first genuine American musical. Literally hundreds of thousands read the book first before seeing the musical adaptation. In addition to Book-of-the-Month Club, other publications such as the New York Herald

8 Rubin quoted the definition of "middlebrow" from Margaret Widdemer's essay "Message and Middlebrow" for the Saturday Review of Literature, 433-34. 37

Tribune's Books section, Reader's Digest and Saturday Review influenced the reading

9 public (Rubin xi-xx).

This phenomenon of providing the reading public with books selected by a

certain group of literary experts was also a major influence on American culture after

World War II. Travel books promoted by book clubs and print media became

immensely popular during the early Cold War period. Before the wide expansion of ownership of home television sets and due to a limited amount of television programming, middlebrow culture strongly relied on reading; and as a result the general public was introduced to many celebrated and award winning travel books.

Travel literature is a group of literary narratives usually based on one person's travel experiences. Along with the entertainment value, the books educate the reader with various facts such as historical records and geographical and cultural information.

This informative feature leads certain government agencies to consider some travel

writers as experts in specific regions. Travel literature in the context of this research

involves the transport of an audience through the imagination of the printed page, or

in some cases performance, to an unfamiliar destination, to foreign lands and foreign

cultures. The literature directs the traveler-reader to historical or contemporary

interpretations of people and places far from the common experience of mainstream

America. I place the five Broadway productions examined in this research in this vein

of travel writing. In that context, these staged works introduced Asian people as

plausible Americans in opposition to the overriding idea of a homogenous white

America. To better appreciate the significance of the emergence of this new Asian-

9 This idea of information providers continues resurrected in today's American mainstream media like Oprah Winfrey's Book Club. 38

friendly focus in travel writing, a review of the historical background forces of the early Cold War period seems appropriate.

''Enduring Friendly Relationships'': Foreign Policies and the Arts

Allied with China during World War II, the U.S. began to lift legal restrictions on immigration and citizenship in 1943 by repealing the Chinese Exclusion Act.

During the time period directly following World War II, other Asian people, particularly Japanese and Korean were granted similar limited rights. Despite the partial nature of the reforms, Asians in the U.S. gained a new status. In her book Cold

War Orientalism, Christina Klein explains, "These legal reforms and increased immigration began to change the meaning of Asianness within the United States: no longer legally aliens, Asians could begin to claim the status of 'immigrant' " (Klein

226). Regarding racism in the international context, the U.S. began to develop a national consciousness of its internal racism. President Truman's civil rights program in 1948 reflected the national awareness. Moreover, he strongly requested that the

Secretary of Defence end discrimination in the U.S. armed forces (Lovensheimer 5;

McCullough 587). Against the backdrop of the early Cold War period, anti-American sentiment, especially from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (U.S.S.R), accused the U.S. government of replacing Britain as the world's most powerful country and taking on its imperial role (Klein 39). America's Cold War enemy condemned the U.S. for its colonial aggression abroad and its practice of racism towards blacks and people of Asian ancestry at home. In fact, half of the Soviets' anti-American propaganda focused on racial issues (Klein 40). This condemnation troubled American leaders, who had witnessed Japan's racist propaganda against the West during the war and 39

recognized the importance of establishing alliances to prevent the expansion of communism.

In reaction to this criticism, U.S. policymakers attempted to change Asian stereotypes that served to justify the social practice of racism and discrimination in order to alter racial attitudes. This change necessitated repetitive reinforcement especially through cultural productions. Homi Bhabha explains: "a form of splitting and multiple belief, the 'stereotype' requires, for its successful signification, a continual and repetitive chain of other stereotypes. The process by which metaphoric

'masking' is inscribed on a lack which must then be concealed gives the stereotype both its fixity and its phantasmatic quality" (Bhabha "Other" 29). Repetitive stories formed a metaphoric "masking" that covered the Asian identity as defined by Asians and fixed it in Asian stereotypes. Josephine Lee explains "stereotypes in popular culture and art enact a violent dismemberment that focuses attention on particular body parts and features by highlighting or visually severing them from the rest of the body" (J. Lee 89). In this stereotypical vein, Asian-ness as defined by Asians or individual Asian-ness identity could not exist with genuine corporeality in the mass media. Therefore, in the theatrical sphere, Asian-ness was represented in terms of

Asian stereotypes which bolstered the illusionary assumption of Asian identity.

In order to alter the illusions and the stereotypes, a revised narrative about

Asian-ness in the travel literature was important to the U.S. policymakers to change

racial discriminative practices which existed in the U. S. By transporting a reader or

spectator to an unfamiliar destination, travel writing offered a sense of familiarity

with the setting and people of the destination. The effect of establishing a familiarity

with Asian people was also sought by U.S. foreign policy makers who desired to 40

establish positive and productive relationships with Asian countries. A 1954 newspaper article reported:

Both handsome and wholesome are those steps the U.S. is taking

toward an enduring friendly relationship between Japan and ourselves.

Foreign policies and "white papers" are often couched in phases that

the public does not grasp. But when we hear the music, see the dancing,

view their home décor, fashions and other attitudes of daily living in

Japan, and find them agreeable and understandable, that is carrying

national policy to its destination. (A. Hughes "A Woman's New York")

The purpose of this national policy was to lead the public to a reasonable understanding of Asian-ness. The travel writers used two strategies: making Asian people and Asian countries familiar to the American public and inviting American people to travel to Asian communities in the U.S. and abroad. In doing this, the travel writers were gradually altering the Asian stereotype.

After World War II travel again became a possibility for Americans, and travel writers were eager to introduce Asian-ness to mainstream American readership.

Klein explains that the postwar period witnessed a boom in travel writing, giving examples of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas' four accounts of his travels in Asia and the Middle East and his published reviews of various books on Asia in

Saturday Review. Among the various travel writers, A. Grove Day identifies James A.

Michener as one of the most influential producers of Asian and the Pacific stories in the postwar American imagination from the late 1940s through the 1950s (Day 32). 41

The musical, South Pacific (1949), for example, was loosely based on the stories written by Michener, which he gathered during the time he spent in the South Pacific during and after World War II. Vern Snieder and Leonard Spigelgass travelled to

postwar Japan and used their experiences as the basis for their works, respectively,

The Teahouse of the August Moon (1951) and A Majority of One (1959).

The vogue for travel writing extended to American popular music, such as the

1948 American hit tune "Far Away Places," written by Joan Whitney and Alex Kramer and sung by some of the most famous popular singers of the day. The song invited the listener to travel to the Asian world with lyrics like: "Far away places with strange sounding names […] Going to China or maybe Siam, I want to see for myself those faraway places I've been reading about in a book I took from a shelf." These lyrics align with various popular travel literature: Jules Gabriel Verne's Around the World in

Eighty Days (original edition in 1873, later edition in 1950), Pearl Buck's The Good

Earth (original edition in 1931, later pocket book edition in 1950); and Heinrich

Harrer's Seven Years in Tibet (1952).

These books not only invited the readers to experience the exotic Asian world, but also allowed them to experience and better understand Asian culture and people in the Cold War context. For example, Buck's The Good Earth rendered readers an awareness of Chinese culture and people. The voice tone of the narrative was not racially prejudiced or hateful. Such narratives helped mold public opinion. James

Michener's The Voice of Asia (1951) and Vern Sneider's A Pail of Oysters (1953) emphasized the importance of understanding the people of Asia to maintain cross- cultural understanding and regional peace in the contest of the early Cold War (Benda

42

35-60).10

"Far Away Places": Theatre Productions as Travel Literature

Far away places with strange-soundin' names Far away over the sea Those far away places with the strange-soundin' names Are callin', callin' me Going' to China or maybe Siam I want to see for myself Those far away places I've been readin' about In a book that I took from the shelf Joan Whitney and Alex Kramer Far Away Places (Melbourne: Allan & Co, 1948)

Four of the five Broadway productions considered in this dissertation are based on published stories or novels and as such were part of the Cold War interest and promotion of travel writing. The productions' story sources in publication order are: Margaret Landon's Anna and the King of Siam (1944), James Michener's Tales of the South Pacific (1947), Vern Sneider's The Teahouse of the August Moon (1951), and C. Y. Lee's Flower Drum Song (1957). Leonard Spigelgass' A Majority of One

(1959), the fifth work considered, is a play which served in the same capacity as travel literature. All five works fit the trend of humanizing Asia by describing Asian people as lovable human beings and supporting travel to an Asian atmosphere and meeting Asian people. Some critics have chided these five narratives in that they bred

American capitalism and tourism. Some declared that it seemed as if there were no

10 Jonathan Benda, "Empathy and Its Others: The Voice of Asia, A Pail of Oysters, and the Empathetic Writing of Formosa," Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies 33.2 (2007): 35-60. 43

Asian-Pacific localities featured in books before Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific

and Hawaii (1959) introduced the American public to Asian life. Rob Wilson claims

that Tales of the South Pacific "provided Ro[d]gers and Hammerstein with the white

mythology upon which the musical depended to transform the war-torn ethnoscape of

a French island possession into a 'Bali Hai' tourist heterotopia and a racialized fantasy

of American cultural mastery cum 'militourism' " (Wilson 128). Wilson's critique of

travel literature, like Tales of the South Pacific, centers on tourism and its voyeuristic

agenda. Nevertheless, I argue that this work must be considered in the context of the

specific historical and political background in which it was written. During World War

II, America directly experienced Japanese imperialism and military power. Shocked

and stunned by the bombing of Pearl Harbor, American society, which historically

embraced the racist phenomenon of Yellow Peril as described in Chapter 1, was not

yet prepared to fully accept Asian people as Americans. In this specific context, works

like Tales of the South Pacific proposed an understandable and non-threatening

version of Asians to American readers.

Each of the five authors wrote from their personal experiences, and for the

most part they were passionate to present Asian people in a positive light. A short

summary of each author's Asian connection will underscore his/her personal

experience and passion. Additionally, relevant historical connections will be noted.

The author will be discussed in this order: Margaret Landon, James Michener, Vern

Sneider, C. Y. Lee, and Leonard Spigelgass.

Margaret Landon and her husband served as Presbyterian missionaries from

1927 to 1937 in what was then Siam (Thailand) where she was introduced to two

works of fiction by Anna Harriette Leonowens: The English Governess at the Siamese 44

Court (1870) and Romance of the Harem (1872). Landon, intrigued by both the stories and the writer, wrote about Leonowens ("Landon, Margaret"), crafting a fictionalized

version of Anna's life in the court of Siam; Landon based her book on Leonwen’s

books and other sources including inspiration from her own missionary work and her

ideas about American democracy. Landon's writings became the best-selling novel

Anna and the King of Siam (Zanuck Anna).11 Though the official nationality of the

central female role is British in the original story, the Anna whom Landon created,

during the difficult war years between 1937 and 1944, is homegrown American

(Morgan 5).

The novel's publication in 1944 coincided with a critical moment for the U.S.

government in understanding Southeast Asia (known at the time as Indochina). As the

Empire of Japan expanded its power into this area, the U.S. government realized what

little information or intelligence it had about the region. In 1941 President Roosevelt

found a source in Landon's husband Kennedy Landon, who had published an article,

"Siam Rides the Tiger," in Asia Magazine (January 1939) which provided information

about the Japanese in Indochina ("Without Restraint" 23).12 The following year, the

Landons moved to Washington, D.C., where Kennedy Landon served the government

as an expert on Indochina ("Landon, Margaret"). In 1950 he travelled to Thailand and

Southeast Asia as a U.S. representative for the coronation of King Bhumibol; he was

asked to advise Vice-President Richard Nixon on Southeast Asia and White House

11 "The Real Story of Anna Leonowens," as seen the A & E Network's Biography, one of special features in the DVD of Anna and the King of Siam: Special Features: "The Real Story of Anna Leonowens." 12 The exhibit web pages of "Without Restraint: the life and ministry of Kenneth Landon" (1-35) at Wheaton College website. 20 Aug. 2013 . 45

Staff of President Dwight D. Eisenhower for the National Security Council on policy implementation; moreover, he met other Asian leaders such as Ngo Diem and Ho Chi

Min ("Without Restraint" 25). The career of Kennedy Landon shows how much the

U.S. government valued information and expertise on Asia. In a parallel context,

Margaret Landon's fictional account in her novel addressed the theme of "bringing democratic ideals to an unenlightened nation" and in this case that nation was

Thailand/Siam (Zanuck Anna).

James A. Michener, one of the most prominent American novelists of the twentieth century, went to the Pacific as a "trouble shooter in aviation maintenance, and later as Senior Historical Officer for the area from New Guinea to Tahiti [during

World War II]" (Michener Tales).13 After his discharge from the Navy Michener

published Tales of the South Pacific, which included stories from his military

experiences in the Pacific (Severson 1-15). Tales of the South Pacific, awarded the

Pulitzer Prize in 1948,14 supported the agenda of U.S. government policies, especially

those concerning ethnic minority groups. The U.S. needed to counter criticism from

communist powers of its racial discrimination. Michener continued to write popular

books with Asian themes: The Bridges at Toko-ri (1953), Sayonara (1954), and

Hawaii (1959). A more personal family connection to Asian-ness was Michener's

marriage in 1955 to a woman of Japanese descent, Mari Yoriko Sabusawa, who was

13 See back cover of dust jacket of original hardback 1947 publication by the Macmillan Company in New York. 14 It is difficult to designate Michener's work, Tales of the South Pacific, as fiction even though his work won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction because Michener himself and other critics thought the work did not fulfill the criteria of fiction. So it is not totally appropriate to call it a novel but rather a book or collection of short stories (Michener, The World 328-29).

46

an expert in political science and international relations and worked for the American

Council on Race Relations and American Library Association ("James Michener's").

Vernon J. Sneider, author of the comic novel The Teahouse of the August

Moon, brought to his writings a mid-western background, living in Michigan and graduating from the University of Notre Dame in 1940. After graduation, he joined the U.S. Army. Like Michener, he used his World War II army experiences as a basis for the plot of his book. According to his obituary in The New York Times, Sneider

“was a member of a military government team that landed in Okinawa in April 1945.

There he became commander of Tobaru, a village of 5,000 people that became the

Tobiki Village in The Teahouse of the August Moon” ("Vern Sneider"). The novel contains the story of the U. S. reconstruction army in Okinawa. However, the truth of the statement about Sneider’s postwar position is questionable since Okinawa was not given reconstruction like the mainland of Japan (Akibyashi and Takazato 244) and instead was used mostly for military bases "built by means of the forced enclosure and expropriation of vast areas of Okinawa" (Inoue 17). Sneider's version of postwar

Okinawa accomplished two things through the use of humor: it allowed veterans and their fellow citizens to handle war memories through comedy and it shed a positive light on the government's need to build up Japan as an ally against the postwar enemy communism.

Chin Yang Lee published Flower Drum Song under the name C. Y. Lee in

1957. His original novel about San Francisco Chinatown depicts the life struggles, particularly intergenerational and cultural conflicts, experienced by Chinese immigrants during the early Cold War era (Lewis 28). Lee's bestselling novel realistically introduced the struggles of Chinese Americans and fulfilled the 47

ideological needs of American policymakers. In the context of the ideological tension between American capitalism and Soviet and Chinese communism, Lee, as an

American citizen and a successful professional writer, was a role model of the

American dream. His presence eased the troubling and sharp image of the realities of

American racism.

Lee came to the United States to study in 1943, the year the Chinese

Exclusion Act was repealed, and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in drama from

Yale University in 1947. After graduation, he planned to return to China but like many other Chinese students, he decided to stay due to the political uncertainty caused by the victory of the Communist Chinese Revolution (Klein 226 and Zhao 56). He became a columnist for a San Francisco-based newspaper, Chinese World and wrote a column titled "Grant Avenue" after the main thoroughfare in Chinatown (Lewis 24).

As a columnist, he translated English news and stories from San Francisco papers into

Cantonese (Lewis 18). Most of the stories were entertaining and contained little political content. After winning first prize in the Reader's Digest story contest in 1949, his short story was included in an anthology, Best Original Short Stories (Benson

"Profile").15 In the same year, Lee became a naturalized American citizen. Working as

a columnist for over a decade, Lee witnessed how newspapers directly affected the

lives of Chinese immigrants in San Francisco, providing them space to share their

various opinions and life stories. Consequently, these publications assisted newcomers

in creating a sense of the Chinese community in the United States. They also helped

15 For more information, see Andrew Shin, "Forty Percent Is Luck," MELUS 29, no. 2 (2004): 78-79; and C. Y. Lee, "The Forbidden Dollar," Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine Including Black Mask Magazine 29.2, no 159 (1957): 104-107. 48

to develop a stronger Chinese American political network that engaged in struggles to obtain the civil rights enjoyed by all Americans (Zhao 4).

Leonard Spigelgass was born in Brooklyn, graduated from New York

University, and worked as a literary critic for the Brooklyn Eagle and the Saturday

Review of Literature ("Leonard Spigelgass").16 He served as a lieutenant colonel in

World War II and produced a bi-weekly magazine, Army and Navy Screen Magazine; and in Hollywood, he wrote screenplays, including the comedy I Was a Male War

Bride (1949) and became a film executive for MGM ("Leonard Spigelgass").

Spigelgass used his play, A Majority of One, to portray his thoughts on racial intolerance in connection to his Jewish heritage and experiences in Asia (Hischak 44).

The play contains a plea for understanding between races and an attack against racial bigotry (Watts "Brooklyn"; Hoffman "Majority").17 The 1958-59 Broadway season

had an abundance of Asian content plays such as Flower Drum Song, Rashomon, and

The World of Suzie Wong. Some critics claimed that Spigelgass' play, which opened

on February 16, 1959, was the only one among the Asian plays to confront the issue

of racial prejudice (Hischak 44). In an interview for The Boston Sunday Herald,

Elinor Hughes asked Spigelgass two questions relevant to understanding Spiegelgass'

work: "How did you come to write A Majority of One? And what does the title

mean?" Spigelgass answered: "the title? …from Thoreau's essay 'On The Duty of

16 "Leonard Spigelgass, A Writer for Broadway and Hollywwod," New York Times 16 Feb. 1985. Web. 15 Apr. 2013. 17 For more information, see Richard Watts, Jr., "Brooklyn lady and the Samurai" New York Post, Feb 17, 1959; see comment of "Abie's Irish Rose" in Leonard Hoffman, "The New York Play: A Majority of One," The Hollywood Report. Folder 5, Box 1, Leonard Spigelgass Papers, Collection ID: LS, The Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute, The Ohio State University. 49

Civil Disobedience.' It reads as follows: 'Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.' And I feel that that really does apply to Mrs. Jacoby

[the main character of A Majority of One]" (E. Hughes "Dore Schary"). Spigelgass’s answer to the other question appeared in a magazine article where he explained that his own hatred stemmed from his feelings about World War II: "how I hated the Japs, the Nips, the slimy little rats! I knew I still hated them" (Spigelgass, "A Majority of

One"). His experiences of witnessing the encounter of a matronly American woman and Japanese man on a trans-Pacific ship, which was later mirrored in his play, and his long talks with a former Japanese naval officer in Kyoto helped him face those feelings.

