Charting the Emerging Field of Japanese Diaspora Archaeology 9819911281, 9789819911288

Table of contents :
Contents
Critical Mass: Charting a Course for Japanese Diaspora Archaeology
Abstract
Introduction
The expansion of the Japanese Diaspora
Approaches to Japanese Diaspora History
In This Volume
References Cited
A History of Japanese Diaspora Archaeology
Abstract
Introduction
Archaeology of the Pre-War Era
1960s-80s
1990-2005
2005-20
Archaeology of the WWII Era
1970s to 90s
2000-14
2015-20
Archaeology-Adjacent Research
Research Trends and Future Directions
References
Archaeological Examination of Japanese Photographs and Archival Data from the Pre-WWII Okinawan Diaspora: Tinian, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
Abstract
Introduction
The Okinawan Diaspora to the Northern Mariana Islands
Historical Context: Administration of the Nanyō Islands by Japan
Life in the Marianas
Residences and Everyday Life
Okinawan Emigration Elsewhere before and after WWII
The Tinian Plantation and Refinery
The Archaeology of the Sugar Plantation in Tinian Today
Okinawan Farmsteads
Okinawan Gardens
Okinawan Refuges and Military Defenses
Discussion
Conclusions
References
Jizo (Ksitigarbha) Statues under Palm Trees: The Materialization of Early Japanese Immigrant Culture in Hawai‘i
Abstract
Introduction
Graves and Cemeteries
Epitaphs
Stone Statues and Funerary Statuary
Religious Stone Statues
Funerary Statuaries
Conclusions
References
Introduction of Lifecycle of Community Framework: Grappling with Multiple, Complex Datasets in Interpreting Yama/Nagaya, a Late Nineteenth- to Early Twentieth-Century Pacific Northwest Japanese Immigrant Village
Abstract
Introduction
Historical Background of Yama/„Nagaya
Methodology
Lifecycle Stages: Yama/Nagaya Data
Pre-emergence
Inception
Growth
Maturity
Dissolution of Community
Discussion and Interpretations
Conclusions
References
The Materiality of Anti-Japanese Racism: “Foreignness” and Racialization at Barneston, Washington (1898-1924)
Abstract
Introduction
Racialization and Sawmill Town Labor Structures
Archival Methodology and Contextual Evidence
Labor Hierarchies and Social Control
Foreignness and the Yellow-Peril
Barneston and the Materiality of Contests Over “Foreignness”
A Spatial Summary of the Nikkei Community
The Materiality of Foreignness
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
References
Japanese Ceramics and the Complexities of Consumption in “this Knife-Fork Land”
Abstract
The Archaeology of Transpacific Consumption and Discourse
Japanese Ceramics and Consumer Culture
Japanese Gulch Village and the Tactics of Consumption
Archaeological Ceramics from Japanese Gulch Village
Japanese Ceramic Forms
Japanese Ceramic Decoration
References
Archaeology of Early Twentieth-Century Japanese Canadian Logging Camps in British Columbia
Abstract
Introduction
Background
A Note on Terminology and Classification
Overview of the Two Camps
The Suicide Creek Camp
The McKenzie Creek Camp
Comparisons of Features and Artifacts
Comparing the two Sites with Each Other
Comparing the Two Camps with Other Sites in the Region
Considering the Process of Abandonment
Reflections on Gender, Children, Identity, and Living on the Margins of Urban Areas
A Speculative Scenario About the Two Sites and the Japanese Canadian Presence in the Seymour Valley
Concluding Comments
References
The Japanese American Experience in San Luis Obispo during the Interwar Years
Abstract
The Kurokawa Family
Archaeological Findings
Temporal Data
Tablewares
Whale Products
Alcohol Bottles
Faunal Remains
Soils Analysis
A Brief Comparison
Conclusions
Life after San Luis Obispo
References
Towards an Archaeology of the Japanese Diaspora in Peru
Abstract
Introduction
A Historical Background of the Japanese Diaspora in Peru
Previous Studies of the Japanese Diaspora in Peru
The Archaeology of Diaspora: Some Useful Considerations
Toward an Archaeology of the Japanese Diaspora in Peru
Project 1: Coastal Haciendas and Japanese Workers
Project 2: Family History and the Construction of a Japanese-Peruvian Heritage
Conclusions
References
From the Inside Out: Thinking through the Archaeology of Japanese American Confinement
Abstract
Introduction
Archaeological Research at Sites of Confinement
DU Amache Project Background and Methods
Patterns in the Amache Data
Artifacts
Features
Informal Written Survey Data
Conclusion and Some Working Hypotheses
References
Diaspora and Social Networks in a World War II Japanese American Incarceration Center
Abstract
Introduction
Previous Community Structures
General Background on Japanese American Incarceration
Temporary detention centers
Movement into and between camps
Camp layout and function
Archaeological Evidence of Community
Background on social networks
Social Network Analysis as a Method
Discussion and Analysis
Conclusion
References
Inscriptions and Silences: Challenges of Bearing Witness at the Gila River Incarceration Camp
Abstract
From the Field
Introduction
Japanese Diasporas
The Gila River Incarceration Camp
Inscriptions
K. Kunisuye
Y. Tomita
Ambiguous Signatures
Silences
Masked in Digitization: Okinawans
Queering the Archaeological Record
Interrogating Inscriptions and Listening for Silences
References
The Future of Japanese Diaspora Archaeology in the United States
Abstract
Introduction
Establishing a Research Agenda
Defining the Research Agenda
Community-Driven Archaeology on Federal Land
Garden Archaeology
Theorizing the Material Consequences of WWII Incarceration
Initiating a Research Agenda through Shared Taxonomies and Vocabularies
Conclusion: Attending to Our Many Publics (Including Ourselves!)
References
Speaking beyond the Discipline: Japanese Diaspora Archaeology in Dialogue
Abstract
Comments on the Special Issue, “Charting the Emerging Field of Japanese Diaspora Archeology”
Mariko Iijima
Beyond the Veil
Wesley Ueunten
Relevance and Resonance: Conceptual Frameworks in Japanese Diaspora Archaeology
Lane Hirabayashi
References

Citation preview

Douglas E. Ross Koji Lau-Ozawa   Editors

Charting the Emerging Field of Japanese Diaspora Archaeology

Charting the Emerging Field of Japanese Diaspora Archaeology

Douglas E. Ross • Koji Lau-Ozawa Editors

Charting the Emerging Field of Japanese Diaspora Archaeology

Previously published in International Journal of Historical Archaeology “Special Issue: Charting the Emerging Field of Japanese Diaspora Archaeology” Volume 25, Issue 3, 2021

Editors Douglas E. Ross Albion Environmental, Inc. Santa Cruz, CA, USA

Koji Lau-Ozawa Department of Anthropology Stanford University Stanford, CA, USA

Spinoff from journal: “International Journal of Historical Archaeology” Volume 25, issue 3, September 2021 ISBN 978-981-99-1128-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Contents

Critical Mass: Charting a Course for Japanese Diaspora Archaeology ........ Koji Lau-Ozawa and Douglas Ross

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A History of Japanese Diaspora Archaeology .................................................. 17 Douglas E. Ross Archaeological Examination of Japanese Photographs and Archival Data from the Pre-WWII Okinawan Diaspora: Tinian, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands ............................. 51 Boyd Dixon, Alexandra Garrigue, and Robert Jones Jizo (Ksitigarbha) Statues under Palm Trees: The Materialization of Early Japanese Immigrant Culture in Hawai‘i ........................................... 75 Akira Goto Introduction of Lifecycle of Community Framework: Grappling with Multiple, Complex Datasets in Interpreting Yama/Nagaya, a Late Nineteenth- to Early Twentieth-Century Pacific Northwest Japanese Immigrant Village .............................................................................. 91 Caroline Hartse and Jean Hannah The Materiality of Anti-Japanese Racism: “Foreignness” and Racialization at Barneston, Washington (1898-1924) .............................. 115 David R. Carlson Japanese Ceramics and the Complexities of Consumption in “this Knife-Fork Land” ................................................................................. 147 Renae Campbell Archaeology of Early Twentieth-Century Japanese Canadian Logging Camps in British Columbia ................................................................ 169 Robert Muckle The Japanese American Experience in San Luis Obispo during the Interwar Years ................................................................................. 191 Robert Scott Baxter Towards an Archaeology of the Japanese Diaspora in Peru........................... 213 Patricia Chirinos Ogata and Daniel Dante Saucedo Segami

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From the Inside Out: Thinking through the Archaeology of Japanese American Confinement ................................................................. 233 Bonnie J. Clark and Dana Ogo Shew Diaspora and Social Networks in a World War II Japanese American Incarceration Center ........................................................................ 259 April Kamp-Whittaker Inscriptions and Silences: Challenges of Bearing Witness at the Gila River Incarceration Camp .............................................................. 283 Koji Lau-Ozawa The Future of Japanese Diaspora Archaeology in the United States ............. 309 Stacey L. Camp Speaking beyond the Discipline: Japanese Diaspora Archaeology in Dialogue ........................................................................................................... 327 Mariko Iijima, Wesley Ueunten and Lane Hirabayashi

International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:577–591 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-020-00561-9

Critical Mass: Charting a Course for Japanese Diaspora Archaeology Koji Lau-Ozawa 1 & Douglas Ross 2 Accepted: 20 September 2020 / Published online: 5 October 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract Archaeology of the Japanese diaspora has reached “critical mass” in its disciplinary development, and there is a need to document the current state of this burgeoning subfield of historical archaeology. In this introduction we present a summary of the history of the Japanese diaspora and an overview of scholarly literature in related disciplines. The papers in this special issue reflect both current trends in archaeological scholarship and point in new methodological and theoretical directions. A concluding forum by three historians of the Japanese diaspora offers a critical reflection on the assembled papers and places them within a wider academic context. Keywords Diaspora . Transnationalism . Japanese . Historiography

Introduction This issue of the IJHA came together as a result of an increase in archaeological research on the Japanese diaspora. Its ultimate origin was a symposium called “Charting the Emerging Field of Japanese Diaspora Archaeology” at the 2018 Society for Historical Archaeology conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, organized by current editors Koji Lau-Ozawa and Douglas Ross. This symposium was accompanied by a workshop on the identification and dating of Japanese ceramics, led by Douglas Ross and Renae Campbell. The concurrence and success of both events made it clear that the time had come to produce a formal record of the current state of this rapidly expanding

* Koji Lau-Ozawa [email protected] Douglas Ross [email protected]

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Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, Main Quad, Building 50, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

2

Albion Environmental, Inc., 1414 Soquel Ave, Suite 205, Santa Cruz, CA 95062, USA 1

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subfield of historical archaeology. That is, it was apparent the field of Japanese diaspora archaeology had reached a sort of “critical mass.” While the list of contributors to the 2018 symposium differs somewhat from the current collection of articles, this issue retains much of that event’s scope and diversity. We would like to open this special issue with a few words about the concept of diaspora. Diaspora has been defined and characterized in various ways, but as used here refers to a social condition or process involving a dispersal of people from an original homeland to two or more destinations over multiple generations, who maintain ongoing physical and/or psychological relationships with that homeland and a self-conscious identity abroad (Butler 2001). As argued by Nobuko Adachi (2006b), and as is apparent in the historical outline presented below, Japanese migrants qualify as members of diasporic communities. While some scholars have cautioned against the term diaspora on political or conceptual grounds when applied to Japanese migration (e.g., Azuma 2005: 219; Tsuda 2012, 2016), elsewhere Ross (2013, 2020) has presented detailed arguments in favor of both conceptualizing Asian migrants as diasporic and adopting a diasporic framework for understanding the migration process. Diaspora, like the related concept of transnationalism, offers an alternative to nation-based perspectives on migrant communities whose lives and identities are fluid and span national and cultural boundaries in complex ways, while also being grounded in a sense of place. It also permits the identification of shared aspects of dispersal and migration with which different diasporic communities can be compared. Within historical archaeology, the interest in diaspora is not limited to Japanese migrant communities. Research on the African diaspora pioneered use of the concept in archaeology in the 1990s, framing many of the questions that archaeologists have looked to in the realms of diaspora research, though not always explicitly engaging with diaspora theory (AgbeDavies 2017; Agorsah 1996; Fennell 2007, 2008, 2012, 2017; Gijanto and Horlings 2012; Walz and Brandt 2006; Weik 1997). The archaeology of the Chinese diaspora has also emerged as a distinct subfield, pioneering archaeological studies of Asian Americans, generating fruitful dialogues around the value of transnational approaches, and engaging with interdisciplinary diaspora theory (Chang and Fisher Fishkin 2015; González-Tennant 2011; Rose and Kennedy 2020; Ross 2013; Voss 2015b; Voss and Allen 2008; Voss et al. 2018). Archaeologists tracing the lives of members of the Irish diaspora have also played a substantial role in shaping dialogues in the field of diaspora studies (e.g., Brighton 2009; Linn 2010; Orser 2010; Rotman 2010). Another sub-discipline of historical archaeology that has had a major influence on Japanese diaspora archaeology, though not always explicitly acknowledged, is the archaeological study of Indigenous peoples in North America. Of particular relevance are its critical approach to essentialist notions of identity, robust use of postcolonial and practice theory, sophisticated explorations of intercultural interactions, and nuanced interpretations of cultural persistence and change (Carlson 2006; Cipolla 2013, 2017; Liebmann 2013; Martindale 2009; Oland et al. 2012; Panich 2013; Prince 2002). Especially influential is Silliman’s (2001, 2014) use of the concepts of agency, practical politics, survivance, and residence, along with his exploration of culture contact vs. colonialism and the fluid and contextual identities and uses of material culture (Silliman 2005, 2009). In introducing this special issue of the International Journal of Historical Archaeology, it is helpful to contextualize the contributions by providing a brief background Reprinted from the journal

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on the historiography of Japanese diaspora as well as an historical sketch of the diaspora itself. Neither of these accounts are definitive or all encompassing, but rather serve to orient the reader to this field of research. In doing so it will become apparent where the contributions of the authors in this volume lie. The expansion of the Japanese Diaspora During the Tokugawa period (1603-1868), migration from Japan was strictly forbidden for most people, limited to select government and trade officials. However, as Ravina (2017:23) argues, this did not necessarily mean that Japan was completely isolated. Rather, despite these restrictions, commodities still flowed in and out through select ports such as Nagasaki, or through quasi-independent intermediary kingdoms such as the Ryūkyū Islands (Ravina 2017:28). The Tokugawa government in Japan would remain fairly stable for over 200 years until 1853, when American Commodore Matthew Perry triggered a series of challenges to the authority of the Tokugawa shogunate, culminating in the downfall of the central government and the reestablishment of the Emperor as the de facto sovereign. Known as the Meiji Restoration, for the sitting Emperor Meiji, the political revolution resulted in a shift from a diffuse feudal estate-based system of governance to a centralized state with goals of rapid industrialization (Ravina 2017:136). In the initial years of the Meiji era (1868-1912), Japan underwent a series of territorial expansions. In 1869, the island of Ezo was formally incorporated into the nation and renamed Hokkaido (Hirano 2015:197), followed by annexation of the Ryūkyū Kingdom in 1879 (Christy 1993:609). Following these expansions, Japan engaged in two imperial wars to establish its territorial boundaries and declare its intention to be an international colonial force on par with the European and American empires. With the first Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) Japan occupied Taiwan as a formal colony. The Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), in turn, resulted in the acquisition of the southern half of the Sakhalin Island and a long-term lease of the Liaotung Peninsula (Barclay 2017; Peattie 1984). From 1895 to 1910, the Korean peninsula remained independent, but was heavily influenced by Japanese military and business leaders. It was formally annexed in 1910 (Duus 1995:162). Following Korea, during the Taisho era (1912-26), Micronesia was incorporated into the expanding empire in 1919 and renamed Nan’yō (Peattie 1992). At the same time the Japanese empire was expanding, rapid industrialization and land reforms were occurring in the central islands, in part to support the nation’s attempt to establish itself as an equal to European and American imperial powers. These reforms led to widespread poverty and hardship for those working in agricultural and fishing industries. Policies, such as the Meiji government’s change to a fixed rate tax system based in the unstable yen, hit farmers who could not afford to pay in years of drought. Mechanization of fishing techniques disrupted entire villages, and population expansion coupled with food shortages created immense pressures on the Japanese farming and laboring classes (Azuma 2005:27; Konno 2012:99; Stanlaw 2006:40–43). While these circumstances undoubtedly influenced the nature of Japanese migration, they were part of a constellation of factors, including new technological innovations, adventurism, class aspirations, and political and religious conviction, which factored into people’s decisions to leave Japan (Anderson 2014; Azuma 2005, 2019; Lu 2019; O’Dwyer 2015; Uchida 2011). 3

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In 1868, the first migrants of the Meiji era departed the home islands, 42 to Guam and 150 to the Kingdom of Hawai‘i. A year later, several dozen Japanese migrants left for California to establish the Wakamatsu colony (Sakata 2020). The Guam and California ventures proved to be disastrous, with nearly all Japanese dying or returning to Japan in short order (Van Sant 2000). Despite its brief presence in California, the historical memory of this colony became legend within the Japanese American community, particularly the story of Okei Ito, the first Japanese woman to die in America (Azuma 2005:102–4). In contrast, the Hawai‘i expedition fared slightly better, with over half of the laborers staying in the kingdom after their three-year contracts expired (Dresner 2006). Still, conditions in Hawai‘i were difficult, with the rest of the laborers filing formal protests and petitions in 1870 to return to Japan. Following these instances, migration was tightly restricted until 1885 (Okamura 2014). As the impact of the economic reforms continued to deeply impact the economy, the Meiji government lifted travel restrictions in 1885. Hawai‘i, the United States, and Canada became prime destinations for migrants as they looked to fill large labor gaps in agricultural and industrial sectors, and as the wages for work were much higher than in Japan. This continued to be the case until 1908, when a series of “gentlemen’s agreements” created more restrictive immigration regulations between Japan and the United States and Canada. These agreements essentially barred laborers from migrating but left the door open for wives and family members to continue to come. Between 1899 and 1908, approximately 155,000 Japanese people migrated to North America, 124,000 to Hawai‘i, 18,000 to South America, and 10,000 to Southeast Asia (Masterson 2004:11; Moriyama 1985:43). The 1908 agreements transformed the demographic make-up of migrants to North America, previously dominated by men, to include much higher numbers of women (Ichioka 1988; Tsu 2013). At the same time, the years following the restrictions in North America saw a massive increase in migration to Central and South America. During the Taisho (1913-26) and pre-War Showa (1927-41) eras, approximately 218,000 people migrated to this region, with Brazil being by far the most popular destination, followed by Peru, Argentina, and Mexico (Masterson 2004:113). These numbers were dwarfed by the movement of people into regions under Japanese colonial occupation. During the same period, Manchuria saw its Japanese population grow to over 270,000, Taiwan to 327,000, and Korea to over 700,000 (Guelcher 2006; Matsuda 2019; Myers and Peattie 1984; Uchida 2011). The years leading up to the Pacific War saw massive movements of people from the central islands of Japan to places within and beyond the empire. The numbers listed above only tell part of the story, with people moving between multiple destinations alongside developing networks of trade and tourism (Azuma 2019; Ichioka 2006; McDonald 2017). These movements were complicated and diverse. As noted below, they are often discussed in isolation, defined by their contact with discrete geographic areas. However, without acknowledging complex movements between destinations, it is impossible to fully understand the landscape of the diaspora. It is hard to overstate the impact of the Pacific War on the Japanese diaspora. Though in North America Japan’s involvement with WWII is usually dated to December in 1941 with the attacks on Allied military bases in Hawai‘i, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia, for much of Asia and the Pacific, the process of total war began much earlier with Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the subsequent second SinoReprinted from the journal

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Japanese war beginning in 1937. During this period, Japan’s economy and its subject territories were increasingly oriented towards a wartime economy and changing policies to subjugate dissident views (Caprio 2009; Fujitani 2011; Hobsbawm 1996; Kuramoto 1999; Tsurumi 1984; Young 1999). Outside the realms under direct control of the Japanese Empire, Japanese migrants and their descendants were also directly impacted. In North America, large portions of the Japanese diaspora were forcibly removed from their homes and incarcerated in an array of repurposed and purpose-built incarceration camps. Widespread detention and restrictions on Japanese communities occurred in Central America, South America, and Australia as well (Robinson 2009). The mass detention and incarceration of people of Japanese descent, regardless of citizenship and without clearly defined just cause, remains a defining moment in these communities. Furthermore, such policies in places like the United States demonstrated the limits of the dominant society’s perception and tolerance for the rights of racialized communities (Ngai 2004). The WWII incarceration of Japanese migrants and their descendants has developed into its own subfield of Japanese migrant studies, and is most pronounced in the United States, where numerous monographs, memoirs, articles, and dissertations have been published on the subject (Daniels 1972; Robinson 2001, 2012; Weglyn 1976; Yoo and Azuma 2016). In the years after the Pacific War, studies relating to the Japanese diaspora have examined the development of post-War communities (Kurashige 2010; Oda 2019), as well as considerations of wartime incarceration memory (Inouye 2016; Ishizuka 2006; Stanger-Ross and Sugiman 2017) and their legal consequences (Izumi 2019; Stanger-Ross 2020), the legacies of Japanese imperialism (Dudden 2008; Fujitani et al. 2001; Koga 2013; Kwon 2015), and the politics of members of the Japanese diaspora migrating to Japan (Tsuda 2003), among other topics. Such research has broadened understandings of what constitutes the diaspora and suggests that there is much still to understand about the material legacies of Japanese empire. Further, this research raises questions that archaeologists have yet to approach, thinking through the material legacies of Japanese communities, from built environments (e.g., Chiang 2018) or the developments of material and transnational markets (see Imai 2010; Oda 2020). Approaches to Japanese Diaspora History The historiography of the Japanese diaspora, particularly in the anglophone world, has developed largely along two separate lines, divided between Asian American Studies and Asian Area Studies. These divides, reflected in parallel sets of bibliographic citations which often do not intersect, have at times more to do with the social and political terrains of academic disciplines than with their actual subject matters. As much as the silo-ing of the disciplines has separated bodies of literature, it has also had repercussions for the theoretical and geographic scope of studies (Azuma 2008; Hune 2001). This introduction will only touch upon some of the broad trends of this body of work. For more comprehensive historiographies and critiques of Japanese diaspora studies see the work of Okihiro (1994), Yanagisako (1995, 2003), Chan (1996, 2007), Yoo and Azuma (2016), and Takezawa and Okihiro (2016). In North America, early research on the Japanese diaspora is marked by the work of scholars in Asian American Studies, and consequently tend to center on the mainland 5

