Strangers in the Heartland: Cultural Identity in Flux, Japanese Americans in Chicago, 1892--1942

My project explores the experiences of the Japanese as they settled in Chicago and built a community. It examines ways in which these Japanese immigrants identified themselves between the Empire of Japan, and the United States. It also looks at the ways in the print media of the day talked about and presented the Japanese immigrants.;The central questions raised here are quite specific. What problems did pre-World War II Japanese migrants in Chicago encounter and how did they respond to them? Did the small size of the Japanese community affect the experiences of its members? Through what organizations and leaders were the Japanese linked to one another? Where were the Japanese located within Chicago's pre-World War II racial hierarchies? How did they respond to the growing anti-Asian sentiment in the United States, particularly in the 1930s? I also tried to touch on yet not fully answer two larger questions. First, in what ways did the experience of Japanese in the Midwest differ from that of their compatriots on the West Coast? Secondly, what can immigration historians learn from my study of a very small group situated within a large urban space? I hope to be able to respond these issues in the future.;For the present, my goal is to show how a small Asian community managed to survive in the racially and ethnically diverse urban space of pre-World War II Chicago by drawing on both its Old World heritage and its New World experiences. Far from the intense anti-Japanese sentiment of the West Coast, Japanese Chicagoans were able to remain loyal to the Emperor and supportive of the motherland up to (and in some cases beyond) the outbreak of World War II. Yet, at the same time, the leaders of the Japanese community in Chicago reached out to and absorbed some of the values of the native-born who lived around them. At times, they were rejected. The result was the development of a complex trans-national identity, which kept migrants in close touch with the Imperial Japan even as it facilitated their survival within the city of Chicago.