ASAM
AsAm 100BB | Winter 2021 1
Asian American Studies 100BB: Japanese Americans Course Syllabus, Winter 2021
Day and Time: Monday & Wednesday 11-12:15 Location: Online via Zoom
Instructor: Lily Anne Welty Tamai, Ph.D.
Office: HSSB 5048 Mailbox: HSSB 5044 (Asian American Studies Department) Office: Hours: Wednesdays 8-10am and by appointment via Zoom Email: lywelty.ucsb@gmail.com Please include somewhere in the subject line of all emails with “AAS 100BB” Required Texts
Paul Spickard, Japanese Americans: The Formation and Transformation of an Ethnic Group, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2010
George Takei, They Called Us Enemy, Marietta: Top Shelf Productions, 2019 Takeyuku Tsuda, Japanese American Ethnicity: In Search of Heritage and Homeland Across Generations, New York: New
York University Press, 2016 Additional reading material will be on GauchoSpace. It is your responsibility to read the articles before class.
Course Objectives
1. To introduce the student to the history and contemporary experiences of Japanese Americans from the beginning of large-scale immigration in the 1890s down to the present day. Topics include international migration patterns to the U.S. and Latin America; settlement and employment patterns; various attempts by others to harass Japanese Americans; the responses of Japanese American individuals and communities to such oppression; family systems; community organization; education and cultural life; internment during World War II, the formation of an Asian American panethnicity; the Japanese American movement for redress; intermarriage and multiethnicity.
2. To challenge the student to read and listen analytically and to think and write critically about matters of substantial social and political importance.
3. Introduce the student to literature, culture and history as a way of understanding human experience. 4. To become a better writer through revision and discussion, assess the effectiveness of their written work, and
evaluate its focus, organization, content, and expression.
Assignments, Reading, and Preparation Reading is an integral part of the course. You are expected to spend at least six hours outside of class preparing for
every lecture. Note that some days have considerably more reading assigned than others. It is the student's responsibility to plan ahead and be prepared. Keeping up with the reading will help you with your exams, class participation, and overall understanding of the course. You are expected to do ALL the reading before lecture each week. Do not fall behind in the readings; it is hard to catch up in the quarter system, especially during the summer.
Class Courtesy
During class, please respect your classmates by turning off cell phones and muting your microphone. Using your laptops and other electronic devices for non-class purposes is a disservice and disrespectful to the instructor, to your classmates and to you. Resist the urge to send texts, emails, and conduct other non-class related activity online during the 3.5 hours per week you are in class (this is 0.02% of the total hours in a week). Save all non-course related electronic engagement for breaks and before and after class.
Privacy
We will use Zoom, GauchoSpace videos and other technologies in this course and you are expected to follow the UCSB Student Code of Conduct, which includes Section 102.25: Expectation of Privacy. Let me remind you that it is prohibited for you to take screenshots and share any photos or video and audio recordings of fellow students and your instructor, as each of us has a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in this class. Please do your best to find as private a place as possible to use Zoom, not only to avoid distractions, but also to protect everyone’s individual privacy during live discussion and written chat. As your instructor, before I begin recording, I will inform you if I will record or archive any video or audio within the GauchoSpace environment for the expressed purpose of teaching the course. Please let me know if you have any concerns with this policy.1 Please be aware of your privacy and internet security.
Academic Dishonesty
Cheating will NOT be tolerated! To avoid plagiarism, you are responsible for giving proper credit every time you use another person’s ideas or words (including online sources) in your written assignments. Please refer to the university catalog for a full description of academic dishonesty. If you plagiarize and are caught—and you will be caught— you will fail the course and your name will be turned over to the Dean of Undergraduate Study for disciplinary action, which can include expulsion from the university.
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Expectations What I expect from you: ! Academic honesty and integrity ! Arriving to class on time, submitting assignments by
the deadlines ! Class participation with a strong sense of collegial
purpose ! Complete the readings before class ! Be prepared for in-class discussions ! You manage your time so that you treat college and
this course as real work with real value
What to expect from me: ! Lecture will be prepared in advance and organized ! The assignments are relevant, meaningful and
challenging ! I will see that papers and assignments are graded and
returned as quickly as possible ! I will hold regular office hours ! I approach guiding your learning in ways geared to
your diverse talents and abilities
Campus Resources
The Disabled Students Program provides academic support services to eligible students with temporary and permanent disabilities. Please inform the instructor if you require special classroom accommodations due to a disability – you must register with DSP prior to receiving these accommodations. Please contact the DSP office for information and assistance (2120 Student Resource building, 893- 2668).
Please take advantage of the services at CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services) if you are in need; CAPS is available 24/7 at 805-893-4411, or during business hours at the CAPS building (next to Career Services). Email Etiquette
1. Email is a form of communication, much like formal letters. When replying or sending email to the instructor, you should adopt language that has a respectful tone, proper grammar (check your spelling and punctuation), and always write a greeting, a closing, and your name. Check and see if your question can be answered on the syllabus.