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United States. Early pioneers in this field include Yanagisako (1985), Glenn (1986), and Nakano (1990), who examined multigenerational Japanese American experiences, in particular those of women. Daniels (1977), Ichioka (1988, 1989, 2006), and Takaki (1989) further developed the field through a focus on the processes of migration, intergenerational conflict, and labor. Japanese migration to the Hawaiian Islands developed as a largely distinct subfield (Moriyama 1985; Okihiro 1991; Takaki 1984), as did Japanese American incarceration (Daniels 1972; Irons 1983; Weglyn 1976). Outside of the United States, Ken Adachi (1976) provides one of the few comprehensive accounts of Japanese Canadian migration, and substantive studies of Japanese migration to South America were not published in English until much more recently (e.g., Masterson 2004). While these works stand as foundational to the field, they developed in almost complete isolation from research on contemporaneous periods of Japanese history, both on the main islands and in the extended empire (e.g., Christy 1993; Duus 1995; Peattie 1989). However, in the past two decades such divides are beginning to fade as more scholars seek to move beyond departmental divides towards transnational frameworks (Takezawa and Okihiro 2016). This is a trend not unique to Japanese diaspora studies, but can be seen in works which frame transpacific worlds (Armitage and Bashford 2014; Igler 2013; Matsuda 2012; Voss 2015a; Yu 2002), transnational postcolonial studies (Chakrabarty 2008; Lowe 2015), and studies of the transatlantic African diaspora (Gilroy 1993; Hall 1990). The move toward transnational research on the Japanese diaspora has broadened disciplinary scope to include both Asian Area studies and Asian American Studies. Several edited volumes have framed the experience of various parts of the diaspora in multiple contexts, discussing linkages between case studies in North and South America, the Pacific Region, and East Asia (Adachi 2006a; Hirabayashi et al. 2002; Nakasone 2002). While these works highlight the heterogeneity of the diaspora, few of their inclusive studies engage in dialogue across diasporic regions and appear instead as a series of thematically joined case studies. More productively, transnational research of the Japanese diaspora has resulted in innovative research within the framework of empire studies, integrating postcolonial and comparative theory (Anderson 2014; Azuma 2005, 2019; Fujitani 2011; Hirano 2015; O’Dwyer 2015; Uchida 2011), and contextualizing Japanese historical development within broader nineteenth- and twentieth-century political movements (Lu 2019; Ravina 2017). Japanese American incarceration, one of the largest subfields of Japanese diaspora studies, has long focused on personal memoirs and oral histories (e.g., Hansen 2018; Houston and Houston 1973; Tateishi 1984) or the dynamics of domination and resistance (Hansen 1985; Lyon 2012; Muller 2001; Okihiro 1973, 1984). These works are important in providing revisionist histories against the background of government propaganda and earlier studies which framed Japanese responses to incarceration through the lens of loyalty ( Ichioka 1989; Starn 1986; Suzuki 1986). While transnational comparative research on the WWII Japanese incarceration experience remains limited (except for Robinson 2009), newer approaches to Japanese American incarceration have sought alternative lenses to examine the period, such as environmental ecology (Chiang 2018), religion (Blankenship 2016; Williams 2019), and interethnic encounters (Leong and Vicenti Carpio 2016). Further, studies on the formation of Japanese identity have important potential for understanding the Japanese diaspora, interrogating essentialist notions of what it means Reprinted from the journal

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to be Japanese (Befu 2001; Oguma 2002, 2014). Geiger’s (2011) work focuses on the often neglected subject of burakumin (a discriminated caste of the Tokugawa mibun system) migrants amongst the larger Japanese migration to North America. Okinawan experiences are still under studied in the North American context (except for Kobashigawa 1985; Nakasone 2002), but scholarship on Okinawan identity and migration within and around the Japanese Empire offers important comparative potential (Christy 1993; Matsuda 2019; Matsumura 2015). Tsu’s (2013) exploration of Japanese and Chinese farm workers in California Central Valley frames the complexity of the intersections of gender and class relations, as does Oharazeki’s (2016) study of female Japanese sex workers. Matsumoto’s (2014) discussion of Japanese American women offers another dimension to gendered urban experiences. Other regional focuses within the United States outside of the western coastal states of Washington, Oregon, and California, have also received more attention, particularly in New York (Inouye 2018; Sawada 1996) and Texas (Lu 2019). Finally, many of the texts discussed above both implicitly and explicitly call attention to the complex processes of racial formation and racialization that operated in multiple national contexts. Daniels (1977), Glenn (1986), Ichioka (1988), Takaki (1989), and Nakano (1990), all detail the ways in which the immigrant experience was acutely shaped by racism in the United States. Azuma (2005:7) looks to the processes of racial formation as influenced by Omi and Winant (1986), arguing that the racial position of Japanese migrants, “were so undifferentiated that varied classes of Japanese immigrants came to share a similar, if not identical, collective racial experience.” His subsequent work (Azuma 2019), turns to the impact of racial discrimination for Japanese migrants to North American and how these experiences shaped racialized relationships within the Japanese Imperial context. Geiger’s (2011) analysis of burakumin experience looks at the intersections and divergences of race and caste experiences in migration to North America, as well as the racialization of the USCanada border. Fujitani (2011) also highlights racial politics, and the ways in which both the Japanese and US governments attempted to subvert perceptions of systemic racism through the inclusion of Korean and Japanese soldiers in their armed forces respectively. The myriad of ways that race and racial formation theories are mobilized within the field of Japanese diaspora studies reflects the wide variation in theoretical approaches to the field itself. Still, it is clear that race plays an indelible role in almost every disquisition in this literature, a fact that Hirabayashi (this issue) urges the authors represented in this issue to take up more directly. In addition to these published print resources, there has also been an influx in recent years of online historical resources on the Japanese diaspora, which blend academic discussions and public outreach. Moving beyond the realm of blogs and opinion pieces, many of these resources offer primary research materials. Densho (http://densho.org/) offers an encyclopedia of wartime Japanese incarceration, as well as a “digital repository” that includes thousands of primary resources and oral history interviews. Similarly, the California State University Japanese American History Digitization Project (http://csujad.com/), along with resources like the Online Archive of California (https://oac.cdlib.org/), provide a host of digitized primary sources. The Hoover Institution Library and Archives Japanese Diaspora Initiative (https:// hojishinbun.hoover.org/) has taken the lead in digitizing newspapers through its Hoji Shinbun Digital Collection, providing access to over 130 titles from 15 different 7

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countries and regions. In addition to newspapers, the Hoji Shinbun includes a digitized copy of the 1940 Zaibei Nihonjinshi (在米日本人史), a History of Japanese in America, along with a developing English translation (Zaibei 2020). Outside of these digital repositories of primary sources, archaeologists should also be aware of community-led resources which speak to object-oriented histories (https://50objects.org/), historic preservation projects (http://historicwintersburg.blogspot.com/ and https://www. californiajapantowns.org/) and community histories (https://www.jampilgrimages. com/virtualpilgrimageregistration). Such projects have expanded the corpus of history beyond the confines of academic ivory towers and have been a particularly important source of community testimonials. Archaeologists have been largely absent from the scholarly conversations reflected in the Japanese diaspora literature summarized in the preceding overview. In the overwhelming majority of publications discussed above, archaeological work is rarely, if ever, cited. Simultaneously, archaeologists have failed to engage in many of these areas of literature, often drawing on regionally specific works rather than contextualizing their studies in the broader landscape of the diaspora. Just as the separation of Asian Area studies and Asian American studies limits the capacity of scholars to assess the complexity of the Japanese diasporic world, so too does the separation of these fields from the field of Japanese diaspora archaeology. It is within this context that this issue of the IJHA serves to both consolidate the burgeoning archaeological literature (outlined in Ross, this issue), and engage with scholars outside of archaeology. In particular, in the concluding forum we have invited three scholars from outside of archaeology to respond to the collection of articles in this issue. We hope this intentional engagement will help to spur more sustained and productive dialogues across disciplinary boundaries. In This Volume The articles in this issue reflect a combination of current trends and new directions in Japanese diaspora archaeology. As Ross notes in his article, existing archaeological scholarship is biased towards the western United States, rural labor settlements, and wartime incarceration camps, and in general terms this collection of papers continues that trend. Eight of the 13 articles address sites in the western continental US, five focus on pre-War rural labor camps or villages, and all four War-era articles center around US Japanese incarceration centers. There is also some geographical and topical overlap, as two articles address the Amache incarceration camp and four address milling/logging communities, three of them in Washington State. However, the collection also includes research on western Canada (British Columbia), Peru, and the Pacific Islands (Hawai‘i and Tinian), including research by scholars based outside North America, and incorporates research on understudied urban and cemetery sites. In contrast to previous archaeological scholarship that, numerically speaking, favors World War II era sites by a hefty margin, most of the papers in this issue address the pre-War era. However, this is a product of timing and availability of authors to contribute rather than any real shift in research focus. There is also a strong emphasis on academic research, though studies originating in resource management initiatives are also represented. As such, this volume does not encompass every contemporary project or research avenue within Japanese diaspora archaeology, but it does capture Reprinted from the journal

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many of the current topics, themes, and dialogues occurring within the field and offers examples of innovative approaches going forward. Methodologically, nearly all the papers combine archaeological data, archival research, and often oral history, though the relative emphasis varies. For example, papers by Hartse and Hannah, Dixon, and Kamp-Whittaker draw primarily on archival records, though strongly rooted in the material world and geared toward supporting the archaeological record. Others offer regional/disciplinary overviews (Ross and Chirinos Ogata and Saucedo-Segami), methodological/theoretical manifestos (Camp), multi-site comparisons (Muckle), focused studies of an individual class of material culture (Campbell, Goto), or interpretations of the cultural landscape (Carlson). Given the nature of archaeological data, most researchers are forced to adopt a community level approach to interpretation, though some are able to address individual households (Baxter) or even the lives of individual site occupants (Lau-Ozawa). Most articles emphasize the work of individual authors or small teams of researchers, while others (e.g., Clark and Shew, Ross) synthesize research of numerous scholars over many years. Of course, none of the articles in this issue can be pigeonholed into a single methodological category, but rather all are multilayered and complex pieces of scholarship. Theoretically and interpretively, there are distinct trends among these papers, but also substantial diversity. One common theme that has persisted throughout the history of Japanese diaspora archaeology is a focus on patterns of cultural persistence and change, whether couched in terms of maintenance of tradition, “Americanization,” or the formation of dual identities. Other themes emerging from these papers include consumption, agency, stylistic analysis, community lifecycles, social networks, diaspora and transnationalism, gender, and sexuality. Also included are discussions of trauma, racialization, displacement, labor, heritage, and community engagement. Some are presented as fully formed interpretive frameworks with substantial supporting data, while others are works in progress or tentative attempts to push the boundaries of our field into innovative new territory. The three forum contributors round out this issue by discussing the contributions from a non-archaeological perspective. Iijima explores different meanings of the concept of excavation, and draws out themes of silenced voices, transnational connections, interdisciplinary collaboration, and living in two worlds. Ueunten acknowledges the care with which archaeologists study the material traces of Japanese diaspora lives, narrows in on the concept of hidden practices, and emphasizes the benefits of dialogues between archaeologists and scholars in related disciplines. Finally, Hirabayashi explores the papers in this issue in thematic clusters, focusing on issues like inequality and community. He also encourages archaeologists to engage more explicitly with established theoretical frameworks like critical race theory and intersectionality, and draw more direct comparisons between the Japanese diaspora and other non-Japanese communities. These perspectives help to push this emerging discipline to substantively engage with disciplines outside the realm of archaeology. Acknowledgements We would like to also acknowledge the passing of our contributor Lane Hirabayashi in August of 2020. His distinguished career helped to expand the parameters of Japanese diaspora research, not only through his voluminous publications, but through his empathetic, sustained, and always generous mentorship of a generation of scholars. Though gone, his influence in the field will be forever felt.

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:592–624 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-020-00566-4

A History of Japanese Diaspora Archaeology Douglas E. Ross 1 Accepted: 21 September 2020 / Published online: 12 October 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract Japanese diaspora archaeology originated in the late 1960s but reports and publications did not appear until the 1980s. Early studies often included Japanese artifacts or sites within larger surveys, but by the 1990s and 2000s were the focus of targeted research. Most research has been undertaken in western North American and the Pacific Islands. Pre-War farms and work camps and World War II battlefields and incarceration centers emerged as primary topics of study, with the incarceration centers dominating the literature today. Research themes are diverse but emphasize material consumption, concepts of place, and patterns of cultural persistence and change. Keywords Japanese diaspora . History of archaeology . Method and theory

Introduction Like Chinese diaspora archaeology (Ross 2018; Voss and Allen 2008), archaeology of the Japanese diaspora traces its roots to the late 1960s. In contrast, this early work was isolated, incidental, and unreported, and formal reports on Japanese diaspora sites in North America and the Pacific Islands did not appear until the 1980s. The social and regulatory environment that spawned research on Chinese sites applies equally to Japanese diaspora communities, and this temporal lapse is curious. The later arrival and fewer numbers of Japanese migrants (in North America, at least) may have produced fewer archaeological sites, exacerbated by dispossession during World War II that emptied coastal communities of Japanese residents. Most Japanese sites postdate the 1880s, and the lack of research prior to the 1980s and 1990s may also be a product of scholarly and regulatory bias against twentieth-century deposits that were long perceived to lack interest or research potential. Most early studies of Japanese diaspora sites or material culture are technical reports for compliance-based resource management projects, though some address academic/

* Douglas E. Ross [email protected]

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Albion Environmental, Inc., 1414 Soquel Ave, Suite 205, Santa Cruz, CA 95062, USA 17

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educational fieldwork. These early reports can be divided into three major categories: (1) targeted studies of Japanese sites or material culture, alone or part of larger surveys including non-Japanese sites; (2) mixed or multiethnic contexts that include a Japanese component; and (3) Chinese diaspora sites that contain Japanese artifacts. The frequency of research on Japanese diaspora sites increased in the 1990s, though most were geographically scattered one-off studies of limited scope and duration. Exceptions were sustained resource management initiatives at Manzanar and other World War II Japanese incarceration camps sponsored by the National Park Service beginning in the early 1990s. Archaeology of these former camps, accompanied in the 2000s by university-based research, has emerged as a distinct field apart from other time periods and site types. As such, a unified, self-conscious field of Japanese diaspora archaeology spanning the pre- through post-War eras is only a recent development and few studies have sought to cross these temporal boundaries. The following review of archaeological literature is divided into two main sections focused on the pre-War and World War II eras, followed by an overview of material culture studies in related disciplines and a discussion of disciplinary trends and prospects for future research. Emphasis is on the western United States and Canada and the Pacific Islands, which have been the focus of most research to date.

Archaeology of the Pre-War Era Pre-War Japanese diaspora archaeology includes targeted studies of Japanese sites, along with mixed or multiethnic contexts and Japanese material culture recovered from Chinese and other non-Japanese sites. Among targeted studies, most have been conducted in a resource management context and focus primarily on rural farms and work camps rather than urban dwellings and businesses, though there are notable exceptions. Academic studies of pre-War Japanese sites became more common beginning in the early 2000s, though resource management studies still predominate. Geographic distribution is more diverse, with projects undertaken in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Wyoming, Hawai i, and elsewhere, though with rare exceptions research is restricted to western North America and the Pacific Islands. 1960s-80s Perhaps the earliest archaeology associated with the Japanese diaspora in North America were conducted at El Presidio de Santa Barbara State Historic Park in California. Excavation of the Presidio Chapel by the University of California, Santa Barbara, between 1966 and 1974 uncovered refuse pits and remains of a Buddhist temple, woodworking shop, and tennis court associated with a Japanese American community dating from the 1910s to 1960s (Costello and Maniery 1988:19; Fagan 1976). These findings were never reported in detail, perhaps because twentieth-century deposits were considered modern and intrusive. Only recently has analysis of the Japanese American collection been initiated by Koji Lau-Ozawa of Stanford University and Stacey Camp of Michigan State University (Lau-Ozawa 2019b). Subsequent resource management projects beginning in the mid-1970s reported Japanese ceramics and other artifacts from Chinese diaspora sites (e.g., Greenwood Reprinted from the journal

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1976; Costello and Maniery 1988:16; Olsen 1978). Remains of Japanese glass beer and cider bottles were recovered from the site of a Chinese laundry and associated dwellings occupied ca. 1900-40 in Lovelock, Nevada as part of a resource management project undertaken in the mid-1970s by the Nevada State Museum (Hattori et al. 1979). Likewise, Japanese ceramics were identified in low quantities in 93% of artifactbearing features excavated at the Riverside Chinatown in California in the mid-1980s (Mueller 1987). Such discoveries continued into the 1990s and beyond, notably at the Los Angles Chinatown (Greenwood 1996). Such artifacts do not necessarily reflect the presence of Japanese residents. Many were purchased by Chinese residents from Japanese merchants or from Chinese or non-Asian merchants who stocked such goods (e.g., Sando and Felton 1993). More difficult to interpret are Japanese artifacts from mixed or multiethnic deposits, such as Japanese ceramics and bottle glass from a site on O‘ahu, Hawaii occupied in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries by Chinese and Japanese farmers (Neller 1982), and similar artifacts from Redlands, California, occupied by a Chinese laundry and two Japanese families at the turn of the twentieth century (Brock et al. 1988). One feature from this site produced Chinese, Japanese, and European American artifacts. European, Chinese, and Japanese ceramics were also recovered in 1988 from mixed eighteenth- through twentiethcentury deposits at the Rosario House on Guam (Bulgrin 2017). Copp (1987) faced a particular challenge in identifying the owners/users of Japanese ceramics from an early twentieth-century urban landfill in a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia associated with both Japanese- and European Canadian residents. In 1982, Priscilla Wegars (2008) established the Chinese Comparative Collection (CCC), later the Asian American Comparative Collection (AACC), at the University of Idaho as a research resource for identification and interpretation of artifacts from Asian diaspora sites. While emphasis is on Chinese material culture, an increasing number of artifacts, reference materials, and articles in its quarterly newsletter relate to the Japanese diaspora. An influential early publication is Costello and Maniery’s study of mixed deposits associated with a 1915 fire uncovered during water and sewer line construction in a part of Walnut Grove, California, occupied in the early twentieth century by both Chinese and Japanese residents (Maniery and Costello 1986; Costello and Maniery 1988). Researchers compensated for the mixing of deposits by presenting a communitylevel analysis and a richly illustrated catalog of Japanese ceramics, including information on Japanese ceramic production, makers’ marks and dating, and an attempt at standardizing ceramic terminology. In an unpublished ceramic study, Scheans (1984) presents a preliminary descriptive typology of Japanese porcelain from sites in Washington, Oregon, and California based on decoration and including basic information on size, form, and dating. Western Wyoming College conducted a pioneering academic study in the 1980s targeting pre-War Japanese sites, including rock art panels, camps, and cemeteries associated with Japanese railroad workers and coal miners from the 1890s and later (Gardner et al. 1988; Gardner and Johnson 2001). Camps were identified by the presence of Japanese ceramics, while nearby rock art contained Japanese characters carved or pecked into sandstone outcroppings, including names, dates, and origin places. Japanese sections of local cemeteries included gravestones carved with similar details that provide information on demographic patterns of Asian migrants. 19

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1990-2005 The 1990s and early 2000s saw a growing, yet infrequent and scattered, series of resource management studies in California, Hawai i, Washington, and British Columbia. In California, Maniery and colleagues undertook National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) evaluation and treatment planning for early twentieth-century farm labor camps in the Delta region of San Joaquin and Contra Costa Counties, built by Japanese entrepreneur George Shima (Allen and McKee 2002; Maniery 1993; Maniery and Fryman 1993). Research included preliminary analysis of Japanese ceramics, consumption patterns, use of Western and Chinese goods, and comparisons with other sites. Van Wormer and Walter (1993) analyzed artifacts, including Japanese ceramics, from a Japanese truck farm in Orange County occupied during the late 1930s and early 1940s just prior to forced removal. Costello et al. (2001) documented remains of a small ca. 1920 community of Japanese truck farmers in Inyo County, including analysis of Japanese ceramics focusing on acquisition patterns, use of domestic vs. export wares, and comparisons of form and decoration with other Japanese sites in California. Japanese artifacts have also turned up in other agricultural contexts across California (e.g., Bard and Busby 1985). Schaefer and McCawley (1999) undertook testing and data recovery on refuse deposits and remains of a bathhouse at Mugu Fish Camp in Ventura County, run by Japanese entrepreneur Frank Kubota as a sportfishing resort between the 1910s and 1930s. Deposits, including Japanese and European American artifacts, were mixed and not attributable to distinct ethnic groups. Interpretive emphasis focused on cultural interaction and sharing between Japanese and European American employees and guests in the early twentiethcentury recreation industry, alongside persistence of Japanese foodways. In Washington, studies in the 1990s turned up remains of Japanese involvement in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century lumber and agricultural industries. Archaeological testing for the Port Blakely Mill Company revealed Japanese ceramics and other Japanese and European American artifacts associated with the Japanese mill workers settlements of Yama and Nagaya (Welch and Daugherty 1993). Bowden and Larson (1997) reported on similar findings of Japanese and European American artifacts during a cultural resource assessment of Japanese Camp associated with the mill town of Selleck. Japanese porcelain was also identified at an early twentieth-century site associated with the Green River Lumber Mill near Lemolo (Lewarch et al. 1996), and a farmstead near Tukwika occupied by Japanese and Filipino tenant farmers (Lewarch et al. 1993). In the Pacific, McElroy (2003a, b) reported on archaeological survey and monitoring of residential and infrastructure development on KauaFi and OFahu in HawaiFi, where Japanese porcelain was uncovered. On Hickam Air Force Base, Japanese and European American ceramics were recovered from the early twentieth-century multiethnic settlement of Watertown, where workers dredged Pearl Harbor. Spatial distribution of these ceramics may mark the locations of distinct ethnic neighborhoods. Dixon (2004) reported on pre-War sugarcane plantations on Tinian in the Northern Mariana Islands, where he documented evidence of an emerging class structure among Japanese, Okinawan, and Korean tenant farmers using measures of site size and feature complexity and type across 27 farmsteads. Finally, Grimwade (2004) described a surviving public bathhouse (sento) from a former Japanese settlement on Thursday Island, Australia, built ca. 1890-1910 of concrete and transfer-printed ceramic tiles. Reprinted from the journal