Like his character Mrs. Jacoby, he overcame his festering grudge against his prior enemy. In a program note for the Broadway presentation of A Majority of One,

Spigelgass wrote about his personal experiences and change of feelings about

Japanese people: "I believe that intolerance and prejudice rarely occupy a man's whole mind and thought; they mingle with all the rest of his attitudes and worries and satisfactions and color them. Only now and then do they break through in argument or violence" (Spigelgass, "A Majority of One").

50

Empathetic Stage with Asian-ness

Getting to know you/ Getting to know all about you Getting to like you/ Getting to hope you like me Getting to know you/ Putting it my way/ But nicely You are precisely/ My cup of tea ... Getting to know you/ Getting to feel free and easy When I am with you/ Getting to know what to say

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein The King and I (New York: Random House, 1951, p. 39)

From the four novels discussed above four Broadway productions materialized:

South Pacific (1949) adapted by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Joshua

Logan; The King and I (1951) and Flower Drum Song (1958) adapted by Richard

Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II; The Teahouse of the August Moon (1953) adapted by John Patrick (Goggin). A Majority of One (1959), a play originally, was directed and produced by Isadore "Dore" Schary.

In reflecting on the changing political forces of the Cold War era, Asian stereotypes began to be less rigid. Breaking with the traditional stereotype of Asians, the adapters of these Broadway productions for a variety of reasons presented a different, more positive picture or view of Asians. By putting Asian-ness in the form of Asian stories, settings, music, characters, and actors in front of the eyes, ears and minds of the American audience, they made Asians more familiar to the mainstream populace and more comfortable to deal with. For instance, Rodgers and Hammerstein, referencing a culinary aspect of Asian-ness which had already been embraced by

51

American culture, used the American Chinese dish chop suey18 as the focal point of

one song in Flower Drum Song. Therefore, I argue that if Asian food can be sung

about in a popular song on Broadway and come onto the American family dining table

through food companies like La Choy with its jingle "La Choy makes Chinese food

swing American," then Asian people can also come into the American family structure.

Each of the Broadway productions considered in this research either directly

or indirectly addresses the issue of becoming an American citizen. And to become an

American citizen you need to be part of the American family. With this in mind, the

consequence of becoming an American citizen would mean becoming a part of the

American family, thus being included in the American Family Portrait.

Asian Families: The Musicals

The three musicals, South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951) and Flower

Drum Song (1958), were all products of the creative skills of Richard Rodgers and

Oscar Hammerstein II. In South Pacific, Rodgers and Hammerstein centered the plot

primarily on two of Michener's short stories―"Our Heroine" and "Fo' Dolla"―from

which they gleaned two couples that become the romantic focus of the main story.

Nurse Nellie Forbush from Arkansas and her love interest, French plantation owner

Emile de Becque, who has two Eurasian children, are the happy ending couple that

becomes a family with mixed race children. Lieutenant Joe Cable and native girl Liat

are the unhappy ending couple that sadly cannot becomes a family, and as

18 Chop Suey might be considered one of the first fusion foods in America since it was a Chinese-style dish created in the U.S.

52

consequence Liat and her matchmaking single mother Bloody Mary remain as an incomplete family unit. According to Lovensheimer's in-depth research based on various notes and sources written by and about Rodgers and Hammerstein, the duo with help from Joshua Logan created two intertwined narratives based on ideas from

Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific: "After studying the book for several months

and making these and no doubt other notes, Hammerstein, almost certainly in

cooperation with Rodgers, decided that the Nellie Forbush–Emile de Becque romance

should be the principal plot and that the Cable–Liat–Bloody Mary story should be

secondary" (Lovensheimer 56).

The second Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, The King and I, also has two

families: British widow schoolteacher Anna and her son and the king of Siam, his

wives and his children. The plot sings and dances its way through Anna's experiences

in Siam in the early 1860s when the king sought to modernize (Westernize) his

country according to American democracy. Heavily influenced by Gertrude Lawrence

who desired to play the role of Anna on stage, Rodgers and Hammerstein found the

exotic location, strong characters, and powerful social theme interesting (Zanuck

Anna).19 Their decision to modify the title from an Anna and the King of Siam to The

King and I implies a significant shift in perspective, one that goes from a shared

presence to one that inserts a singular self as the controlling force in the story. It also

shows a shift from a British Anna to an All-American "I." In other words, even though the main character represents the British government, the musical was written

19 DVD Anna and the King: Special Features: "The Real Story of Anna Leonowens" 53

by American fiction and musical writers, for American audiences, and was infused with American ideals and American democracy.

Their third musical, Flower Drum Song presents families in an American city setting. The plot revolves around two families involved in the musical chairs romances of the younger generation. The patriarch of the first family is Wang Chi- yang, a wealthy 63-year-old father who came to the U.S. five years prior and is unwaveringly attached to Chinese traditions and Confucian values while rejecting many of the new country's practices, such as American food, English, use of banks, and western health care. The household also includes Chi-yang's two sons, Wang Ta and Wang San, as well as his sister-in-law, Madam Liang, who seems like a mother figure in the family and who proudly attends American Citizenship School. The other family includes Sammy Fong, a fully Americanized Chinese man who has a girlfriend, and his more traditional mother who arranges for a picture bride for her son. Into the lives of these two families come the picture bride Mei Li and her father from China,

Sammy's Chinese American girlfriend Linda, and a seamstress who holds unrequited love for Wang Ta. Knowing Wang Ta loves Linda, Sammy secretly persuades Chi- yang to arrange a marriage between Wang Ta and Mei Li. The plot twists and turns as the two women, Mei Li and Linda, first seem to be destined to marry one family's son then the other family's son, ending with the right man marrying the right woman in an audience-pleasing happy ending.

Similar to their past representations of Asian-ness and the connection between the U.S. and Asia, Rodgers and Hammerstein took "the safest commercial route by following the eldest son's search for love—the most popular theme at the time with

Broadway audiences" (Lewis 33). In an interview, Rodgers explained what he thought 54

Flower Drum Song represented: "The usual thing you hear, you know, is East is East, and West is West,20 and all that nonsense. We show that East and West can get

together with a little adjustment" (qtd. in Klein 231). With this "little adjustment,"

Rodgers, Hammerstein, and Fields revised the novel and transformed it into a musical

that simultaneously entertained the audience and emphasized the connection between

East and West in order to follow the trend of U.S. international policy. As a result of

this "little adjustment" for "safe commercialism," the cultural producers reconstructed

the novel's plot and characters.

Rodgers and Hammerstein injected some of their own experiences and beliefs

into all three musicals. While holding strong feelings at the time, Richard Rodgers'

interest in combating racial prejudice became more apparent after the death of

Hammerstein who had more vigorously voiced an attitude toward racial prejudice.

Rodger's 1962 musical, No Strings, portrays the issue of civil rights through the romance of an African American woman and a French man set in France.

Oscar Hammerstein's biographical facts provide clear evidence why he was interested in racial tolerance and Asian people in America. Through the musical,

Show Boat, Hammerstein first voiced his thoughts and objections to racial prejudice and intolerance in 1927 as he discussed "the base inhumanity of anti-miscegenation laws" (A. Hammerstein 122). This show dealt with the inhumanity of anti- miscegenation laws and did not stereotype to moderate the impact for "the practically all white musical theatre audience of 1927" (A. Hammerstein 123). In evidence with

20 Rudyard Kipling, "The Ballad of East and West" in Collected Verse of Ruyard Kipling (New York, 1907), 136: "OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet…"; and see a line from "Buttons and Bows" in Oklahoma: "East is east and west is west." 55

his professional writing career, Hammerstein strongly disagreed with racial prejudice in American society. After the creation of Show Boat and before the partnership with

Rodgers, he went to Hollywood and became involved with a politically active writing community. Hammerstein was a member of the Writers' War Board (WWB), later the

Writer's Board for World Government, which focused on the American Red Cross hiring black medical personnel and ending its practice of segregating blood by race

(Fordin 211).21 Also he was on the subcommittee "The Committee to Combat Race

Hatred" which claimed that "the writers of the United States because of their habitual

employment of 'stock characters' were unconsciously fostering and encouraging group

prejudice" (qtd in Lovensheimer 105).22 According to Lovensheimer, Hammerstein

was involved with the Anti-Nazi League (Lovensheimer 15-35). The group was

founded in 1936 as a response to Nazi sympathizers and Aryan supremacists who

actively accused Jews of being Communists and threats to white Americans,

especially targeting Hollywood as a Jewish-controlled industry (Lovensheimer 18-19).

Lovensheimer argues that Hammerstein's passion against racial intolerance was

evidenced through his involvement as chairman of the "Inter-Racial Mass Meeting

against Nazism" which was held on January 6, 1937 at Los Angeles's Philharmonic

Auditorium and featured African American W. E. B. Du Bois, an American historian

and civil rights activist, as the principal speaker "representing all races"

(Lovensheimer 20). However, Hammerstein was not satisfied with his political

21For more information, see Jim Lovensheimer, South Pacific (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2010), 15-35. 22 See "How Writers Perpetuate Stereotypes: A Digest of Data Prepared for the Writers' War Board by the Bureau of Applied Social Research of Columbia University" (New York: Writers' War Board, 1945), 1. A copy of this report is in the Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Library of Congress, Box 21. 56

activism in Hollywood. Henry Fordin identified that he "just didn't fit" in Hollywood and there was "no opportunity for Hammerstein to contribute his best creative efforts" so he moved back to Broadway in 1938 (Lovensheimer 21).23

Hammerstein's personal life provides reasons why he was interested in Asian-

ness. His wife's sister, Doodie, was married to a man of partial Japanese heritage:

Jerry Watanabe whose father was a Japanese director of Mitsui and Company and mother was a daughter of a British ambassador to Japan (Fordin 183). Hammerstein's brother-in-law was detained on Ellis Island during the war because of his heritage and

after his release was unable to get a job because of his Japanese name so he started to

work for Hammerstein's wife Dorothy (Fordin 183). Moreover, Dorothy and Doodie

experienced anti-Japanese feelings when they wanted to enroll Doodie's daughter,

Jennifer Watanabe, in a local school in Doylestown, PA. Her mother and Dorothy did

not want Jennifer to be in a difficult situation because of her Japanese name; later

Jennifer changed her last name to Blanchard when she attended another school in

Newtown, Pennsylvania (Fordin 183-84). With Pearl Buck and James Michener,

Hammerstein was one of the founders and the first president of Welcome House (now

Welcome House Adoption Services), an organization that arranges for the adoption of

children of American and Asian parentage (Cook "Dorothy"). Welcome House was

committed to combating racial prejudice and misconceptions about racial "hybrids"

(Fordin 284-85). Through the Welcome House, Hammerstein's daughter, Alice

Hammerstein Mathias, and her husband adopted a Japanese/American son who

became Hammerstein's first grandchild. Hammerstein supported the efforts of

23 For more information, see Hugh Fordin, Getting to Know Him: A Biography of Oscar Hammerstein II. New York: Random House, 1977), 153-59. 57

Welcome House by writing a show called With the Happy Children which promoted the good works of the organization (Fordin 285).

Rodgers and Hammerstein's interest and choice in stories about Asians could have been risky commercially since Asian minority issues were not well noticed or were even invible in contrast to black minority issues. Mary Dudziak noted, "The black/white paradigm renders other racial groups invisible" (Dudziak 14). As Dudziak stressed, in the dominating racial discourse and binarism between black and white, other ethnic groups are invisible to the popular culture. Such invisibility is demonstrated through Joe Cable in South Pacific: Cable feels that his girlfriend in

Philadelphia would not understand his experiences in the Pacific and thinks that the

"girls at Bryn Mawr wouldn't understand. Or …..be interested" in such experiences with Asian people (Michener, Tales 163). Considering this invisibility, it is questionable why the duo created the three musicals about Asians. Lovensheimer suggests a possible answer as a safer commercial purpose: "Their attention to a racial binarism other than black–white enabled Rodgers and Hammerstein to make general points about racial intolerance without directly involving the most inflammatory intolerance—that between white Americans and African Americans—and thus made

their message 'safer' in the postwar political climate" (Lovensheimer 85).

Asian Families: The Plays

Two Broadway plays, The Teahouse of the August Moon (1953) adapted by

John Patrick (Goggin) and A Majority of One (1959) directed and produced by

Isadore "Dore" Schary, also contain Asian family elements and show the influence of

the producers' personal Asian-ness experience. The Teahouse of the August Moon 58

transports the audience to the island of Okinawa where the American military is conducting a rebuilding program after the war. Captain Fisby is assigned to a small town to establish a school and to give the populace lessons in American democracy.

He accidently accepts a Japanese geisha, Lotus Blossom, as a gift and through her efforts develops a strong relationship with the village people, involving agriculture, commercial products, cultural exchange, and education. Patrick's adaptation follows the original book closely and emphasizes the silliness of Fisby's supervisor Colonel

Purdy in demanding that Fisby follow the plan set down by the government rather than using the resources of the native people. The family element is not as clearly visible or conventional as in the musical productions discussed above. In this play the villagers become a close knit family with Fisby as a father figure and Lotus Blossom as a mother figure. The village women look to her for lessons in makeup, dress, and behaviour, similar to how a young girl looks to her mother for guidance. Fisby protects his family of villagers and finds a way to support them with the sale of homemade liquor. The play ends happily and comically due to the indirect supervision and wisdom of the Okinawan storyteller Sakini who, like a wiser older brother, guides Fisby with practical advice throughout the twists and turns of the play.

John Patrick (Goggin) brought his personal experiences during World War II serving in the American Field Service in Egypt, India, and Burma to his adaptation of the play

(Vallance "John Patrick").24 His military service in Asian countries aligned with the

setting of The Teahouse of the August Moon.

24 See "Literature Annotations: Patrick, John. The Hasty Heart," Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database, New York University, 24 Aug. 2006. Web. 10 Sept. 2013 ; Eric Pace "John 59

A Majority of One also transports the audience across the Pacific Ocean. The plot portrays two different yet similar minority cultures through the interaction of an

Asian family and a Jewish American family. Leonard Spigelgass used his mother as a

model for Mrs. Jacoby. Mrs. Jacoby is a Jewish widow in Brooklyn who hates Japan

because her son was killed in the war. Despite her hatred, she travels with her

daughter and Foreign Service officer son-in-law to Japan. Mrs. Jacoby meets a

Japanese businessman, Mr. Asano, who has lost a son and a daughter in the war.

Eventually the two reconcile and become friendly. The plot revolves around forgiving

and accepting others and their culture. Within the turmoil of the younger generation’s

disapproval of the older generation’s love affair, Mrs. Jacoby's experience with

Japanese customs during a visit to Mr. Asano's home educates and adds humorous

cultural education while Mr. Asano's desire to court Mrs. Jacoby and his visit to her

New York home adds a touch of charming romance.

Isadore "Dore" Schary produced and directed A Majority of One for his close

friend Leonard Spigelgass. Schary had worked in Hollywood and became the head of

MGM from 1951-1956. After a number of artistic and financial successes in

Hollywood, Schary returned to Broadway in 1958 with his own play Sunrise at

Campobello which won five Tony Awards. He continued to work on Broadway and

directed A Majority of One in 1959 ("Dore Schary"). Though not directly involved in

Asian issues, Schary had a strong connection to minority and equality issues. He

experienced for himself persecution as a Jew in Germany before he immigrated to the

Patrick, Pulitzer Winner For 'Teahouse,' Is Dead at 90," The New York Times, 09 Nov. 1995. Web. 20 Sept. 2013 . 60

U.S., so it makes sense that he would feel empathy for another minority that had experienced containment camps and second class citizenship or outsider status. In politics, he was a civil libertarian attempting to protect victims of the Hollywood

Blacklist and was active with the B'nai Brith's Anti-Defamation League, the "nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency," and he served for a time as New York's

Commissioner of Cultural Affairs ("Dore Schary").25

Asians Move into the Frame

This research argues that all of the five Broadway productions present Asian- ness within a conceptual picture frame of the American family portrait. In the context of the early Cold War, the U.S. government needed to enforce an alliance with Asian countries to protect them from being contaminated by communism. Therefore, the five stage productions based on the travel literature popular at that time were considered as important cultural products with the ability to educate the public in regards to Asians.

The following chapters closely examine these productions as significant historical evidence of social and political transitions on race and ethnicity in the U.S. I pursue two major themes in relation to the American family structure: the American parents and the American children. Chapter 3 focuses on adult couple issues presented in the five Broadway productions: interracial romance and anti-miscegenation law; arranged marriage and individual choice in American democracy; and the gender

issue of a breadwinning father and a caretaking good wife.

25 For more information on Anti-Defamation League, see the Anti-Defamation League website, Adl.org. 61

Chapter 3

Interracial Romances and Parental Responsibilities

Household & family structure

During World War II, women were recognized as a good labor source, as represented by the ideal working woman character "Rosie, the Riveter," and invited into the job market. However, after the war the U.S. government wanted to recover a more traditional family shape and move from a wartime mobilization into a normalized peacetime status. Subsequently, in the 1950s mainstream media began to stress the nuclear family as the norm and reinforce traditional gender roles through recovering the breadwinner father status and reinitiating the ideal housewife and mother. For example, popular television shows like Father Knows Best (October 3,

1953-May 23, 1960), Leave it to Beaver (October 4, 1957-June 20, 1963), and The

Donna Reed Show (September 24, 1958-March 19, 1966) fortified that family type.

Father Knows Best (CBS) portrayed a family with a problem-solving, white-collar father, a well groomed, full-time homemaker mother, a teenage daughter, a son, and a younger daughter. Similarly, Leave It To Beaver (CBS and ABC) represented another problem-solving, white-collar father, a mother who dressed up in pearls to do housework, and two sons. The Donna Reed Show (ABC) depicted a medical doctor father, a fashionable homemaker mother, and a daughter and son. For many years television programs like these solidified the image of two gendered family roles: breadwinner father and ideal housewife/ mother. It goes without saying that all three 62

television families were white. Table 3.1 clarifies how these gender roles appeared in the television shows mentioned above. Each of the fathers is a white collar worker or professional while all the mothers are housewives.

Table 3.1 Gender Roles in The Family Structure in TV Shows

HUSBAND/ WIFE/ MOTHER FATHER MEDIA TITLE Cooking & cleaning Solve the problem Child care Breadwinner Father Knows Best 203 episodes Jim Anderson Margaret Anderson Oct. 3, 1953--May 23, ―White collar job ―Housewife 1960 Leave It To Beaver 235 episodes Ward Cleaver June Cleaver TV Shows (including 1 pilot) ―White collar job ―Housewife Oct. 4, 1957-- June 20, 1963 The Donna Reed Show 275 episodes Dr. Alex Stone Donna Stone Sept. 24, 1958--March ―Doctor ―Housewife 19, 1966

The five Broadway productions examined in this dissertation also contain these

gender roles. All of the fathers or father figures hold either power or wealth while the

mothers' or mother figures' main focus is taking care of or supporting family. Table

3.2 lays out the gender roles in these productions.

