FROM CONFINEMENT TO CONTAINMENT In the series Asian American History and Culture, edited by Cathy Schlund-Vials, Shelley Sang-Hee Lee, and Rick Bonus. Founding editor, Sucheng Chan; editors emeriti, David Palumbo-Liu, Michael Omi, K. Scott Wong, and Linda Trinh Võ. ALSO IN THIS SERIES: Patricia P. Chu, Where I Have Never Been: Migration, Melancholia, and Memory in Asian American Narratives of Return Cynthia Wu, Sticky Rice: A Politics of Intraracial Desire Marguerite Nguyen, America’s Vietnam: TheLongue Durée of U.S. Literature and Empire Vanita Reddy, Fashioning Diaspora: Beauty, Femininity, and South Asian American Culture Audrey Wu Clark, The Asian American Avant-Garde: Universalist Aspirations in Modernist Literature and Art Eric Tang, Unsettled: Cambodian Refugees in the New York City Hyperghetto Jeffrey Santa Ana, Racial Feelings: Asian America in a Capitalist Culture of Emotion Jiemin Bao, Creating a Buddhist Community: A Thai Temple in Silicon Valley Elda E. Tsou, Unquiet Tropes: Form, Race, and Asian American Literature Tarry Hum, Making a Global Immigrant Neighborhood: Brooklyn’s Sunset Park Ruth Mayer, Serial Fu Manchu: The Chinese Supervillain and the Spread of Yellow Peril Ideology Karen Kuo, East Is West and West Is East: Gender, Culture, and Interwar Encounters between Asia and America Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde, Transnationalizing Viet Nam: Community, Culture, and Politics in the Diaspora Lan P. Duong, Treacherous Subjects: Gender, Culture, and Trans-Vietnamese Feminism Kristi Brian, Reframing Transracial Adoption: Adopted Koreans, White Parents, and the Politics of Kinship Belinda Kong, Tiananmen Fictions outside the Square: The Chinese Literary Diaspora and the Politics of Global Culture Bindi V. Shah, Laotian Daughters: Working toward Community, Belonging, and Environmental Justice Cherstin M. Lyon, Prisons and Patriots: Japanese American Wartime Citizenship, Civil Disobedience, and Historical Memory Shelley Sang-Hee Lee, Claiming the Oriental Gateway: Prewar Seattle and Japanese America Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, This Is All I Choose to Tell: History and Hybridity in Vietnamese American Literature Christian Collet and Pei-te Lien, eds., The Transnational Politics of Asian Americans Min Zhou, Contemporary Chinese America: Immigration, Ethnicity, and Community Transformation A list of additional titles in this series appears at the back of this book. FROM CONFINEMENT TO CONTAINMENT Japanese/American Arts during the Early Cold War EDWARD TANG TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS Philadelphia • Rome • Tokyo TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122 tupress.temple.edu Copyright © 2019 by Temple University—Of The Commonwealth System of Higher Education All rights reserved Published 2019 Copyright © Johns Hopkins University Press: Part of Chapter 1 was first published as “Reorienting Empires: Hanama Tasaki’s Long the Imperial Way and Postwar American Culture,” Journal of Asian American Studies 17, no. 1 (2014): 31–59. Reprinted with permission by Johns Hopkins University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Tang, Edward, author. Title: From confinement to containment : Japanese/American arts during the early Cold War / Edward Tang. Description: Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 2019. | Series: Asian American history and culture | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2018021198 (print) | LCCN 2018021748 (ebook) | ISBN 9781439917503 (E-book) | ISBN 9781439917480 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781439917497 (paper : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Japanese American art—20th century—Themes, motives. | Arts, Japanese—20th century—Themes, motives. | Arts and society—United States—History—20th century. | Arts and society—Japan—History—20th century. | BISAC: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / Asian American Studies. | HISTORY / United States / 20th Century. | HISTORY / Asia / Japan. | LITERARY CRITICISM / American / Asian American. Classification: LCC NX512.3.J32 (ebook) | LCC NX512.3.J32 T36 2019 (print) | DDC 704.03/956073—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018021198 The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992 Printed in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Sam, Bessie, Andy, and Brendan Author’s Note apanese names appear, according to Japanese usage, with the family name preceding the given name. Japanese American names appear, ac- Jcording to Western usage, with the given name preceding the family name. Contents Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1 Reorienting Empires: Hanama Tasaki’s War Guilt and U.S.