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In British Columbia, resource management studies in the early 1990s documented remains of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century salmon canning industry in the fishing village of Steveston. One study explored remains of a Japanese boat builder’s shop and girls’ bunkhouse at Gulf of Georgian Cannery National Historic Site, revealing fishing gear and Japanese porcelain within the assemblage (Heitzmann 1994). Another study recovered Chinese, Japanese, and European Canadian artifacts in waterlogged deposits near former Japanese houses during archaeological monitoring at Britannia Shipyards National Historic Site (Deva Heritage Consulting 1994). Neither study included detailed analysis. At North Pacific Cannery National Historic Site near Port Edward, British Columbia, archaeological survey identified remains of Japanese quarters and other domestic and industrial areas (Archer 2000). A similar survey at the early twentieth-century McLean Mill National Historic Site in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island uncovered remains of a possible artifact cache, refuse pit, and bathhouse associated with Japanese mill residents (Eldridge and Coates 1994). Artifacts comprised kitchen utensils and cookware, including Japanese ceramics, and were interpreted as intentionally cached prior to forced relocation during World War II because all objects were intact or broken in place. Nearby, turn-of-the-twentieth-century Chinese and Japanese cemeteries were documented between Courtenay and Cumberland in advance of highway construction, though no excavation was undertaken (Witt 1998). In an academic study, Callaghan (2003) constructed computer simulation models to estimate the frequency and locations of Japanese wrecks along the British Columbia coast during the Tokugawa Era, and the potential that Asian artifacts found on Indigenous sites came from such wrecks. Keddie (2013) has also explored the frequency of Japanese shipwrecks along the BC coast as evidence for the influence of iron and other aspects of Asian culture on Indigenous societies of the Northwest Coast. Among the earliest and most sustained research initiatives on pre-War Japanese sites is the ongoing Seymour Valley Archaeological Project, begun in 2000 by Bob Muckle of Capilano University in North Vancouver, British Columbia. Muckle has explored a series of Japanese logging camps in the Seymour Valley occupied primarily during the 1920s (Biddlecombe et al. 2003; Muckle 2001, 2002, 2004, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2017, 2020, this volume). It is a community-based project run as an undergraduate field school, combined with public tours, community lectures, elementary school programming, artifact displays, and media outreach. Fieldwork has uncovered thousands of artifacts of Japanese and European Canadian origin and a series of domestic and workrelated features from two Japanese-occupied camps that include remains of a Japanese bath (furo). Among research goals are reconstructing camp layout; investigating similarities and differences in demographics, residential patterns, and consumer habits between camps; examining diet, health, and gender roles; and exploring links to Japanese logging industrialist Eikichi Kagesu, who probably operated both camps. The 1990s and early 2000s also saw developments in identification and dating of Japanese ceramics, with an emphasis on Japanese language terminology and the history of ceramic production in Japan, spearheaded by the work of Leland Bibb. In an unpublished early study, Bibb (1997) documented Japanese domestic and export wares of the Meiji and Taisho eras from the Home Avenue Dump in San Diego, focusing on form, decoration methods and motifs, and geographic origins. He also undertook the ceramic analysis for Schaefer and McCawley’s (1999) report on Mugu Fish Camp and 21

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Costello et al.’s (2001) study of Japanese truck farmers, both discussed above. In the 2000s, Bibb presented brief reports on the history, technology, and decoration of Japanese stencil wares and the dating potential of the “Made in Japan” mark (Bibb 2001, 2007). In another pioneering study, Stenger (1993) sought to identify and date Asian porcelains (primarily Chinese) from pre-War sites in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Nevada using x-ray fluorescence (XRF) and optical emission spectroscopy. She described Japanese wares common on Chinese sites and proposed that some ceramics previously assumed to be Chinese are actually Japanese. In the late 1990s, Priscilla Wegars (1999), curator of the Asian American Comparative Collection at the University of Idaho, prepared a handout of Japanese artifacts commonly found on archaeological sites with standardized terminology, including beverage and pharmaceutical bottles, porcelain tableware, and coins. Shortly after the turn of the millennium, Maniery (2004) offered a brief overview of archaeology on pre-War Chinese and Japanese sites in the western United States. She discussed decorative patterns on Japanese ceramics as reflections of Japanese beliefs and ways of life, the need for outreach with Japanese American organizations and Asian American studies scholars, challenges in interpreting the written record of immigrant life, and future trends that include public outreach and education. 2005-20 Initiation of Muckle’s research project and publication of Maniery’s review article, alongside foundational studies of World War II Japanese incarceration sites in the late 1990s discussed below, mark a watershed in the emergence of Japanese diaspora archaeology as a distinct field of study. At this time the quantity, quality, and geographic diversity of research on pre-War (and WWII era) sites increased noticeably, along with an increase in work on urban sites and a greater balance between resource management and academic studies. Recent resource management studies in rural contexts include projects in Washington, Oregon, HawaiFi, the Northern Mariana Islands, and elsewhere in the Pacific. In Washington, Japanese and European American artifacts were recovered from a temporary Japanese lumber camp in Thurston County associated with the Union Lumber Company (Kaehler 2007). In a more substantial study, White and colleagues (White et al. 2009) presented results of excavations at the early twentieth-century Japanese Gulch Site, a community of lumber workers near Mukilteo, Washington. Artifacts were a mix of Japanese (including a wooden sandal [geta]) and European American goods, suggesting maintenance of traditional lifeways combined with participation in commercialized American culture as a matter of practicality and emphasizing the role of women as household consumers. In Oregon, a domestic refuse pit associated with a family of pre-War Japanese truck farm in Multnomah County was also subject to excavation, with ceramic analysis by Leland Bibb (Bibb 2013; Paraso et al. 2013). Results revealed the use of Japanese and European American products, with a preference for Japanese ceramics, along with emphasis on frugality. Overall, the assemblage appeared to reflect cultural preferences rather than socioeconomic status. In HawaiFi, Berrigan et al. (2015) undertook excavations in a small domestic enclosure of stacked rocks near Kona on the Island of HawaiFi, used by Japanese Reprinted from the journal

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coffee farmers during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Artifacts included a range of household items, including Japanese porcelain tableware and European American beverage bottles. Complementing earlier work in the Northern Mariana Islands (Dixon 2004), Dixon (2016) used ethnographic and ethnohistoric literature to explore whether archaeological remains of early twentieth-century farmsteads on Tinian represent a “transported landscape” from Okinawa, home of many immigrant farm laborers (see also Dixon et al., this volume). Dixon and Tuggle (2014) also edited an issue of the journal Pan-Japan on archaeology of the Japanese diaspora in Micronesia, including articles on ceramic consumption in Taiwan, the impact of Japanese industrial development on Palau, a Japanese lighthouse in the Caroline Islands, a Japanese railroad on Rota, and Japanese farmsteads on Tinian. Although some earlier studies addressed urban sites, archaeological research on Japanese living in cities increased noticeably in the new millennium, primarily in a resource management context. Notable studies include sensitivity assessment, testing, and evaluation of a portion of San Jose’s Japantown in conjunction with urban redevelopment (Anthropological Studies Center 2008; Massey et al. 2013). Work in nearby Oakland uncovered deposits associated with the Orimoto family, an Issei couple with Nisei children who occupied the parcel between 1935 and 1942, when they were forcibly removed to the Topaz incarceration center (Walker et al. 2012). Aside from Asian ceramics, the assemblage is dominated by European American artifacts. Authors interpreted the collection’s low functional diversity as a marked contrast to European American Victorianism and middle-class consumer aspirations, and the Asian ceramics as indicative of a desire to maintain a sense of cultural identity. The European American artifacts, including toys, cutlery, and beauty products, testify to the family’s dual Japanese American identity and desire to prepare their children for life in America. In San Diego, Van Wormer (2009) reported on refuse deposits associated with Japanese households, and Zepeda-Herman and Price (2012) presented findings of archaeological monitoring that uncovered domestic refuse deposits dating ca. 1925-30 associated with a fishing camp occupied by Japanese families. These deposits were dominated by European American artifacts, plus smaller quantities of Japanese ceramics and glass pharmaceutical and beverage bottles, with ceramic analysis undertaken by Leland Bibb. Data were interpreted using an approach based in pattern recognition and consumerism, where material patterns are linked with socioeconomic factors. Analysis indicated retention of traditional foodways but comparison with other Chinese and Japanese sites revealed the fish camp assemblage had a lower proportion of Asian artifacts, suggesting greater adoption to American material culture and creation of a Japanese American identity. In Seattle, Washington, Johnson (2017) discussed a carved stone found in the rear yard of an early twentieth-century residence, inscribed with a style of Japanese poetry known as senryu often used by immigrants to document experiences of discrimination and struggle. Also in Seattle, Valentino (2017) described remains of the Green Lake Gardens Company owned and operated by the Kumasaka family before and after the war, which served as a family business and a gathering point for the local Japanese community. Finally, in HawaiFi, domestic Japanese porcelain has turned up in early twentieth-century contexts on urban construction sites in Honolulu (e.g., Hammatt 2013a, b). Starting late in the first decade of the millennium was an increase in academic studies of pre-War Japanese sites, beginning with Kraus-Friedberg’s (2008, 2011) research on Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino plantation cemeteries in HawaiFi and Ross’ 23

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(2009b, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2017a, b) comparative study of Chinese and Japanese salmon cannery workers in British Columbia. Kraus-Friedberg applied a transnational framework to three ethnically segregated cemeteries at a former sugar plantation on the island of HawaiFi. For the Japanese cemetery (1890s-1970s), she explored how transnational politics influenced expressions of ethnic and national identity on gravestones of plantation workers, revealing that these expressions varied with fluctuations in Japan’s status on the world stage. Workers’ status abroad was affected by shifting fortunes of their homeland, and gravestone inscriptions indicate they were aware of these shifts and were strategic in their use of ethnic/national identity markers in local Hawaiian contexts. Similarly, Ross developed an interpretive model rooted in transnationalism and diaspora in drawing comparisons between artifact assemblages from the Chinese bunkhouse and Japanese fishing camp at the Ewen Cannery (1885-1930). He argued that Asian diasporas employed household objects strategically in constructing and maintaining identities and in negotiating relationships with home and host societies. Diasporas are essentially imagined transnational communities whose collective identities are social constructions that draw on shared real-world experiences of the homeland and dispersal from it. They retain select elements of homeland culture, including imported goods and practices, resulting in simplified and generalized recreations of traditional behaviors, especially practices like drinking and dining that played a central role in creating and maintaining social bonds in the homeland. Ross’ research included development of guides to identification and dating of Japanese ceramics and beverage bottles and a study of the fluid and transnational nature of artifact origins and identities, with his ceramic guide influenced by the work of Leland Bibb (Ross 2009a, 2012a, b). Aside from Campbell’s ceramic research discussed below, there have been few recent archaeological studies of Japanese material culture besides Akin et al.’s (2016) guide to numismatic archaeology that includes a chapter on identification and uses of Asian coins in North America. These scholarly studies were followed by academic research projects in HawaiFi, California, and Washington. Barna (2013) examined ethnogenesis in his study of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century multiethnic ranches on the island of HawaiFi, whereby Japanese and other ethnic groups were incorporated into a uniquely hybrid local culture. Braje et al. (2014) explored remains of a multiethnic base camp on San Miguel Island in California’s Channel Islands from the same time period, used variously by Island Chumash, Chinese abalone fishermen, Japanese pearl oyster divers, and European American seal hunters. A stone hearth and light artifact scatter that includes a Japanese porcelain bowl suggest the presence of Japanese fishermen. Riggs (2015) compared botanical remains from a family of Alsatian immigrants in Texas and a Japanese family in Oakland, California. She employed concepts of “homeplace” and “dwelling” to explore how each household used plants as potent symbols in creating liveable homes in contested space. For the Japanese Domoto family, their nursery business provided financial stability, a home, a sense of continuity with their homeland, and a symbol of their positive contributions to their community. In Washington, there has been a flurry of academic literature in recent years, much of it published in a 2017 thematic issue of Archaeology in Washington, in which the resource management studies by Johnson and Valentino discussed above also appear. Carlson (2017, this volume) emphasized racialization and labor dynamics of company Reprinted from the journal

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towns in his archaeological and archival study of Issei laborers’ everyday practices in the sawmill town of Barneston, Washington. Aranyosi (2017) and Hartse (2017) presented interim reports on their historical and archaeological research at the Japanese sawmill town of Yama-Nagaya on Bainbridge Island (1880s-1920s), as part of the multidisciplinary Yama Project that included an academic field school (see also Hartse and Hannah, this volume). Themes emerging from this research include race, class, gender, and religion, within an overarching transnational framework. Campbell’s (2017a, b, this volume) research presented an analysis and comparison of Japanese ceramics from previously excavated pre-War sites in Washington, Oregon, and California. Her goal was to develop a revised classification system for imported wares based on Japanese-language terms, expanding on studies by Ross and Bibb, to facilitate standardized documentation of Issei sites. In her analysis, Campbell (2019) focused on multiscalar connections at local, regional, and international scales; diversity and distinctions within and between communities; and overall patterning in the ceramics, including diagnostic attributes, dates and locations of manufacture, change over time, and links with stylistic trends in Japan. Campbell subsequently developed the online Historic Japanese Ceramic Comparative Collection hosted by the University of Idaho, containing photographs and diagnostic information on pre-War Japanese ceramics from her study. Another recent ceramic study relying heavily on Japanese language terminology is Danner’s (2020) brief article on soba-choko, specialized sauce cups for dipping buckwheat noodles. To date, there have been no substantial studies of Japanese sites in North America east of Wyoming and Colorado. However, Baker (2016) and Andrews and Schaller (2017) described a recent project at the Shofuso Japanese House and Garden in West Fairmont Park, Philadelphia, location of the 1876 Centennial International Exhibition. The Exhibition included a Japanese-built bazaar showcasing Japanese culture, later the site of a reconstructed Japanese house and garden. Grant-funded excavations in 2015 and 2016, organized by Shofuso staff and professional archaeologists as part of an exhibit and community outreach program, turned up artifacts associated with the 1876 Exhibition, including a figurine, teapot fragments, remains of a saké bottle, and ceramic roof tile.

Archaeology of the WWII Era Targeted archaeological research on World War II era sites associated with the Japanese diaspora did not get underway until the late 1970s or early 1980s and was not common until the 2000s, but today comprises a large and diverse body of literature driven in large part by substantial government funding and active community involvement. Included here are studies of Japanese military sites in the Pacific, along with the more robust field of research on sites of Japanese and Japanese American wartime incarceration in the United States. 1970s to 90s The 1980s and 1990s saw publication of the first substantial archaeological surveys of Japanese incarceration camps in the US plus reports on surveys of Japanese military installations on several Pacific Islands chains, including results of historian Colt 25

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Denfeld’s pioneering battlefield surveys in the Federated States of Micronesia, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Marshall Islands in the 1970s and 80s (Mushynsky et al. 2018:205; Price and Knecht 2012:16). King and Parker (1984) described results of the Tonaachaw Archaeological Project on Moen (now Weno) Island in Chuuk State of the Federated States of Micronesia in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As part of this combined academic and salvage archaeology project artifacts were recovered from a latrine used by the Japanese military in the early 1940s, mostly bottles for Japanese beer and other beverages. This discovery raised questions about the origin of alcohol use and abuse on the island. Between the late 1970s and mid-1980s, a series of research projects were undertaken in the Republic of Palau in Micronesia and on the Island of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. Butler and Snyder (1991) reported on systematic documentation of Japanese military sites in Palau, emphasizing their significance for research on military adaptations and their value in promoting Japanese tourism and preserving remains of a significant period in the nation’s history. Russell and Fleming (1991) documented excavation by the Commonwealth Division of Historic Preservation of a mass grave on Saipan, containing remains of Japanese military casualties discovered during construction on private property. The grave was linked to a famous Japanese suicide attack on American forces in 1944 and focus of the study was on questions related to the battle. This study was significant in light of the activities of bone-collecting excursions from Japan that had destroyed similar sites without careful excavation and study, and set a precedent for future treatment of War-era sites in the Pacific. Finally, Adams (1997) presented results of a 1989 survey of the Japanese airbase on Taroa in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Results show that pre-War concrete structures from the late 1930s were superior in quality to wartime construction. Adams noted that preservation of this World War II heritage depends on perceived economic benefits from tourism because it has little direct interest and relevance to islanders. The first archaeological study of a Japanese incarceration site in North America was a resource management survey undertaken in 1983 on the Gila River Indian Reservation in Arizona, which identified remains of the former Gila River War Relocation Center as potentially eligible for the NRHP (Effland and Green 1983). A 1987 survey and evaluation conducted as part of an agricultural development project proposed by the Bureau of Reclamation documented artifacts and features associated with Butte Camp, which, along with nearby Canal Camp, comprised the Relocation Center (Sullivan et al. 1987). This was the first study to document two defining features of incarceration camp archaeology: Japanese ceramics and Japanese names inscribed in structural cement. Additional data were collected at Butte Camp in 1988 to mitigate project impacts, including supplementary survey, artifact collection, and preliminary analysis (Sawyer-Lang 1988), followed in 1993 by additional archival research, oral histories, and detailed analysis of a sample of artifacts (Tamir et al. 1993a, b). Artifacts were discussed in oral interviews for potential information on function and cultural associations, while historical research sought information on the source of goods used in the camp and interactions between incarcerees and local Akimel O’otham people. Analysis addressed questions on social organization, economy, subsistence, and living conditions, with authors concluding that the assemblage is best described as “ordinary.” A small resource management survey was later conducted at the edge of Butte Camp in 2010 (Wright 2010). Reprinted from the journal

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Other pioneering resource management inventories and assessments were undertaken in the 1980s and early 1990s at Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming (Farrell 2015; Gorman 1985). The most substantial early relocation center survey, however, was undertaken between 1993 and 1995 by the National Park Service at Manzanar, designated a California Historic Landmark in 1973 and a National Historic Site (NHS) in 1992 (Burton 1996). Focus was on recording and evaluating all archaeological resources associated with the relocation center, along with other precontact and historic occupations in and adjacent to the NHS. The initial goal was to document the condition of the site and identify data valuable for preservation and public interpretation. The three-volume report contains detailed descriptions of all documented sites and features and numerous appendices, including hundreds of War-era inscriptions, in-depth artifact reports, archival maps, and architectural drawings. Research themes identified for Manzanar include confinement, ethnicity, resistance, and daily life. Authors emphasized that, despite being imprisoned because of their ethnic/national origins, incarcerees continued to express their Japanese identities through things like ceramics, saké bottles, gaming pieces, inscriptions, and landscaped gardens and ponds, while also adopting a range of European American goods and practices. They proposed that Americanization was generational, and, in contrast to researchers at Gila River, argued that material patterns at Manzanar were not “ordinary” but exhibited extensive influence of confinement, ethnicity, and war-related shortages, as indicated by low artifact diversity, pro-Japanese/antiUS graffiti, and smuggled alcohol. Additional War-era features were documented during subsequent resource management studies in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including investigations at the relocation center cemetery, administration block, and entrance (Burton 2005a; Burton et al. 1998, 2001). The administrative block offered comparative data for material from Japanese residential blocks, including distinct artifact patterns and landscape features that spoke to issues of individual expression vs administrative control. Overall, archaeology at Manzanar contributed not only to research and public interpretation, but also to expanding the boundaries of the National Historic Site. Following initial work at Manzanar, the National Park Service compiled a wideranging overview of the tangible remains of Japanese incarceration in the US, called Confinement and Ethnicity, focusing on War Relocation Authority centers but including facilities run by the Department of Justice and US Army (Burton et al. 1999). The goal of this massive study was to generate information for the Japanese American National Historic Landmark Theme Study authorized by the same Act of Congress that established Manzanar as a National Historic Site. A related goal was to identify additional sites warranting National Landmark status or listing on the NRHP. Research included archival records, interviews with former incarcerees, and field visits to each site to photodocument surviving architecture, archaeological features, and artifacts. Researchers noted that there were fewer archaeological correlates of Japanese ethnicity at Tule Lake and other segregation/isolation centers used for incarcerees with allegedly greater Japanese loyalties, perhaps reflecting tighter security. They also drew preliminary comparisons between sites, observing more substantial landscape features like ponds and walkways at Manzanar and Gila River than elsewhere, perhaps reflecting a greater degree of permanence or resistance. 27

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2000-14 During the first decade and a half of the twentieth century, a steady stream of reports and publications appeared on World War II-era Japanese battlefields and fortifications in the Pacific, only a sample of which are discussed here. Christiansen (2002) offered an overview of four former Japanese military bases on the Marshall Islands subject to resource management surveys in the 1990s, assessing condition, ongoing threats from deterioration and looting, and issues surrounding continued preservation. Bulgrin (2005) analyzed spatial distribution of military artifacts at a pre-War Japanese residential complex for agricultural workers on Saipan to address combat conditions and techniques during the US invasion in 1944, as part of a resource management study undertaken in advance of private development. Taborosi and Jenson (2002) summarized the use of natural and artificial caves as defensive fortifications by Japanese forces on Guam in Micronesia and in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Such caves were also used as wartime refuges by civilians and hiding places by post-War Japanese stragglers. A range of artifacts have been documented in such caves, including military gear, small arms, tools, clothing, ceramic and metal tableware, culinary implements, glass bottles, and various personal items. Dixon et al. (2012) presented a more detailed discussion of limestone caves, rock shelters, and other refuges used by Japanese stragglers on Guam following the 1944 US invasion. Resource management surveys on behalf of the US Navy in 2002 showed that such stragglers, the last of whom was captured in 1972, made extensive use of American-made (and some Japanese) items from military dumps for daily survival. Alongside a similar range of artifacts as those described by Taborosi and Jenson (2002), researchers also documented defensive walls and platforms for cooking and sleeping. In a pair of innovative articles, Price and Knecht (2012, 2013) of the University of Aberdeen offered an in-depth discussion of their survey of Japanese-occupied Peleliu in the Republic of Palau, invaded by the US in 1944. Post-War neglect of this battle, accompanied by limited subsequent development and a small modern population, has made this the best-preserved battlefield in the Pacific, comprising structures, vehicles, equipment, ammunition, defensive and offensive positions, and hundreds of fortified caves. Funded by the National Park Service, and in collaboration with the Palau Bureau of Arts and Culture, objectives were to inventory the battlefield, assess its preservation, document oral histories of indigenous Palauans, promote demining of the island, and assist Palau in managing its battlefield heritage. Survey was undertaken with assistance of Indigenous archaeologists from Palau and other parts of Micronesia and included documentation of traditional cultural resources, with the long-term goal of opening the battlefield to visitors and maximizing the reflective and commemorative potential of the landscape free from artificial military triumphalism. The preservation and sheer quantity of material on Peleliu offers a unique potential for conveying the raw experiences and emotions of participants, allowing for development of a social archaeology of the conflict free from traditional concerns with troop movements, equipment, and military strategy. This study, thus, sought to present a new kind of intimate, multicultural battlefield archaeology and redress historical biases by focusing on marginalized combatants and forced laborers from Korea, Okinawa, Palau, and other Pacific Islands, alongside Asian, Hispanic, and Native Americans. Reprinted from the journal