63

Table 3.2 Gender Roles in the Family Structure in Broadway Productions

HUSBAND/ FATHER WIFE/ MOTHER MEDIA TITLE Solve the problem Cooking & cleaning Breadwinner Child care Nellie ―Nurse Emile ―Takes care of military ―Father personnel and Emile's South Pacific ―Plantation owner interracial children (1949-1954) ―Performs life endangering mission Mary for the U.S. ―Local Entrepreneur ―Takes care of her daughter Liat Mongkut, King of Siam Anna ―Father of the royal ―Teach American children and the Democracy to the Asian Broadway The King and I nation royal family (1951-1954) ―The King of Siam Lady Thiang ―Attempts to accept ―Takes care of the king American Democracy and the crown prince The Teahouse Lotus Blossom Captain Fisby of the August ―Wife figure to Fisby ―Symbolic Father to Moon ―Symbolic Mother to Tobiki village people (1953-1956) Tobiki village people Wang Chi-yang Flower Drum Madame Liang ―Independently Song ―Take care of her sister's wealthy (1958-1960) husband and children ―No job

Continued

64

Table 3.2 continued

Mrs. Jacoby ―Work part-time so not burden daughter

Ayako Asano A Majority of Mr. Asano ―Takes care of her father- One ―Wealthy businessman in-law (Mr. Asano) (1959-1960) Alice Black ―Support husband at social diplomatic functions

This chapter considers Asians in reference to the greater American family. In

one sense family, as discussed in Chapter 2, is "a group of individuals living under

one roof and usually under one head: HOUSEHOLD.”26 Applied to the U.S. in a general sense, the American family is a group of individual subsets of various origins.

In the early Cold War period Asians from various countries were emerging as one of

the acceptable origin groups similar to the various European immigrants in the late

nineteenth century. To gain acceptance Asians needed to be assets to the society and

government, by being men and women who would fit the American family image.

In this chapter the roles of men and women as husbands/fathers and wives/mothers will be discussed in relation to the five productions. The change in image of the Asian characters between the three productions that opened in the first half of the target time period (1949-1954) and the latter two productions (1958-1960) shows a gradual acceptance of Asians as family members.

26 "Family," Merriam-Webster Online, assessed January 30, 2013, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/family. 65

Courtship: "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught"

Whites from ardent segregationist to moderate integrationists opposed intermarriage. President Harry S Truman replied frankly to a reporter who asked whether intermarriage would become common, 'I hope not; I don't believe in it.'

Frank H. Wu Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White (New York: Basic Books, 2002, p. 276)

The various stories and romantic couples contained in the five Broadway productions portray two major categories of Asian-ness in America: “Unacceptable”

and “Acceptable.” Historically in the U.S., Asians had not been considered as

acceptable, legally or culturally. According to anti-miscegenation laws such as the

California Civil Code provisions, Asian people could not marry white people and had difficulty in becoming American citizens. Even those Asians lucky enough to become

American citizens, both men and women, still faced huge obstacles in relation to the

American interpretation of gender roles. Despite these hardships, as the five productions suggest, in the post-World War II context of American history, Asian people might find some acceptance and become citizens.

Anti-miscegenation laws performed a fundamental role in defining racial identity and fortifying racial hierarchy; along with restrictive federal immigration laws, the state anti-miscegenation laws put constraints on intermarriage keeping

Asians as "inassimilable" foreigners not suitable for citizenship (Moran 17-18). In contrast to these legal practices, the selected musicals and plays portray interracial couples. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific describes one such couple, Joseph

Cable, a Caucasian U.S. Marine lieutenant, and Liat, a Tonkinese woman. The two

66

other Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals also present images of interracial couples: the King of Siam and Anna in The King and I; Sammy, a Chinese man in his thirties and Linda Low, a Chinese nightclub dancer, in Flower Drum Song.27 John Patrick’s

The Teahouse of the August Moon stages a love liaison between Captain Fisby, a

young Caucasian U.S. army officer, and Lotus Blossom, a Japanese geisha. A

Majority of One by Leonard Spigelgass introduces an unconventional postwar

interracial couple, Bertha Jacoby, a New York City Jewish widow, and Koichi Asano,

a rich Japanese widower.

Interracial romance and the law

The law, as it now stands, puts a premium on feminine bachelorhood. A woman may be a patriotic American, an American born and bred, but if she marries a foreigner she must lose her American citizenship. [...] Another bad feature of the law is that a foreign-born woman, who does not understand our language or anything about our country, may come over here, marry an American and become automatically entitled to vote. New York County Clerk James Donegan in April 1922 Jill Kauffman "Cable Act (1922)," Issues & Controversies in American History (Infobase Publishing, 15 May 2011. Web. 6 Dec. 2013)

All of the five stage productions took place between the pivotal court cases of

Perez v. Sharp in 1948 and Loving v. Virginia in 1967. In 1948, with her interracial

marriage to an African man, Andrea Perez challenged two California Civil Code

27 While the original novel indicates Linda Low as an ex-G.I. bride, the musical rendition does not. 67

provisions28 that banned licenses for the interracial marriage of "a white person with

a Negro, mulatto, Mongolian, or member of the Malay race" and declared all

interracial marriage illegal and void (Moran 84-85). The Supreme Court of California ruled the provisions unconstitutional. In 1967, the United States Supreme Court ruled that miscegenation state laws were unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia (Sohoni

587). All thirty states that had held anti-miscegenation laws repealed the legal practices between 1948 and 1967.29 Figure 3.1 contains a comparison timeline with

the historical context and legislation of the time that might have influenced the

writing of the original stories or the focus of the five Broadway productions. The time

line starts in the early 1940s and ends in the 1960s.

28 California Civil Code, 60 and 69, 1939. 29 The thirty states are as following: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. 68

Figure 3.1 The Five Productions and Legal Congressional Acts

SOURCE STORIES AND YEAR LEGAL CONGRESSIONAL BROADWAY PRODUCTIONS ACTS

Anna and the King of 1943 The Chinese Exclusion Siam (Fiction) Repeal Act of 1943 1944

1945 Tales of the South Pacific The War Brides Act (Fiction) 1947 The Displaced Persons 1948 Act Japanese American South Pacific (Musical) 1949 Evacuation Claims 1949─1954 Act Perez v. Sharp The King and I (Musical) 1951 1951─1954 The Teahouse of the 1952 McCarran-Walter August Moon (Fiction) Immigration and Nationality Act The Teahouse of the August Moon (Play) 1953 1953─1956 The Refugee Relief Act 1957 Flower Drum Song (Fiction) 1958 Flower Drum Song (Play) 1958─1960 1959

A Majority of One (Play) 1964 Civil Rights Act of 1959─1960 1964

1967 Loving v. Virginia

In the historical context of Perez v. Sharp and Loving v. Virginia, the musical South

Pacific makes an indirect allusion to the legal and cultural difficulties of accepting an

Asian woman and Eurasian (strongly implying Amerasian) children as a part of an

69

American family.30 A major hurdle in the adaptation of Michener’s novel was how to

compress the expansive three hundred page book with its eighteen short stories into a

two-hour musical in South Pacific. Michener admitted that his book did not have a

focused dramatic story-line (Sturma 26). As mentioned in Chapter 2, “After studying

the book for several months and making these and no doubt other notes, Hammerstein,

almost certainly in cooperation with Rodgers, decided that the Nellie Forbush–Emile

de Becque romance should be the principal plot and that the Cable–Liat–Bloody Mary

story should be secondary” (Lovensheimer 56). Thus, nurse Nellie Forbush from

Arkansas and her love interest French plantation owner Emile de Becque was used for

the happy ending couple and Lt. Joe Cable and the native girl Liat for the unhappy

ending couple.

The American characters, Nellie and Joe, represent two examples of the

American postwar attitude of racial prejudice. Nellie is a nurse who comes from Little

Rock, Arkansas, and Cable is an Ivy League graduate from the northern city of

Philadelphia. In Michener’s book, Nellie is a twenty-two-year old nurse from

Otolousa, Arkansas, but Rodgers and Hammerstein changed her hometown to well-

known Little Rock, Arkansas. Coincidentally, Little Rock would go on to become a

more volatile and sensitive part of American history in 1957. In response to the U.S.

Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, nine

African American students enrolled at Little Rock Central High School. The Arkansas

governor commanded the state’s National Guard to block their entry (Sturma 1997,

30 Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines Amerasian as "a person of mixed American and Asian descent; especially: one fathered by an American and especially an American serviceman in Asia." 70

29). In response, President Eisenhower more powerfully defined racial actions as domestic enemies. On September 24, 1957, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s headline

“Eisenhower Warns He’ll Use Troops If Little Rock Terror Continues” was accompanied by three photos of a violent attack on a colored reporter (Morin 2012, 1).

An inside article reported detailed information with the subtitle, “ ‘Full’ U.S. Might

Pledged Against Integration Foes” (Morin 2012, 1). As the newspaper indicated an act of discrimination based on racial prejudice was an action of integration enemies.

Earlier court cases, such as the 1947 case of Mendez v. Westminster which banned

“the intermixture of white students and children of ‘Japanese, Chinese, or Mongolian’ decent” (Briones 2012, 221), were indicators that Asians were also subject to Jim

Crow-like laws.

Nellie’s feelings are very strong as shown in the end of Act II Scene IV where

Nellie argues with Emile about how she and Cable feel about those Asian people.

Nellie refuses to marry Emile because her perception of marriage cannot accept his previous relationship with his dead Polynesian wife. When Emile approaches Nellie to ask why she wants to move away from him, Nellie turns to Cable for support and says, “No, wait a minute, Joe. Stay. Please!” (134). This scene exposes the miscegenation issue:

EMILE. No. Now. What does it mean, Nellie?

NELLIE. It means that I can’t marry you. Do you understand? I can’t

marry you.

EMILE. Nellie—Because of my children?

NELLIE. Not because of your children. They’re sweet. 71

EMILE. It is their Polynesian mother then –their mother and I.

NELLIE. …Yes. I can’t help it. It isn’t as if I could give you a good

reason. There is no reason. This is emotional. This is something that is

born in me.

EMILE. (Shouting the words in bitter protest) It is not. I do not believe

this is born in you.

NELLIE. Then why do I feel the way I do? All I know is that I can’t

help it. I can’t help it! (135)

Nellie claims that she has no control over why she has these feelings as if they were natural and born in her. Also, she says that her mother is very prejudiced (66) implying an inherited trait. Assuming her fellow American feels the same Nellie says,

“Explain how we feel, Joe—” (135). This theatrical version is not as extreme as

Michener’s original story in which Nellie “suffered a revulsion” at the thought of

Emile with a Polynesian woman because “her entire Arkansas upbringing made it impossible for her to deny the teachings of her youth” (112).

Cable, unlike Nellie, is aware of the nature of how prejudice develops. Both

Michener in the book and Hammerstein in the musical established Cable’s hometown as Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. Michener had grown up in Pennsylvania and Hammerstein owned a farm in Pennsylvania so both were likely aware of a growth in minority migration during the 1950s which included a huge increase in the

African American population. Table 3.3 gives historical evidence of a possible influence which both men brought to the character of Joe Cable.

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Table 3.3 Philadelphia Population, 1930-1950

White Black Year Total White total Black total percentage percentage

1930 1,950,961 1,728,417 88.6 219,599 11.3 1940 1,931,334 1,678,577 86.9 250,880 13.0 1950 2,071,605 1,692,637 81.7 376,041 18.2 Source: U.S. Census referred from Countryman's table (13)

Evidencing the table, Matthew J. Countryman stresses that Philadelphia's 1951

improvements in civil rights were made possible because Philadelphia experienced a

racial demographic change due to the industrial mobilization for the war and state

political reform regarding civil rights for all citizens of Philadelphia (13). Since Cable

comes from Philadelphia, he is more aware of racial intolerance and the problems of a

racial-mixing relationship, especially pertaining to marriage.

This awareness and the message of racial tolerance become more effective in

musical elements. Songs in musicals are used as vehicles to “express what was

otherwise unsayable within the typical serious drama” (Lerner 174). Ann Rugg identifies that the Broadway musical evokes a particular audience relationship and connection to a particular historical America (46). For example, Oscar Hammerstein's

Show Boat (1927) dealt with controversial issues of racial mixing through its songs, including "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man." Similarly, Rodgers and Hammerstein stressed the issue of racial prejudice through song in South Pacific. The song “You’ve Got to

Be Carefully Taught,” which contains the musical's central theme, links clearly to

Nellie's past and to Cable’s understanding of the present. According to Fordin, some

73

"experienced theatrical people" asked Michener to persuade Rodgers and

Hammerstein to remove the song to insure a greater success, but they declined because the musical number represented why they had wanted to make the musical and they decided to keep it “even if it meant failure of the production” (Lovensheimer

86; Fordin 270-71). Emile, as a foreigner, cannot understand Nellie, and asks Cable why she believes that prejudice is born within them. Cable stresses, “It’s not born in you! It happens after you’re born” (Rodgers, Hammerstein, and Logan, 136).

Examining some of the lyrics of Cable's song shows the strength of Rodgers and

Hammerstein's message of how young Americans are educated into racial prejudice:

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,

You’ve got to be taught from year to year,

It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear—

You’ve got to be carefully taught!

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid

Of people whose eyes are oddly made,

And people whose skin is a different shade—

You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,

Before you are six or seven or eight,

To hate all the people your relatives hate—

You’ve got to be carefully taught!

You’ve got to be carefully taught! (136)

74

With this song, Rodgers and Hammerstein articulate how deeply racial intolerance was rooted and institutionalized in America. As the song stresses, people are carefully taught to hate certain people before the age of "six or seven or eight" (136).

According to Jean Jacque Rousseau, children between the ages of two and twelve sense "everything" and become "familiar with feeling" rather than understanding and reason (Gianoutsos 13; Rousseau 20). Through the song, Hammerstein expresses a wish for people to comprehend and to reason with each other rather than to instinctively hate other people. Hammerstein’s lyrics promote an understanding of others in the broadest sense; the song is not particularly focused on a love relationship.

Fordin underscores Hammerstein's answer to a question about his supposed "love" for people:

I don't idealize people. I am conscious of their imperfections. In fact, I

haven't got a high opinion of human beings. When they make mistakes,

I am not surprised. It is the perfectionist who gets indignant when

people let him down. If a man is disillusioned about people, it is his

fault. He had no business having illusions. (271)

So Cable understands and declares that the deep, learned intolerance in American

society makes it impossible for him to bring his Asian beloved into his upper middle

class family back home. Geoffrey Block provides insightful analysis into the issue of

Joe Cable and social class in his book Richard Rodgers:

75

Realizing that he could never take her back to Philadelphia society, and

both unwilling and unable to stay, Cable rejects Mary’s offers and

Liat’s love, and, at the end of the story, leaves for battle. The central

conflict of the story is within Cable. While he partially overcomes his

racial intolerance through the depth of his feelings for Liat, he

eventually succumbs to it because he is unable to reconcile his feelings

with the societal pressures of his upbringing, pressures that also bring

issues of class into the story. (161)

As Block argues, Ivy League Cable and native girl Liat would not be class compatible in American society. Cable is unable to overcome his discomfort with both race and class feelings and at this point in the story helplessly says “no” to the marriage proposal. He seems to be given two options: leaving his love or staying with her which would mean leaving his country. Contrary to Michener’s original character, who two years earlier in the book runs away from a serious relationship of interracial marriage and suffers from being called "Fo' Dolla'," a racially derogatory term that refers to his interracial relationship (Michener, Tales 382-383), Rodgers and

Hammerstein’s Cable makes the hard decision and decides to choose love if he

survives the life-endangering mission (Rodgers, Hammerstein, and Logan, 137).

Additionally, Lt. Joe Cable's name, coupled with the story of his difficult

decision to marry Liat, might reference the Cable Act of 1922 or "Married Women's

Independent Nationality Act," named for Ohio Representative John L. Cable. While

the Cable Act allowed women to regain their citizenship after marriage to aliens

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"eligible to citizenship," the law still deprived American women of their citizenship if they married those "ineligible to citizenship," particularly Asians (Kang 139-41).

The immediate critics' responses to South Pacific did not mention its content

and songs on racial prejudice, especially ignoring "You've Got to Be Carefully

Taught" (Block 124). Although the musical diminishes prejudice, Cable could not be

allowed to marry Liat as the result of racially biased culture. It would have been too

controversial if Cable would have chosen Liat instead of his country. His death seems

inevitable because his interracial romance might have been hard for mainstream

American audiences to accept in 1949. Rodgers and Hammerstein discussed alternate

endings in which Cable did not die but in the end they chose his death (Fordin 272).

These feelings of racial intolerance addressed in the musical did not only

come from emotional or cultural sources but also legal sources. Anti-miscegenation

laws in many states criminalized interracial cohabitation and sexual relations between

whites and people of color. Despite Cable’s tragic death, his narrative did foreground

one American who had a more open mind to the possibility of interracial marriage

which prefigured the advent of Asian war brides. In addition, his death affects Nellie

who, in an emotionally touching scene, shows a change of mind in relation to her own

racial prejudice. In this moment, Nellie meets Liat and Bloody Mary who are

desperately searching for Cable, unaware that he is dead. Nellie’s reaction of

sympathy and empathy shows a beginning of change in her attitude toward non-white

people (Rodgers, Hammerstein, and Logan, 158-59).

The second production, The King and I, is based on Margaret Landon's novel,

Anna and the King of Siam. As explained in Chapter 2, Landon's book uses two works written by Anna Harriette Leonowens for her story source: The English Governess at 77

the Siamese Court (1870) and Romance of the Harem (1872). Both works were based on Leonowens’ experiences with the Siamese royal family. The musical is set in the

1860s when Siam (now Thailand) was surrounded by European imperial powers, an allegorical reference to Asian countries with the expansion of Communism in the early Cold War period. In this setting, the Asian king has a connection with Anna, a

British governess, who comes to Siam to teach the royal children and King's wives. In the musical adaptation, Anna's character, while remaining British, behaves and acts more like an American of the mid-twentieth century with a stress on the writers' ideas about American democracy and individualism (Glassmeyer 107). Rodgers and

Hammerstein use the King as the vehicle to show the unsettling feelings of a transition from traditional to modern and of the need for and difficulties of assimilation into the Western world. Faced with expanding colonial power in Asia and neighboring countries, the Siamese King needs to deal with Western imperial power, especially British power. Consequently, the King wants to modernize

(Westernize) his country through education and hires Anna who is a widowed teacher.

In The King and I Rodgers and Hammerstein hint at an interracial romance between the King and Anna. When the original company was working out the interaction of each character, Yul Brynner suggested that "We have to play it as potential lovers. Otherwise the play is just about two cultures, and who cares?"

(Lawrence 180). Also, in the New York Times, Rodgers and Hammerstein admitted an intentional romance: "The strength of their story lies in the violent changes they wrought in each other. Yet their life together bears unmistakable implications of deep mutual attraction― a man and a woman relationship so strong and real and well-

78

founded that it seems in some ways more than a love affair, more than a marriage"

(Lawrence 180).