2. Do not expect the instructor to print out your work. Sending a document via email does not ensure that the document can be opened or will be printed.
3. Please allow at least 24-48 hours for a response.
Course Requirements In order to pass the course a student must complete each of these major requirements.
1. Class attendance and participation. 2. Readings completed before the day for which they are assigned. I reserve the right to give an
unannounced quiz on any day's reading assignment.
3. Paper Drafts and Assignments. The total grade will consist of a proposal outline (10%), paper draft (15%), and final paper (75%). It is wise to discuss with instructor to formulate your research plans. Due February 24, 11am (6-8 double spaced pages). See the style sheet for other guidelines.
4. Final Exam, Thursday, March 18, 12-3pm 5. Self-evaluation, due on the last day of class, March 10 during week 10. On one side of one sheet of
paper, write or type your name; assign yourself an advisory grade; and tell me, in terms of the course objectives, course requirements, grade definitions, or other issues you believe pertinent, why you should have that grade. I do not promise to give you that grade, but I do promise to read your self-evaluation and take it seriously.
Grading
Your grade is based on your attendance, participation, film responses, paper, and final exam. You will be graded both for regularly attending class and for the quality of your participation. Please save all graded and returned material so you have a record of your scores. Grade break down
Film Responses 10% (film response quizzes are due the day they are assigned prior to the start of lecture) Reflection Essays 10% Term Paper 30% (outline 10%, draft 15%, final 75%) Final Exam 30% Attendance 10% Participation 10% (in class, online posting on GauchoSpace, and oral discussion)
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I reserve the right to adjust the percentages in individual cases so that each student’s final grade will best reflect my judgment of how much she or he has learned in this course and the overall quality of his or her work. The lectures will be held via Zoom. The password for the Zoom lecture session is [GoGauchos]. The lectures will be held synchronously, and recorded. The recordings of the lecture will be posted on the course webpage for only 1 week after lecture. It is recommended that you attend the live lecture so you can participate in the in-class discussions. Attending class ensures you will be able to access the course lecture material in the event that there is a technical issue with the recording.
General Education Requirements This course satisfies the Ethnicity, Area D, and the Writing II general education requirements.
Schedule of readings and lecture topics:
Note: Some weeks have very large reading assignments; others have smaller assignments. Plan ahead. You are responsible to do all the reading by the dates for which it is assigned.
Part I: Early Immigration 1880-1920 From Japan and Okinawa Week 1 Jan 4 Introduction to the Course
Read: This Syllabus, GauchoSpace Course Website section “Course Resources,” Spickard, ch 1; Yuji Ichioka, “Introduction” in The Issei Due by the end of week 1: (1) Check in questionnaire, (2) Sign up for Discussion Leadership
6 Early Immigration and Establishment Read: Ben Kobashigawa, “Okinawan Issei Identity” in Reflections on the Okinawan Experience; Raul Araki, “Nikkei Identity in Peru,” in New Worlds New Lives: Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas and from Latin America in Japan Kelli Y. Nakamura, “Picture Brides” from Densho.org Film: “Issei: The First Generation” Due: complete the film response Discuss Term Paper topics
Week 2 11 Laws and Labor
Read: Spickard chapter 2-3 Primary Source: “Japanese Cheap Labor: It Is Not Needed Here and Should Not Be Admitted,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 2, 1905; Kazuhiro Oharazeki, “Listening to the Other Women in Japanese North America: Japanese Prostitutes and Barmaids in the American West, 1887-1920;” Primary Document: “On the Japanese Problem” (1921)
13 Farming and Family: New Roles in America Read: Valerie Matsumoto, ch 1 “Taking Root in a Harsh Land,” ch 2 “Growing Up in Cortez” in Farming the Home Place
Week 3 18 MLK Day Holiday No class
Part II: Interwar Years 1920-1941 20 The Anti-Japanese Movement and Issei Patriotism
Read: Daniels, Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans During World War II, chapters 1-2 Eiichiro Azuma, “Helping Japan, Helping Ourselves: The Meaning of Issei Patriotism” in Between Two Empires: Race, History, and Transnationalism in Japanese America
Term Paper Outline due 11am on GauchoSpace Week 4
25 Growing Up Nisei Read: Spickard chapters 4-5, Tsuda, ch 1, “The Pre-war Nisei: Americanization and Nationalistic Beloinging”
Valerie Matsumoto, “Japanese American Girls Clubs in Los Angeles during the 1920s-1930s” Clip: “Meet the Atomettes”
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Part III: World War II Internment Camp and Post-war 1941-1965