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Researchers placed emphasis on collaborating with, and seeking permission from, traditional island chiefs and incorporating local perspectives on the imported alien conflict. A key element was discussion of ongoing physical memorialization of the war on Peleliu from both Japanese and American perspectives. Three Farewells to Manzanar and Confinement and Ethnicity marked a watershed in the archaeology of Japanese wartime confinement and cemented the National Park Service, especially Jeff Burton and Mary Farrell, as preeminent leaders in the field. In the early 2000s there was an explosion of archaeological research on incarceration sites in the US, in both a resource management and academic context, that has continued to this day and dwarfs studies on pre-War sites by a large margin. Pioneering work at Manzanar in the 1990s resulted in the first graduate thesis on the archaeology of Japanese incarceration. Nicole Branton (2000, 2004, 2009) completed her MA and PhD research on Manzanar, focusing on everyday resistance through Japanese ceramics from the camp landfill. She drew on the concept of “eventscape,” a type of cultural landscape where people from different places, times, and social contexts are linked via their participation in related events (Camp, this volume). Through this lens, Branton examined how incarcerees manipulated their material environments to create “home places” within relocation centers. For example, women prepared traditional meals inside barracks using Japanese ceramics to mitigate disruptions to family cohesion caused by communal mess halls. Branton also gathered oral histories from so-called “Tucsonians” and their families, Resisters of Conscience who refused the World War II draft and were imprisoned at the Catalina Federal Honor Camp near Tucson, Arizona (Branton 2004). Remains of this former prison were deemed ineligible for the NRHP in the 1980s. However, its status has been reconsidered following formal recognition of the Tucsonians and discovery that Gordon Hirabayashi, famous for resisting Japanese incarceration, was imprisoned there during the War (Farrell and Burton 2011). Research by archaeologists on the history of the prison played a pivotal role in bringing these connections to light and developing on-site commemoration of Japanese Americans imprisoned there. Following their Manzanar and Confinement and Ethnicity projects, Burton, Farrell, and collagues at the National Park Service undertook archaeological investigations at Minidoka National Historic Site in Idaho, then known as Minidoka Internment National Monument (Burton 2005b; Burton and Farrell 2001; Burton et al. 2003). Designation of Minidoka as a National Monument in 2001 came directly from recommendations contained in Confinement and Ethnicity, which also served as the basis for subsequent archaeology at Tule Lake (Burton and Farrell 2005), Topaz (Ellis 2002), Amache, and other incarceration sites. Goals and methods at Minidoka paralleled Manzanar, with emphasis on documentation, evaluation, preservation, and public interpretation of surviving structures, features, and artifacts, including the camp landfill that then lay outside the monument. Recommendations included acquisition of additional land to encompass all War-era resources. One unique study at Minidoka targeted the post-War John Herrmann Farm, part of a homesteading initiative that granted former relocation center land to veterans and included recycling of relocation center buildings as part of the next stage of settlement (Burton and Farrell 2006). Burton and Farrell’s work at Minidoka was succeeded by resource management inventories and evaluations at Poston Relocation Center on the Colorado Indian Reservation in Arizona on behalf of the National Park Service, and at a series of 29

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Japanese American incarceration sites in HawaiFi (Burton 2006; Burton and Farrell 2007, 2008). Work in HawaiFi was undertaken in collaboration with the Japanese Cultural Center of HawaiFi and involved reconnaissance at eight separate sites on the islands of HawaiFi, KauaFi, Maui, and OFahu. They identified the former Honouliuli Internment Camp on OFahu, which housed Japanese internees and non-Japanese POWs, as having the greatest archaeological and educational potential and undertook a separate survey there in 2008. Additional surveys were competed between 2009 and 2011, with support by the National Park Service and the University of HawaiFi-West OFahu (Burton et al. 2014b). Documented features include buildings, foundations, septic tanks and cesspools, roads, fence lines, artifact scatters, inscriptions, and other aspects of the World War II landscape. Based on this research, Honouliuli was listed on the NRHP in 2012 and designated a National Historic Site in 2019. Contemporary with work at Minidoka, Farrell and Burton (2004) published an overview of archaeological research on Japanese American relocation sites as a companion to Maniery’s (2004) discussion of pre-War sites. It summarized the history of incarceration and their work at Manzanar, Minidoka, and elsewhere, and includes a discussion on the reciprocal relationship between archaeology and oral history. Oral history plays a key role in guiding archaeological research, but public outreach about archaeology can also lead to additional oral accounts. Complementing this overview, Casella (2007) situated the archaeology of Japanese incarceration within the broader context of archaeological studies of institutional confinement. Reviewing the archaeological literature, she highlighted the role of ceramics, landscape features, and personalized inscriptions in strategic maintenance of collective Japanese identity, but also its fusion with mainstream American culture. For Casella (2007:136), such sites “illuminate not only the transcripts of collective resistance, but the personal coping strategies and inmate solidarity practices that often flourish in places of confinement.” She emphasized the strong emotional responses confinement sites elicit from former incarcerees and their descendants as places of personal and collective commemoration, but also how they focus attention on the ambiguous relationship between the American state and its multicultural society and contribute to public debates about institutional confinement, citizenship, and civil rights. By far the longest-running university-based research project at a Japanese incarceration site was begun at Colorado’s Granada War Relocation Center (aka Camp Amache) in the mid-2000s by Bonnie Clark from the University of Denver (Clark and Shew, this volume). Prior to Clark’s involvement, the site was subject to a resource management survey in 2003 sponsored by a historic preservation grant and funds provided by former incarcerees and their descendants (Carillo and Killam 2004; Clark 2017c). The study concluded that Amache retained superb archaeological integrity and it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006. This initial survey produced the first graduate thesis on the archaeology of Amache, a study of saké acquisition and consumption at the camp based on archaeological data and interviews with former incarcerees (Slaughter 2006, 2013). Slaughter interpreted illegal saké consumption as an act of resistance to camp rules and a means of maintaining collective identity, given its traditional role in Japanese ritual and social life. Clark conceived her research at Amache as a long-term, community-based archaeology and heritage project involving fieldwork, museum studies, and community outreach. She undertook her first biennial archaeological field school in 2008, involving undergraduate Reprinted from the journal

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and graduate students, with a strong focus on gardening, landscaping, and artifact modification and reuse. The first graduate thesis arising from this project was Skiles’ study of Japanese ceramics based on her 2006 survey of camp dumps and barracks blocks (Skiles 2008; Skiles and Clark 2010). She concluded that Japanese ceramics were carried or shipped to the site by incarcerees to combat the disruptive and isolating nature of camp life and maintain pre-War ethnic identities, family bonds, and domestic routines, including use of traditional foods and cooking methods. Effects of incarceration on community and family structure at Amache were further explored by Shew and Kamp-Whittaker through archaeology, oral history, and archival research (Kamp-Whittaker 2010; Shew 2010; Shew and Kamp-Whittaker 2013). They confirmed cooking within barracks was a common means of maintaining cultural traditions and family unity but noted that consumption patterns included both Japanese ceramics and colorful Fiesta Ware, indicating influences from mainstream European American society. Shew, granddaughter of a former incarceree, focused on persistence and change in identities of Japanese American women in public and private contexts. Kamp-Whittaker addressed factors influencing the socialization of children, including social landscapes where children played and decisions by adults and children regarding appropriate/popular toys for different age and gender groups. As with dining, consumption patterns by (or on behalf of) Japanese women and children were influenced by both Japanese and American consumer culture. In 2010 Stacey Camp, then at the University of Idaho, initiated research at the Kooskia Internment Camp in rural Idaho, directing archaeological field schools in 2010 and 2013. Kooskia was a Department of Justice incarceration facility occupied by over 200 Japanese and Japanese American men during the War, paid as highway construction workers (Wegars 2010). Research emphasized how racialized minorities used material culture to communicate their feelings about citizenship and on the materiality of masculinity and gender ideology under conditions of isolation and imprisonment (Camp 2011, 2013). Objects like internee art, along with Japanese gaming pieces, pharmaceuticals, and ceramics testify to resistance and ongoing cultural ties to Japan, but identities of these men also involved more complex links to Japan and the United States. Camp has also emphasized comparative research and standardized recording practices between incarceration sites (Camp, this volume). Alongside research on an increasing number of incarceration camps, work continued at Manzanar, combining resource management needs with scholarly research. Burton and Farrell (2013) studied graffiti at Manzanar emphasizing themes of individuality, resistance, identity, and change in camp attitudes among the over 280 incarceree inscriptions in concrete. Burton and colleagues also reported on their study of the Arai family fishpond in conjunction with its restoration (Burton et al. 2014a). Additionally, Burton and Farrell presented an overview of Manzanar’s Japanese gardens, emphasizing their unique number, size, and complexity, in part a product of the number of gardeners incarcerated there (Burton 2013; Burton and Farrell 2014). Gardens served as reminders of home, improved morale, and reduced the harsh dust and sand. They cautioned, however, against interpreting these gardens solely as a product of Japanese design principles, noting that few gardeners had formal training and many aspects of garden design were adaptations to local camp environs. In contrast, Beckwith (2013) interpreted Manzanar’s ornamental gardens as an explicit product of Japanese culture and design, providing incarcerees with a sense of 31

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community and place in a time of extreme hardship and societal rejection. Ng (2014) expanded on this idea, using archaeological data, documentary sources, and oral histories to explore how Japanese Americans at Manzanar constructed landscape features like ornamental gardens and subfloor basements below residential barracks to transform their austere accommodations into a place they could consider “home.” Surprisingly, no substantial archaeological studies have been undertaken on War-era Japanese incarceration sites in Canada. However, associated archaeological remains have been occasionally documented during resource management surveys. As part of a redevelopment project at the Bridge River Townsite west of Lillooet, British Coumbia, Gray (2009) reported on remains of War-era stone retaining walls. Japanese Canadians were relocated to the nearly abandoned 1920s hydroelectric model townsite in 1942, and these walls were probably part of an effort by incarcerees to cultivate the landscape of the self-supporting wartime settlement. 2015-20 In the past half-decade, archaeological research and publishing on World War II era sites has continued at a prodigious pace, with emphasis on Japanese incarceration facilities in the United States, mostly driven by work at Manzanar, Amache, Kooskia, and Gila River. Two literature reviews present a selective account of archaeological research to date, including Farrell’s (2015) entry in the online Densho Encyclopedia and Ross’ (2018) chapter in the National Park Service’s Asian American Pacific Islander National Historic Landmarks Theme Study, the former focusing on incarceration camps and the latter including coverage of pre-War and War-era Chinese and Japanese sites. Petchey (2015) surveyed World War II Japanese defences on Watom Island in Papua New Guinea, including tunnel complexes, beach defences, gun emplacements, and associated artifacts including Japanese beer bottles, as part of a larger 2009 study focused on the island’s ancient Lapita occupation. His aim was to compare Watom with Japanese defences on other islands and to frame the Japanese occupation as one wave of settlement in a long archaeological history. Mushynsky and colleagues studied caves and tunnels on Saipan, known collectively as karst defences (Mushynsky et al. 2018; Mushynsky 2019). Emphasis was on construction and use of these features, which were occupied by the Japanese military as command posts, combat positions, storage depots, and shelters, but also by civilians and US troops. Van der Riet (2018) completed her honors thesis in archaeology on the War-era Japanese occupation of Christmas Island, an Australian territory south of Indonesia. She documented and evaluated World War II heritage on the island for purposes of ongoing management and public interpretation. Cruz Berrocal and colleagues (2018) presented a historical archaeology of the longue durée for the island of Heping Dao, Thailand, spanning prehistoric times to the twentieth century. The Japanese colonial presence (1895-1945), dominated by World War II-era artifacts and features, marked a sharp discontinuity from prior occupations in terms of its substantial disturbance to the archaeological record and its reliance on imported goods and practices. Burton, Farrell, and colleagues have continued their work at Manzanar, including completion of a Garden Management Plan (Burton 2015). This plan will guide restoration and rehabilitation of Manzanar’s gardens, a priority in the site’s General Management Plan. It will permit the public to view examples of the full range of garden Reprinted from the journal

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types, including family barracks gardens, mess hall gardens, community parks, and administrative gardens, while stabilizing and maintaining the remaining gardens in their current state. They also reported on public archaeology at the Manzanar Chicken Ranch (Burton 2019), and at Block 15, which involved finding and restoring two Japanese pond gardens built by known individuals (Burton et al. 2017). Artifacts and features uncovered in Block 15 testify to ways incarcerees modified their environment and maintained their Japanese heritage, while also adopting a range of American material culture. Manzanar’s ongoing public archaeology program is centered on collaboration with descendant and local communities, drawing on their knowledge and personal connections with the site (Burton 2017). Farrell and Burton have also completed additional documentation of Japanese incarceration sites in in HawaiFi, producing recommendations on preservation, interpretation, commemoration, and research, including a summary of archaeological investigations at Honouliuli between 2006 and 2017 (Farrell 2017a, b). Clark has directed field schools at Camp Amache every other year since 2008, except for 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. Fieldwork, involving undergraduate and graduate students and community volunteers, is combined with work in the Amache Preservation Society Museum in Granada and designed in consultation with survivors, descendants, and other community members (Clark 2017c; Clark and Shew, this volume). Research focus has been on Japanese gardens and landscaping, including adaptation of cultivation methods to the environment and translation of Japanese American values and aesthetics to circumstances of upheaval and shortage (Clark 2017a, b, 2020). Methods include pedestrian survey of barracks blocks, test excavations, soil chemistry, and botanical analysis, combined with archival research and oral history. Results showed that incarcerees transformed the landscape as part of an investment in a sense of place, with gardens reflecting Japanese traditions and American landscape trends. Barracks blocks became distinct neighborhoods with unique identities, reflected in landscape features, artifact patterning, and social network data (Kamp-Whittaker and Clark 2019a, b; Kamp-Whittaker, this volume). There is a strong emphasis on public engagement, including open houses and student-designed museum exhibits that promote dialogue, critical reflection, multivocality, and community interpretation (Clark 2018; Clark and Amati 2019). Data from Amache have served as a basis for graduate student research, including four theses completed between 2006 and 2010 (discussed above) and four completed in 2015. Driver (2015) investigated saké production and consumption in the context of its traditional importance in Japanese life, with emphasis on how incarcerees maintained aspects of everyday life in ways that were not about overt resistance. Garrison (2015) focused on Japanese entryway gardens, revealing Japanese design principles, cultivation of local and exotic plants, use of scavenged and repurposed materials, and soil amendment, concluding that landscaping played an important role in perseverance and maintenance of collective ethnic identity under institutional confinement. Starke (2015) uncovered evidence for traditional Japanese practices at Amache, including sumo wrestling, use of bath houses (furo), dramatic performances, and festivals like Obon. These practices aided in bridging generational gaps and were accompanied by elements of mainstream American culture, suggesting incarcerees maintained aspects of Japanese heritage and incorporated non-traditional practices from their prior lives in America to create a unique incarceree consciousness. Swader (2015) examined 33

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evidence for modified material culture and adaptive reuse of utilitarian objects at Amache, alongside similar materials from Minidoka. His goal was to explore the relationship between structure and agency in everyday life in relocation centers, and how incarcerees achieved a degree of control over their environment. The public and collaborative component of the Amache project is reflected in Fujita’s (2018) experiences as a volunteer with his nephew in 2014. Fujita, a retired chemistry professor who was incarcerated at Amache, related how his involvement with the project helped him heal from the psychological wounds of incarceration and aided in piecing together aspects of his family history. In turn, he emphasized how stories of former incarcerees can serve to enhance and diversify the archaeological research. Camp (2016) has continued to advocate for comparative studies and pushing boundaries of traditional archaeological research. She has outlined methodological and interpretive challenges with studying incarceration centers (e.g., their size, brief occupation, lack of discrete household-specific deposits, and post-abandonment disturbance), and argued that archaeologists must think beyond traditional notions of the “site” to include multiple landscapes and communal deposits. She draws on Branton’s (2004) use of “eventscape” to expand incarceration to include multiple camps and noncamp landscapes where little archaeological research has been undertaken to date. These landscapes include temporary holding facilities, places where detainees labored outside camps, and pre- and post-imprisonment Japanese American landscapes. According to Camp (2018a), a comparative archaeology of incarceration should include exploring material goods and practices between sites and groups of prisoners, differential access according to aspects of identity like socioeconomic status, and the lives of prison guards and officials. Ng and Camp (2015) explored the influence of institutional confinement on material consumption, drawing on data from Manzanar and Kooskia. Such research is crucial, they argued, because government propaganda and censorship masked the true material conditions of incarceration. In Camp’s (2018a:601-602) words, “[a]rchaeology can extend a balm to the absences of silenced pasts, whether it is applied to the unintentional silence of prisoners too traumatized to relive their experiences through narrative or to the intentional silences manufactured by a government unwilling to reveal the truths of life behind barbed wire.” Evidence from Manzanar shows that ornamental gardens and ponds served to create comfortable living areas, maintain family cohesion, and mitigate racial hostility, while artifacts from Kooskia testify to efforts at improving medical and dental care at the camp (Ng and Camp 2015). The authors concluded that material consumption permitted incarcerees to assert cultural identities, counteract government attempts at silencing, and fashion a sense of permanence in a temporary and volatile environment. Undergraduate and graduate students have contributed to research at Kooskia. FitzGerald (2015) investigated use of cold cream at the all-male camp in the context of theoretical approaches rooted in gender and masculinity. She concluded that gendered use of such products is not clear-cut, that hygiene practices among incarcerees were influenced by Japanese and American values, and that men may have used cold cream for shaving and general skin care or removing stage makeup following kabuki performances. Hosken and Tiede (2018) used archival and archaeological evidence of dental hygiene at Kooskia to demonstrate the importance of oral routines, including use of Japanese branded products. They adapted Silliman’s (2014) use of the concepts Reprinted from the journal

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of survivance and residence to argue that, rather than overt resistance, incarcerees used these routines and a petition for better resources under the Geneva Convention to forge a sense of home in the camp. Such practices also served to mitigate their circumstances of oppression and strive for public acceptance in American society, while maintaining a connection to their heritage. In a complementary study, Camp (2018b) explored evidence for visual and ocular health at the camp, including remains of safety goggles and eye medicine. Coming full circle, Lau-Ozawa recently initiated research at the Gila River Incarceration Camp in Arizona, site of the first incarceration center survey in the early 1980s (Ozawa 2016; Lau-Ozawa 2019a, this volume). His Master’s thesis focused on Japanese-built gardens at former incarcaeration camps, which he argued were “highly contested places with multiple meanings” (Ozawa 2016:7). Lau-Ozawa undertook systematic survey of garden ponds in residential and administrative blocks at Gila River, in conjunction with examination of archival sources, oral histories, and data from other camps, to develop a multiscalar analysis of garden construction, placement, design, and interactions at the individual, block, and camp levels. He concluded that gardens served as symbols of Japanese American resilience, tools for maintenance of individual and community identities, strategies for coping with conditions of incarceration, and a form of reterritorialization of camp spaces in an environment dedicated to Americanization. Lau-Ozawa (2019a) also explored ways incarceration heritage is memorialized materially at seven understudied detention facilities associated with Gila River. In doing so, he echoes Branton’s (2004) and Camp’s (2016) calls to view these physically separated locations as part of an interconnected eventscape.

