Early Coalitions Between Japanese and American Feminists, from World War I to the U.S. Occupation of Japan

FAIN: FO-258281-18

Michiko Takeuchi
California State University, Long Beach Foundation (Long Beach, CA 90840-0004)

Writing and manuscript revision leading to publication of a book on the relationship between the American and Japanese women's movements prior to the U.S. occupation of Japan.

This proposal requests support for my book project, “Trans-Pacific Left Feminism: Japanese and American Old Left Women, from World War I to the US Occupation of Japan.” The award will allow me to write this book about the little-known relationship between Japanese and American feminists in the first half of the twentieth century. My research has revealed that the so-called “liberation of Japanese women” during the US occupation of Japan (1945–52), rather than being invented on the spot, was instead the result of decades of collaborative labor activism by Japanese and American women. By examining how Japanese and American feminists worked together across national and racial boundaries to improve the status of women in Japan, the book project highlights a transnational network of feminists centered on the Young Women’s Christian Association. The book contributes to a growing field of scholarly inquiry in the humanities: the role of women in transnational history and politics.

Associated Products

Trans-Pacific Left Feminism: Japanese and American Old Left Women, from World War I to the US Occupation of Japan (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Trans-Pacific Left Feminism: Japanese and American Old Left Women, from World War I to the US Occupation of Japan
Author: Michiko Takeuchi
Abstract: My paper, “Trans-Pacific Left Feminism: Japanese and American Old Left women, from World War I to the US Occupation of Japan,” explores the little-known relationship between Japanese and American Old Left women in the first half of the twentieth century. My archival research of their correspondence has revealed that the so-called “liberation of Japanese women” during the US occupation of Japan (1945–52), rather than being invented on the spot, was instead the result of decades of collaborative labor activism by Japanese and American women. By examining how Japanese and American feminists worked together across national, cultural, and racial boundaries to improve the status of women in Japan, my research highlights a transnational network of feminists centered on the Young Women’s Christian Association. The “liberation of Japanese women” in US-occupied Japan was much more of a dynamic site for a trans-Pacific and transwar socialist feminist movement, however limited, than the imperial “middle-class feminist” project of Cold War era, as previous scholarship has suggested.
Date Range: August 2019
Location: Vancouver, Canada

Behind the Lace Curtains: the YWCA and Trans-Pacific Labor Activism (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Behind the Lace Curtains: the YWCA and Trans-Pacific Labor Activism
Author: Michiko Takeuchi
Abstract: My paper explores the little-known role of YWCA in creating the trans-Pacific network of Japanese and American women labor activists in the first half of the twentieth century. Based on archival research in Japan, the United States and Switzerland, I will discuss how their decades of collaborative activism based on YWCA connections resulted in the postwar “liberation of Japanese women,” rather than being invented on the spot during the US occupation in Japan (1945-52).
Date Range: June 2019
Location: Los Angeles, California

US-Japan Women’s Labor Activism (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: US-Japan Women’s Labor Activism
Author: Michiko Takeuchi
Abstract: (Translation) Based on archival research in Japan, the United States, and Switzerland, my talk will investigate the little-known relationship between Japanese and American feminists in the first half of the twentieth century. It will show that the so-called “liberation of Japanese women” during the US occupation of Japan (1945–52), rather than being invented on the spot, was instead the result of decades of collaborative labor activism by Japanese and American women. These women include Professors Fujita Taki and Lulu Holmes, the founders of the Japanese Association of University Women in 1946.
Date Range: July 2019

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