Tokyo Life, New York Dreams: Urban Japanese Visions of America, 1890-1924

Tokyo Life, New York Dreams is a bicultural study that explores Japanese immigrants' ideas about what they would find in New York, focusing on their pre-immigration experience and the construction of a mythic America. It is part of UC Press' Voices Revived program, which makes high-quality scholarship accessible again.

Format: Hardback
Length: 288 pages
Publication date: 19 August 2022
Publisher: University of California Press

Tokyo Life, New York Dreams is a captivating bicultural exploration that delves into the lives of Japanese immigrants residing in New York City and the visions they held for their new home. It stands as one of the pioneering works to examine Japanese immigration to the East Coast, where the immigrants hailed from a distinct class and social background compared to the laborers who arrived in the West Coast and Hawaii. The author, Mitziko Sawada, begins her journey by capturing the essence of immigrants' experiences in New York City, before embarking on a return trip to Tokyo to delve deeper into the pre-immigration experiences. Through the rich tapestry of popular Japanese literature, Sawada traces the origins of immigrant perceptions of the United States. In addition to engaging in discussions about economics and politics in Tokyo, Sawada explores the prevailing images, ideologies, social myths, and attitudes of late Meiji and Early Taisho Japan. Her lively narrative is enriched by a range of sources, including guidebooks, magazines, success literature, and popular novels, which shed light on the formation of ideas about work, class, gender relations, and freedom in American society. This study analyzes the Japanese construction of a mythic America, perceived as a homogeneous and exotic other.

Tokyo Life, New York Dreams is a remarkable contribution to the field of bicultural studies, and it forms part of UC Press's Voices Revived program. This program celebrates the mission of UC Press to seek out and nurture the brightest minds, providing them with a platform to express their ideas, reach a wider audience, and have a significant impact. Voices Revived leverages print-on-demand technology to make high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again, drawing from a backlist dating back to 1893. This title, originally published in 1996, is now reissued in a new edition to continue its legacy of enriching intellectual discourse.

Weight: 544g
Dimension: 229 x 152 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780520366114