27 The Forced Removal and Mass Incarceration: Assembly Centers and Internment Camps Read: Spickard chapters 6-7; George Takei, They Called Us Enemy first half; Greg Robinson, “Removal from the West Coast and Control of Ethnic Japanese Outside” in A Tragedy of Democracy: Japanese Confinement in North America Primary Source: “Instruction to All Persons of Japanese Ancestry” Primary Source: “Japanese Relocation” (US Office of War Information, 1942, 10 min) Film: “Rabbit in the Moon” Emiko Omori, director (84 min) Due: complete the film response
Week 5 Feb 1 442nd RCT and Draft Resisters; Loyalty and No No Boys, WACs
Read: Frank Emi, “Draft Resistance at the Heart Mountain Concentration Camp and the Fair Play Committee,” in Frontiers of Asian American Studies, and Densho.org “Loyalty Questionnaire;” John Okada, excerpt from No No Boy; Lily Anne Welty Tamai “One of Thousands: Susumu “Sus” Ito and his Photographs,” Southern California Quarterly, George Takei, They Called Us Enemy second half; Brenda Moore, Chapter 5, “Service in the Women’s Army Corps” Primary Source: “The Loyalty Questionnaire” and Sus Ito interview Film: “Unknown Warriors of World War II” (25 min) Due: complete the film response
3 Virtual Visit to the Japanese American National Museum Due: Reflection on the visit (complete by February 8)
Part IV: Post 1965 Resettlement and Activism 1965-1990
Week 6 8 Post-war Resettlement
Read: Robinson, “Japantown: Born and Reborn” in After Camp Tsuda, ch 3 “Assimilation and Loss of Ethnic Heritage Among Third Generation JAs” Film: “Breakfast at Tak’s” (11 min, 2008)
10 Asian American Pan-ethnicity, and the Asian American Movement
Read: Yen Le Espiritu, “Ethnicity and Panethnicity,” in Asian American Pathethnicity, p 1-18 William Petersen, “Success Story, Japanese-American Style” The New York Times Magazine, January 1966; Film clip: “Mike Nakayama: Vietnam War Vet & Activist” (13 min) Paper Draft due on GauchoSpace, 9:30am *bring a link for peer review during class
Week 7
15 President’s Day Holiday No class
17 Movement for Redress and Reparations Read: Mitchell T. Maki, Harry H.L. Kitano and S. Megan Berthold, “The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians” in Achieving the Impossible Dream; Takezawa, “Children of Inmates: The Effects of the Redress Movement among Third-Generation Japanese Americans” in Contemporary Asian America, vol 2. “Becoming a Nisei Activist,” Aiko Yoshinaga Herzig Interview Segment 2, 1997, Densho Digital Archive (6 min) Film: “The Commission of Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians Hearings in Los Angeles” (1981) Day of Remembrance, February 19
Part V: Contemporary Issues 1980s-Present Week 8
22 Reclaiming the Past through Pilgrimages
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Read: Jane Iwamura, “Critical Faith: Japanese Americans and the Birth of a New Civil Religion,” American Quarterly; Naomi Paik, “Internment Remains” & “Residues of Rightlessness” in Rightlessness Film: “Pilgrimage” by Tadashi Nakamura (2007) (22 min) Due: complete the film response
24 The New Immigrants: Shin Issei & War Brides
Read: Tsuda, Introduction & ch 2 “The Postwar Nisei: Biculturalism and Transnational Identities”
Eri Kameyama, “Shin Issei Identity and Place in the Japanese American Community” Pan Japan, vol 12, No 1 & 2 (2016)
Eiichiro Azuma, “The Making of a Japanese American Race, and Why Are There No “Immigrants in Postwar Nikkei History and Community?: The Problems of Generation, Region and Citizenship in Japanese America”
Guest lecture: Mika Thornburg
Final Paper due on GauchoSpace, 11am
Week 9 Mar 1 Japanese American outmarriage and Multiracial Japanese, & Yonsei
Read: Tsuda, ch 4, & 5; Pacific Citizen “Nikkei Outmarriage” Akemi Johnson “Do You Speak…?” Nichibei Times; Rebecca King-O’Riain, “Cultural Impostors and Eggs” in Pure Beauty: Judging Race in Japanese American Pageants; Cynthia Nakashima, “An Invisible Monster: The Creation and Denial of Mixed Race People in America” in Racially Mixed People in America Video: Jeff Chiba Stearns, “What Are You Anyways?” (10 min)
3 Settler Colonialism and LGBTQ Japanese America
Read: Haunani Kay Trask, “Settlers of Color and ‘Immigrant’ Hegemony: ‘Locals’ in Hawai’i, Amerasia Journal, 26:2 (2000): 1-24; Jonathan Okamura “Ethnic Boundary Construction in the Japanese American Community in Hawai’i” in Asian Settler Colonialism; Amy Sueyoshi, “Why Study Queer Asian American Studies?” Pan Japan, vol 12, No 1 & 2 (2016)
Helen Zia, ch. 9 “Out on the Front Lines” in Asian American Dreams Film: “Canefield Songs: Holehole Bushi” (26 min)
Week 10
8 Contemporary Japanese American Ethnicity Read: Tsuda, ch 6-8, Yamashiro, “Japanese Americans as a Global Ancestral Group” 10 Catch Up and Final Exam Review Tsuda, conclusion
Self Evaluation due by midnight on GauchoSpace Finals Week Final Exam, Thursday, March 18, 12-3pm
Please send me an email, talk to me after class, or visit me via Zoom office hours if you have any questions or suggestions. It is my job to help you succeed in this class—please do not wait until the end of the quarter to ask for help! Any changes made to this syllabus during the course of the quarter will be announced in class. You are responsible for keeping track of any changes.
