Cultural Footprint

Seattle’s Chinatown-International District (CID) was once home to the largest Japantown in North America and remains to be one of the most historically significant places for Japanese Americans. In the 1880s, the first wave of Japanese laborers arrived in the Northwestern United States and undertook hard labor to build railroads, sawmills, and farms. Amid the prewar global population growth, by 1930, 8,500 Japanese Americans were living in what is known as the CID today. The district was home to Japanese language schools, newspaper offices, religious institutions, and dojos, which represented Japanese culture and became known as Japantown. The streets were filled with lodgings, restaurants, and stores run by Japanese American …

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It’s not a well-known fact that Japanese people lived in Australia before the war. When we trace back the friendly relations between Australia and Japan today, we realize that it is thanks to the achievements of Japanese immigrants in the past. In 2015, Mayu Kanamori came across more than 300 photos featuring Japanese nationals at a flea market in a rural town in Australia. The discovery led Kanamori, an artist based in Sydney, to launch a project, Untitled.Showa, to try to identify the people in the photos and the story behind them, for instance why they were found in Australia. Anyone can participate in the project. Participants are asked to explore ways …

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Brazil is home to the world’s largest Japanese populations outside of Japan, numbering about 1.5 million people. The Japanese Brazilians are either 1) Japanese people from Japan who immigrated to Brazil and then became naturalized Brazilian citizens; or 2) those born in Brazil with varying degrees of Japanese ethnicity. There were many reasons why there was an influx of Japanese people coming to Brazil. Back in 1868, Japan was suffering from poverty and high unemployment during the Mejii Period (1868-1912). Consequently, the number of Japanese wishing to emigrate increased. Many of them were dreaming of working abroad to save money and eventually return to Japan. However once they arrived, many others …

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More than 120 years ago, the custom of hajichi, a deep blue pattern tattooed on the back of women’s hands in Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands, was banned by the Meiji government and gradually disappeared. Hajichi was the cultural heritage of the Ryukyu Kingdom, a rite of passage to mark the coming of age, marriage, and a talisman, which was desired by women. Lee Tonouchi, a fourth-generation Okinawan writer born and raised in Hawaiʻi, discusses the origins of Hawaiʻi Creole also known as Pidgin, as well as the diversity of the cultures in Hawaiʻi, and his own experience with hajichi. Tonouchi wrote Okinawan Princess: Da Legend of Hajichi Tattoos (2019). He said he was motivated to …

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