Archaeology-Adjacent Research In addition to explicitly archaeological studies, there is a body of archaeology-adjacent literature, produced by historians and other scholars in the social sciences and humanities, relevant to archaeological research in its focus on Japanese and Japanese American consumerism and material culture. The goal here is not to provide a comprehensive review of this literature, but to offer a sample of some of the most pertinent pre-War and World War II era studies as a launching pad for seeking out other archaeology-adjacent scholarship. Regarding consumerism in Japan, Hanley’s (1997) book Everyday Things in Premodern Japan explored a variety of everyday material goods and practices in Tokugawa and Meiji era Japan in conjunction with its move toward modernization, economic growth, and industrialization beginning in the late nineteenth century. More recently, Francks (2009a, b, 2015) presented an economic history of Japan from the eighteenth century to the present with focus on the consumer, including everyday consumption in urban and rural contexts, food and drink, clothing and household goods, and mass communication and transportation as Japan moved toward industrialization, Westernization, urbanization, and emergence of the middle class. An edited volume on related themes includes chapters on clothing and household goods, sugar, medicine, train travel, postal services, mail order retailing, and golf (Francks and Hunter 2012). Both volumes sought to draw connections and comparisons with patterns of consumerism in the West. While these volumes offer an overview of consumerism in Japan, studies like Alexander’s (2013) Brewed in Japan focused on 35

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individual commodities, in this case the beer industry. Other recent commodity based research on Japan and the wider diaspora include studies on pottery (Miyachi 2007; Omori 2004), soy sauce (Amano 2004), sugar (Iijima 2019), coffee (Grinshpun 2014; Iijima 2018), trading companies (Oshima 2011, 2013), and department stores (Fujioka 2014; Yamauchi 2014). This is just a sample of the burgeoning literature on Japanese domestic and transnational production, trade, consumerism, and material culture. In North America, two important works are National Historic Landmarks Theme Studies sponsored by the US National Park Service, one focusing on Japanese American in World War II (Wyatt 2012) and the other on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders more broadly (Odo 2018). The goals of both studies were to identify sites eligible for designation as National Historic Landmarks or listing on the NRHP and establish priorities for designation, and both contain a wealth of information on the material heritage of Japanese Americans. Narrower in scope, but equally important, Dubrow and Graves (2002) documented the Japanese American imprint on the urban and rural landscape and advocated for historic preservation through case studies of 10 places in Washington and California with significant Japanese American heritage values. These places include a mill town, dwelling, store, community hall, public bathhouse, Japanese language school, Buddhist temple, hospital and midwifery, urban neighborhood, and bowling alley. For the pre-War era, Dubrow (2002, 2005) explored Japanese American architecture in urban and rural contexts to explore patterns of cultural persistence and change and construction of Japanese American identity. Similarly, Lau (2013) focused on the role of the Japanese American home in aspirations of Japanese immigrants for national inclusion and middle-class respectability. Sueyoshi (2005) explored use of Western dress by Japanese immigrants as part of an ongoing struggle to gain acceptance as “Americans” in the face of entrenched racial categories that sought to define them as perpetual foreigners. In a complementary way, Imai (2010) showed how Japanese Americans in Hawai‘i developed their own unique consumer culture during the interwar period as a strategy for claiming a place within the local “white” social hierarchy. Emphasizing wartime incarceration, Horiuchi (2005) explored the architectural design and construction of camps and how incarcerees created their own built environments to address the inadequacies of these temporary government-designed cities. She and Pieris also compared spatial and material interpretive strategies at former incarceration facilities in the US and Australia, with an emphasis on gardens (Horiuchi and Pieris 2017). Dusselier (2008) examined incarceree art, focusing on how these objects helped reterritorialize foreign and hostile spaces, alleviate isolation and deprivation, maintain social identities and relationships, and contribute to physical and psychological survival. Similar conclusions were drawn by Tamura (2004) and Helphand (2006) in their studies of incarceration camp gardens, while Rozas-Krause (2018) analyzed the design, iconography, and motivations behind the memorialization of an assembly center in San Bruno, California. Finally, spanning the pre- through post-War eras, Brown (1996) pondered the significance of a large collection of personal possessions stored in the basement of Seattle’s Panama Hotel by Japanese Americans forcibly removed from the coast during the War but never retrieved by them. She drew concrete links between forfeiture of material things and loss of privileges associated with American freedom and citizenship, stolen from their former owners by a state that had reneged on the “American contract.” Reprinted from the journal

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Research Trends and Future Directions Archaeological research on the Japanese diaspora has expanded dramatically over the past several decades, especially in the last 20 years. Early studies were dominated by resource management initiatives with academic research rare until the start of the millennium. The first academic thesis on archaeology of Japanese incarceration was not completed until 2000 (Branton 2000) and the first thesis on the pre-War period not until 2008 (Kraus-Friedberg 2008). The first peer-reviewed journal article on the pre-War era was published in 1988 (Gardner et al. 1988), though no more appeared prior to the 2000s; the first such article on Japanese incarceration did not appear until 2016 (Camp 2016). Today the volume of literature in unpublished reports and in published books and journals is substantial, increasing at what seems like an exponential rate, and there is more of a balance between academic and resource management archaeology. Additionally, the quality of scholarship is equally high on both sides of the academic/CRM divide. Documentation of Japanese-related deposits was often incidental to project objectives among many early studies, but today such remains are the focus of research. The transition from isolated, incidental studies to more focused, sustained, and selfconscious emphasis on the Japanese diaspora coincides with work by the National Park Service at Manzanar and on the Confinement and Ethnicity project, Muckle’s field school on Japanese logging camps in British Columbia, and Bibb’s efforts at applying Japanese language terminology to ceramic analysis beginning in the 1990s. To date, there have been university field schools at three incarceration centers (Amache, Kooskia, and Honouiuli) and three pre-War work camps (Seymour Valley, Lion Island, and Yama-Nagaya). In contrast, there has only been a single edited volume on the archaeology of the Japanese diaspora, covering the pre-War period in a single US state (Archaeology in Washington, Volume 17, 2017), and only a few literature reviews of limited scope (Farrell 2015; Farrell and Burton 2004; Maniery 2004; Ross 2018). Today, the literature on War-era sites vastly outweighs pre-War-era scholarship. Methodologically, archaeological research on the Japanese diaspora has ranged from multi-sited and community level studies, to landscape studies and ones focused narrowly on the lives of households and individuals. Most have relied on traditional archaeological data, combined with data from archives and oral histories/memoirs, though some have used alternative methods like computer modelling (Callaghan 2003). At pre-War sites, attention has been primarily on household or community artifact assemblages, especially in laboring contexts, whereas work on War-era sites has placed considerable emphasis on structures and landscapes. Nevertheless, there are strong examples of pre-War landscape studies (e.g., Dixon 2004) and War-era artifact studies (various graduate theses on Amache). There are also excellent examples of communitybased research and collaboration for both time periods (e.g., Seymour Valley, Amache, Manzanar, Peleliu), though this is not yet the norm. A central insight arising from collaborative work at sites like Manzanar is the reciprocal relationship between archaeology and oral history. Research topics are diverse, with strong emphasis on acquisition, consumption, and reuse of consumer goods, including factors affecting access to goods and how they inform aspects of identity, social interaction, and environmental adaptation. Special attention is paid to objects related to food and dining, but also recreational beverages, health and hygiene products, and toys, among others. For incarceration camps, 37

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pronounced attention is paid to Japanese gardens and other landscape features, whereas battlefield studies emphasize offensive and defensive military landscapes, though both also highlight personal items testifying to the experiences of individuals. Other topics include demographic patterns, social networks, cultural interaction, gender and age, class structure, resistance, entrepreneurship, pre-War caching, War-era military tactics and technology, intimate interactions, memorialization, collaboration, public interpretation, and disciplinary reflexivity. The primary objective of many studies is to support site management, preservation, and public interpretation. There are no unified research themes or theoretical frameworks in Japanese diaspora archaeology. In fact, there is little in the way of generalized method and theory across the discipline, with most interpretation geared toward individual sites. Exceptions include Branton’s (2004) concept of eventscape, Camp’s (2011) advocacy for comparative approaches and standardized recording, Ross’ (2013) transnational and diasporic framework, and comparative case studies by scholars like Kraus-Friedberg (2008) and Campbell (2017a). Valuable concepts like ethnogenesis, racialization, transnationalism, diaspora, gender, and sexuality have been adopted by some researchers, but to date have had limited impact on the field (but see Lau-Ozawa, this volume). As Ozawa (2016:24) argued, much archaeological research lacks appropriate consideration of recent historiography in Asian American studies, including use of Japanese language sources and frameworks rooted in globalization and trauma. One common thread spanning numerous studies and time frames is an emphasis on patterns of cultural persistence and change, with many researchers concluding that members of the Japanese diaspora retained elements of traditional Japanese culture and identity while also adopting aspects of European American culture, a process often couched in terms of dual-identity formation or Americanization. This pattern is evident in unique combinations of Western-style and Japanese goods commonly documented on archaeological sites. At least two pre-War studies (Walker et al. 2012:171; Paraso et al. 2013:6.12) concluded that the Japanese diaspora artifact assemblages they analyzed are primarily a product of culture and ethnicity, rather than socioeconomic status or class, and according to Walker and colleagues are therefore difficult to compare with European American assemblages. This is a provocative claim that bears further scrutiny. Another increasingly popular approach, especially for incarceration camps, is the concept of “home” or “place” as it relates to efforts by incarcerees to maintain a sense of family or community cohesion to combat conditions of institutional confinement. This is part of a broader, though not always explicitly articulated, theme of structure versus agency pervading most archaeological research on the Japanese diaspora. Practical challenges faced by researchers, especially (but not limited to) those working on former battlefields and incarceration camps, include expansive and multicomponent sites, mixed assemblages, and subsequent disturbance by cleanup, looting, and development. Horizontally extensive sites require complex research designs and years/decades of fieldwork and analysis to capture the nuances of the archaeological record, while those with mixed, disturbed, or multicomponent deposits constrain the ability of researchers to target specific households or groups. Few researchers have committed to long-term projects at a single site or location, exceptions being Bob Muckle in the Seymour Valley, Jeff Burton and Mary Farrell at Manzanar, and Bonnie Clark at Amache. In many cases, field methods are dictated by logistical challenges as much as by research agendas, for example Costello and Maniery’s (1988) communityReprinted from the journal

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level analysis of mixed Chinese and Japanese deposits in Walnut Grove and emphasis at many incarceration sites on barracks blocks rather than massive landfill deposits that combine material from both incarcerees and administrators. Massey et al. (2013) noted that overlapping Chinese and Japanese occupations offer a distinct challenge in distinguishing site occupants, as both groups used goods imported from the other’s homeland. While most archaeologists are cognizant that artifacts do not equal ethnicity, we still struggle with an often-unconscious reliance on “pots equal people” approaches to site identification. Despite the increasing volume of research on the Japanese diaspora, there remain gaps in coverage, geographically, methodologically, and interpretively. There has been disproportionate emphasis on Japanese-style artifacts and features, as markers of cultural persistence, at the expense of other research avenues. For the pre-War era, urban sites remain underrepresented in the literature, as do sites outside western North America (but see Baxter and Chirinos Ogata and Saucedo-Segami, this volume). For the War-era, work is still needed at former incarceration center landfills and deposits associated explicitly with administrators and other non-Japanese camp staff, and greater attention is needed on assembly centers and other nodes in the evacuation/incarceration eventscape. While there are some sophisticated studies of Japanese battlefields in the Pacific, most research remains primarily descriptive and there is a need for more sophisticated theory-driven research. There has also been little work on Japanese cemeteries, churches/temples, and other community institutions (but see Goto, this volume), and very little engagement with archaeology and history in the Japanese homeland that could offer a baseline for understanding material patterns within the diaspora. Surprisingly, there remains virtually no archaeological research on post-War Japanese American sites and landscapes, and little formal dialogue between scholars working on pre-War and War-era sites. In terms of material culture research, there have been some in-depth studies of Japanese ceramics, but other imported material culture remains largely unstudied, and methods like trace element analysis have barely been attempted. Curiously, despite attention given to food and dining, there have been few studies of faunal and botanical remains from Japanese diaspora sites. In addition, we still know little about international merchant networks and import-export firms like the Furuya Company of Seattle that transported goods from Japan throughout the diaspora. More broadly, despite increasing emphasis on collaborative, community-based research, there have been few (if any) truly multidisciplinary projects that involve community members and specialists in related fields as active and equal research partners. In fact, few studies engage in more than a limited way with other subdisciplines of archaeology and adjacent fields like Asian American studies. Exceptions include adoption of Dusselier’s (2008) concept of reterritorialization by Ozawa (2016) and others, and Hosken and Tiede’s (2018) engagement with Silliman’s (2014) discussion of survivance and residence. Consequently, the influence of our research beyond our narrow subdiscipline remains limited. For example, few incarceration camp studies draw on the large volume of theoretical literature and comparative history and archaeology of institutional confinement in the spirit of Casella’s (2007) work (but see Camp, this volume). One research avenue that bears concrete attention is direct engagement and comparison with Chinese diaspora archaeology (Ross 2018; Voss and Allen 2008). Both 39

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fields have a similar history of research, address similar site types and research themes, and focus on immigrants and their descendants who experienced similar patterns of racist exclusion, job opportunities and constraints, adaptive strategies, and access to transnational networks. However, they also have important differences that could reward close comparative analysis, including the earlier arrival, larger size, and greater socio-economic networks of the Chinese diaspora, and the greater presence of women and families and more direct experience with government-sponsored Westernization within the Japanese diaspora. While the number of research avenues yet to be explored seems vast, the accomplishments of Japanese diaspora archaeology over the past four decades and more are substantial, as the length of this review testifies. I suspect that in another 40 years a comprehensive literature review such as this will require an entire volume in its own right. The studies contained in this volume are just the beginning.

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:625–647 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-020-00565-5

Archaeological Examination of Japanese Photographs and Archival Data from the Pre-WWII Okinawan Diaspora: Tinian, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Boyd Dixon 1 & Alexandra Garrigue 2 & Robert Jones 3 Accepted: 21 September 2020 / Published online: 21 October 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract This study looks at archival records and photographs from the pre-WWII Japanese occupation of the Micronesian island of Tinian to discuss the archaeological remnants of the Okinawan diaspora from the 1920s to 1940s in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) today. Keywords Pre-WWII . Okinawa . Diaspora . Tinian

Introduction Examination of early twentieth-century archival photographs, textual documents, maps, oral histories, and archaeological remains in this study converge to create a picture of a well-managed, corporate plantation with government subsidies on Tinian, on the Northern Mariana Islands. This perspective brings the Northern Mariana Islands into the forefront of pre-WWII industrial and urban development during a depression devastating the Japanese homeland and global economy, much as we are experiencing in the twenty first or “Covid” century today. Emigration from Okinawa, rural Japan,

* Boyd Dixon [email protected] Alexandra Garrigue [email protected] Robert Jones [email protected]

1

Cardno GS, 425 Chalan San Antonio Rd., PMB 1004, Tamuning, Guam 96913, USA

2

ARCGEO, 901-2215 Okinawa-ken, Maehara 3-17-2, Yuai Bld 1F, Ginowan-shi, Japan

3

Cardno GS, 250 Bobwhite Court, Suite 200, Boise, ID 83706, USA 51

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and Korea enabled tens of thousands of individuals and families to improve their standard of living and expectations for their next generations born on Tinian. Personal sacrifices were endured, loyalty to their Ryūkyū homelands and family was stretched, and efforts were made to make Tinian seem more familiar, indeed a “transported landscape” in many ways. WWII brought an end to this dream and replaced it with a nightmare through which their families still in Okinawa suffered in subsequent months. The quantity and quality of documentary materials today found in academic and public libraries in Okinawa demonstrates that this story is not forgotten but is being told and retold within individual families. Repeat visits from Okinawa to Tinian every year also demonstrate that the Northern Mariana Islands were for a 30-year period of time, a very real part of Japan and the Ryūkyūs in the minds and hearts of a generation.

The Okinawan Diaspora to the Northern Mariana Islands Although conducted in close parallel to the general Japanese diaspora, Okinawan emigration in the first half of the twentieth century bears several peculiar characteristics engendered by the political and social compartments, of which the prefecture was the object in the colonial Japanese Empire. The Ryūkyū Kingdom officially came under Japanese government rule in 1879 with the creation of Okinawa Prefecture, but kept a special status within the empire, Okinawans only obtaining the right to vote in 1912, for instance. In such a context, many rules and laws related to the emigration of Japanese citizens were not immediately applied to the residents of Okinawa Prefecture. Okinawan emigration can be divided into eight periods, four of them occurring before WWII (Ishikawa 1974, 2005, 2011). Starting in 1921, emigration toward the Nanyō Islands increased when Japan took over administration of the archipelago and created a development company known as the Nanyō Kōhatsu. As a result of this, the number of persons of Okinawan origin in the southern islands reached 15,000 in 1932 (57% of the Japanese migrants). With the flourishing of Nanyō emigration until WWII, this proportion reached 70% just before the Pacific War.

Historical Context: Administration of the Nanyō Islands by Japan The Mariana Islands (except Guam) used to be a part of the German colonial empire (German Protectorate of New Guinea) and were seized by the Japanese Forces during WWI. The German colonial empire was dismantled after WWI as a part of the Treaty of Versailles (1919) and the islands fell under the control of the newly created League of Nations (1920) that created the South Pacific Mandate. This authorized the administration of the islands north of the equator, including the Mariana Islands, Palau, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia (Fig. 1), by the Japanese Empire starting on December 17, 1920. By that time, Japan had occupied the Northern Mariana Islands since 1914 and had shifted the administration of the Mariana Islands from a military to a civil one. The South Pacific Mandate was referred to as the Nanyō (Southern Seas) Archipelago in Japanese and the Nanyō Office (Southern Seas Office) was established Reprinted from the journal

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21° N

in 1922 to administer all the islands in the mandate. Japanese emigration toward the Nanyō archipelago was organized at that time. The Nanyō Office started with six branches with a detached office of the Saipan Branch in Tinian by 1933 (Tuggle 2014). The Japanese started to develop the Nanyō Islands during the military administration before the establishment of the Nanyō Office with two companies called Nishimura Colonization (sugar and manufacture) and Nanyō Investments (sugar and Manilla hemp). Nanyō Investments collapsed in 1920 and Nishimura Colonization in 1921, leaving on the islands 1000 Japanese workers

Mariana Islands

Tinian

Farallon de Pajaros

Maug Asuncion

Agrihan

18° N

Pagan Alamagan Guguan

Sarigan Anatahan

Farallon de Medinilla

15° N

Saipan Tinian

Rota

Tinian Town Sugar refinery

Guam 145° E

146° E

2 km

Pacific Ocean

Source: 2016 WorldView-2 satellite imagery by Digital Globe provided by USDA-NRCS. Map by Maria Kottermair

Fig. 1 Location of Tinian within the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (Courtesy of Maria Kottermair)

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who started starving. Tezuka Toshirō, the first governor of the Nanyō Office recognized the abilities of Haruji Matsue (Fig. 2). He was then working on sugar manufacture development in Taiwan and was particularly invested in the welfare of Japanese emigrants and the development of sugar manufacture techniques. Matsue then met Ishizuka Eizō who was director of the very successful Oriental Development Company based essentially in Manchuria. Matsue and Ishizuka were both born in samurai families of the Aizu Domain in Fukushima and got along well enough for Ishizuka to agree to fund 70% of a new development company entrusted to Matsue, Nanyō Kōhatsu Kaisha (NKK). Matsue bought the two previously mentioned collapsed companies and in addition to the 1000 workers already on the islands, he asked the government to send 2000 Okinawan workers to start developing the Nanyō Islands to extend Japan’s power southward. Matsue explained that he chose to ask for Okinawans due to their proximity, the overpopulation problem of the prefecture, the fact that Okinawans were generally willing to try their chance abroad, and that for many of the 1000 workers already in the Nanyō Islands, the Ryūkyū Islands were their home. Moreover, Okinawans were versed in sugar cane agriculture and used to the tropical climate (Matsue 1932:82). Matsue adopted new techniques developed by German researchers

Fig. 2 Personnel of the Saipan Bureau in Ceremony in the Presence of Emperor Hirohito. [Haruji Matsue Standing to the Right] (Matsue 1932:160). Translated from Japanese

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in sugar production and started the construction of 50 km of railroad to ease transportation. The Saipan Sugar Factory predating Matsue’s involvement was operational as soon as 1923, but the sugar cane fields were devastated by insects, and the fact the railway was not yet completed on the island largely hindered production. Moreover, 1923 was the year of the Great Kantō Earthquake, and the sugar that had been produced and sent to Yokohama was destroyed in the disaster. The investment of more money in the Nanyō Island was highly criticized at the time, but Matsue imported insect resistant sugar cane plants from the Philippines and developed a railroad network fast enough for the Saipan factory to be profitable as soon as 1925. The Nanyō Office accorded the monopoly in sugar cane production, sugar manufacture, and sugar trade in the Nanyō Islands to Nanyō Kōhatsu Kaisha, that developed into a gigantic company that accounted for 64% of the income produced under the administration of the Nanyō Office in 1932 (Iitaka 1999).

Life in the Marianas Although the prosperity of Nanyō Kōhatsu Kaisha was grounded in sugar manufacture, it employed people in each stage of the production from the growing of sugar cane to the shipping of sugar bags to mainland Japan. It also diversified its activities as soon as the 1930s with a wide range of domains including fishery, agriculture, alcohol production, ore extraction, oil production, transport, and trade. At its apogee just before the war, it employed 48,000 persons. Saipan, Tinian, and the smaller island of Rota to the south (see Fig. 1) essentially produced sugar. Okinawan people were employed in each of those industries, but most of them worked in agriculture or fishing. A survey held in 1948 recorded the details of 3,952 persons who had come back to Okinawa from the Nanyō Islands after the war (Okinawa Culture Development Association 2002:675685), including the occupations in which they used to work, that are detailed in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Occupation and Number of Okinawans formerly Employed on Tinian Occupation Agriculture Fishing Construction works Trade

Number of persons Tenant

561

Employee

996

Tenant

100

Employee

473

Tenant

46

Employee

217

Tenant

103

Employee

26

Government officials

229

Others

1201

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Agriculture included people working in direct management farms under the direct control of the company, the land tenants who were attributed land parcels of diverse sizes and cultivated them for the company, and land tenant employees. Tenants who were attributed more than 6 ha generally employed farmers to cultivate the land and took care of other activities themselves, such as the raising of cattle or horses. Many fishermen were also dispatched to the Nanyō Islands: of the 6,719 Japanese fishermen accounted for in 1942, 6,164 were from the Ryūkyūs. Socioeconomic mobility was possible. Iha Okimasa, a resident of Chatan whose parents emigrated to Saipan in 1922 (Iha 2006), explained that his father first came as a carpenter and then changed activities to build carts for the transportation of harvested sugar cane from the fields to the railroad before he became involved in agriculture. Asato Uto, who came as a bride to Tinian in 1937, explained that her husband started as an employee of a direct management farm, but was recruited by a tenant to work his land. He changed employers several times before he then became a land tenant (Asato 2002:97-100).

Residences and Everyday Life A large variety of residences were built on the different islands. Asato Uto said she first lived in a common house for two families with a zinc roof when her husband worked for a direct management farm. Her husband then started to work for a tenant whose wife came from the same hamlet as him in Okinawa. She doted on him, and assigned them a house with concrete foundations and a zinc roof constructed in a corner of their farm premises. His employer recommended him to the Nanyō Kōhatsu Kaisha manager and he was assigned land that had been left by a man who had to go back to Okinawa. The land included a house with a concrete building, a large cistern, a pig pen, and a stable. Unless stated otherwise, Okinawa refers to the main island of the Ryūkyū chain and not the prefecture. At the beginning of the 1920s, the daily wages for a manual worker in Saipan reached 1 yen and 10 sen (1/100 of one yen) while they were only receiving 30 sen in Okinawa (Asato 2002). At this time the yen was valued at approximately $0.30 American and continued to drop by WWII (https//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Japanese_yen). The money for sugar cane was paid to the tenants on the following year, supposedly because the board of directors of Kōhatsu was in Tōkyō and the money had to be sent from the mainland. When Asato Uto and her family took over the land of the person who had to come back to Okinawa, they received the money this man had earned the previous year (370 yen). The prizes for “particular accomplishments” her husband regularly won for his good work were of 3 or 5 yen so that 370 yen represented a large amount of money for their first year as independent tenants. On the other hand, in 1943 and 1944, due to the war, they did not receive any money. The life of the small farmers in the Mariana Islands detailed by Iha Okimasa and Asato Uto is generally similar to the one described by people who lived in Okinawa at the same period. Children on Tinian went to harvest grass for the cattle every day after school and took care of the pigs and goats, eating wild melons and watermelons growing in the fields, catching shrimp in the rivers (not on Tinian) and shellfish in Reprinted from the journal

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the sea. Farmers grew vegetables for their own use, collected and sold firewood to increase their income, and produced household manure for their fields. Life was easier than in Okinawa since the wages were higher. Asato Uto said they could eat rice every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner while in Okinawa they only ate rice in the evenings, the other meals being made of sweet potatoes. Most accounts from Okinawan people living in Okinawa at the same time agree that rice was not part of the common diet. For celebrations, people in the Nanyō Archipelago ate beef and goat, and drank awamori, a traditional rice wine that was made by Okinawan people in Tinian. There were soba noodle restaurants (that were particularly popular in Okinawa as well) and distractions included theaters giving Okinawan plays and even a cinema hall (Asato 2002:100). The economy in Okinawa meanwhile continued to be depressed for all but the landed nobility and Japanese merchant class, as the impending war gradually consumed much of East Asia and its resources. In anticipation of the war, a battalion of 1200 Japanese convicts was brought to Tinian in 1939 and a garrison of 8350 men was eventually stationed on the island to operate its defensive gun positions (Denfeld 1983). Two airfields were built, at Ushi to the north and at the present airport location, and a third was started at Kahet to the west. Around these airfields, barracks and administrative buildings were built, as well as defensive anti-aircraft batteries. Native Japanese and labor from Korea and Okinawa were forced to work on military construction projects day and night (Russell 1995). The influx of Japanese troops also brought housing pressures to the island. Schools were closed and used to house new troops, while students were put to work. By the war years of 1941 to 1944 sugarcane refining for sugar ceased in the Northern Mariana Islands and cane was diverted to Japan for the production of alcohol fuel (Russell 1983), while civilian laborers were relegated to military defenses with no wages and little time to grow their own food. After the war, the US Forces mandated evacuation of almost all the Asian immigrants on Tinian in 1946. According to Asato Uto, they started with the Japanese, and that Okinawans were the last to leave the islands. Uto said that Okinawans were told they could stay, but very few of them chose this option. She went by the thirteenth ship. They reached Okinawa Island in one week. Only the Okinawans who had emigrated to the Nanyō Islands (and survived) came back to the Ryūkyūs after the war: most of the other emigrants in US allied countries such as in Latin America stayed in their new country. Currently the fourth or fifth generation of descendants of those emigrants still cultivate strong links with their mother islands in the Ryūkyūs (Matayoshi 2009). After the war, food, clothes, and even cattle were sent from the emigrants and their descendants to the devastated Okinawa Prefecture.