I argue that the interracial romance reoccurs in the story through the romantic song “Something Wonderful” and the dance scene featuring the song "Shall We

Dance." The insinuative romantic song, "Something Wonderful," is heard four separate times. All of them insinuate the theme of romantic relationship between the

King and Anna and the acceptance of American democracy in Siam. First, after Anna has a tumultuous quarrel in which the King calls her his servant, Lady Thiang, the

King’s head wife and mother of the crown prince, visits Anna and advocates for him.

Thiang explains the many things the King has to deal with and his need of Anna’s help: “Our agents in Singapore have found letters to British Government from people whose greedy eyes are on Siam. They describe King as a barbarian, and suggest making Siam a protectorate” (58); and “He needs you" (59). Moreover, Thiang sings,

“[The King] will not always say,/ What you would have him say,/ But now and then he’ll say/ Something wonderful” (60). This song ends with the lyrics, “He’ll always needs your love and so he’ll get your love/ A man who needs your love can be wonderful” (59-60). Second, immediately after this scene, Thiang sings to herself another version of the song “She’ll always go along,/ Defend him when he’s wrong/

And tell him when he’s strong/ He is wonderful./ He’ll always need her love/ And so he’ll get her love/ A man who needs your love/ Can be wonderful!” (62). It is during this second singing that a romantic theme clearly emerges with the blessing of the person who loves the King most deeply.

The third time is a rendition of “Something Wonderful” played by the orchestra to accentuate the King fulfilling his promise as he gives Anna her own 79

house away from the King's polygamous palace at the end of Act One (78). As Thiang predicted, the King said something wonderful by fulfilling his promise and giving

Anna her own house. I argue that allowing Anna to have a house represents his acceptance of American style democracy. Having a separate house implies freedom, so the King allows her to keep her (American) freedom in his country and as a consequence saves his country from Western imperialism. As “Something Wonderful” is used to praise American democracy, simultaneously it gives a positive tone to the interracial relationship. Similar to the third time, the fourth is also a rendition of

“Something Wonderful” played by the orchestra to put an accent on the next

generation practicing American democracy in Siam at the scene of the King's death with the next king's proclamation (145). With the echoing music, the King leaves his life and Anna.

Moreover, the dancing scene featuring the song "Shall We Dance" fortifies the positive tone of the romance. After the diplomatic party ends and they are alone without the judgmental observation of society, the King gives a ring to Anna as a gift.

Although she wishes him to put it on her finger, he rejects her request and she puts it on the index finger of her left hand. Here a difference in interpretation between cultures arises. The King could have meant the ring as an appreciation for Anna’s service. In Anna’s culture, and the audience’s culture, the gift of the ring could be interpreted as a promissory ring that would signify a committed relationship. Anna puts the ring on the correct hand but not the correct finger, possibly implying her acceptance of an ambiguous romantic relationship. Following this ring scene, Anna comments that equality between a man and a woman is "a beautiful idea” and she uses dancing as an example (119). The King expresses his displeasure of the idea of a 80

woman dancing in the arms of someone who is not her husband. Thus, in order to explain the beautiful idea, Anna sings "Shall We Dance" and dances by herself in front of the King. In response to her song and the dance, the King requests that Anna teach him how to dance in the western style. Unlike the vernacular dances in Siam where a couple dances side by side without touching, Western social dances, like the polka, need physical touching between the man and the woman. The polka also requires that the man lead the dance and the woman follow, and to do the dance successfully the couple must communicate with each other. At first, Anna leads the dance by holding the King's hands (123). At one point, they switch to the western style dance hold and the King leads Anna as explained in the stage direction “Looking very directly into her eyes he advances on her slowly and puts his hand on her waist”

(124). The stage direction also portrays the manner of the dance: “They dance a full refrain and dance it very well indeed, rhythmically and with spirit, both obviously enjoying it. They stop for a moment, stand off and laugh at each other” (124). As they dance together, they sing:

ANNA. (Singing) Shall we dance?

KING. One two three and.

ANNA. On a bright cloud of music shall we fly?

[...]

ANNA. Shall we then say "good night" and mean "good-bye"?

KING. One two three and. (He sings:) Or perchance,

When the last little star has leave the sky

ANNA. Shall we still be together, 81

With our arms around each other,

And shall you be my new romance?

(KING sings the word "romance" with her)

On the clear understanding

That this kind of thing can happen,

Shall we dance? Shall we dance? Shall we dance? (123)

The lyrics clearly present a mutual understanding of a possible romance as they sing the word "romance" together. Clearly, with the three major elements of the ring, the dance, and the song, this scene crafts a lovely interracial couple.

In an interview, Mike Wallace asked Hammerstein about his personal views about interracial romance:

WALLACE: Does that express your view as far as you're concerned

with miscegenation. Inter-marriage between races is perfectly sensible?

HAMMERSTEIN: Yes.

WALLACE: In "The King And I"?

HAMMERSTEIN: In "The King And I", I think "The King And I" is

best symbolized by the number in it, "Getting to know you, getting to

know all about you" as the nurse from the governess from Wales

talking to the little Siamese kids whom she'd grown to love and who'd

grown to love her. And there is no There again, all race and color had

faded in their getting to know and love each other. (Hammerstein, The

Mike Wallace) 82

Thus the interracial romance between the King and Anna is possible due to their mutual "getting to know" and love for each other. Despite Hammerstein's personal thought, their interracial romance could not result in a happy ending, similar to Joe

Cable and Liat in South Pacific. Historically, the real Anna Leonowens did not marry the real King of Siam; the Anna of Margaret Landon’s book did not marry her king either. However, using artistic license, Rodgers and Hammerstein could have chosen to adapt the story into something with a happy (and provocative) ending without the

King’s death. Adaptation allows for changes and eliminations: certainly, the duo removed the Tuptim’s execution, for her illicit love in violation of her arranged marriage with the King, from Landon’s text. Nonetheless, despite the idea of other possibilities for the King, the duo held on to a narrative, like South Pacific, that concludes in an ill-fated interracial romance that concludes in the death of the man.

Although the possibility of interracial romance is lost, Anna maintains her relationship with her pupils. In the final scene, the musical stages two farewells. In the previous scene, having informed the King and the court of Siam that she plans to leave, Anna rushes to the dying King and finds him in his study surrounded by his books and his children. The scene presents two farewells: Anna’s leaving the country and the King’s leaving his life. Strangely, the children seem more concerned about

Anna’s leaving than the King’s. They even break into shouts of joy when Anna decides not to leave. The King berates them, “Silence! ... Is no reason for doing of this demonstration for schoolteacher realizing her duty, for which I pay her exorbitant monthly salary of twenty…five pounds! Further, this is disorganized behavior for bedroom of dying King!” (143). The King then declares his first son, Chulalongkorn, 83

as his successor. The first thing Chulalongkorn does as king is to announce his democracy-inspired proclamations to his people, while the King quietly expires. This scene highlights the success of democracy intertwined with the prospects of interracial romance. The fact that Anna decides to stay represents a positive relationship implying an Asian-U.S. alliance. But the death of the King ends his personal relationship with Anna.

The third production, John Patrick's stage adaptation of Vern Sneider's original novel The Teahouse of the August Moon is set in Okinawa after World War II focusing on the U.S. military plans of reconstruction for the country. While the original novel does not clearly present a romance between an American man and a

Japanese woman, the stage adaptation of The Teahouse of the August Moon includes one between a white American captain and a Japanese geisha.31 This relationship is

one-sided as the captain is naively clueless and altruistic. The play uses this

misunderstanding to create comic situations between the two characters. The geisha’s

love goes unrequited, and this leads her to accept the love of a Japanese man—as long

as he recognizes her independence.

The play condenses the novel’s two geishas, First Flower and Lotus Blossom,

into one geisha, Lotus Blossom, who is presented to the captain as a "souvenir" from

the villagers, thus leading to the possibility of a relationship. The captain, Jeff Fisby,

is also depicted differently from the book version. Specifically, the novel portrays

Fisby as follows:

31 As in the other productions I chose to examine a romance which was "the most popular theme at the time with Broadway audiences" (Lewis 33). 84

He was drawn up to his full chubby five foot seven. [...] the

perspiration stood out on his forehead, way up where his hair had

thinned. It could hardly be said that he cut a military figure. Without a

doubt, no sculptor would ever ask him to model for a statue to stand in

the town square depicting the youth and spirit of America's soldiers in

World War II. [...]The Exchange Club claimed he was the best Santa

Claus they ever had. (15)

The play transforms Fisby into a handsome, good-looking man in his late twenties

(11). Through this alteration, the play presents a young, attractive Fisby and beautiful

Lotus Blossom reinforcing the stereotype of a visually ideal interracial relationship.

Fisby, an absentminded-professor type character completely focused on his mission, does not sense how Lotus Blossom feels about him and is not contemplating any romance. Here Fisby speaks to Sakini, a male translator working with the American army:

FISBY. What a lovely little thing you are! This belongs to you. (He

rises and returns the flower to her. Lotus Blossom takes it and goes to

cushion D.R.)

SAKINI. Oh, boss...you know what you do!

FISBY. It called for flowers.

SAKINI. That mean you give your heart to her.

FISBY. (Lightly.) Well, I do. We all do. (Turns to McLean.) Wasn't

that beautiful, Mac! (61) 85

Fisby is oblivious to the ways in which his words and actions are understood by the

Asian woman, but Lotus Blossom clarifies her position. Once he is aware of her intentions, he reveals his true feelings toward an unimaginable interracial relationship.

LOTUS BLOSSOM. Fu-san, watashito. Kekkon itakitaindes kedo

dodesho. (I want him to marry me.)

FISBY. What does she want?

SAKINI. Oh, that crazy Lotus Blossom--she want you to marry her.

FISBY. Why should she want to marry me?

[...]

LOTUS BLOSSOM. Datte, watashi ikitaiyo Amerika é.

SAKINI. She say she think she like to go to America. There everybody

happy. Sit around and drink tea while machines do work.

FISBY. She wouldn't like it, Sakini. I should hate to see her wearing

sweaters and sport shoes and looking like an American looking like an

Oriental.

SAKINI. But she wants to be American, boss. She never see an

American she not like, boss.

FISBY. Some of them wouldn't like her, Sakini. In the small town

where I live--there'd be some who would make her unhappy.

SAKINI. Why, boss?

FISBY. She'd be different. (71)

86

Similar to Joe Cable in South Pacific, Fisby cannot accept such a relationship because he understands the prejudice in his country. Despite his rejection of Lotus Blossom's marriage proposal, the play ends well with everyone happy. Lotus Blossom leaves with a village man, Seiko, who "has been looking at her like sick goat" (72) and promises not to consider her as his possession (72). The villagers have their teahouse.

Finally, due to Sakini's wit, Fisby and his supervisor Purdy are considered to be successful in accomplishing their mission well.

Ten years after South Pacific (1949), the attitudes of society were in transition and changing as demonstrated by A Majority of One (1959) by Leonard Spigelgass.

The play steps into the realm of interracial and inter-faith romance by featuring a non-

Christian white American woman and a Japanese man. Examining this couple more closely, they represent two minorities with histories of discrimination in American society. Mrs. Jacoby, a Jewish widow from Brooklyn, harbors hatred toward Japan because her son was killed in the war but nevertheless becomes involved with a

Japanese businessman. Mr. Asano, also had a son killed on the battlefield and a daughter who died in an atomic bomb blast (Spigelgass, Majority 30). Their budding relationship introduces two themes: the transformation of Asian enemy into an understanding friend and a direct possibility of an interracial romance in which the woman is white.

Despite her hatred of Japan, Mrs. Jacoby agrees to travel there with her daughter (Alice) and Foreign Service officer son-in-law (Jerry). On the ocean voyage she meets Mr. Asano. In Act 1 Scene 2, shortly after they become acquainted, Mrs.

Jacoby blames Mr. Asano for the death of her son, but then she finds he is merely an individual like her who has lost both of his children in the war. 87

MRS. JACOBY. All because you and Mr. Hitler wanted to run

the world.

MR. ASANO. My wife and I did not so wish, Mrs. Jacoby. Nor

our son, nor our daughter―nor anybody we knew. All we

wished for was a happy and peaceful existence with the flowers,

the moon, and the sunshine. Is that very different from what

you wished, Mrs. Jacoby? (30)

This scene transforms the standard view of the Japanese from quintessential enemies to understanding allies. Once they arrive in Japan Mr. Asano welcomes Mrs. Jacoby (and by extension the American audience) into his house and his Asian lifestyle. As the plot progresses Mrs. Jacoby in turn invites Mr. Asano (and the Christian audience members) into her Brooklyn apartment filled with Jewish tradition. Their interaction leads the audience to hopefully surmise that finally their friendship will lead to Mr. Asano becoming a part of Mrs. Jacoby's family and thus eligible for American citizenship. As one newspaper review stated, “The love story is handled with forbearance and immaculate manners; matters of race and color seem ridiculously immaterial. The basic plot prevails: two nice people, a little lonesome, fall in love" (McClain "A Majority of One").

This change in attitude from hatred to acceptance centers on Mrs.

Jacoby as her character represents a residual postwar resentment. The play’s

title, A Majority of One, delivers its central message: have the courage to stand 88

up alone for racial tolerance. As mentioned in Chapter 2, Spigelglass draws on a well known phrase from American history with this title: Henry Thoreau’s

"any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one"

(Thoreau 235). Spigelgass underlines the serious message of courage and doing what is right in overcoming hatred and intolerance. He explained in a magazine article how his personal racial intolerance toward Asians stemmed from his own World War II experiences. He states, "how I hated the Japs, the

Nips, the dirty, slimy little rats! I knew I still hated them." (Spigelgass "Author of the Comedy"). Fortunately after the war, he witnessed a meeting of an

American woman and Japanese man, much like the characters in his play, who softened their hatred and prejudice through person-to-person contact.

Spigelgass used this act of witnessing to develop a positive person-to-person relationship with a former Japanese naval officer. He used his play to express his newly developed thoughts on racial intolerance which were "I believe that intolerance and prejudice rarely occupy a man's whole mind and thought; they mingle with all the rest of his attitudes and worries and satisfactions and color them" (Spigelgass "Author of the Comedy"). Through his play Spigelgass exposes the influence of this subtle under-the-surface rotting effect of prejudice on everyday life. The play’s successful Broadway run and its later adaptation into a Hollywood film suggest an acceptance of a more positive attitude toward Asians in America by the end of the 1950s.

The final production, Flower Drum Song, is an exception to the interracial relationship between Westerners and Asians. Instead, it presents a relationship between the democratic ideas of the Western world and the 89

traditional ways of the Asian world. The musical focuses on an American setting that is exotically Asian in character. In 1958, the year following the publication of Chin Yang Lee’s book Flower Drum Song, the novel was adapted into a Broadway libretto by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, and Joseph Fields. Reiterating from Chapter 2, in an interview, Rodgers explained what he thought Flower Drum Song represented: “The usual thing you hear, you know, is East is East, and West is West, and all that nonsense.

We show that East and West can get together with a little adjustment” (Klein,

231). With this “little adjustment,” Rodgers, Hammerstein, Fields revised the novel and transformed it into a musical that simultaneously entertained the audience and emphasized the connection between East and West, thus following the trend of U.S. international policy. Similar to their past representations of Asia and its connection to the U.S., Rodgers and

Hammerstein took “the safest commercial route by following the eldest son’s search for love — the most popular theme at the time with Broadway audiences” (Lewis 33). In doing so they transformed the work from the realistic, stark story in the novel to a romanticized, happy musical story focusing on the twists and turns of romance.

The idea of a contact zone between East and West appears significantly at the center of matters relating to marriage. While The King and I presents Tuptim as doomed due to the arranged marriage, Flower Drum Song presents the freedom of choice, a theme which some musicals at that time shared. For example, West Side

Story (1957) clearly suggests such a conflict pertaining to love choice and marriage through the adapted story of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and the theme of inter- 90

ethnic love. Also, Fiddler on the Roof (1964) negotiates between Jewish traditions such as arranged marriage and a newly adopted idea of an individual's free choice.

To fortify the tension of multiple love triangles and the conflict between arranged marriage and free choice, Rodgers and Hammerstein created a new character not part of the source novel: nightclub owner and Chinese American Sammy Fong. He is a comic solution to the conflict. He has a relationship with one woman (Linda) as an example of free choice but his parents arrange a marriage contract for him with a picture bride from China (Mei Li). Through the casting of Larry Blyden in yellowface

as Sammy Fong and Pat Suzuki as Linda Low, the musical staged an interracial

couple beneath the musical’s narrative. Initially, the producers cast another Caucasian

actor, Larry Storch, as Sammy Fong, but during the Boston tryouts they replaced him

with Larry Blyden, who was an ex-husband of the choreographer of the show, Carol

Haney, since Storch was deemed inappropriate to the show (Lewis 61, 71-72). The

storyline centers on a relationship between a Chinese man and a Chinese woman.

However, with the producers casting choices, the audience witnessed a Caucasian

actor performing a love scene with an Asian American actress. In contrast, the casting

of Hawaiian-born Chinese American Ed Kennedy as Wang Ta and Japanese Miyoshi

Umeki and Japanese American Pat Suzuki as the two Chinese heritage women staged

same race couples as characters and actors. When the story line briefly joined Chinese

American Sammy and immigrant Chinese Mei Li an inter-cultural couple (American

and foreigner) was produced, showing the audience that culture differences can occur

even in same-race relationships. By the end of the show, all couples end up with their

desired partners in an audience-pleasing happy ending and, unlike the interracial

couples in the musical productions previously discussed, all the couples in Flower 91

Drum Song have a happy end. Another aspect to consider is the actor, Larry Blyden, who was a practicing Jew ("Larry Blyden"). Thus another humanizing casting was a subtext to the production.

According to the play, to bring a picture bride normally takes ten years (20).

This implies that Sammy is in his thirties and that his parents applied for a bride and waited for a very long time for her to arrive (18). Thus Sammy cannot tell his parents about his love for Linda. His only solution is Wang Ta. Sammy persuades Wang Ta's father to accept Mei Li for his son, stressing the long and difficult waiting period for bringing another picture bride. Ironically Sammy's solution causes Wang Ta a problem since Wang Ta is also romantically involved with Linda.

Toward the end of the play, Wang Ta discovers Linda's real job, nightclub dancer, and is surprised and disappointed. Simultaneously, he discovers his true love is Mei Li and their romantic relationship flowers through scenes of kissing and confession. In this way, the relationship between Sammy Fong and Linda help give the production a happy ending, reinforcing freedom of choice, so central to American democracy.