Japanese American Community Upcoming Events: What Does it Mean to Be Nikkei in 2021? February 6, 2021, at 2pm Japanese American National Museum Manzanar Pilgrimage, April 24, 2021, 12pm, a virtual event
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Course Policies Late Papers and Exams
In normal times, no late assignments or makeup exams will be allowed, unless an emergency arises that is beyond the student’s control. However, we are not in normal times. We are experiencing a global pandemic. Do the best you can to meet the deadlines for this class. Should you need to request an extension, please do so before the due date (pro tip: it’s better to ask for permission than forgiveness).
Rule of Courtesy and Engagement in Scholarly Discourse
In this course, we will be discussing complex issues about which many people have passionate feelings. We must be intellectually open to perspectives that may conflict with our presuppositions. It is essential that we treat each other’s opinions and comments with courtesy and respect, even when they diverge from our own. We must avoid personalizing our disagreements and turning them into attacks on the character of our colleagues. Rather, we must develop a culture of civil argument, where every person has the right to be heard and taken seriously, where all positions have the right to be defended or challenged in intellectually reasoned ways. I encourage you to engage and critique ideas. As a part of the rule of courtesy and engagement in scholarly discourse, students will be required to remain respectful toward all members of the class. Everyone must accept this standard of courtesy in discourse in order to remain in this course.
Grades Broadly speaking, this is how I view each of the following course grades. A You did everything I could possibly ask of you, and you did it extremely well. You worked very hard, learned
a great deal, and showed conspicuous intelligence. The quality of your work was outstanding. B You did all the work, and you did it well. You worked hard and learned a good deal. The quality of your work
was good. C You did all the work. It is clear that you learned a number of things, though those things may not hang
together in a systematic and critical understanding of the course material. The quality of your work was adequate.
D You did most of the work, including all the major course requirements. You may have learned some things, but
it is not clear that you learned anything important. The quality of your work was less than adequate. F You have demonstrated an obstinate ignorance. You did not complete the course requirements. You have
proved unwilling or unable to do college level work in this subject area. (93-100% = A; 92.9-90%= A-; 89.9-87%= B+; 86.9-83%= B; 82.9-80%= B-; 79.9-77%= C+; 76.9-73%= C; 72.9-70= C-; 69.9- 67%= D+; 66.9-63%= D; 62.9-60%= D-; below 60= F)
Considerations in Grading The following are some aspects of learning that strike me as important. They will go into the grade I give you. These factors are listed in roughly descending order of importance.
1. How much I believe you learned in this class. 2. Objective quality of your written work. I are interested less in how many facts you can recall than in how well
you think, how you put together concepts, how you express them on paper. 3. Your oral contributions in class. 4. How hard you worked. 5. Your involvement in the class as a community—how much you helped other class members.
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Adjustments to the syllabus and to online teaching for Winter 20212
Principles 1. Nobody signed up for this.
• Not for the sickness, not for the social distancing, not for the sudden end of our collective lives together on campus
• Not for an online class, not for teaching remotely, not for learning from home, not for mastering new technologies, not for varied access to learning materials
2. The humane option is the best option.
• We are going to prioritize supporting each other as humans • We are going to prioritize simple solutions that make sense for the most • We are going to prioritize sharing resources and communicating clearly • We are going to prioritize being kind, patient, and flexible
3. We cannot just do the same thing online.
• Some assignments are no longer possible • Some expectations are no longer reasonable • Some objectives are no longer valuable
4. We will foster intellectual nourishment, social connection, and personal accommodation.
• Accessible asynchronous content for diverse access, time zones, and contexts • Optional synchronous discussion to learn together and combat isolation
5. We will remain flexible and adjust to the situation.
• Nobody knows where this is going and what we’ll need to adapt • Everybody needs support and understanding in this unprecedented moment
1 Adopted Professor Lauri Mattenson, UCLA Writing Programs 2 Adopted from Brandon Bayne, UNC Chapel Hill