Okinawan Emigration Elsewhere before and after WWII The growth of Tinian between 1932 and 1941, coincided with the last period of pre-war South American emigration. There were no South American documents located in this study for the period between 1932 and 1934. However, from 1935 to 1941 a total of 17,745 Okinawans emigrated abroad generally. Starting in 1934, Brazil fixed a quota on the total number of immigrants allowed, so that immigration from Okinawa declined as early as 1935. On the other hand, 57

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emigration toward the Philippines increased, reaching a peak of 2584 persons in 1937. Likewise, emigration toward Singapore and Indonesia increased, and even the number of people going to Hawaii suggests a slight rebound after 1936. From 1939, the Japanese government imposed an emigration policy to both Manchuria and Okinawa Prefecture. They sent 99 youth in 1939, 58 in 1940, and 50 in 1941 for the Manchuria Development Youth Brigades. A total of 200 households were also sent in 1940 as members of the Manchuria Development Group; it is unclear if Okinawa also had youth brigades. The period between 1942 and 1947 corresponded to a break in the emigration flux abroad due to WWII. Emigration resumed in 1948 with people sent to South America, first toward Argentina and then primarily to Brazil and Bolivia. After 1963, the number of emigrants drastically decreased, only reaching a few hundred or a few dozen per year (Matayoshi 2009).

The Tinian Plantation and Refinery Perhaps the best example of a combined Japanese company plantation town and sugar refinery was located on the island of Tinian (Ono and Ando 2007; Tuggle 2014). The island is not far south of Saipan, and very few native islanders remained after the arrival of the Japanese (Ono et al. 2002). Along the west coast at the location of a protected harbor, NKK established a company town, modeled after one founded in 1917 on Minami Daito, a small Japanese island east of Okinawa (Ono et al. 2002). Songsong, the former San Halon fishing village, became Tinian Town in 1933 with a sugar refinery (Fig. 3), post office, warehouse, railway sheds, administrative offices, fish market, ice storage building, clubhouse, dispensary, canteen, and about 70 company houses (Peattie 1988; Myers and Peattie 1984; Russell 1983). Also operated by Okinawans were an awamori bottling shop (Fig. 4), a beer brewery (Figs. 5 and 6), and a smithy outside of town (Fig. 7) as well as eating and drinking establishments (Welch and Bodner 2014). By 1930, NKK had imported laborers, many from Okinawa, cleared land for sugarcane plantations (Fig. 8), helped organized alcohol factories, constructed Shinto shrines, and built railroads to the wharf and into the sugar mill by 1930 (Fig. 9). Tinian was divided into rectangular plots of 6 ha within four plantations or farms, three of which were “agricultural lands” leased by tenant farmers (Fig. 10), most of whom paid rent in sugarcane and labor (Higuchi 1998). The island also supported several rural villages, a cattle farm near Lake Hagoi, several manure composting facilities (Tuggle and Higuchi 2012), and a small company town in rural north Tinian (Tuggle 2014). In addition, individual tenant-farmer housing compounds often reflected individual Okinawan designs (Dixon 2014) scattered through the fields, all tied together by the sugarcane railroad and field road system to the refinery (Farrell 2012). In 1944 the civilian population of Tinian was 17,900 with only 26 of those being native Chamorro; the majority of the population was Japanese, Okinawan, or Korean (Bowers 1950). “The anomalies involved in the social ranking of three fairly distinct classes that had emerged in Micronesia by the 1930s – main-island Japanese at the top, Okinawans and Koreans in the middle, and Micronesians at the bottom – served to increase the ambivalence of the indigenous populations toward Japanese immigrant communities” Reprinted from the journal

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Fig. 3 Tinian Sugar Factory. Letters for Prayer for the War Victory Can be seen on the Tanks. (Okinawa Culture Development Association 2002:99). Translated from Japanese

(Peattie 1988:220). It appears the majority of Koreans were single laborers, with only the Okinawans and some Japanese farmers bringing family with them to settle with land leases.

The Archaeology of the Sugar Plantation in Tinian Today Given that the shallow limestone-based clay soils in Tinian were not particularly rich in loam underneath, the removed jungle cover and the almost total lack of running water made irrigation an impossibility. Thus, the soils depleted over time without constant replenishing and fertilizing. Subsurface hoe scars have not been noted during limited excavations outside architectural remains in Tinian, nor have they been targeted for discovery. In contrast, such scars are routinely identified archaeologically in much deeper agricultural soils of Okinawa (Dixon et al. 2014). Planting and harvesting sugarcane on Tinian

Fig. 4 Bottling Awamori in Recycled Beer Bottles (Okinawa Culture Development Association 2002:76). Translated from Japanese

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Fig. 5 Garden of Nakamoto Brewery (Okinawa Culture Development Association 2002:89). Translated from Japanese

plantations may not have required such individual labor or left their archaeological scars, if conducted by large groups of supervised field labor (see Fig. 8) or early mechanization. Similar hand tools were utilized in both island groups, as recovered from archaeological contexts in middens at Tinian and in domestic Okinawan farmsteads, often near outdoor kitchens or concrete pigpens, latrines, and water catchment cisterns. Metal hoes and narrow-gauge railroad spikes, probably from the sugarcane fields, were recovered around household gardens and perhaps used for household repairs (Dixon 2004). They may well have been manufactured or modified by Mr. Kamiji’s smithy (see Fig. 7). Fragments of porcelain serving ware, earthenware storage vessels, and glass bottles of beer, sake, awamori, and shoyu were often discarded at the edge of these rural dwellings (Dixon 2004), and many beverages may not have been imported but rebottled by the Oomini awamori and Nakamoto breweries (Figs. 4–6).

Fig. 6 New Year 1937 at Nakamoto Brewery (Okinawa Culture Development Association 2002:79). Translated from Japanese

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Fig. 7 Smithy run by (Okinawan) Mr. Kamiji in Kaahii District (Okinawa Culture Development Association 2002:181). Translated from Japanese

Also in rural Tinian, at least three large concrete manuring facilities have been archaeologically located in rural portions of the island near pig farms, signifying the recognition of the unsuitability of limestone island soils under pressure from the repeated cropping of sugarcane (Tuggle and Higuchi 2012). This observation by the closing years of the Japanese colonial enterprise in the late 1930s, has led some scholars to believe that reduced sugar production from soil depletion was already a serious problem in the Northern Marianas, only exacerbated by the ensuing war after 1941 (Tuggle 2014). The early sugarcane railroad system between distant fields and the sugar refinery (see Fig. 3). did not always access coastal areas of military defenses. But later spurs portrayed (see Fig. 10). and metal rails and flatbed cars recorded in the field (Dixon 2004) indicate that large camouflaged defensive guns and building materials such as concrete were likely transported directly to their construction loci from the port (see Fig. 9). (Denfeld 1983).

Fig. 8 Contest for the Sugar Cane Harvesting Probably like Okinawan Harusuubu Tradition of Agricultural Contests (Okinawa Culture Development Association 2002:151). Translated from Japanese

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Fig. 9 Tinian Town Neighborhood of Nanyo Kohatsu Residential Area and Sugar Factory (Okinawa Culture Development Association 2002:16). Translated from Japanese

Okinawan Farmsteads Much of the industrial and commercial architecture of Tinian Town was destroyed during the US invasion in 1944, then subsequently rebuilt to accommodate over 150,000 American military personnel until 1946. In contrast, many rural civilian Okinawan sites in areas such as the Carolinas plateau were left relatively undisturbed (Jones et al. 2019), except by combat. Sugarcane fields occupied 80% of the arable land on Tinian (Dixon 2004), so farmsteads occupied the main arteries and intersections of haul roads, or the margins of the fields and edges of cliff lines with little soil depth. They also served as defensive positions for Japanese soldiers as civilians retreated to more distant refuges. Remnants of these Okinawan farmsteads included concrete water cisterns approximately 1 m deep by 1 m high and 2.5 m wide, originally with lids containing a covered entry and drainpipe apertures, plus an occasional low washing pad or platform. Concrete-walled pigpens kept this valuable asset secure and pigs were often fed from the family outhouse. Concrete house foundations or low pillars generally supported a wooden structure with a metal roof. In the case of site CHT-12, all these concrete remains were badly fragmented by shrapnel from artillery or aerial fire, alongside discards of the passing battle, including beer bottles (Fig. 11).

Okinawan Gardens Several pairs of garden features were encountered near the farmstead in a relatively flat area under cultivation prior to the war. These features such as site CHT-10 consisted of small rectangular enclosures made by either a single or double course of local limestone boulders (Figs. 12 and 13). The interiors appear to have been cleared of large rocks, and the enclosures are 2-3 m to a side. Seemingly paired with each enclosure was an irregular depression, 1-3 m in diameter and 30-60 cm deep; one rock enclosure had two such pits within 3 m. These low-walled enclosures would have been insufficiently tall to act as pens or foxholes of any kind, and hence are interpreted as stone-lined garden plots. Reprinted from the journal

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Fig. 10 Tinian Direct Management Farms and Agricultural Lands [caption not translated] (Okinawa Culture Development Association 2002:4). Translated from Japanese

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Fig. 11 Okinawan Farmstead Site Map CHT-12 Carolinas Plateau (Jones et al. 2019)

Soil in the area was generally very shallow, resting just above limestone bedrock, and would have been insufficiently deep to grow many deep root vegetables. The stone-lined enclosures may have served to contain soil borrowed from the adjacent pits, forming a low raised bed that could be cleared and maintained. The irregular holes found in association with the enclosures are interpreted as borrow pits, where existing Reprinted from the journal

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Fig. 12 Okinawan Garden Plot Site CHT-10 Carolinas Plateau (Jones et al. 2019)

soil was removed in order to deepen the soil profile in the enclosed space. Three loci were recorded within 10-20 m of each other, forming a north-south string of garden plots. Large concrete cistern and pad complexes located approximately 150 m east of the garden plots speak to occupation of the area, as do remnant fields filled with sword 65

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Fig. 13 Okinawan Garden Plot Site CHT-10 Carolinas Plateau (Jones et al. 2019)

grass and the presence of cultivars such as calamansi (Citrofortunella microcarpa) and papaya (Carica papaya), which were noted in the area.

Okinawan Refuges and Military Defenses WWII civilian Okinawan refuges and hastily built Japanese defenses in rural settings (Fig. 14) were also found in cliff lines beyond the edge of sugarcane field systems and farmsteads, most with some evidence of being defended by Japanese military in the last days of the battle on the southern Carolinas plateau (Jones et al. 2019). Most low cobble walled refuges appeared constructed in haste with minimal attempt at camouflage, though several were situated overlooking limited access points to the plateau, suggesting Japanese military and not civilian security considerations. Many of these hastily constructed walled refuges in limestone cracks and under boulders contained artifacts left behind by civilian Okinawan farmers and their families (Figs. 15 and 16), as well as by Japanese soldiers (Jones et al. 2019). Beer and sake or shoyu bottles, some used for water storage to judge from their necks broken by American soldiers, often littered these refuges. Sometimes present were flanged metal rice cookers, ceramic serving and eating vessels, and metal food trays of military issue. Also present in some such refuges such as site CHT-14 were Japanese military issue clothing, canteens pierced by American bayonets to preclude further use, helmets, grenades, and bullets from rifles and machine guns (Fig. 17), plus human remains abandoned in the last moments of combat.

Discussion As has been noted by earlier examinations of Japanese archival records and photographs of the early twentieth-century Okinawan diaspora to the CNMI, “Tinian town is a good illustration of a comprehensively planned Japanese colonial sugar town, comprising all the key elements found in Garapan and Chalan Kanoa [Saipan] but in Reprinted from the journal

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Fig. 14 Okinawan Civilian and Military Refuge Site CHT-14 Carolinas Plateau (Jones et al. 2019)

a more compact arrangement” (Ono et al. 2002:338). Moreover, the archaeological remains of the diaspora today also demonstrate that virtually the entire island of Tinian was a planned cultural landscape as were Saipan, Rota, and to a lesser extent Pagan, with the diaspora orchestrated by the NKK in close coordination with the colonial government of Japan and the Okinawan Prefecture. 67

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Fig. 15 Okinawan Civilian and Military Refuge Artifacts Site CHT-14 Bottles, Rice Cooker, Metal Tray, and Ceramic Top Carolinas Plateau (Jones et al. 2019)

In comparison to Tinian, the capital of colonial administration in the Marianas was located in the sprawling town of Garapan on the west coast of Saipan (see Fig. 1), situated close to the small commercial port of Tanapag to the north and its mixed Chamorro and Carolinian community (Russell 1984). The headquarters of the Saipan NKK and its sugar refinery and distillery to make “Genuine Old Scotch Whiskey” were located to the south of Garapan in the community of Chalan Kanoa (Farrell 2016) nestled between the coastal lagoon and a shallow lake Susupe. This Japanese sugar company town was likely modeled on one built in Minami Daito in the Ryūkyū Islands north of Okinawa (Ono et al. 2002), with orderly streets and modern residential compounds separating executives, management, and labor while supporting 3,400 mostly immigrant employees by 1935. Also provided were tennis courts, NKK clubhouses, a company kindergarten, and a NKK store where employees could buy household products on credit or chose to enter Garapan to shop via bicycle along

Fig. 16 Okinawan Civilian and Military Refuge Artifacts Site CHT-14 Bottles, Rice Cooker, Porcelain and Enamel Bowls Carolinas Plateau (Jones et al. 2019)

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Fig. 17 Okinawan Civilian and Military Refuge Artifacts Site CHT-14 Cooking and Serving Ware, Grenade, and Bullets Carolinas Plateau (Jones et al. 2019)

shaded walking paths. A narrow-gauge train brought the island’s sugarcane harvest to the refinery from three large plantations and the Okinawan labor to and from the fields daily (Sugar King Foundation 2017). While the twisted remains of the Tinian sugar refinery are under dense jungle today after fierce WWII shelling and combat in 1944, some idea may be gained by comparing it to the NKK refinery in Songsong Village on the island of Rota to the south (see Fig. 1). Songsong or Rota Town was a smaller village (Dixon 2004) comprising all the key elements found in Garapan and Chalan Kanoa, but in a more compact arrangement like Tinian Town, situated on a narrow isthmus connecting the main island to a much smaller limestone promontory. The Rota sugar plant was completed and operational in 1936 after five years of survey for the cane plantations on the plateaus above where the farmers resided (Higuchi in Dixon 2000). The remains of a portion of the sugarcane railway, its loading docks in the fields, masonry bridges across streams, and associated Okinawan farmstead remains have been recorded at some distance from the sugar refinery (Dixon 2014) but are not interpreted in situ today. The island of Rota was frequently bombed but never invaded during WWII until after the surrender. The Japanese population living in the town of Shomshon on the smaller volcanic island of Pagan located well north of Saipan (see Fig. 1) remained low in numbers until the construction of military defenses and a runway called “place for drying fishing nets” in the early 1940s (Higuchi in Athens 2009). By then the town could boast stores to sell pastries and tofu, plus a coffee shop, brothel, elementary school, workers housing, wireless communication facility, police station, weather station, Shinto shrine, and a small wharf at Pontan Bandera (Dixon et al. 2014). It is also by that time that Pagan was no longer just an idyllic stepping stone in the East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, but clearly an integral part of the “Absolute National Defense Sphere” whose residents were expected to sacrifice all to protect the Japanese homeland (Price and Knecht 2012). Sugarcane was never introduced on a plantation scale, so the population barely exceeded 2000 Japanese military and fewer Chamorro and Carolinian civilians,

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plus 1000 Okinawan bonito fishermen by WWII, when the island was bombed but never invaded, until after the war. The initial sugarcane industry with early plantation towns in Taiwan and Okinawa incorporated aspects of urban planning into a design based on observations by Japanese engineers of European and Hawaiian plantations in 1896 and then 1905, and a 76 cmgauge railroad as used on Maui. “Where the early model of Hawaiian housing came from at the turn of the twentieth century still remains to be investigated and some resemblance with contemporary plantation housing of the southern states of the US mainland is noticeable” (Ono and Ando 2007:182). It should be mentioned here with that model in mind, that after being awarded a scholarship from the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce in 1903, a young Haruji Matsue (see Fig. 2) attended the agricultural program at Louisiana State University associated with the Audubon Sugar School in New Orleans. On his way home to Japan he visited a sugar company in Pennsylvania to learn how to make sugar cubes, then apprenticed briefly at the Spreckels Sugar Company in Hawaii (Ballendorf 1997), returning home with a degree in 1907. As has been stated elsewhere (Dixon and Tuggle 2014:ii), this built environment on Tinian and the other NKK islands could only have been constructed by the large-scale diaspora of tens of thousands of Japanese citizens from Okinawa and elsewhere. But while the land and building materials were provided by NKK, the labor and the design of individual farmsteads likely reflected the agency and self-sufficiency of the Okinawan immigrants themselves. This idyllic way of life came to an abrupt halt by the spring of 1944, however, when maritime commerce and communication with mainland Japan ended and military self-defense became a higher priority than civilian survival from bombing raids. Rudimentary civilian refuges and military defenses in the cliff lines near the Carolinas plateau farmsteads in southern Tinian, and the domestic cooking artifacts and beverages discarded by the occupants mixed with their remains, bespeak the desperation and horror in which combat took place for all. Rural farms, resources, livestock, labor, and railroads were coopted for military priorities, civilian war casualties were high, and survivors ended up in American detention camps until repatriation in 1946.

Conclusions While many if not most of these Okinawan individuals and families presumably emigrated for their own personal betterment well before WWII, their eventual usefulness in constructing military defenses on the same islands did not go unnoticed by the Japanese government, which helped finance this unprecedented growth in the shadow of a looming global conflict. Tariffs on imported sugar and other raw materials produced outside the Northern Mariana Islands certainly underwrote what was also a useful policy to reduce overpopulation in Okinawa and elsewhere in rural Japan. Longterm geopolitical objectives in Micronesia were not likely overlooked by the military and imperial government, however, nor by NKK. The letters painted on the three molasses tanks next to the Tinian sugar refinery (see Fig. 3) declaring “Prayer for the War Victory” make this proposition self-evident. Reprinted from the journal

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Japanese sources accessed in the University of the Ryūkyūs and Urasoe City libraries in Okinawa contained oral accounts from former occupants of Tinian as synthesized above and cited in the references below. However, these sources did not contain photographs of vernacular architecture occupied by the Okinawan farmers in rural settings nor their labor in the fields or at home, the majority of photographs being of urban Tinian Town and its then modern amenities, presumably a higher matter of pride to the NKK. Archaeological excavations within the urban footprint of Tinian Town are today prompted by infrastructure improvements and do not generally target Japanese-era architectural remains. In contrast, subsurface excavations of rural pre-war farmsteads and WWII military defenses are rarely triggered when these sites can be avoided; survey and recording being the preferred option for preservation. Archival photographs, maps, and translated text located in Okinawa are therefore of increasing value to scholars and cultural landscape managers in the Northern Mariana Islands, especially after natural disasters such as Typhoon Yutu and now Covid 19. Data Availability Statement Archival photographs from Tinian are accessible to the public upon request in volumes cited below at the Urasoe Public Library (https://urasoecity.fandom.com/wiki/Urasoe_Public_ Library) and the library of the University of the Ryūkyūs (https://librarytechnology.org/library/11325). Archaeological field photographs from Tinian are accessible to the public upon request in the Cardno GS technical volume cited below at the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Historic Preservation Office (www.dcca.gov.mp/hpo-historic-preservation-office).

References Asato, S. (2002). Kyū nan’yō guntō teniantō imin no kikitori kiroku – Okinawa hontō goekuson shusshin asato uto no baai – [Records of hearing surveys from emigrants in Tinian Island in the former Nan’yō Archipelago – the case of Asata Uto from Goeku Village in Okinawa Island –] (旧南洋群島テニアン島移 民の聞き取り記録- 縄本島越来村身安里ウトの場合-). Shiryō henshū shitsu kiyō [Journal of the Historical Documents Edition Room] (史料編集室紀要) 27: 97-106. Athens, S. (2009). Final Archaeological Surveys and Cultural Resources Studies on Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Support of the Joint Guam Build Up Environmental Impact Statement Volume III-I: Tinian Narrative Report and Volume II-I: Saipan, Sarigan, and Pagan Narrative Report. International Archaeological Research Institute, Inc., Honolulu. Ballendorf, D. (1997). Colonial Japan in Micronesia. Manuscript on file, Micronesian Area Research Center, University of Guam, Mangilao. Bowers, N. (1950). Problems of Resettlement on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota, Mariana Islands. Pacific Science Research Board and National Research Council, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Denfeld, C. (1983). A Field Survey and Historical Overview, North Field, Tinian. Division of Historic Preservation, Saipan, CNMI. Dixon, B. (2004). Archaeological patterns of rural settlement and class on a pre-WWII Japanese plantation, Tinian, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 8(9): 281-299. Dixon, B. (2014). Transforming the diaspora: an early twentieth century Japanese railroad on Rota, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Pan-Japan: The International Journal of the Japanese Diaspora 11(1/2): 94-120. Dixon, B., Garrigue, A., and Mukai, T. (2014). Archaeological Test Excavations in Support of Kubasaki High School Replacement Project, Marine Corps Base Smedley D. Butler, Okinawa, Japan. Cardno TEC Inc., Guam, and ARCGEO Inc., Okinawa. Dixon, B. and Tuggle, D. (2014). The Japanese diaspora in Micronesia: its archaeological context: introduction. Pan-Japan The International Journal of the Japanese Diaspora 11(1/2): i-ix. Farrell, D. (2012). Tinian: A Brief History. Pacific Historic Parks, Honolulu.