Parenthood: Non-Threatening Fathers

Post-WWII American men dreamed of a safe and happy family life. The dream resulted in a baby boom in the 1950s and 1960s and in the popping up of tract houses on the suburban landscape. During this time, a television set was visible in the living rooms of many homes and screened images of the good life. This idyllic family dream of house and children was mirrored in the fantasy world visualized and concretized by Walt Disney and brought to life in California at Disneyland which 92

opened in 1955. Many baby boomer families wished “upon a star” to visit Disneyland physically and mentally. In a Disneyfied America where “all the mothers were caring, all the fathers had a good job, and all the children were cute and clever,”32 there was

no room for the realities of life as a minority. The currency of reestablishing a

traditional family structure with a breadwinning father excluded images of

breadwinning Asian men as the dominant white American society felt most

comfortable with images that reflected itself. The appearance of minority men in

entertainment productions signaled an awakening awareness or softening of

acceptance of non-white ethnicities and the transition of Asians in America from the image of foreigner/war enemy to that of American minority.

The role of Asian men in four of the five productions suggests a moderated

version of the American family portrait. In contrast to the menacing stereotypes of

Yellow Peril and cheap labor competitor, the productions present non-threatening

Asian men that can easily be assimilated into mainstream culture. With the exception

of South Pacific (with its absence of Asian male characters) the four productions

portray Asian men as assets to America in the areas of education, business, and wealth.

In The King and I, the Asian king dedicates much time and energy to learning

American ways in order to protect his country from Western imperialism. This shows

that the King, an Asian man, can be a valuable individual who understands and

accepts American democracy. Rodgers and Hammerstein used the King as a vehicle

32 This is a paraphrase of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegon where “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average” in his radio program, A Prairie Home Companion. 93

to illustrate the dilemma of necessary transition from traditional to modern and of the need for and difficulties of assimilation into the Western world.

The Teahouse of the August Moon proposes that Asian male villagers are people who can adjust to American culture and learn the American work ethic. In the opening monologue Sakini describes the Okinawan people as survivors of a history of colonization with the ability for cultural adaptation: "We have honor to be subjugated in 14th century by Chinese pirates. In sixteenth century by English missionaries. In eighteenth century by Japanese warlords. And in twentieth century by American

Marines" (6). They are people who have “the wisdom of acceptance” (74). At the end of the play, Coronel Purdy, who is in charge of reconstruction for Okinawa, evaluates

Japanese interpreter Sakini: "He's really an American. He has get-up-and-go" (76).

The Asian male characters in Flower Drum Song are either unemployed or hold jobs that are not attractive to mainstream workers so such employment is not a threat. The father has brought a large amount of money from China and supports the

U.S. economy by putting it in the bank and spending it on life in San Francisco’s

Chinatown. In Act One Scene 3, Mr. Wang puts his money at the Bank of America,

Chinatown branch. Mr. Huan counts packages of neatly tied bills and says, "There are

87,700 dollars here by my calculation" (40). The elder son prolongs his study as a graduate student because it is difficult for him to find a job even with a good college education. In the original novel, young Chinese people receive high levels of education in universities but do not have equal professional opportunities. The effort to melt into American society appears futile when the highly educated elder son, Ta, is unable to find a job. Even though he majored in economics at the University of

California, Berkeley, he has no professional prospects except to work as a dishwasher 94

in an American restaurant at Fisherman’s Wharf. When Chi-yang discovers his son in this low status job, he feels ashamed and sends Ta back to the university to study medicine so that his son can avoid unemployment and underemployment. The experience of racial discrimination in the labor market was also addressed in the example of another Chinese man with a Ph. D. in political science, who could only find a job in a grocery store.

In a conversation with the night club dancer, Linda, the elder son, Wang Ta, replies to her question about his ambition: "Well, it is difficult for a Chinese, even with a college degree, to find employment. I think I will study law, because then I won't have to look for a job for another three years" (36). So he exists on his father’s money and relies on an allowance from his father to pay for his date: "I need my allowance" (10). Sammy Wong is an American minority entrepreneur who owns a successful nightclub in Chinatown assumingly paying taxes and providing entertainment to the people of San Francisco.

Sammy's nightclub might have been modeled on an actual 1930s nightclub in

San Francisco, the Forbidden City. It offered an all-Asian revue of dancers, singers, and comedians; the shows were particularly aimed at a white clientele of tourists and locals (Lewis 23). William Wei describes the club as the “Asian American counterpart of the Cotton Club” that featured “rebels” challenging “segregated show business, with its stereotypes of Chinese as speaking only pidgin English, having bowed legs, and no rhythm” (57). Forbidden City was so successful that it could attract over two thousand customers a night (Esther Lee, 19; Lewis 23). Forbidden City marketed its shows to white audiences who found the Chinese versions of popular entertainment novel and worthy of a trip to San Francisco’s Chinatown (Esther Lee 19). 95

Mr. Asano in A Majority of One is an example of an Asian man who is very successful in business and quite wealthy in his own country as well as educated in both Asian and Western ways. He does not want to maintain the tragic war memories of the past but wants to build positive international relationships including governmental and trade relations between the United States and Japan. This extends to his relationship with Mrs. Jacoby as he is a friend and gentle suitor to this mature

American woman.

While the Asian father figures in these plays tend to have similar characteristics of a non-threatening man and seek to maintain a consistent and low-

key assimilated existence, the Asian mothers are a different story. They have to deal

with gender issues in addition to immigration issues.

Parenthood: Good Wife and Strong Mother

The 1950s transformation of the Japanese war bride from an opportunistic and ignorant alien seeking to penetrate the suburban affluence of white America to the gracious and hardworking middle- class housewife was an early exemplar for achieving the integrated future in America, a halcyon story of domestic bliss and economic mobility difficult to extract from the stories of long-time racialized citizen-subjects. Caroline Chung Simpson An Absent Presence: Japanese Americans in Postwar American Culture, 1945-1960 (Duke University Press, 2001, p.151).33

It is this story of 'opportunistic' war brides that is primarily upturned and

transformed according to Caroline Simpson. During the war, women came out of the

domestic space and became a good source of necessary labor. After the war,

33 Simpson asserts this on a subject matter of Japanese war bride. I expand her argument to Asian women. 96

patriarchal society wanted women to return to the "traditional" role of a good wife and mother while a man went out and performed as a breadwinner. This movement was fueled by the fact that the returning men needed jobs and female workers could be competitors in the job markets.

The suggested role for women was that of a good housewife and caregiver responsible for the running of the home and for the welfare of her husband and children. TV programs epitomized this stereotyped gender role: “this tenacious stereotype conjures mythic images of culture icons—June Cleaver, Donna Reed,

Harriet Nelson—the quintessential white, middle-class housewives who stayed at home to rear children, clean house and bake cookies” (Meyerowitz 1). To help guide women in fulfilling this role, magazines such as Housekeeping Monthly contained articles like “The Good Wife’s Guide” which appeared on May 13, 1955. This article aimed to educate women on how to be good wives to their husbands: “Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they get home and the prospect of a good meal is part of the warm welcome needed.” The article’s final instruction summed up the woman’s role: “A good wife always knows her place;” that is, women should return to the domestic sphere and conceptually transform the strong war-time image of Rosie the Riveter into weak and delicate Rosie the Riveted. Since many women had experienced the economic freedom that came along with working outside the home in factories and stores, some women did not want to return to the job of caretaker of the home and serving the husband. However, the pressure from

“mainstream media such as governmental propaganda, magazines, and films” to 97

conform to the good wife stereotype led many women to give up their own interests and focus on the needs of their husband and children (Meyerowitz 2-5). Moreover, a great deal of American propaganda utilized such images of a good wife in a comfortable home in order to highlight Americans' superiority over the Communists and the horrors of the lives of Russian women and their suffering under communism

("The Pill").

The portrayal of a good wife figure in society was reflected with a twist in both the Asian and Caucasian roles in the five Broadway productions. There was an acceptable exception to the "good wife at home" scenario. All five productions positively portray an exceptional case of a strong single mother working outside the home while taking care of her children as best as she can.

South Pacific depicts the story of a single mother who has become a local entrepreneur. A Tonkinese woman, Bloody Mary, boldly sells her products as souvenirs to American servicemen.34 She wants a better future for her daughter, Liat, possibly in America. Thus as she hawks her wares, she searches for a good candidate

to marry her daughter from among the American military personnel who are her

customers. She arranges a meeting between Liat and the officer that seems to be the

best candidate, Lt. Cable. As Mary sees their relationship deepening, she asks Cable

to marry Liat, saying that she is willing to financially support him with her job if he

becomes her son-in-law: “I am rich. I save six hundred dolla’ before war. Since war I

make two thousand dolla’ … war go on I make maybe more. Sell grass skirts, boar’s

teeth, real human heads. Give all de money to you an’ Liat. You no have to work. I

34 Michener's Tales of the South Pacific describes Tonkinese as Chinese in the Pacific (126) and Polynesian as Black in the Pacific (138). 98

work for you… ” (120). Arranging her daughter’s future happiness justifies Mary’s appearance in the professional space. This character shows that Asian women are caring mothers and not just after American men to get to America for selfish reasons.

Another mother figure in South Pacific is Nellie, who serves as a battlefield nurse. Although she has a public service job, still her domestic duty to her man and his children is her highest priority. While Emile is on a life-endangering mission, she diligently takes care of his mixed-race children. In a motherly fashion, she tells them

"Now you have to learn to mind me when I talk to you and be nice to me too. Because

I love you very much" (168). In addition to this motherly kindness to the children, she also does her "wifely" duty to their father: “The children drink their soup. NELLIE comes back to consciousness enough to realize that EMILE must be hungry. She leans over and hands him the large bowl of soup with an air of 'nothing’s-too-good-for-the- boss!' Then she passes him the soup ladle!” (170). The stage direction echoes the first instruction for a good wife― “have a delicious meal ready on time for his return”

("The Good Wife" 5).

In The King and I two strong mothers are evident. Anna is a single mother who, to take care of her son, must support him by becoming a professional teacher for the royal children in the palace after her husband’s death. In her role as working mother, Anna’s job extends into advising and teaching the king, and in this way Anna is the only one who is equal to the King in Siam. This equality though is diffused in the musical. Anna can be equal but she must follow the King’s lead. If he sits, she sits, keeping her head never higher than his. In front of the diplomatic visitors Anna plays the role of the domestic woman thus playing the role of a strong woman who knows how to support the man. The other mother is the King’s first wife, Lady Thiang, 99

whose son is the Crown Prince. As first wife she is the most public of the King’s many wives. She is an example of “behind every great man there stands a woman,” similar to the real life role model of Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of President Franklin

Delano Roosevelt when he was in office between 1933 and 1945. Lady Thiang is always looking out for her husband’s interests even if it means allowing another woman to be closer to him and to her son. She gives the first son to Anna because she trusts the white woman to bring up her son and believes he would learn better from

Anna. These two characters, Caucasian and Asian women, reinforce the role of the working mother as good wives.

The Teahouse of the August Moon has two major female characters that have public service jobs that seem to include wife or mother duties. First, Lotus Blossom can be compared to a good wife and mother figure in how she takes care of Fisby. She boldly prepares sandals and kimono for him (31), and she tries to serve him with a snack, straw hat, tea or music (41). Lotus Blossom’s bold attempts to serve Fisby add to the comedy of the play and alters the stereotype of a subservient Asian woman. At the end of Act II Scene 1, "As Lotus Blossom kneels before him, geta [wooden sandals] in hand, he extends his foot and smiles down at her" (45). She seems to be a postcard image of a wife serving her husband as portrayed in "The Good Wife’s

Guide." She is also a good wife figure to the men of the village, with the proper understanding of the role of a geisha as a kind of engaging psychologist, always ready to listen and to understand. She also acts as a mother to the village women, who are manual laborers, as she teaches them how to use makeup, wear feminine clothing and move like geishas.

100

To understand Lotus Blossom’s role as wife and mother figure, it is essential to recognize, as Fisby did in Act II Scene 1, that a Geisha is not a prostitute. The word

Geisha is a combination of “Gei” (Art) and “Sha” (Person); so a Geisha is an art performer or artist. Sakini corrects Fisby's misunderstanding, "Hard to explain fundamental difference. Poor man like to feel rich. Rich man like to feel wise. Sad man like to feel happy. All go to Geisha house and tell troubles to Geisha girl. She listen politely and say, 'Oh, that's too bad.' She very pretty She make tea, she sing, she dance and pretty soon troubles go away" (42). Asian women to become part of the

American family portrait had to overcome the stigma of race as Asian men did, but they were also saddled with the stereotypical subservient and sexual gender role issues evidenced in Fisby’s misunderstanding of the role of a geisha. Through Lotus

Blossom, Vern Sneider in his novel and John Patrick in the adaptation, shatter that stereotype and present an Asian good wife and strong mother figure.

The second female is Miss Higa Jiga, who is appointed president of the Ladies’

League for Democratic Action. Similar to the actions of the Women’s City Club of

New York,35 Miss Higa Jiga complains to Fisby about the privilege afforded the geisha woman thus she is a proponent of women's rights. She does not want to expel the geisha or drag her life level down; instead as a mother figure to the village women,

35 In the original novel, Mrs. Purdy is the ambitious person who wants Mr. Purdy to achieve a silver star and become more successful man. Also, she influences him on Plan B and the idea of "Democracy in the home through the women." Even she writes a section on the Women's League for Democratic Action in Okinawa with the list of rules, lectures and luncheon schedules. In retrospect, Mrs. Purdy may refer to the life example of Eleanor Roosevelt who was the first lady and an active member in the 1950s the Women’s City Club of New York supporting causes such as women’s and children’s rights. She was a perfect example of "Democracy in the home through the woman." See "Teaching Eleanor Roosevelt Glossary: Women's City Club of New York, at The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project. 101

she wants her league members to have everything the geisha has, including lipstick, face powder, clothing and geisha lessons.

MISS HIGA JIGA. (Stops.) Mohitotsu onegai watashitachimo mina

Geisha ni. (One more thing, we all want to become Geishas.)

SAKINI. She say one more thing—Can you get Lotus Blossom to

teach them all to be Geisha?

FISBY. (Leaps to his feet.) Teach the innocent women of this village

to be—NO! (Miss Higa Jiga shrugs and goes outside. As Fisby sinks

back at his desk, Miss Higa Jiga talks excitedly to the women who

have gathered outside. They run off R., giggling.)

MISS HIGA JIGA. Minna katte kurerun desuteyo. Oshiroi mo Bobby

Pin mo nandemo. (He’s going to buy us everything. Face powder,

bobby pins, everything.) (39)

Miss Higa Jiga demonstrates her knowledge and acceptance of American democracy and equality as she confidently intends to write Uncle Sam to provide for her

“children.” Her actions and appearance shatter the subservient and sexual stereotypes and reinforce the strong mother figure who protects her own family.

The strong mother figure in Flower Drum Song, like those in The Teahouse of the August Moon, is not literally a mother. Madam Liang is the sister-in-law and maternal aunt of the core family characters, but her role is that of wife and mother.

She shows her place as pseudo-wife in that she persuades her brother-in-law rather than commands him to modernize. Though she does not have a job she is quite visible 102

outside of the home in her passion for pursuing citizenship. She works to get her family citizenship by setting a good example by attending a citizenship school for five years. She also appears as a good homemaker who orders groceries, sews clothing, and oversees the children. She handles the younger son’s school misbehavior problems and warns him, "Go to your room, and remember--any more fighting and I will take you out of that school" (11). Also, she monitors the older son’s dating as she asks about his dating interests, “Foreigners?” and “What is her family name?” (11); and "Thinking of girls does not induce sleep" (14). She also educates her family to appreciate the wonders that being an American citizen has to offer, making her a model immigrant.

Madam Fong is Sammy’s actual mother who works hard to get her son a proper wife. According to the Citizenship School teacher, it takes ten years to bring a wife from China under the immigration quota (18). Madam Fong’s planning and effort bring a perfect bride from China, but her motherly heart combined with a scandalous event allows Sammy to happily marry the Chinese American woman he chooses.

In addition to the two mother figures, the musical offers three single women who dream of being good housewives as they toil at jobs that are clearly aligned to their female gender: seamstress Helen Chao, nightclub dancer Linda Low, and flower drum song performer Mei Li. Rodgers and Hammerstein use Linda Low in particular to stress the singular importance of marriage in a woman’s life with the song lyrics: "I want to be a success as a girl. Oh, it's nice to have outside accomplishments like singing, cooking or first aid. But the main thing is for a woman to be successful in her gender" (33). She continues in the same vein by singing "I Enjoy Being a Girl" ending 103

with "I'm strictly a female female,/ And my future, I hope, will be/ In the home of a brave and free male/ Who'll enjoy being a guy/ Having a girl like me" (36).

In A Majority of One, Mrs. Jacoby is both a good wife and a strong mother.

The photos of her deceased husband and son are in an honored place in her Brooklyn apartment. When she discusses her husband’s death with Mr. Asano, she reveals how difficult it was to lose him and how she honors his memory. As a professional woman she used to help her husband in their business (40-41) and currently works a part-time job at a shopping center so she is not a burden to their daughter (12). As a strong mother figure, she supports her daughter and accompanies her to Japan despite her feelings about her son’s battlefield death. When an incident based on cultural misunderstanding jeopardizes her son-in-law’s career, Mrs. Jacoby personally visits

Mr. Asano to try to solve the problem. She even sacrifices her friendship with Mr.

Asano to calm her daughter’s worries. Mrs. Jacoby has also raised a good daughter,

Alice Black, who is a good supportive wife, helping her husband in his government job through diplomatic social activities.

The play parallels Mrs. Jacoby as a widowed mother with an Asian wife who honors the memory of her dead husband by seeing to the needs of her father-in-law,

Mr. Asano. In a bold and kind way Mr. Asano's daughter-in-law, Ayako Asano, easily handles the situation of a rain-soaked guest, when Mrs. Jacoby arrives unannounced at their home. This character is not presented as subservient but rather as a model of politeness, respect and confidence.

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Mr. and Mrs. American Citizen

With the Magnuson Act (1943), the U.S. government, “as a gesture of goodwill toward China” repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) and nullified the racial discrimination of immigration law. After the war people from Asian countries were considered more positively because their “ancestral lands” were becoming valued allies (Chan 122). American society gradually began to accept Asians as

Americans. The 1946 Chinese War Brides Act further expanded this possibility by opening up a way for Asian brides of U. S. military men to come to America. The

Displaced Persons Act of 1948 also helped to encourage American citizens to adopt

Asian children. However, in spite of President Truman's veto, the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act (also known as the McCarran-Walter Act) became law and thus reinforced discriminatory rules based on the origins of immigrants for the purpose of national security. In this historical context, the five Broadway productions presented

Asians as responsible men and women who had the ability and desire to become good

American parents and good American citizens.

Even after legal acceptance Asian Americans had to confront ongoing issues with gender roles and how to adapt to the American nuclear family structure with its breadwinning husband/ father and caretaking good wife/ mother. To complete the family structure, Chapter 4 focuses on the images of Asians as children who are teachable and capable of learning to be upstanding citizens in American democracy.