-Japan Relations 15 2 Sleeping with the Frenemy: Yamaguchi Yoshiko as Japanese War Bride 53 3 Beyond Confinement: The Racialized Cosmopolitan Style of Henry Sugimoto 99 4 Teach Your Children Well: The Postwar Tales of Yoshiko Uchida 159 Conclusion 201 Notes 207 Selected Bibliography 235 Index 241 Acknowledgments am fortunate to have received a great deal of help in writing this book. Sev- eral institutions were instrumental in providing not only research material Ibut also prompt responses to my queries. I thank the staffs at the Charles E. Young Research Library, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); the Bancroft Library, the University of California, Berkeley; the Knight Li- brary, Special Collections, the University of Oregon; the Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University; the Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard University; the Wisconsin Historical Society; the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; the Modern Museum of Art; the Brooklyn Museum; the Smithsonian American Art Mu- seum; and the Japanese American National Museum (JANM). Peter Hanff at the Bancroft Library and Jamie Henricks at JANM were especially helpful. I could not have put these archives to use without funding from vari- ous sources. I received a National Endowment for the Humanities Sum- mer Stipend that covered an assortment of expenses. My home institution, the University of Alabama, was also generous in providing aid. I won a Re- search Grants Committee (RGC) award at the university level, as well as two grants from the College of Arts and Sciences’ College Academy for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity (CARSCA), established by Dean Robert F. Olin. The Department of American Studies provided support from the Carla and Cleo Thomas Fund and from my two-year Clarence C. Mondale Faculty Fellowship. xii | ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My gratitude extends to those laboring in Asian American studies and related fields who welcomed and tested my ideas for this project. Much of this process began with my visit to UCLA, where Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, David Yoo, and Stacey Hirose were generous with their advice and encouragement. Since then, through conferences at the American Studies Association, the As- sociation for Asian American Studies, and other forums, I have enjoyed friend- ships with a host of supportive scholars. While sharing a shuttle van ride to the airport after one gathering years ago, Cathy Schlund-Vials introduced herself and then invited me to present at the University of Connecticut’s Asian Ameri- can Studies Institute. This book developed further from my participation on panels and in other exchanges with Eiichiro Azuma, Leslie Bow, Kim Brandt, Elena Creef, Greg Robinson, and Stephen Sumida. Several of Eiichiro’s sug- gestions changed the direction and the nature of the book for the better. Elena and Leslie were present at the start of the project and inspired me with their own work. Greg was a marvelous fount of information, always ready with particular leads, reassurance, and excellent choices in restaurants. At various venues, Steven Doi, Victor Jew, and Brian Niiya imparted valuable insights as well. Kim Brandt, Mary Ting Yi Lui, and Ellen Wu were kind in sharing their scholarship with me. In the early stages of formulating my thoughts, Min Hyoung Song, who was then the editor of the Journal of Asian American Stud- ies, guided a draft article on Hanama Tasaki to publication with precision and professionalism. Also during this process, Eiichiro Azuma, Naoko Shibusawa, John Shy, and John J. Stephan lent crucial perspectives to my understanding of Tasaki. Emily Anderson came to my aid by sending me her English translation of Henry Sugimoto’s unpublished memoirs. Madeleine Sugimoto was encour- aging in my brief exchanges with her and provided vital information about her father’s life and work. Koji Arizumi was more than willing to communicate with librarians in Tokyo and Wakayama, Japan, on my behalf. Finally, Fred Whiting organized the Americanist Faculty Workshop at the University of Alabama, a hospitable site where I presented my ideas on two occasions. As for the Department of American Studies and my wonderful colleagues, I could not have asked for a better working environment. Lynne Adrian, Jolene Hubbs, Stacy Morgan, and Eric Weisbard read various forms of my writing, from book proposals and fellowship applications to introduction and chapter drafts. Throughout the two decades that I have known her, Lynne has perused almost everything I have written and has kept me centered on the important issues. Jolene, with her loathing of modifiers, vagueness, and passive voice, worked the chapter on Yamaguchi Yoshiko into shape. She, Han, and Geneva also served as amiable hosts, entertaining me during two research visits to the Bay Area. Always the