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:625–647 Farrell, D. (2016). Saipan: A Brief History. Micronesian Productions, Tinian. Higuchi, W. (1998) Appendix A. Tinian Power Plant Proposed Sites: A Historical Overview. In Moore, D.R., R.L. Hunter-Anderson, E.F. Wells, and J.R. Amesbury. Archaeological and Historical Research at the Tinian Power Plant Site, San Jose Village, Tinian Island, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Prepared for Telesource Inc. Micronesian Archaeological Research Services, Mangilao, Guam. Higuchi, W. (2000) Interview with Jiro Takemura, in B. Dixon, Archaeological Survey of Rota Highway 100, Island of Rota, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. International Archaeological Research Institute, Inc., Honolulu. Iha, O. (2006). Okinawa, saipan no kurashi [Life in Okinawa and Saipan] (沖縄、サイパンのらし). In Chatan Town (ed.), Heisei jūhachi nendo senji taikensha kōwakai [2006 Year War Survivors Conference Series] (平成18年度戦時体験者講話会). http://www.chatan.jp/choseijoho/heiwagyosei/senjitaikensha/h18_ senjitaikensha/1.html Iitaka, S. (1999). Nippon tōchika mariana shotō ni okeru seitōgyōno tenkai: nan'yō kōhatsu kabushikigaisha no okinawa kenjin rōdō imin dōnyū to genchi shakai no henyō [The development of suger (sic) industry in the Mariana Islands under Japanese rule: the introduction of Okinawa labor immigrants by the South Seas development company and the cultural change in native societies] (日本統治下マリアナ諸島における製 糖業の展開:南洋興発株式会社の沖縄県人労働移民導入と現地社会の変容), Shigaku [The historical Science] (史 学) 69(1): 107-140. Ishikawa, Y. (1974). Kaigai imin no tenkai [The expansion of foreign emigration] (海外移民の展開). In Board of Education of Okinawa Prefecture (ed.), Okinawaken shi dai nana kan imin [History of Okinawa Prefecture vol. 7 Emigration] (沖縄県史 第七巻 移民), Board of Education of Okinawa Prefecture, Naha, pp. 204-251. Ishikawa, Y. (2005). Okinawa ni okeru shutsuimin no rekishi oyobi shutsuimin yōinron [History and theories of emigrants from Okinawa Prefecture] (沖縄県における出移民の歴史及び出移民要因論). Imin Kenkyū [Imigration Studies] (移民研究) 1: 11-30. Ishikawa, Y. (2011). Kyū nan’yō guntō nihonjin imin no seikatsu to idō – okinawaken shusshin imin no jirei wo chūshin ni – [Life and movements of the Japanese migrants in the former Nan’yō Archipelago – essentially based on the examples of migrants from Okinawa Prefecture] (旧南洋群島日本人移民の生活と移 動―沖縄県出身移民の事例を中心に ). Imin Kenkyū [Imigration Studies] (移民研究) 7: 123-142. Jones, R., Welch, D., Dixon, B., and Nelson, I. (2019). Final Report: Archaeological Survey of 50 Hectares in the Carolinas Heights Region, Tinian, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Cardno GS, Boise and Guam. Matayoshi, Y. (2009). Nan'yō imin no katari ni miru "iminzō" – saipan ni watatta okinawakei nisei no raifu hisutorii kara – [The image of migrants as seen in the stories of Nan'yō migrants – from the life history of a second generation Okinawan who had crossed to Saipan –] (南洋移民の語りにみる「移民像」 -サイパンに った沖縄系2世のライフヒストリ から-), Imin Kenkyū [Immigration Studies] (移民研究) 5: 87112. Matsue, H. (1932). A Record of Ten Years of Development in the South Seas, Nan’yo Kohatsu K. K, Tokyo. Myers, M. and Peattie, M. (1984). The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895-1945. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. Okinawa Culture Development Association, Archival Management Historical Materials Edition Office. (2002). Okinawa Prefecture History Historical Materials 15 (1 on 2 volumes), Photographic Records related to the Former Nanyo Archipelago (Vol. 1) Contemporary Period 4, Okinawa Prefecture Board of Education: Naha. Ono, K. and Ando, T. (2007). A study of urban morphology of Japanese colonial towns, in Nan’yo Gunto, part 3: origins of the model Japanese sugar plantation town in Taiwan. Journal of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Engineering 612:177-184. Ono, K., Lea, J., and Ando, T. (2002). A study of urban morphology of Japanese colonial towns, in Nan’yo Gunto, part 1: Garapan, Tinian, and Chalan Kanoa in Northern Marianas. Journal of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Engineering 566:333-339. Peattie, M. (1988). Nanyo The Rise and Fall of the Japanese in Micronesia 1885-1945. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu. Price, N. and Knecht, R. (2012). Peleliu 1944: the archaeology of a South Pacific D-Day. Journal of Conflict Archaeology 7(1)5-48. Russell, S. (1983). Rising Sun over the Northern Marianas: Life and Culture under the Japanese Administration (1914-1944). CNMI Division of Historic Preservation, Saipan. Russell, S. (1984). From Arabawal to Ashes: A Brief History of Garapan Village, 1818 to 1945. CNMI Division of Historic Preservation, Saipan. Russell, S. (1995). Tinian: The Final Chapter. CNMI Division of Historic Preservation, Saipan.

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:625–647 Sugar King Foundation. (2017). A Historical Portrait of Haruji Matsue. http://www.sugarking.org/hmFrame. html Tuggle, D. (2014). The archaeological landscape of Japanese era Tinian, Mariana Islands. Pan-Japan The International Journal of the Japanese Diaspora 11(1/2): 74-115. Tuggle, D. and Higuchi, W. (2012). Concrete Terraces and Japanese Agricultural Production on Tinian, Mariana Islands. First Marianas History Conference, Guampedia. Welch, D. and Bodner, C. (2014). Japanese farmsteads in southern Tinian: archaeology, history, and recollections. Pan-Japan The International Journal of the Japanese Diaspora 11(1/2): 121-164. Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:648–662 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-020-00570-8

Jizo (Ksitigarbha) Statues under Palm Trees: The Materialization of Early Japanese Immigrant Culture in Hawai‘i Akira Goto 1 Accepted: 29 September 2020 / Published online: 19 October 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract Since 1885, nearly 200,000 Japanese immigrants went to Hawai‘i. Although a body of literature on these immigrants already exists, intensive studies of their material culture like gravestones are limited. The focus of this paper is a particular type of grave, jizobaka, which bears an image of jizo (Ksitigarbha) and is primarily associated with children. The analysis shows that distinct styles of jizo-baka indicates several aspects of immigrants’ life and their history, and that gravestone studies have the potential to disclose many unexplored aspects of Japanese immigrant life in Hawai‘i. Keywords Hawai‘i . Japanese . gravestone . jizo

Introduction One of the central issues in American folklore and historical archaeology is the study of immigrant cultures. These studies originally focused on immigrants from European countries, but after the 1970s attention had also been directed toward non-European people, such as, African Americans and immigrants from Asia (Schuyler 1980). Within historical archaeology there are three general approaches: (1) a historical or literature approach based on written records, such as diplomatic papers, contract records, probate records, individual diaries, letters, and so on; (2) an oral history approach based on interviews with informants; and (3) material culture studies such as this report. These three approaches, however, are not exclusive to each other, but rather should be integrated (Beaudry 1988; Goto 1993; McGuire 1982; Martin and Garrison 1997).

* Akira Goto agoto@nazan–u.ac.jp

1

Department of Anthropology and Culture, Faculty of Humanities, Nanzan University, 18 Yamazto-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya City 466-8673, Japan 75

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A body of literature already exists on Japanese immigrants in Hawai‘i (Ogawa and Fujioka 1975), but intensive studies on the material culture of Asian immigrants are limited (Char and Char 1983, 1988). There are a few exceptions in the study of Japanese immigrants in Hawai‘i: studies have been made of the tool kits of carpenters (Goto et al. 1983), traditional clothes (Kawakami 1993), fishing gear (Goto 1989), funeral custom (Kimura 1958), and consumer behavior (Imai 2010). Although gravestone studies, or necrogeography, pioneered by Deetz (Deetz 1977; Deetz and Dethlefsen 1967) and Ludwig (1966) has been one of the main topics in historical archaeology of the mainland US (Meyer 1989, 1993; Sloane 1991), few such studies have been done in the State of Hawai‘i (e.g., Krause-Frieberg 2011). This paper attempts to fill the gap of this study area by focusing on Japanese gravestones in Hawai‘i.

Graves and Cemeteries Since 1884 when the first official immigrants from Japan arrived at Hawai‘i, more than 200,000 Japanese immigrants entered Hawai‘i, forming a substantial component of Hawaiian society. Although a body of literature on Japanese immigrants already exists, intensive studies on their material culture are limited. I have been surveying stone relics and gravestones at temples and cemeteries since the 1990s. So far, I have conducted research on all of the major four islands in the State of Hawai‘i, and visited 80 temples or shrines, and 45 cemeteries (Fig. 1; Table 1). Since the Japanese went to Hawai‘i to work on sugarcane plantations, old Japanese cemeteries are mostly found around plantation camps (Fig. 2). Later on, the Japanese moved to urban areas for new jobs, and these religious facilities came to be formed near towns. Plantation cemeteries tend to have been formed by ethnic groups, since sugarcane companies had policies in place to separate different ethnic groups in social life.

Fig. 1 Main Hawaiian Islands

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:648–662 Table 1. Japanese Cemeteries Researched District

Honolulu

‘Ewa Ko‘olauloa

Waimea

Kōloa Lihu‘e Kawaihau Hanalei

Wailuku

Lahaina

Kula

Kohala Hamakua

Hilo Puna Ka‘ū Kona

Cemetery

Note

Makiki Mō‘ili‘ili Nu‘uanu ‘Aiea ‘Ewa Kahuku

multi-ethnic multi-ethnic multi-ethnic

in the golf course

Kekaha Waimea Kaumakani Hanapēpē Hanapēpē Hights Port Allen Lāwai Lihu‘e Wailua Anahola Hanalei

in the sugarcane field on the beach on the beach multi-ethnic

Wailuku Wailapu Pa‘ia Olowalu Māla Stone Crusher Honolua Shofukuji

Mantokuji Temple 満徳寺 in the sugarcane field Lahaina Jomo Mission Temple ラハイナ浄土院 on the beach in the golf course Shofukuji Temple 正福寺 Kohala Jodo Mission Temple コハラ浄土院

Kohala Kamuela Kukuihaoke Honoka‘a Pa‘auhau Pa‘auilo Laupāhoehoe Ō‘ō kala ‘Alae Mt. View Pāhala Nā‘ālehu Kona Hongwanji Hōlualoa Keōpū

in the sugarcane field Hamakua Jodo Mission ハマクア浄土院 Pa‘auilo Hongwanji パアウイロ本願寺 almost disappeared by land construction? multi-ethnic multi-ethnic (with Portuguese graves) Pāhala Hongwanji パハラ本願寺 Kona Hongwanji コナ本願寺

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Fig. 2 Japanese Graves near Sugar Cane Factory (Hanapepe, Kaua‘i, 1992)

In contrast, urban cemeteries tend to include graves of several ethnic groups. One interesting point is the dominance of ethnicity in even these cemeteries. For instance, in Makiki Cemetery, Honolulu, Japanese graves are located separately from the graves of Chinese, Portuguese, or other ethnic groups. These Japanese graves comprise those of many religions and religious sects, such as Christianity, Shinto, Tenrikyo, a variety of Buddhist mission, and so on (Fig. 3). Nonetheless, these graves are clustered together, separated from the graves of other groups. Usually, the distinctive graves of Okinawan immigrants were located separately from those of the main islands of Japan (Fig. 4). This supreme importance of ethnicity in determining the location of graves may be related to the organization of religious missions: each religious mission tended to be organized by ethnic group. There are various types of Japanese graves in Hawai‘i, but the majority are Buddhist. Like graves in Japan, they show stylistic changes through time. In the early period (before 1900), the deceased were often buried under a simple accumulation of stones or wooden monuments. In these days, the deceased were often buried without cremation. Gradually stone graves that resembled Buddhist mortuary tablets became popular (Fig. 5). Subsequently, however, the rectangular type came to comprise a majority (Fig. 6).

Fig. 3 Diversity of Japanese Gravestones (near Aiea, Plantation Camp, O‘ahu, 1991)

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Fig. 4 Grave of Okinawan Immigrants (Wailuku, Maui)

In Japan, the rectangular type remains the most popular today, but in Hawai‘i, the flattablet type is now equally popular (Fig. 7a). The flat-tablet type that resembles Christian gravestones is now preferred because of its convenience when making horizontal inscriptions with the English alphabet. In addition, unlike most of the Japanese graves, the date of birth is often inscribed together with the date of death on these flat-type gravestones (Fig. 7b). Another trend found in gravestones is the change from individual graves to family graves. Since the same phenomenon is found in Japan (Yanakita 1931), it is not certain whether this change should be explained by the influence from Japan or by some sociocultural factors in Hawai‘i. Although there are many issues to be discussed, in the following, I will focus on two aspects of Japanese gravestones: epitaphs and funerary statuaries.

Epitaphs Like grave markers of other ethnic groups, Japanese graves have several kinds of features. Compared with the epitaphs of European immigrants, Japanese epitaphs or

Fig. 5 Mortuary Tables Type Gravestones (Makiki Cemtery, Honolulu)

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Fig. 6 Rectangular Type Gravestones (Makiki Cemetery, Honolulu)

inscriptions are relatively simple: describing only “facts” concerning the individual, such as, name, the age of death, the date of death, and so on. Some researchers who have surveyed gravestones of European immigrants on the mainland indicate that

Fig. 7 (a and b). Flat-Type Gravestones (note that, unlike most of the Japanese graves, the date of birth is inscribed together with the date of death)

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specific religious sentences and personal expressions are often found on gravestones, such as, hymns, poems, and so on (Bene 1977; Ludwig 1966). Such expressions are rare on Japanese gravestones, though Buddhistic sutras are found on some gravestones. The epitaph of Japanese graves has a complex history. Japanese epitaphs are usually made using Chinese characters. The Chinese characters used for epitaphs changed from traditional style to simplified style. The same thing happened in Japan, after World War II. The epitaphs on recent Japanese graves in Hawai‘i, however, further show changes that are not found in Japan, such as the use of the English alphabet (Goto 1993; KrauseFrieberg 2011). When analyzing Japanese epitaphs, however, we should examine not only the literal meaning, but their formal characteristics. Since the Japanese language has a flexibility for inscribing, epitaphs are grooved either vertically or horizontally. In Japan, the most popular mode of inscribing is vertical to this day. But in Hawai‘i, probably because of the limitation of the space on gravestones, epitaphs were often carved horizontally. This horizontal mode accords with the recent use of the alphabetic inscriptions. The epitaphs are made to record the name, age of death, date of death, place of birth, kinship relations and other social features of the buried person. For example, concerning the place of birth, the address of Japan is usually engraved on early gravestones (Goto 1993; Krause-Frieberg 2011). Historic documents indicate that early immigrants mostly dreamed of earning money in Hawai‘i and going back home. The detailed record of their place of birth suggests their strong identity as Japanese, even though they could not actually go back to Japan. Among several kinds of information on epitaphs, I discuss date of death and Buddhistic names (kaimyo 戒名or homyo法名). Until today, Japanese have used two different ways of marking time: the Western (Christian) style, and the Japanese style (gengo 元号). In the latter system, the name of era changes when the emperor dies, and a new emperor takes over the position. One interesting phenomenon is that dates were expressed using the Japanese style before WWII, but afterward, the dates were expressed in the Western style using Chinese characters (e.g. 明治二七年 vs. 一九五四年)(Goto 1993; Krause-Frieberg 2011). On family graves in which multiple persons are buried, different modes of inscriptions sometimes co-exist. For example, Fig. 8 shows a gravestone that have different mode of inscriptions: the right column is expressed in gengo: Taisho 8 (大正八 年), or 1919 in the Western calendar. The central and right columns are expressed in Western style, 1944 (一九四四) and 1941 (一九四一), respectively. 1941 is the year when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7. I have noticed that this changing trend started around the early 1940s. This change in the expression may reflect a change in language ability. Moreover, the adoption of the Western style around the war seems to be intentional: the relationship between the US and Japan started to worsen in the 1930s, and the Japanese in Hawai‘i might have avoided using a traditional time-marking system based on the succession of emperors, since the emperor was the symbol of the Japanese who had become the enemy of the Americans. I argue that this is also related to the changing identity among the Japanese immigrants, from the first generation (Issei) to the second generation (Nisei), or from the Japanese to the Japanese Americans.

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Fig. 8 Gravestones on which both Gengo and Western-style dates of death are inscribed. (Mo‘ili‘ili Cemetery, Honolulu)

Another piece of important information is Buddhistic names on gravestones, since Buddhistic names are given according to prescriptions of each Buddhistic mission (Daihorin 1993). Different kinds of Buddhistic names are given, according to the sex of the buried (居士 for men vs. 大姉 for women), the age (e.g., 童子for boys vs. 童女 for girls) (see Fig. 5), and how much they paid to the Buddhist monks (e.g., 大居士、居 士、信士). One can guess which Buddhistic sect the buried person belonged to, by examining kaimyo. For example, one Chinese character “釋” is put at the head of Buddhistic names on many graves in Hawai‘i, and this indicates that the buried persons belonged to Jodo Shinshu mission (浄土真宗) such as Hongwanji (本願 寺). Also, specific Chinese characters could be used, according to status, and occupation of the buried. I learned from a Buddhist monk in Hawai‘i that even a discriminatory kaimyo (差別戒名) used for buraku-min (部落民) was introduced to Hawai‘i from Japan. Unlike other kinds of epitaphs, Buddhistic names tend to be inscribed on the front side of gravestones. Buddhistic names that comprise Chinese characters specific to Buddhistic philosophy have higher symbolic value than other kinds of epitaphs, such as name, date of death, kinship relations, and so on. Even on modern graves whose epitaphs are inscribed alphabetically, only Buddhistic names continue to be inscribed traditionally in Chinese characters. The difficulty in expressing Buddhistic names in the alphabet is related to the fact that Chinese characters are ideograms: each character has a meaning. Probably to the Japanese in Hawai‘i, and especially to the younger generation, Buddhistic names inscribed in difficult Chinese characters appeared to be Reprinted from the journal

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a kind of icon. Buddhistic names today may serve as visual symbols more than their literal meanings.

Stone Statues and Funerary Statuary Religious Stone Statues Japanese immigrants constructed various kinds of religious stone statues. They represent several kinds of Buddhistic deities. Among them Jizo (Kshitigarbha) is the most popular motif on stone statues. In Japan, the Jizo is also the most popular motif on funerary statues. Jizo is a type of hotoke (bosatsu 菩薩) who is believed to help the souls of children at the bank of the Sanzu River (三途の川) which flows between the "living world" and the "dead world (hell)." This is the reason why Jizo are popular on children's graves (doushji-baka 童子墓) (Fig. 9). Jizo are also constructed at temples, cemeteries, or along the road. In Japan, Jizo used to stand at the entrance of the villages, cemeteries, or temples. In Japanese folk culture, this deity is believed to serve as a guardian. In Hawai‘i, Jizo statues standing along the roads were constructed to protect against accidents, such as drowning (Fig. 10). Jizo statues found in several cemeteries were constructed for calming wandering souls for which nobody prays. These Jizo statues in Hawai‘i, however, often lack heads, or heads once detached from the body are now re-attached with concrete.

Fig. 9 Jizo-baka (Makiki Cemetery, Honolulu)

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Fig. 10 Jizo Statue without Head (Lāwai Cemetery, Kaua‘i)

Japanese informants say that most were broken during wartime. For instance, there are some Jizo statues that became the target of the army’s shooting practice during WWII. Funerary Statuaries Funerary statuaries are defined as a type of gravestone that has a kind of anthropomorphic figure on its face. These figures represent types of Buddhistic gods or humans (e.g., monks, women, children, etc.). I have identified 160 funerary statuaries. As already mentioned, Jizo is the most popular motif on these gravestones, and more than 90% of the funerary statuaries were constructed for children under ten years old (Fig. 11).

Fig. 11 Frequency of the buried person’s age on Jizo-baka. (Goto 1993: fig.1)

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The prefecture of the buried or their parents is indicated in Table 2. This reflects the places of birth of immigrants, such as Yamaguchi, Hiroshima, Kumamoto, and Fukuoka. However, I have found no funerary statuaries from Okinawa immigrants, who had a different religious tradition. Though the most popular figure of funerary statuaries is jizo (Jizo-baka), some statues could represent famous monks (Kobo-Daishi 弘法大師), or children. The statues for some graves represent women which might be related to the cult of the "Goddess of Mercy (Kwannon観音)." Two-thirds of the statues are depicted standing (立位), while the rest are depicted sitting (座位). Hand positions are almost 80 % gassho 合掌 (placing both hands together for praying). If the hands are not placed together, they usually hold some accessory. Accessories held by statues includes such objects as a sacred ball (hoju 宝珠), a Buddhistic rosary (juzu 数珠), a lotus flower (renge 蓮華), a stick (shakujo 錫杖), or an enrolled sutra (kyokan 経巻). One-third of statues are engraved with a lotus-flower base (rendai 蓮台). Funerary statuaries were made from the 1890s until the 1930s (Fig. 12). The peak of construction was in the early 1900s. Funerary statuaries were mostly constructed for individuals. During the early 1900s, Japanese burial style changed from individual graves to family graves both in Japan and Hawai‘i. The later popularity of family graves may have had some relevance to the decrease of funerary statuaries that were primarily constructed for children, since children came to be buried in family graves. I have been able to distinguish several distinct styles of funerary statuaries. These styles are analyzed from the posture of statues, hand position, mode of costume, and various accessories. For example, Fig. 13 shows the distribution of several styles on Kaua‘i Island. These styles show areal distribution, with some overlap, on the southern coast of the island where plantation camps were located. In addition to this spatial distribution is a temporal one. For instance, statuaries of one style are found in three cemeteries in Hāmāuka District, Pā‘auhau, Pa‘aulilo and ‘Ōkala Japanese cemeteries (Fig. 14). However, in the Pa‘aulilo cemetery, this style was replaced with another style. The former style was used for immigrants from Yamaguchi Prefecture, and the latter mainly from Kumamoto Prefecture. This indicates Table 2. Prefectures on Funerary Statuaries

Prefecture

Num.