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Chapter 4

Educating the Children

Children and Society: 1950s family culture

American society was settling into a peacetime lifestyle and the dream of

family life resulted in a baby boom. The parents who had had bleak childhoods during

the Depression years and had suffered rationing and shortages during the war years

wanted to give their children all the advantages that they had never had, especially

with regards to educational opportunities. This attitude and the increased number of

births, led to a child orientated society and the need for more schools, more teachers

and the creation of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) in 1953,

which became the central power of federal education policy-making, which included federal aid to schools ("Federal Education Policy" 8). After the 1954 Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, federal aid was not available to racially segregated schools ("Federal Education Policy" 9) and minorities, who had been restricted by court cases such as Mendez v. Westminster School District of

Orange County (1947) which barred “the intermixture of white students and children of ‘Japanese, Chinese, or Mongolian’ decent” (Briones 221), were free to enter the general public school systems.36 The expanded opportunity of an equal but not

36 Matthew M. Briones explains, in Mendez v. Westminster, the Supreme Court affirmed Mexican American schoolchildren. 106

separate education allowed both minority and majority children to possibly intermingle and form person-to-person relationships.

The Displaced Persons Act of 1948, which was in effect until 1953, initiated the idea of adopting children from outside of the country. Primarily intended for

European children then expanded due to the political circumstances of the Korean

War, this type of legislative act influenced the Immigration and Nationality Act of

1952, which opened the door for Asian orphans to be considered as legally adoptable

(Klein 175). The 1952 act, which allowed a specified number of non-quota visas for

Asian orphans, was amended in 1957 to authorize unlimited orphan visas.

Subsequently, 8,812 Asian children were adopted by American parents between 1953 and 1963 (Klein 175) which included 4,000 Korean orphans between 1955 and 1961

(Oh 161). The adoption of war orphans added to the public image the American government was projecting of America as hope to the world. This image of an

American acting as a land of hope for an orphaned Asian child was reinforced for the

American public in films such as The Geisha Boy (1958) in which Jerry Lewis helps an orphaned Japanese boy and It Happened at the World's Fair (1963) in which Elvis

Presley cares for a Chinese girl. It also appeared in various television shows such as a

1960 episode of Bonanza in which the Cartwrights save a Chinese boy from a violent

mob. Arissa Oh stresses the influence of Christian Americanism, "There is America:

as much a symbol of hope as it was a country, a heaven on earth where tears and pain

would be washed away. Finally, there are the children ─ stoic, hopeful, and wise ─

who knew better than cry in the presence of those who would deliver them from their

suffering" (Oh 162). Through this legalized adoption process the picture of the

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American family was being revised to include one or more white parent and Asian heritage children.

With the entrance of Asian and Asian American children into the general education population and expanded immigration from Asian countries, education to understand and accept democracy became a pathway to becoming a good American citizen. This idea of the need for education was supported in all five Broadway productions. The Americanization of thought through education was inserted in the scenes which showed the nurturing of Asians as children studying American democracy, thus, presenting a positive image of American parental tutelage to Asian children, as well as Asian adults, and the Asian world. In the productions the

American/ Western characters reveal some kind of responsibility to enlighten the child-like uncivilized Asian adults. The following section examines the education of

Asians as presented in the five productions. The characters are divided into two categories of people in need of education: small children who are actual child aged

(including teenage) characters and child-like adults who behave like children and who need to be educated. The child-like nature is important in these Broadway productions in the early Cold War in order to deliver the message of acceptable Asian people.

Including the selected productions, many Broadway works centering on Asian contents in the early Cold War frequently used children. I insist three reasons for using the image of children. First, small children could win hearts and minds of main stream America since the U.S. had become a child-centered society and deeply interested in the younger generation after World War II (Woods 138). Through the image of adorable children, the selected Broadway productions suggest that Asian children are adoptable and able to become American. Second, the image of children 108

also includes teenagers and child-like adults. Third, in both cases, children and teenagers (and child-like adults) can learn to be American through education—in the classroom or a personal contact one-on-one relationship.

Staging Asian Children

Through the musical play and movie, the image of the Siamese as childish, backward, sometimes barbaric, but ultimately exotic, charming, in awe of Western values, and therefore willing to be educated has become entrenched in American popular culture.

Susan Morgan Bombay Anna: The Real Story and Remarkable Adventures of the King and I Governess (University California Press, LA: 2008, p. 221)

The children in the television shows discussed in Chapter 3 were portrayed as

sweet, cute, polite, a little mischievous, and smart enough to learn how to become

good citizens in their daily life as part of their family unit. Each episode of these

shows features some family problem that leads to an improvement in the character of

the children and a stronger nuclear family. Similar character traits are featured in the

five Broadway productions in the portrayal of Asian children as I demonstrate in the

following chart. Table 2.1 clarifies how the character traits of the children in the

family television shows were portrayed. Each of the children exhibited behaviors that

parents in the viewing audience were probably encountering in their own homes.

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Table 4.1 Child Characters in the Family Structure in TV Shows

MEDIA TITLE CHILD CHARACTERS

Betty cute/polite/smart Father Knows Best teenage daughter 203 episodes Bud mischievous/polite/smart Oct. 3, 1953─ teenage son May 23, 1960 Kathy sweet/cute/smart youngest daughter

Leave It To Beaver Wally polite/sweet/smart 235 episodes teenage son TV Shows (including 1 pilot) Oct. 4, 1957─ Beaver/Theodore cute/mischievous/smart June 20, 1963 younger son

The Donna Reed Mary sweet/polite/smart Show teenage daughter 275 episodes Sept. 24, 1958─ Jeff mischievous/cute/smart March 19, 1966 teenage son

Similar character traits were featured in the five Broadway productions examined in this dissertation in the portrayal of Asian children. Table 3.2 lays out how the behavior of the children in each production displayed similar characteristics to the television show children. The younger children’s actions in the productions seem very cute where the teenagers are a bit mischievous which likely would match the behaviors of the children of the viewing audience.

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Table 4.2 Child Characters in the Family Structure Broadway Productions

MEDIA TITLE ASIAN CHILD CHARACTERS:

Emile's daughter South Pacific sweet/cute/smart Ngana 1925 performances Apr. 7, 1949─ Emile’s son mischievous/ Jan. 16, 1954 Jerome cute/smart

Crown Prince The King and I polite/cute/smart 1246 performances Chulalongkorn Mar.29, 1951─ Mar. 20, 1954 King’s other children cute/sweet/smart

The Teahouse of the August Moon Broadway Jeep riding cute/mischievous/s 1027 performances village children mart Oct 15, 1953─ Mar. 24, 1956

Younger son mischievous/cute/s Flower Drum Song Wang San mart 600 performances Dec. 1, 1958─ Suzie sweet/cute/smart May 7, 1960 Boy and Girl sweet/cure/smart A Majority of One 556 performances Eddie the houseboy mischievous/smart Feb 12, 1959─ Jun 25, 1960

Staging Asian children as adorable seemed appropriate in terms of legislation.

As we saw earlier, the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 which expired in 1953

encouraged the idea of Asian adoption; during the period that the act was in effect

“2,418 Asian-Born children were brought to the United States” (Altstein and Simon

3). The idea of Asian adoption was in harmony with Hammerstein’s personal life as evidenced in his wife’s obituary which chronicles their active involvement: “In 1949,

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with her husband and the novelist Pearl Buck, she was a founder of Welcome House

(now Welcome House Adoption Services) in Doylestown, Pa., an organization that arranges for the adoption of children of American and Asian parents” (Cook

“Dorothy”). Both Oscar Hammerstein and James Michener served on the Welcome

House board of directors. Additionally, Hammerstein’s two grandchildren, adopted in

1951 and 1955, were Amerasian children (King “Oscar”).

Likely, Hammerstein's connection to Welcome House strongly influenced how he presented Asian children in his musicals: South Pacific, The King and I, and

Flower Drum Song. In her autobiography My Several Worlds (1954) Pearl Buck explains the difficulties of finding homes for Amerasian children: “The American child of Asian or part-Asian ancestry was [American adoption agencies’] greatest problem, greater even than the Negro child. Many agencies would not accept them at all, feeling their adoption was impossible” (364). Moreover, Buck insisted,

“Communist propaganda in Asia says that we Americans despise people with Asian

blood. But we will show them that we care for these exactly as we care for all” (364).

In echoing Buck's argument, all five of the productions shared the same feeling by

portraying Asian children as sweet, cute, polite, a little mischievous, and having the

ability to learn how to become good little American citizens.

South Pacific alludes to the cultural difficulties of accepting Asian or

Eurasian children as American family members. The musical opens in Act 1 Scene 1

as the audience watches the playful antics of Ngana, the eleven year old daughter of

French plantation owner Emile and a Polynesian woman who has died earlier (56),

and their eight year old son Jerome. The children’s names, one native and one

European, hint at their mixed-race background. Stage directions describe the children 112

in a positive light. They dance "with humorous dignity" (3) and playfully imitate a bird song. They speak French fluently and when scolded by the servant answer him "mischievously delivering an ultimatum"(4) and giggle as he lovingly reprimands them. Their home is a safe environment where they play and sing with their father.

Jokingly Jerome walks behind his dad "imitating his happy stride" (17) and giggles as his father "frowns down on them with mock sternness" (17); all in all it is a happy

family portrait as dad "picks them up, one under each arm, and starts to carry them off

as they finish singing" (17).

Nellie, who is at first repulsed by the idea of mixed-race children as described

in Chapter 3, cannot resist their charm once she gets to know them as explained in the

stage direction: "NELLIE turns, looks at the children and is immediately enchanted.

She kneels before the two of them, holding them at arm’s length" (105). When Nellie

says “Oh, aren’t they adorable! Those big black eyes staring at you out of those sweet

little faces!” (106), she gives permission to the audience to look at Asian/Eurasian

children as sweet and loveable. If Emile does not return from his dangerous mission

for the United States war effort, these children would become orphans. In Emile's

absence, Nellie assumes the role of a foster mother and takes care of them at their

plantation home. She tells them “Now you have to learn to mind me when I talk to

you and be nice to me too. Because I love you very much” (168). In the final scene

Emile returns and the audience is left with the image of a happy family consisting of

two Caucasian parents and two Asian/Eurasian children who will certainly be adopted

by their new mother (Klein 164).

Also in South Pacific, adolescent romance blossoms when a teenage girl falls

in love with a college boy. The stage direction describes Liat, Bloody Mary's 113

Tonkinese daughter, as a small figure, seventeen years old, barefoot, silent, shy, with an honest curiosity and admiration of a child (90). She has lived a protected life on an island separated from the military base. Like a sweet and innocent American high school girl, Liat is impressed with handsome Joe Cable’s “sign of gentleness” (92) and is enamored by him. Cable must be impressed with her because the stage direction explains that "[s]everal of the French girls try to flirt with CABLE, but he doesn’t know they’re alive" (96). Though the play insinuates that the couple engages in sexual intimacy, the innocence of their young love is shown in the song “Happy

Talk” where they communicate their mutual attraction with childlike hand gestures

(121). Similar to the mothers who in “Father Knows Best” and “The Donna Reed

Show” comforted their teenage daughters after a breakup with their boyfriends, "Nellie rushes to [Liat] impulsively and embraces her" (159). When

Nellie finds out about Cable’s death she consoles Liat like a hurt child. Through Liat the audience sees a sweet child who has suffered loss as many teenagers during the war did when their sweethearts did not return when the war ended.

In The King and I, more than a dozen of the King's sons and daughters of varying ages are staged in the parade of children. These delightful and well-behaved children venerate and love their father. The extensive stage direction shows this respect: "the royal Siamese children enter, one by one, each advancing first to the

KING and prostrating himself before his father, then rising, moving over to ANNA, and greeting her in the traditional manner by taking her two hands and pressing them to his fore head, after which he backs away across the stage" (29). The directions portray the playful love between parent and child: "One little girl goes straight to her father, her arms outstretched, but he sternly points to the floor. She prostrates herself 114

in the formal manner and, very much abashed, goes to ANNA. One little girl, who had been delegated to give ANNA a rose, forgets it the first time and has to run back to ANNA, disgraced by her absentmindedness" (30). Through this behavior the children have an effect on their new teacher Anna:

ANNA has obviously fallen more and more in love with the children.

She is deeply touched by their courtesy, their charm, their sweetness.

[...] [S]he starts to untie the ribbons of her bonnet. As she takes out the

pin and lifts the bonnet off her head, one little child gasps an excited

"ah," and the children with one accord all rush up to her and surround

her. She leans over and hugs all those she can reach, and it is obvious

that they are going to be fast friends as the curtain closes. (30)

Besides this sense of spontaneous affection, the children show Anna they are also going to be good students for their new teacher. In Act One Scene IV, the royal children sing the school song (36-37), reminiscent of school songs across America with phrases like "pay attention to our teacher" (37) and "these golden years" (37). In

Act Two Scene VI, one small princess pretends to write a letter to Anna and reads the letter aloud from her imagination: "Dear friend and teacher: My goodness gracious, do not go away! We are in great need of you. We are like one blind. Do not let us fall down in darkness. Continue good and sincere concern for us, and lead us in right road.

Your loving pupil, Princess Ying Yaowalak" (141). This innocent plea is echoed by the other children who say "We are afraid, Mrs. Anna. We are afraid without you"

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(141). Their vulnerability is like so many children who are scared of the dark and run to their parents for security.

The Crown Prince, Chulalongkorn, is at the age where children begin to wonder if their father knows everything. He questions his father over some of Anna's teachings. When his father gives an ambiguous answer, the boy asks: "Does that mean you do not know? But you must know, because you are the King" (32). In Act One

Scene IV the prince shares his confusion with Anna's son Louis "A puzzlement! ...When I left my father a little while ago, I heard him talking to himself.

He seemed uncertain about many things" (52). Louis concurs, "I don't believe grownups are ever certain―they only talk as if they are certain" (52). This scene is similar to a Leave it to Beaver episode where Beaver asks for clarification from his older brother Wally about their parents' behavior and Wally, similar to Louis, gives a thoughtful answer.

At the critical moment of Anna's intension to leave Siam which is still uncivilized, the plot implies that the Asian children are the key to being civilized and the realization of American democracy in Asia. In spite of her plan, Anna changes her mind because of the Asian children who beg her not to go away (140-143). Anna has good feelings toward the children, as she says "I like you very much. Very much indeed," right before they sing together the song, "Getting to Know You" (39-40).

Finally, the true civilization of American democracy becomes realized through the

Asian children, especially with the new king's second proclamation: "Regarding custom of bowing to King in fashion of lowly toad. [...] I do not believe this is good thing, causing embarrassing fatigue of body, degrading experience for soul [...] This is bad thing" (144). 116

The children in The Teahouse of the August Moon only appear once in Act1,

Scene 2 and are courteous, obedient, and sweet. The scene feels like a family road trip similar to Norman Rockwell's 1947 painting "Going and Coming," a two-tiered image: the top is the outgoing journey with parents, grandmother, a dog, and lively excited children; the bottom image shows the family returning home when everyone is exhausted (Fig. 4.1).

Figure 4.1 Norman Rockwell, "Going and Coming"

Source: The Norman Rockwell Estate; Web; 7 Mar. 2014

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In the family road trip in the play, the Japanese grandmother, mother, three children, and the family pet climb onto Fisby’s jeep to travel to another town. According to the stage direction: "Two of the children run into Fisby―the mother gathers them together in a line. They bow to Fisby, and start to climb on the jeep" (18). Many families in the 1950s packed their children and a pet in the family car and headed to vacation spots, the same as Rockwell's painting portrays. Often when the whole family was in the car and ready to go, suddenly a child would remember that he forgot something and run back into the house to get it. Similarly, the stage directions explain that "one of the children jumps off the jeep" and returns with his pet goat that stands on the jeep hood with the children (18). Thus this scene creates a happy family image with a grandmother, a grandfather (who suddenly appears and jumps on the back of the jeep), parents (including Sakini), children, family pet, and an American uncle

(Fisby). Narrator Sakini explains what happened on the trip in Act 1, Scene 3. Like children all over America, these young people have their own ideas and plans of where they want to go. They nag and insist until the driver gives in. Sakini explains

“Children want to go ocean…never see ocean. We see ocean” (20). Three child actors, all Asian Americans, portrayed the children in the jeep scene: Moy Moy Thom

(daughter), Joyce Chen (daughter), and Kenneth Wong (son).37

Similar to the previous productions, the children in Flower Drum Song detail

how Asian child-figures are ready to achieve full fledged citizenship. Flower Drum

Song appeared nearly a decade after the Displaced Persons Act (1948) and the

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 and 1957 amendments which authorized

37 Moy Moy Thom was the daughter of Vivian Thom who played one of the women in the Ladies' League for Democratic Action. 118

many non-quota visas for Asian orphans. Reflecting this passage of time, Flower

Drum Song has an Asian teenager, Wang Chi-yang's second son, who has grown up in

America. Wang San is the perfect example of the popular image of American teenagers in the television shows and films in the late 1950s and 1960s. The 1959 film

Giget which was inspired by Jewish author Frederick Kohner's 1957 novel, Gidget,

The Little Girl With Big Ideas, was the forerunner to the "beach party film" genre focusing on teenagers dancing and singing at a beach party. Since the first baby- boomers became teenagers at that time, the content about teenage mischievous, rebellious culture and a footloose lifestyle which was separate from adult's culture sold well. Like the young males in the beach party film genre, Wang San is the perfect mildly rebellious teenager who still responds to discipline. His behavior resembles teenagers of the late 1950s who grew up in the more open-minded, liberal American postwar era. The stage directions say he unceremoniously "sits in armchair eating an apple" (9), is casually "wearing a baseball shirt and carries a baseball glove in his hands" (101). San is wearing a Giants baseball shirt. The Giants baseball team was based in New York from 1883 to 1957 then moved to San Francisco. Since the original production opened in December 1958 the Broadway audience would be quite aware of the significance of a Giants’ shirt being worn by a boy in San Francisco.

Also, San enjoys dancing to Rock and Roll songs (66). Like an all-American normal male teenager, San has some school problems. He explains, "They sent me home. I got in a fight" (10). Considered by his older brother as “completely American” (37),

San uses slang like “tomatoes” referring to girls (11) and “That’s bop, pop!” (42), and he also speaks slightly rebellious phrases like “Big deal!” (11). In response to his father's meal, a bowl of rice, he says, “Why don’t we ever have sandwiches?” (101). 119

He also shows the quintessential teenager's behavior when responding to his elders and when tired of dealing with adults: He "shrugs and exits" (101). At a large family gathering later in the musical, San is joined by three other young kids named Susie,

Boy, and Girl. Along with San, they dance and complain about the behavior of adults and daily American life, presenting an image of charming American teenagers. Susie sings, “the more I see of grown-ups, The less I want to grow” (126). They sing together about the older generation, "What are we going to do about The Other

Generation? [...] If we could take over the training of The Other Generation/ We know we could improve them quite a lot" (127).

Like Flower Drum Song, A Majority of One contains an Asian youth who

acts like a disgruntled American teenager. Eddie, a Japanese houseboy working at the

U.S. diplomat's house, behaves more like a naughty boy disrespecting his elders.

According to the stage direction Eddie is "a grinning young Japanese houseboy" (61).

He is interested in listening to rock and roll music and watching “A Japanese Elvis

Presley” (62) on television who performs a Japanese version of American rock and

roll. Like his American counterparts who saw the original Elvis Presley on the Ed

Sullivan show in 1957, Eddie enjoys his Japanese Elvis Presley. He “delightedly

snaps his fingers to the music” (62) and uses American slang to show his insider

knowledge of American culture: “Oh, but we are hepcats for American music” (62).

Like a teenager negotiating for a higher allowance by separately appealing to both

father and mother, Eddie tries to negotiate a higher salary by asking each adult of the

family separately for more money (66-67, 73-74) and he threatens to leave the family if he does not get what he wants (73-74). But beyond this flippant attitude, he also

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shows true concern over Mrs. Jacoby’s safety as she ventures out alone on a rainy night.

Mrs. Jacoby is the adult that takes the responsibility to teach Eddie right from wrong. She insists on correcting him and not allowing him to get away with misbehavior. As the other adults try to excuse his disrespectful actions because he is

Japanese, Mrs. Jacoby shows she really cares about Eddie by saying, “It doesn’t matter what color a person is―if he’s wrong he’s wrong whether he’s white, black, pink or purple" (120). Her attitude suggests two things: (1) it is important to care enough to educate Asians and (2) negative images of Asian stereotypes can be changed through education.

Adults who Behave like Children

With the Internal Security Act of 1950, Congress amended the language provision to require an "understanding" of the English language, defined to include "an ability to read, write, and speak words in ordinary usage in English language." The requirement would be met "if the applicant can read or write simple words and phrases." Additionally, "no extraordinary or unreasonable conditions shall be imposed upon the applicant."

William J. Olson & Alan Woll "An Historical Examination of the English Literacy-Requirement In the Naturalization of Aliens," One Nation: Policy Paper Series (One Nation Indivisible, Inc. 2002, p. 6)

After World War II Asians living in America started having some level of acceptance by American society. The military involvement gave Asian American veterans the chance to take advantage of the GI Bill of 1944, which provided returning GIs the opportunity to attend colleges and universities to further their

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education (Chan 139). Such an emphasis on adult education can be linked to changes in immigration law. Postwar policies permitted Asian immigration in larger numbers than had historically been allowed. The U.S. government proclaimed itself as the leader of the "Free World" and welcomed political refugees who were more educated than the immigrants from the prewar time as well as refugees fleeing communism

(Chan 141). This influx of immigrants who wanted to stay permanently in the U.S. led to a need for adult education to transform the new arrivals into productive American citizens.

According to Salman Akntar, adult immigrants go through stages similar to childhood development (10). They leave their ancestral mother land and travel to their adopted new mother land. The adoptive "mother," similar to the television mothers discussed earlier, needed to educate her "children" to become good citizens in their daily life as part of their "family" unit. Thus the education of adult immigrants is important to the positive growth of the receiving country. One of the most important needs in education of immigrants is the adoption of a new language that will replace the mother tongue (Akhtar 20).

The Internal Security Act of 1950 requirement of reading, writing, and speaking

simple English in order to become a naturalized citizen reinforced the need for adult

education (Spiro 491; Olson and Woll 6). Consequently, the ability to be an adult

learner and able to learn American democracy and think in the American way was

important for Asians. Yet this need for Asian adults to learn to speak and to

understand reinforced a previous stereotype of the Asian as a child. However, this is

different from the nineteenth century stereotypes of childish Asians before the

emergence of the fear-mongering label of the Yellow Peril, as one of the Lee's six 122

faces. For example, Bret Harte introduced the childish and naive Chinese character

Hop Sing in Two Men of Sandy Bar (1876), and Harte and Mark Twain portrayed a simple and ignorant Chinese character in their play, Ah Sin! (1877). These characters appeared in other plays like Washee Washee in Joaquin Miller's The Danites which was popular in the late 1800s. This stereotype was linked to the topic of American education in an 1899 political cartoon in the humor magazine Puck. The image of

"School Begins," created by Louis Dalrymple (Fig. 4.1), clearly delivers its message through written texts and ethnic caricatures. Uncle Sam is teaching his class of immigrants and clearly written on the blackboard is "The consent of the governed is a good thing in theory, but very rare in fact. England has governed her colonies whether they consented or not. By not waiting for their consent she has greatly advanced the world's civilization. The U.S. must govern its new territories with or without their consent until they can govern themselves." In this late nineteenth century view, education was a key issue for modernizing the world. The four students in need of immediate civilizing sitting in the front row are from the Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto

Rico, and Cuba. Asian countries are represented as his frowning character with dark skin and hair braided into a cue standing just outside the schoolroom door. At this point the Asian character is not yet considered important enough to have a front row seat but he is getting ready to enter the class, a possibility for future inclusion.

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Figure 4.2 School Begins

Source: This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3b48925. Originally published on p. 8-9 of the January 25, 1899 issue of Puck magazine.

In this manner of characterizing “uncivilized” countries as children, portraying Asian adult immigrants as childlike figures fits the traditional American sense of humor. In a similar vein, the five Broadway productions describe Asians as childlike adults who can learn American democracy and learn to be American citizens.

The Asian adults in the five Broadway productions are portrayed as children

who need and want to learn about American culture and language from parental

American figures. Certain desirable characteristics of prospective productive

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immigrants are emphasized, including hardworking, intelligent, enthusiastic, kind, polite, and rich. The productions spanned a ten year period and the characters' level of education became higher in each production as time passed. For example, in South

Pacific (1949) Bloody Mary is illiterate and spoke very limited Pidgin English but by the other end of this period Mr. Asano in A Majority of One (1959) is highly educated and spoke English well. Similar to the way the child characters were shown above in

Table 3.2, Table 3.3 lays out the character traits of the adults in each production that are learners and thus considered as behaving like children. All of the character traits are positive which would support an image of a person who would make a good citizen.

Table 4.3 Adults Who Are Childlike in the Broadway Productions

MEDIA TITLE CHARACTERS South Pacific Bloody Mary hardworking/smart (1949-1954) Liat sweet/innocent The King and I King of Siam enthusiastic learner/smart (1951-1954) King's wives accepting/kind The Teahouse of Sakini polite/smart the August Moon Village women hardworking/smart Broadway (1953-1956) Village men hardworking/jovial Dad rich/learning slowly Flower Drum Auntie enthusiastic learner/citizen Song Wang Ta educated/handsome (1958-1960) Mei Li sweet/smart A Majority of One Mr. Asano polite/educated (1959-1960)

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Opening on Broadway in 1949, South Pacific staged Asians from the war experience point of view as backward and uneducated. Bloody Mary fits that image combined with the positive addition of a hardworking spirit and the desire to learn so she can better herself. She is an example of an adult Asian learner. Treating her like a child, the enlisted men jokingly tease Bloody Mary and also teach her English words so she can defend herself. After using her new English, like a student in school, Mary seeks approval from her teacher:

MARINE. Tell'em good, Mary!

MARY. What is good?

MARINE. Tell him he's a stingy bastard!

MARY. (Delighted at the sound of these new words) Stingy bastard!

(She turns back toward the MARINE for approval) That good?

MARINE. That's great, Mary! You're learning fast.

MARY. (Calling off again) Stingy bastard! (She cackles gaily and

turns back to the MARINE) I learn fast...Pretty soon I talk English

good as any crummy Marine. (Calling off once more) Stingy bastard!

(She turns back toward the marine for approval) That good? (19-20)

Joe Cable also teaches Bloody Mary. When they first meet the stage directions

describe Mary as behaving "suspiciously and frightened" and Cable’s response is

"puzzled and curious" (35). Cable teaches her to trust Americans as he tactfully

redirects the attention of a higher officer who plans to punish Mary because she sets

up a little shop in U.S. military territory. To help her, Cable and the enlisted men 126

move her things to a safe area (47). Understanding his attention to her immediate needs, Mary thanks him and exits (47).

In The King and I, the Asian king dedicates much time and energy to learn

British (American) ways in order to protect his country from Western powers. This depicts that the King, as an Asian man, is ready to understand and possibly accept democracy. Rodgers and Hammerstein used the King as a vehicle to illustrate the dilemma in transitioning from traditional to modern and of the need for and difficulties of assimilation into the Western world. The musical expands on the King’s ambition of modernizing Siam through education with the role of Anna representing the ideals of American democracy. Emphasis on Anna's teaching can be superimposed on the Asia-US international relationship which was so vital to

America at the time in checking the spread of Communism in Asia. This musical opened in the middle of the Korean War (1950-53). When The King and I premiered in 1951, the U.S. pursued this conflict to protect Korea from being invaded by communist powers through the support of the free world lead.

With strong implications of American democracy and education, Anna

attempts to teach the ‘child-like’ Asian adults who are seen by many as uncivilized.

The issue of being considered as civilized is a major concern for the King in

combating the imperial powers surrounding Siam:

ANNA. (To cue him) I was wondering--When the boat arrived from

Singapore yesterday...

KING. Singapore! Ha!

ANNA. Was there any news from abroad? 127

KING. News! Yes, there are news! They call me barbarian.

ANNA. Who?

KING. Certain parties who would use this as excuse to steal my

country. Suppose you were Queen Victoria and somebody tell you

King of Siam is barbarian. Do you believe? (68)

This issue of being considered a ‘barbarian’ brings to mind the historical fact of the

1826 British victories in Burma, a country close to Siam (Thailand). The colonial powers characterized the Burmese as barbarians as an excuse for taking control over the country. Thus being seen as civilized was vital to the security of Siam.

Subsequently, the King and the nation need a qualified teacher to help in the process of westernization and acceptance of American democracy and equality. The King struggles in the learning process between his familiar monarchy system and the new ideology of American democracy and displays childlike outbursts such as demanding to have his own way. In one scene he makes Anna crawl on the floor as a requirement of his acceptance of the notions of equality. Like a patient mother at the end of her tether, Anna humors him and pops up and down to get him to learn his lessons of democracy. Later, surrounded by his books the King dies having paved the way for democracy in Siam and the democratic torch is passed to the new generation.

When The Teahouse of the August Moon opened on Broadway in October

1953 the U.S. had been involved in the Korean War for three years and continued to

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maintain a presence in South Korea after the armistice agreement was signed.38 The

issue of educating Asians about American democracy was of prime importance to the

U.S. government. Japan was being groomed as an ally against communism so a play

featuring the education of the people living in a village on Okinawa fit well with the

government's needs. The Broadway production presents a U.S. governmental plan for

civilizing and westernizing the people of Okinawa. Commanding Officer Colonel

Purdy instructs Captain Fisby, ex-college professor in humanities, about the process

as "teaching these natives how to act human" (13) which echoes the established

stereotypes of the childlish Asians discussed earlier. Purdy orders Fisby to build a

school to educate the village children and instruct the adults.

Deliberately adjusting his speech pattern to his perception of the villagers'

ability to understand, Fisby gives a speech to the village people to introduce the

purpose of his mission: "Everyone will learn about Democracy. [...] Well--

[Democracy] is a system of self-determination. It's--it's the right to make the wrong choice.[...] Explain that if I don't like the way Uncle Sam treats me--I can write the

President himself and tell him so. [...] Tell them hereafter all men will be free and equal[...] Without discrimination [...] The will of the majority will rule!" (26-27).

Adding to this elementary lecture on American democracy, he stresses an alliance relationship, "And Tobiki village will take its place in the brotherhood of democratic peoples the world over!" (27). The villagers cheer as cued by the translator Sakini who, unlike most of the villagers, understands English and wants to make his boss

Fisby happy.

38 The Korean War began on June 25, 1950. An armistice agreement went into effect on July 27, 1953 ending the fighting but not the war. 129

The character Sakini is a prime example of an adult who is accomplished in his own culture but is considered an uneducated child by Americans who believe themselves to be more advanced. He is described as having a "smile of child-like candor" (5) and wearing native shorts and shirt along with overlarge shoes and socks that had belonged to a G.I. These clothes feel like the hand-me-down clothes a younger brother receives from an older brother. Like a parent instructing a child, the commanding officer yells at Sakini:

PURDY. You’re a civilian employee in the pay of the United States

Army. And should dress accordingly. PULL YOUR SOCKS UP!

SAKINI. Yes, boss. (9)

Then like a mischievous child, Sakini twists the parent's criticism and uses it to make fun of the adult:

PURDY. Is that as fast as you can walk!

SAKINI. Oh, no, boss. But if walk any faster―sox fall down. (9)

The socks reference has a dual meaning: children should dress neat as a reflection of their family and work hard to be a productive member of society. By the end of the play Purdy is satisfied with Sakini's progress toward becoming American-like. In reference to Sakini's accomplishment of making Purdy look good to the higher officials through his rapscallion action, Fisby and Purdy discuss Sakini's character.

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FISBY. You really are a rogue, Sakini.

PURDY. No…He’s really an American. He has get-up-and-go. (76)

Miss Higga Jigga, a leader of the League for Democratic Action in Tobiki, and the women of the village demonstrate their understanding of Fisby's lessons on democracy by their formal complaint about Lotus Blossom’s special treatment. The scene is reminiscent of the younger children complaining about an older sibling’s privileges. Using childlike pantomime Miss Higga Jigga acts out the unfair situation and through Sakini puts forward their demands to the father figure of Fisby. In democratic fashion they want and expect equality by receiving the same things as

Lotus Blossom: "red stuff to put on lips" and something "that smell pretty" (38-39).

This notion of equality through gaining possessions rather than loosing possessions shows the difference between American democracy and communism. Miss Higga

Jigga furthers her understanding and acceptance of democracy by threatening to write a letter to "Uncle Samuel" (38) unless Fisby complies. To restore family harmony,

Fisby procures the needed items and arranges for geisha lessons for all the village women.

The village men also make a request to the father figure. Like sons asking dad to build them a clubhouse, they ask Fisby for a teahouse. None of the men has ever been to a teahouse because they are too poor (43-44). Going to a teahouse is a rite of passage to adulthood, something denied them because of their low economic status.

The oldest man of the village explains, "I am an old man, sir. I shall die soon. It is evil for the soul to depart this world laden with envy or regret. Give us our teahouse, sir.

Free my soul for death" (45). His speech sounds like "give me a teahouse or give me 131

regretful death," echoing Patrick Henry's famous words, "Give me liberty or give me death." Of course, Fisby, like the good father he is, chooses what is best for his little village family in contradiction to his orders.

By the end of the 1950s, the Cold War in Asia was relatively stable and the issues of Southeast Asia had not yet become a public worry; the U.S. government began to address internal issues pertaining to domestic security. In 1958 Flower Drum

Song's plot relies heavily on the topic of Asian American citizenship and assimilation.

Four Asian adult characters appear as symbols of American youth supporting the theme of justifying Asian American citizenship. Two mature adult learners, the family patriarch Wang Chi-Yang and his first son Wan Ta, represent the issues of the trepidation surrounding cultural assimilation. Having fled communist China, the

Chinese immigrant father and first son are presented as educated non-threatening male adults whose refugee status makes then plausible candidates for American citizenship. As adult immigrants, they demonstrate, sometimes humorously, the difficulties of assimilating into American culture. C.Y. Lee, the author of the novel

Flower Drum Song was in this situation. He was studying in the U.S. during the communist takeover of China and could not return to his homeland as he had planned.

The father, Wang Chi-Yang, fearfully clings to the old ways, appearing like a child when he gets robbed and proceeds to run to the mother figure of the family for reassurance and resolution of the problem instead of calling the police himself. His money saving technique resembles a child's piggy bank: "It has always been safe under my bed" (16). He does not understand and does not believe in the system of saving money in American banks. In response to his son's suggestion of putting his money in a bank, Wang Chi-Yang replies, "Money is like a man's wife, strangers 132

should not get their hands on it" (17). When introduced to western style clothing, he exhibits more juvenile behavior by burning a hole in the clothing so he does not have to wear them. Eventually he begins to learn and accept the American way of life through opening an account at the Bank of America, Chinatown branch, and wearing his mended "Western suit" (39).

The college educated adult son, Wang Ta, needs to deal with assimilation, as well, but in his case it is in the realm of his identity. In a conversation with Asian

American Linda, who is an American citizen, Wang Ta explains his situation: "Yes, he [his father, Wang Chi-Yang,] is completely Chinese, and that is good. It is good. It is good for my brother, he's completely American. But I am both, and sometimes the

American half shocks the Oriental half, and sometimes the Oriental half keeps me from―showing a girl what is on my mind" (37).39 His American half represents his

freedom of choice concerning matters such as marriage. His Chinese half represents

his need to show respect to his father by accepting a picture-bride. He does not want

to have a wife through an arranged marriage but wants to choose his own wife based

on mutual love. Like a love-struck teenager, he chases one girl, Linda, then later when

confronted with his father’s arranged marriage, he runs after another girl, Mei Li. For

much of the musical, Wang Ta does not know where to turn.

Parallel to these male characters, two mature female learners, the maternal

aunt Madame Liang and the illegal immigrant and picture-bride Mei Li, represent the

39 Casting Ed Kennedy as Wang Ta also echoes the concept of Asians' citizenship. He is an American and was born in a Hawaii which experienced Hawaii Democratic Revolution of 1954. Hawaii became a state in March 1959, only three months before Flower Drum Song opened in December 1958. So inhabitants of the island automatically became citizens. 133

need for education and the ability to embrace assimilation. They are intelligent and modest women who counter the stereotype of Asian prostitute, an image that continued to hold sway in mainstream culture.40 Madame Liang, the sister of Wang

Chi-Yang's deceased wife, has an enthusiasm for learning in order to gain citizenship

which she highly values. Due to her dedication to education, she already speaks

English well and understands the basics of American democracy and its government

system. She voices her knowledge of citizenship to solve local, family problems: "The

American government has three departments: Judicial, Legislative and Executive. All

that a citizen who has been robbed can do is ask the Police Department of the

Executive Department to catch the thief―” (17).

One scene in the musical lavishly depicts a party to celebrate Madame Liang’s

graduation from the American citizenship school and her legal status as an American

citizen. When awarded the Medal of Excellence from the Marina School of American

Citizenship, Madame Liang says, "I am proud to be both Chinese and American" (60).

Explaining how she can be both, Madame Liang says that in America, " 'Everything is

in it, all mixed up,' I like that!" (61). This statement suggests to the audience that it is

acceptable to be both American and Chinese and that the two are not in conflict with

each other. The idea of celebrating dual identity is softened and reinforced with the

song, "Chop Suey":

40 This is in contrast to the British inspired original stage version of The World of Suzie Wong which was opened on Broadway in the same year (1958) and which was criticized for the negative stereotyping. 134

MADAM LIANG. Chop suey, Chop suey, Living here is very much

like Chop Suey.

[...]

ALL. Chop suey, Chop suey, Rough and tough and brittle and soft and

gooey─Peking Duck and Mulligan stew, Plymouth Rock and Little

Rock, too.(61-64)

The light cheerfulness of the song gives a youthful feel to Madame Liang's character.

Mei Li, unlike Madame Liang, is a newly arrived immigrant and initially learns English and American culture informally. With childlike wonder she enjoys

Quaker Oats (45) and other American products and spends time learning culture by watching television. From movies on television she learns "Everything in America ends with a kiss" (133). With naive sweetness like Tammy from the Tammy film series (1957-1967), Mei Li requests a kiss from Wang Ta as she dreams of her happy ending, getting married. Her elementary knowledge of English adds to her innocent image. When Wang Ta explains their kiss was only partially done in comparison with the kisses she saw in the movies, she asks him to do one that is "well done" (135). So

Mei Li continues her education as she learns to kiss in the style of Western culture.

The television also educates her about illegal immigration issues and the meaning of

"wetback" (137). Having entered the country as an illegal alien, Mei Li declares, "I came into this country illegally―across the Pacific Ocean" and adds "My back is wet!" (137). Then she offers to inform on herself to the authorities. This confession about Mei Li’s own illegal immigration was not in Lee's original novel but was added by the musical's team. On a historical note, Mei Li's action would not necessarily lead 135

to deportation. Three years before the musical opened, the Immigration and

Nationalization Service (INS) established the Chinese Confession Program (1956) which offered a legalized status in exchange for confession of illegal entry into the country ("Chinese Confession"). The program resulted in nearly 14,000 confessions; consequently, INS barred future illegal immigration ("Chinese Confession"). The character Wang Ta as a law student, although he was a medical student in the original novel, would likely be aware of the program. The change highlights the legal issues like immigration and justifies Asians' American citizenship.

By the time A Majority of One opened in 1959, World War II had been over for fourteen years, the United Nations (UN) was headquartered in New York City, and Japan had been a UN member nation since 1956. The play offers one example of an Asian adult longing for education in the character of businessman, Mr. Asano.

Already speaking good English and educated to some extent about American culture,

Mr. Asano proves to be a willing learner who enthusiastically engages in conversation with Americans. The character is a man with two grown children thus an unlikely child figure. However, Mrs. Jacoby, in a Jewish mother fashion, proceeds to treat him like a child when he becomes sick with phrases: “All I have to do is look at your eyes

and know you have a temperature” (42); “take a little Bayer aspirin” (38); “Here.

Take a blanket. When you have a cold you should keep your feet warm” (39); and "go into your cabin and take a cup of tea with lemon and honey and every half-hour gargle with hot water and peroxide. You got peroxide?” (42). Like a sick child, he responds willingly to her motherly nurturing.

Like a young man or even a teen-ager, Mr. Asano wants to date Mrs. Jacoby.

His youthful courtship behavior is in sharp contrast to his style of business 136

negotiations. He ardently listens to Mrs. Jacoby’s Yiddish vocabulary lessons, learning words like meshugeh which means crazy (43) and kwelling which means “the way you feel when something wonderful happens to somebody you love. It’s pride"

(53). He even transfers this new knowledge to something familiar to him: “Kwelling would be an excellent addition to the Zen Buddhist vocabulary” (53). When invited to

Mrs. Jacoby’s Sabbath dinner he observes “with respectful interest” (141) as she lights the Sabbath candles and prays. Just as Asians matured and changed from uneducated foreigners to educated citizens, Mr. Asano matures from a love-sick foreigner with some knowledge of American culture to a grown-up man desiring to develop a deep friendship with a woman he admires.

This chapter through examining the five Broadway productions places at its analytic center the image of Asian people as children or childlike figures who are teachable and capable of learning to be responsible citizens. Thus, the productions stage the Asian as a child or as childlike.

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Chapter 5

In Hindsight: Concluding Thoughts

Who is American?

I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents. This nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

Civil Rights Speech by John F Kennedy June 11, 1963 Quoted in Peter B. Levy, The Civil Rights Movement (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1998, p. 173)

Each time we gather to inaugurate a president, we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution. We affirm the promise of our democracy. We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names. What makes us exceptional―what makes us American―is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

Inaugural Address by President Barack Obama January 21, 2013

In this dissertation, I analyze selected Cold War Broadway productions to

elucidate an identity transition for Asian Americans in order to understand the 138

definition of "Who is American?" in contemporary America. Throughout its history from the founding moment to the present day, the United States has defined the word

American with varying degrees of inclusiveness. The shifting historical and semantic changes of the definition are always accompanied by certain perspectives, especially racial prejudice toward minority groups. Some cultural works mirror these prejudicial views and thoughts and in literary and artistic forms reflect the attitudes of the society.

For example, Bloody Mary in South Pacific (1949) can be described as a residual of previous cultural prejudice with its derogatory us of pidgin English as a comic device when she speaks. Simultaneously Bloody Mary represents emergent possibilities of cultural change as a warm hearted woman open to change and looking for acceptance for her and her family. In consideration of the historical perspective of the time in which they were written and performed, I suggest that what is the norm in one specific period is often a bone of contention in another time period. Literary works such as The Ugly American, a bestseller novel in 1958 by Eugene Burdick, carried a certain political message to the pre-Viet Nam War reader which was likely much different than the political point of view of the Hollywood film version in 1963, when the U.S. deepened the war effort.41 Likewise, fifty plus years after the Viet Nam War,

a current audience with hindsight will have a totally different interpretation of the book and film. Another example is The Manchurian Candidate, a 1959 novel by

Richard Condon which was adapted to major Hollywood films. In the original 1962

thriller the adversary is portrayed as being Soviet communist in Communist China,

the primary designated enemies of democratic nations during that historical period;

41 The January 25, 1963 issue of Life magazine featured the article “In Color: The Vicious Fighting in Vietnam,” 22-33. 139

the 2004 remake featured a global corporation as the new enemy of America. Thus, the cultural work was interpreted and adapted to fit the contemporary historical

perspective.

Although cultural productions reflect the historical perspective of the time in

which they were created, they are not always successful in catching the public's

attention with sufficient artistic and financial success and large enough performance

numbers to influence the audience and the public in general. For example, in 1959 at

the same time A Majority of One was staged, the play Kataki by Shimon Wincelberg,

which focused on the identity of Asians in relationship to American citizens, opened

on Broadway. A Majority of One chronicled a pivotal revision point in Asian America history between the identities of foreigner/enemy and model minority; similarly,

Kataki presented a foreigner/enemy identity and staged the revision of the Asian-in-

America identity as encompassing the characteristics of friend. Wincelberg's Kataki was adapted for the stage from a television drama, The Sea is Boiling Hot, which was broadcast on the Kraft Television Theatre on March 12, 1958. Set on an island in the

Pacific during World War II, the story explores the interactions of two enemy soldiers, one Japanese one American, forced to survive together on a deserted island. This sober drama was cast racially accurately with Sessue Hayakawa and Ben Piazza like A

Majority of One and featured authentic Japanese dialogue.

The authors of the two plays were both well-known writers for the large and small screen. Both had been in the military and had visited postwar-Japan, and both were Jewish and used their works to express feelings toward racial and ethnic intolerance. The authors of these productions had sufficient interest in Asian-ness and racial intolerance to use the power of the Broadway stage to present issues 140

surrounding Asians as individual human beings and not merely a faceless enemy.

Even though both plays contain similar themes of racial tolerance and reflect the transition of Asian American identity in that time period, Kataki as a serious play was not successful in contrast to the comedy A Majority of One. Moreover, the comedy

used was not derogatory fun used to generate a certain kind of laughter as was

commonplace in plays like Ah Sin! (1877) as mentioned in Chapter 2.

Looking at these two 1959 plays, I argue that the message delivered through the serious play was not able to reach to a broad range of the mainstream audience

because the subject matter was too intense and too close to the stark memories of war

to be accepted as entertainment. Kataki's staging of an interactions between an

American soldier and a Japanese solider had a very short run with only twenty

performances. In contrast Leonard Spigelgass' comedy with serious issues sprinkled

amongst the antics of a matronly Jewish widow as she interacted with a Japanese man

had a successful run of 556 performances (Kronenberger 341). In contrast to the

serious play, the humorous play was successful in delivering its message to a good

many members of the audience and general public through its comical elements. The

elements of comedy in plays, similar to the elements of song in musicals, can aid in effectively delivering social messages to the audience, such as minimizing repulsive reactions some members of society held at the time to acceptance of racial tolerance and Asian American citizenship.

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For One Brief Moment

Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment… Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe Camelot (New York: Random House, 1961, p. 114)

The lyrics above come from a song in another musical Camelot (1960-63), which was on Broadway at the end of the time period considered in this dissertation.

This financially and artistically successful musical by Alan Jay Lerner (book and lyrics), Frederick Loewe (music), and Moss Hart (director) ran for 873 performances and won a 1961 Theatre World Award and four 1961 Tony Awards for Best Actor,

Best Scenic Design, Best Costume, and Best Conductor and Musical Director. This

Broadway musical initially presents a snapshot of a time of peace and harmony in the mythical kingdom of Camelot. The first portion of the musical’s plot seems to mirror

America in 1960. A king, who marries a capable woman and who cares about his people and pledges to protect the vulnerable through his democratic roundtable discussions instead of the battlefield, can seemingly equate to the leading young presidential candidate John F. Kennedy. Kennedy married the accomplished

Jacqueline Bouvier and after becoming president “took vigorous action in the cause of equal rights, calling for new civil rights legislation” and “wished America to resume its old mission as the first nation dedicated to the revolution of human rights. With the

Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps, he brought American idealism to the aid of developing nations” ("John F. Kennedy").

The years when Kennedy was president seemed to the American people like the peace and harmony described in the song, "Camelot." After her husband’s death in

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1963, Mrs. Kennedy explained in an interview that President Kennedy had loved the musical and especially that song. After that interview the Kennedy years were sometimes nostalgically referred to as “Camelot” ("Dawn of Camelot"). In a simliar fashion, the first decade of the early Cold War period was a Camelot-like time for

Asian Americans as they were given the right to hold legal citizenship, immigrate more freely, and enter society more visibly and safely. After the many decades of exclusion, marginalizing and negative stereotyping "for one brief shining moment" it looked like Asian Americans would be fully accepted as members of the “We the people” American family. Yet that status was not fully realized but rather only a transitional point on the continuum of Asian American identity. It would not be long until a new stereotype “Model Minority” was invented and applied with a differentiating effect.

Revising the American Family Portrait: On the boards of the stage

At the center of this dissertation is the question of what it means to be an

"American" or in other words who is included in the U.S. Constitution’s “We the

people” (1787). Forty-eight years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade

discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race in hiring, promoting, and firing,

certain segments or layers of American society have still not caught up with the

changes reflected in the legislation. This discrepancy between legislation and attitude

is what gave rise to the topic addressed in this dissertation. In Chapter 1, I initiated my

discussion with an uncomfortably recent example in the case of NBA basketball

player Jeremy Lin. A 2013 CBS report suggested that “Lin's failure to get a major

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college basketball scholarship or a roster spot through the NBA draft probably had to do with his Asian ethnicity” ("Houston Rockets' Jeremy" 60 Minutes).

In his 2013 Inaugural Address, an excerpt of which appears at the beginning of this chapter, President Barack Obama reflected on what makes a person an

American. His speech linked the Declaration of Independence and Constitution with a multi-racial, multi-religious, and multi-cultural America, which implies that

Americans live in a post-racial America. However, some of the historical stereotypes of Asians continue to be resurrected in mass media. In Performing Asian America:

Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary Stage, Josephine Lee insists, "Stereotypes often outlast the specific historical conditions that first produced them" (89). This survival of stereotypes over historical conditions is not only due to their strong

impression and effect but also because of learned perceptions. In addition, writers repetitively deliver the stereotypes on purpose in order to present Asian Americans’ unique experiences. An example is David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly, which incorporates stereotypes in the dubious process of re-appropriation of stereotypes (J.

Lee 92).

In National Abjection: The Asian American Body Onstage (2002), Karen

Shimakawa provides a keen analysis of many Asian American "performed texts" since the 1970s through applying various theories of culture, race, and performance.

Shimakawa utilizes as the primary theoretical framework Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection and applies it to the formation of national identity as a "frontier" which signifies the boundaries of cultural citizenship and national ontology. She suggests as a possible reason why the stereotype continues, despite cultural shifts, as a result of individuals' fixed mindset and rigid formation of national identity. In this formation, 144

Asian American-ness is read as abject and thus “occupies a role both necessary to and mutually constitutive of national subject formation—but it does not result in the

formation of an Asian American subject or even an Asian American object”

(Shimakawa 3). Specifically, Shimakawa comments on Velina Hasu Houton's play

Tea (1993) that evokes familiar, potentially stereotypical iterations of Asian American

female identity through staging five Japanese American women in relation to each

other rather than situating them in relation to "normal" American women or men for

comparison or contrast (Shimakawa 105-6).

In her article " 'At Least You're Not Black': Asian Americans in U.S. Race

Relations," Elaine H. Kim exemplifies the nature of re-educated stereotypes in the

racialized social structure,

Since their information sources are primarily from the dominant

culture, people of color are almost as susceptible to racist stereotyping

as anyone else. Thus, it should not be surprising that what Cornel West

has called xenophobia is so prevalent among African Americans and

that many Asian Americans stereotype African Americans as unreliable

or crime-prone, that many Latinos can routinely call an Asian of

whatever background chino, or that many Korean immigrants still refer

to all Latinos as "Mexican." (9)

A strong influence of the master narrative on multi-narratives may be another

reason why the stereotype outlasts. The mainstream narrative frequently redelivers a stereotype from the past and sometimes reinforces it. In her essay “Traces of the 145

Master Narrative in the Story of African American/Korean American Conflict: How

We Constructed 'Los Angeles' (1993),” Lisa C. Ikemoto highlights the "master narrative" beyond the disastrous event labeled "Los Angeles." She insists that the master narrative is useful to describe white supremacy's prescriptive, conflict- constructing power, which deploys exclusionary concepts of race and privilege in ways that maintain intergroup conflict. This essay asserts that media-selected images

of Latasha Harlins as a gang-member looter and Soon Ja Du as an armed Korean

storeowner merged into the African American and Korean American conflict

manipulated by the master narrative. Consequently, the images strategically

reinforced African American identity as shoplifters, looters, and gang-members and

Korean American ─ highly likely including Asian American ─ as crime-victim, gun-

toting merchant, and defender-of-property images (1590-91). Ikemoto expands this

powerful and hidden master narrative beyond the event into the breaking-down of the

belief in multiculturalism. She summarizes that Latasha Harlins and Rodney King

turned into symbols of systemic racial injustice and that the event, "Los Angeles" has

become a metaphor for the failure of racial diversity (Ikemoto 1595) or the

malfunction of multiculturalism (Ikemoto 1596). This historical event and its

aftermath inspired Anna Deavere Smith to create her second major theatrical work

entitled Twilight: Los Angeles (1994) where she examined the racial dynamics of

South Central Los Angeles and in particular the encounters between Koreans and

African Americans. In contrast to the master narrative, Smith reconstructed the

historical event into a micro level of narratives and stories based on her interviews

with 300 people's experiences related to the Rodney King beating by police that

sparked the riots. 146

In addition to this case of the master narrative, Sumi K. Cho gives detailed

examples of individuals’ experiences in her controversial essay, “Converging

Stereotypes in Racialized Sexual Harassment: Where the Model Minority Meets Suzie

Wong” (1997). Historically, the master narrative voiced out biased stereotypes toward

Asian women as sexual and dangerous dragon ladies or submissive lotus blossom

babies. One of the most influential stereotypes was from a 1960 film, The World of

Suzie Wong, based on the British play of the same title, which portrays a dangerous inter-racial romance between a white man and an Asian prostitute. The film

encouraged the western male fantasy in the U.S. of having sexual intercourse with

Asian women. In her article, Sumi K. Cho specifically addresses stereotyping female

students in association with infamous racialized sexual harassment in universities,

“the faculty member sought out Japanese women in particular and uses his position as

a university professor to impress and seduce Japanese women because he believes

they are submissive and will obey any parameters he sets for the relationship” (178).

Moreover, Cho aggressively quotes a professor’s words to a student, “[H]e liked

Japanese females because they were easy to have sex with and because they were

submissive” (179).

This kind of learned and seemingly fixed perceptions seems not to be easily

removed or changed. The outlasting nature of the stereotypes may result in cases such

as Jeremy Lin's. In this dissertation, I am not insisting certain groups of people have

to feel emotional sympathy for the history of discrimination but I am identifying the

nature of stereotypes which categorizes a group of people with biased thoughts and

justifies a discriminative action throughout race, gender, class, and nation, evidencing

with an example of Asian Americans in the Cold War stage productions. 147

In Hindsight: Revival of the Five Cultural Productions

The five Broadway productions did not disappear from contemporary

American culture following the end of the Cold War. They have been occasionally revived with various adaptations to reflect changing societal and cultural components.

Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific was revived in a 2001 film version by director Richard Pearce. The King and I has ceaselessly revisited American musical theater and screen. A revised filmic version, Anna and the King, was released in 1999, and director Baayork Lee's The King and I began a U.S. national tour between 2004 and 2005. The Teahouse of the August Moon was revived by the Pan Asian Repertory

Theatre in 2000, by the Fire Rose Productions in 2003, and by the Community Asian

Theatre of the Sierra in 2012. A Majority One was staged by the West Coast Jewish

Theatre in 2008.

Among these five Broadway productions, a revival of Flower Drum Song provides an updated perspective ideal for this conclusion. Asian American playwright

David Henry Hwang revamped Flower Drum Song to fit a 2002 perspective in which he made major changes in characters and plot. Hwang's works on stage and in mass media examine the intercultural complexities between the East and the West. He has produced plays that satirize racial and sexual fantasies of the West toward the East, and, thus, he attempts to break down the mis-conceptualization of feminizing Asians and Asian Americans in the United States through his theatrical works. M. Butterfly

(1988), the play that made him a celebrity playwright, has received much critical

discussion and many productions. Most recently, he tackled the controversy over

casting a white British actor as an Asian character in Broadway's Miss Saigon (1991).

His play Yellow Face (2007) questions what race means and how politics and media 148

discussions operate in society and influence the public. In his revival of Flower Drum

Song, Hwang stresses the changing geo-political and economic status of Asian

Americans and what it means to be American. In an interview with Jeffrey Brown at

PBS, he explains:

All the incarnations of “Flower Drum Song” essentially deal with the

process of Americanization and what it means to come to this country

and be part of this country from a Chinese-American perspective. I

think that identity is a question that gains its strength from our ability

to ask it over and over again and continue to change and redefine

ourselves and evolve. ("Flower Drum Song" PBS.org)

Considering Hwang's thoughts here and applying it to the Jeremy Lin incident and other current cases, identity is an ever changing, transitional, morphing concept. To understand the trend in the current discussions on racial identity there must be an understanding of the social, political and cultural histories that are inseparable and embedded within such considerations. Examining and analyzing cultural markers such as Broadway productions can shed light on such understanding.

149

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