Yamaguchi

41

Hiroshima

25

Kumamoto

24

Fukuoka

17

Nigata

3

Wakayama

2

Fukushima

2

Chiba

1

Ehime

1

Shizuoka

1

Total

117

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Fig. 12 Temporal Trend of Construction of Jizo-baka (Goto 1993: based on Table 2)

the immigrants from Kumamoto Prefecture were late comers (probably after 1913) to the plantation near the Pa‘aulilo cemetery. The former style not only lost its popularity, but also the statuaries of this style seem to have been abandoned, being grouped together in one place as muen-baka (無縁墓) (i.e., the tomb of someone with no relatives to mourn their death). Statuary styles are so distinct that they must have been made by individual stone carvers. It seems that there were stone carvers in one of these camps, and they were supplying gravestones to the people of adjacent camps. This in turn suggests that

Fig. 13 Distribution of Jizo-baka style on Kaua‘i Island: (a) Kekaha, (b) & (c) Kaumakani, (d) Hanapēpē, (e) Lāwai, f: Kōloa

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Fig. 14 Distribution of Jizo-baka Styles in Hāmākua District, Island of Hawai‘i: (a) Pā‘auhau, (b), (c) and (d) Pa‘aulilo, (e) ‘Ōkala

immigrant communities were organized by plantation camps owned by sugarcane companies, and that the interaction between communities belonging to different units was limited (Miyakoto 1964). Also, because of the limitation of transportation, it was difficult to carry heavy gravestones to distant places. Some styles are so standardized that they seem to have been engraved by "professional" carvers who might have been trained in Japan. But there are other styles that might be produced by "amateur carvers." I have learned that plantation laborers often had to make graves for themselves if there was no stone carver in the camp. After the 1920s, there are some styles that are distributed more widely. These phenomena might be related to improvements in transportation. There might also be other important socioeconomic factors concerning these phenomena, such as the increase of social mobility. When their three-year contracts finished, some Japanese became free and moved to urban areas for new jobs. Japanese informants on the Island of Hawai‘i told me that there was a famous gravestone maker in Hilo town, and that he was responsible for making many gravestones throughout the island. I argue that the wider distribution of particular styles in this later era corresponds to the change of socioeconomic status of Japanese immigrants, that is, the appearance of professional grave carvers among the Japanese and the development of commercialized production of gravestones. Several socioeconomic factors also have been noticed. For instance, statues on some gravestones of the whole-shaped type resemble those of the half-engraved type. It seems that these were made by the same stone carver. In this case, the choice of styles might be a matter of price. The half-engraved type is much more abundant than the whole-engraved type. This is because the latter may have been more expensive than the former. Thus, an examination of gravestone styles suggests a difference of wealth and status among the immigrants. 87

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Conclusions Gravestones are indispensable materials for exploring unexplored aspects of Japanese immigrants’ history. In particular, gravestones are important specimens for examining various decision-making processes of Japanese immigrants. This is because gravestone types and epitaphs often offer clear evidence about ethnicity, religion, religious sects, kinship, and other aspects people’s lives. Techniques of engraving, the quality of materials, and the kinds of Buddhistic names are explicit criteria for knowing prices of gravestones or wealth status of the family. Thus, gravestones are valuable objects for examining the choices in socioeconomic strategies of Japanese immigrants (cf. Spencer-Wood 1987). Gravestones are also important materials for linguistic history. The change of epitaphs from Japanese to English clearly accords the language change among the immigrant Japanese. The epitaphs are not, however, a passive reflection of language. From my experience, even speaking the Japanese language, the Japanese in Hawai‘i often use English for expressing numbers, such as, years, dates, age, price, address, and so on. This is because these numbers are substantially important for their social life in English-speaking society. For grave epitaphs, however, they continued using the Japanese style of date before WWII. Even after the war, the dates on gravestones are expressed in the Western style using Chinese characters. It is only after 1960 that date expressions changed into English. It seems that these epitaphs are not a simple reflection of their language ability. I argue instead that they are deeply related to the social strategies and value systems that should be explained in social and historical contexts.

References Beaudry, M. C. (ed.) (1988). Documentary Archaeology in the New World. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Bene, P. (1977). The Masks of Orthodoxy. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst. Char, W. J. and Char T. Y. (eds.) (1983) Chinese Historic Sites and Pioneer Families of the Island of Hawaii. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu. Char, W. J. and Char T. Y. (eds.) (1988).Chinese Historic Sites and Pioneer Families of the Island of Rural Oahu. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu. Daihorin (ed.) (1993). Funerals and Kaimyo: That is What We Want to Know. Daihourinkan, Tolkyo. (In Japanese) Deetz, J. and Dethlefse, E. S. (1967). Death's head, cherub, urn and willow. Natural History 76(3): 29-37. Deetz, J. (1977). In Small Things Forgotten: The Archaeology of Early American Life. Anchor, New York. Goto, A. (1989). Fishing gear of Japanese immigrants in Hawaii and kenken fishing method in southern Wakayama, Japan: a study of folk artifacts concerning immigrants. Mingu Kenkyu 84: 1-6. (In Japanese) Goto, A. (1993). A preliminary report of gravestone studies of Japanese immigrants in Hawai‘i. Annual Report of Institute for the Christian Studies 27: 1-49. Miyagi Gakuin Women’s College. Goto, H., Sinoto, K., and Spoehr, A. (1983). Craft history and the merging of tool traditions: carpenters of Japanese ancestry in Hawaii. Hawaiian Journal of History 17: 156-184. Imai, S. (2010). Creating the Nisei Market: Race and Citzenship in Hawai‘i’s Japanese American Consumer Culture. University of Hawai‘i Press, Honolulu. Kawakami, B. F. (1993). Japanese Immigrant Clothing in Hawaii 1885-1941. University of Hawai‘i Press, Honolulu. Kimura, S. (1958). Japanese funeral practice in Pahoa. Social Process in Hawaii 22: 21-25.

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:648–662 Krause-Frieberg, C. (2011). Across the pacific: transnational context in the Japanese plantation workers' cemetery in Pāhala, Hwawaii. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 15(3): 381-408. Ludwig, A. I. (1966). Graven Images: New England Stone Carving and its Symbols, 1650-1815. Weseyan University Press, Middletown, CT. Martin, A. S. and Garrison, J. R. (eds.) (1997). American Material Culture: The Shape of the Field. Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, DE. McGuire, R. H. (1982). The study of ethnicity in historical archaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1: 159-178. Meyer, R. E. (ed.) (1989) Cemeteries and Grave Markers: Voices of American Culture. UMI Research Press, Ann Arbor, MI. Meyer, R. E. (ed.) (1993). Ethnicity and the American Cemetery. Bowling Green State University Popular Press, Bowling Green, OH. Miyakoto, K. (1964). Hawaii: The End of the Rainbow. Tuttle, Tokyo. Ogawa, D. M. and Fujioka, J. Y. (1975). The Japanese in Hawaii: An Annotated Bibliography of Japanese Americans. University of Hawai‘i Press, Honolulu. Schuyler, R. (ed.) (1980). Archaeological Perspectives on Ethnicity in America. Baywood, Farmingdale. Sloane, D. C. (1991). The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in American History. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD. Spencer-Wood, S. (ed.) (1987). Consumer Choice in Historical Archaeology. Plenum, New York. Yanakita, K. (1931). A History of the Meiji and Taisho Eras: Social Conditions. Asahi Shinbun-sha, Tokyo. Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:663–685 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-020-00569-1

Introduction of Lifecycle of Community Framework: Grappling with Multiple, Complex Datasets in Interpreting Yama/Nagaya, a Late Nineteenthto Early Twentieth-Century Pacific Northwest Japanese Immigrant Village Caroline Hartse 1 & Jean Hannah 2 Accepted: 28 September 2020 / Published online: 11 November 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract Documentary archaeology presents the challenge and opportunity for innovation in understanding the past. This article introduces the Lifecycle of Community, a flexible framework that addresses the challenge of integrating different evidentiary lines at different scales into meaningful narratives. Yama/Nagaya Village is presented as a case study to exemplify the process. The framework establishes a deeper narrative of the community, provides recommendations for future archaeological work conducted at the site as well as in artifact analysis, and contributes to the growing literature on the archaeology of a community. Key Words Lifecycle . Community . Yama and Nagaya . Japanese diaspora

Introduction Local history of Bainbridge Island, Washington, includes the narrative of a Japanese community called Yama and Nagaya. The recollections conjure an idyllic village born in the heyday of the Port Blakely Mill Company, home to several hundred Japanese immigrants, which is now a quiet, secluded hillside covered in ivy. Inspired by these stories, and the seemingly pristine nature of the site, multiple community and academic institutions collaborated and designed a multi-year (2015-17) archaeological field school to survey Yama and Nagaya in order to locate site boundaries, record historic

* Caroline Hartse [email protected]

1

Anthropology Program, Olympic College, 1600 Chester Avenue, Bremerton, WA 98337, USA

2

Gig Harbor, USA 91

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features, record and collect artifacts, and list the site on the US National Register of Historic Places. The official registered name is Yama & Nagaya Village. For the purposes of brevity, we will use Yama/Nagaya. Based on a limited number of archival and historical sources, the initial narrative focused on a large, mature, Japanese community, in a defined geographic space within the mill town of Port Blakely. The narrative tacitly presented Yama/Nagaya as a community that grew from bachelors to families, with the arrival of families creating a stable community divided into two residential areas (one of bachelors and one of families) with a number of residents who stayed until the community disbanded in the 1920s. As we each continued independent research to document the formation processes behind this Japanese community, we expected to find data that would confirm the narrative of the community. Contrary to our expectations, the subsequent data we uncovered revealed a population of mixed residences, and a shifting and transient community; one of incredible demographic fluidity from inception to dissolution. These findings called into question the specific details concerning the development of Yama/Nagaya and posed the question of how to conceptualize and document not only this historic community, but any dynamic, emerging community that allows for the merging of different scales and lines of archival and archaeological data. In order to address the challenge, the purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to introduce a flexible framework we call “Lifecycle of the Community” that allows for the integration of evidentiary lines of data, and second to use the framework to merge a broader array of archival and historical resources to narrate the Lifecycle of Yama/Nagaya. In developing the lifecycle of Yama/Nagaya, we employ evidentiary lines of data that have not been fully exploited to create an adaptive narrative of the community, provide recommendations for future archaeological work conducted at the site as well as in artifact analysis, and contribute to the growing literature on the archaeology of community. To illustrate our findings and their implications, we focus on three areas: (1) the demographic composition and size of the population during the approximately 50 years that Japanese lived and worked in Port Blakely; (2) the emergence of social, economic, and political institutions within Yama/Nagaya that supported both productive and reproductive labor; and (3) the social and geographic stratification between individual males (whether single, widowed, or those living without wives) and families. To create the framework of the Lifecycle, we needed first to determine a definition of community. We recognized that the initial narrative of Yama/Nagaya reflected a tacit vision of community as static and stable, a vision that is frequently found in archaeology. According to Yaeger and Canuto (2000:3, 8) many archaeologists have often implicitly adopted a variation of George Murdock’s (1949) definition of community (as static, closed, homogenous) because this definition appears to be conveniently in sync with the unit of the “site,” and as archaeologists recover static remains, the temptation can be to implicitly conceptualize a community as static. Yama/Nagaya was not a static community, therefore we borrowed the definition of community as a “dynamic socially constituted institution that is contingent upon human agency for its creation and continued existence” and is an “ever-emergent social institution that generates and is generated by supra-household interactions that are structured and synchronized by a set of places within a particular span of time” (Yaeger and Canuto 2000:5). Embedded within this definition is the assumption that community is both ephemeral and emergent (Yaeger and Canuto 2000:8). Reprinted from the journal

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After we determined the definition of community, we developed the concept of the “Lifecycle of the Community.” To develop the concept we drew from literature in historical archaeology, including Barnes’ (2011) work analyzing the emergence of the African American Community of Brown Mountain Creek (1865-1920) in Amherst County, Virginia, and Fliess’ (2000) work documenting the population and institutions in the historic Comstock, Nevada. For purposes of this paper, we define Lifecycle of the Community (Lifecycle) as the Pre-emergence, Inception, Growth, Maturity, and Dissolution of the economic, social, and political institutions of an archaeologically surveyed location. The definition of each stage will be discussed in the Lifecycle Stages section. Concentrating on the lifecycle bounded by geographic space does not exclude the regional, national, and international ties to communities that are beyond the boundaries of the archaeological unit. The Lifecycle framework is an invaluable tool in overcoming the primary challenges documentary archaeologists face, which include how to merge different evidentiary lines that are at different scales, understand the relationship among diverse sources, and integrate the sources into meaningful narratives (Wilkie 2006:25, 33). The Lifecycle framework allows for the continued integration of current and future lines of evidence and an evolving narrative that is dynamic, not static. We found the challenges outlined by Wilkie (2006) especially significant when grappling with the interplay between the demography and the Lifecycle of Yama/Nagaya. We found that the two are not interchangeable yet cannot be separated, which we will illustrate and discuss later in the paper.

Historical Background of Yama/Nagaya To understand the case study, it will help to understand the background of the community, Port Blakely, and surrounding area. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Washington State was a leading lumber producer, and in the Seattle area, several sawmills were built in the latter half of the nineteenth century (Ficken 1987:28). These sawmills attracted Japanese men looking for a source of employment. One of the earliest at which Japanese worked was the Port Blakely sawmill (Ito 1973:395). While the first Japanese who arrived in the 1880s in Port Blakely were single males employed as millworkers, by the early 1900s the Japanese community of Yama/Nagaya was built. Abandoned in the 1920s, the community is critical in understanding the labor experiences and the development and emergence of Japanese American culture in the Pacific Northwest. The community is documented through historical and archival sources (Hirakawa 1897-1940; Ito 1973; Price 1989; Tanaka 1977) and historical English and Japanese language newspapers. It has also been documented by archaeological surveys, the most recent resulting in a large archaeological collection (Aranyosi 2019). William Renton purchased land and built the Port Blakely sawmill on the southern end of Bainbridge Island in Kitsap County, Washington. The mill, which opened in the 1860s, operated until the 1920s. Renton selected the location due to its deep harbor that was accessible for large ships and protected from winds (Carlsson 1992:18). During the 1870s, the town of Port Blakely grew and became connected to Seattle by twice-daily steamship 93

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service (Carlsson 1992:21). By the early 1880s, the sawmill, by then known as the Port Blakely Mill Company (PBMCo), was producing 200,000 ft (183,000 m) of lumber per day and was described by the publication West Shore as the largest mill on Puget Sound (Tanaka 1977:61). The Hall brothers, no doubt, contributed to the success of the sawmill when they opened a shipyard near the mouth of Port Blakely harbor in 1880 (Tanaka 1977:82). During the 1880s, the US Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) and conflict between the Knights of Labor and Renton lead to a reduction in Chinese laborers at PBMCo (Tanaka 1977:63-67). Though unexpected, the destruction of the Port Blakely mill by fire in 1888, allowed for a new and expanded mill to be built. Within five months, production ramped up again, setting the stage for a productive new decade. As the production increased, men of multiple nationalities from many countries answered the call for labor. Coincidentally, during the early 1880s, the immigration of Japanese to the United States and its territories increased due to the Meiji Restoration that had begun in Japan in the late 1860s. It was in this atmosphere of growth and mill renovation that the first Japanese men arrived to work at PBMCo. Washington Territory records confirm that 1883 is the first year that Japanese appear in the Port Blakely precinct census, and their population continued to increase there through the 1880s and 1890s. In July of 1891, Renton passed away and his nephews James and John Campbell took over ownership of the mill. Despite the Panic of 1893 and subsequent four-year US economic depression, by 1895 PBMCo was considered the largest single mill in the United States, if not the world (Tanaka 1977:61). The broader community of Port Blakely had grown to a population of 1,500 (Tanaka 1977:82). At some point in the 1890s, labor contractors may have worked with PBMCo to promote the use of Japanese workers at the mill (Tanaka 1977:69). The community of Yama/Nagaya began to develop as the Japanese built houses and businesses on a discrete geographical area of PBMCo land (Fig. 1). The early 1900s were a time of turmoil in Port Blakely. In 1903 the Campbell brothers sold the mill to Skinner and Eddy. In addition, the Hall Brothers’ Shipyard, which had been an economic benefit for over 20 years, left Port Blakely, relocating at Eagle Harbor, Bainbridge Island. However, in the same year, Fort Ward, a US coastal

Fig. 1. Washington Hotel on left in Yama & Nagaya Village. “Washington Hotel” (1900s). (ddr-densho-3445), , accessed August, 2019. Courtesy of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community.

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defense installation within 2 mi (3 km) of Port Blakely, opened, which may have had a positive economic impact on both the mill town and Yama/Nagaya. Other events further impacted the town of Port Blakely, the PBMCo labor market, and Yama/Nagaya. While Washington State was a leading lumber producer in 1905, communities that had rail and cargo connections became leaders in the industry. PBMCo, being ocean-oriented, was no longer in the top three lumber communities (Ficken 1987:105). The SS Dix, a passenger steamer traveling between Seattle and Port Blakely, sank on November 18, 1906 and according to a local newspaper report the following day, 42, including five Japanese, were killed (Prince 1906:1). In 1907, the Port Blakley mill burned down and while the mill was rebuilt, opening in 1909, it was much smaller. In 1908, at least 20 houses in Yama/Nagaya burned down (Anonymous 1908:7). Additionally, the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907 was enacted and curtailed Japanese immigration to the US, most likely impacting Yama/Nagaya. From 1910 to 1920, significant events continued to impact the broader community of Port Blakely, as well as Yama/Nagaya. The sawmill did not operate continuously during the first half of the decade, and by 1913, it was mortgaged with the Detroit Trust Company (Tanaka 1977:92). When World War I began, the mill was leased and operated by the Dominion Lumber Company, but with the end of World War I in 1918, the company relinquished the lease the following year (Price 1989:176-179). With the closing of the mill in the early 1920s and the closing of nearby Fort Ward by 1928, Port Blakely and Yama/Nagaya gradually were abandoned. The property on which Yama/Nagaya had been located continued under ownership of PBMCo for several decades following the abandonment of the community. In the early 1990s, PMBCo hired an archaeologist to conduct archaeological inspections of the geographic area that once housed Yama/Nagaya (Daugherty 1993). During the late 1990s and early 2000s, transition of ownership of some parcels of mill land occurred and the site is currently owned by Bainbridge Island Metropolitan Park and Recreation District. After the transfer of the property, Bainbridge Island Historical Museum (BIHM), Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community (BIJAC), Bainbridge Island Historic Preservation Commission (BIHPC), Bainbridge Island Metropolitan Parks and Recreation District (BIMPRD), Kitsap History Museum (KHM), Olympic College, and the University of Washington Burke Museum collaborated and developed the Yama Project. As part of the project, Olympic College archaeologists, Robert Drolet as Principal Investigator in 2015 and Floyd Aranyosi in 2016 and 2017, students, and multiple crew members undertook a 3.04-ha site survey. Additionally, in spring of 2018, Yama & Nagaya Village was placed on the US National Register of Historic Places. The project was sponsored by Bainbridge Community Foundation, Bainbridge Island Historical Museum, Bainbridge Island Parks Foundation, Bainbridge Island Rotary Club, Cultural Resource Consultants, Inc., Kitsap History Museum, The Norcliffe Foundation, Olympic College, Olympic College Foundation, and the University of Washington Burke Museum. The results of the survey were summarized in a Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (WADAHP) report (Aranyosi 2019). Over 8,000 artifacts were recovered, and the artifact collection is currently housed at the University of Washington Burke Museum. A GIS map of the site was created, the village road documented, and a number of brick features recorded (Aranyosi 2019). Preliminary results focused on answering questions about ethnicity, foodways, households, religion, and sex 95

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and gender at Yama/Nagaya. One question explored in the report is whether artifacts in different areas of the site reflected two distinct segregated residential areas of bachelors and families (Aranyosi 2019:55). Analysis and interpretation are ongoing.

Methodology Wilkie (2006) details different types of primary sources, including personal papers, photographs, financial records, maps, census roles, vital statistics, and other government records, to identify individuals or collectivities and the usefulness of the sources to create “finer-grained and more nuanced archaeological interpretations” (Wilkie 2006:16). We, too, use a variety of primary sources, as well historical studies of Issei on Bainbridge Island and the Pacific Northwest, in the case of Yama/Nagaya. Birth, death, and cemetery records were reviewed because of their association with social institutional, reproductive labor, and funerary practices in the community. Financial records (e.g., rent and payroll) from the PBMCo provide details into individual lives and community institutions. Historic English and Japanese language newspaper articles give contextual understanding of Yama/Nagaya. Historical photographs exist that clearly document institutions within the geographic boundary of Yama/Nagaya. However, not all photographs are dated, so they are compared and contrasted with other data, such as birth records of people in the photographs, in an effort to place the institutions within the Lifecycle. We also used a Japanese Consul report from 1891 (discussed below) that provided data to document some demographic details and patterns. While the above records provide different evidentiary data, for our case study the most abundant archival data available is from the census. Historic records present obstacles, not the least of which is they are time-consuming to research and the data are challenging to organize (Fliess 2000:68). Time between census reports, language barriers, spelling issues, incomplete forms, poor quality reproductions, and insufficient information all require resolution. However, as an example, there can be advantages to using censuses in historical archaeology, because they identify both individual and household activities, define community organization, and provide data about gender, gender roles, ethnicity, class, and material culture (Fliess 2000:65). We use two types of census for the time span from 1883-1929: Washington Territory, Kitsap County Census (referred to as Territory), and the U. S. Federal Census (referred to as Federal). When possible, census enumerator instructions were referenced to clarify how the enumerator collected that data. The Territory census was biennial. We reviewed the 1883, 1885, 1887, and 1889 census records (Kitsap County Census, Kitsap County Territorial Auditor 1883, 1885, 1887, 1889). One of the obstacles encountered in the Territory census was the use of epithets instead of proper names for Japanese individuals (e.g., Laughing, Jap 3, or Voorhies). Even when the epithets were coupled with the age of the person, the resulting information was not sufficient for tracing people through the subsequent Territory and Federal census manuscripts. Housing information was also unavailable in all of the Territory census records, even though it was requested in the 1883 census. Despite problems with information found on the Territory forms, there were sufficient data present to place the demography into one of the Lifecycle stages. Reprinted from the journal

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The Federal Census occurs every decade. When Washington became a state in 1889, the Territory census ended. The 1890 Federal census was destroyed in a fire in 1920. This presented a challenge in the scales of census data as we shifted from the Territory to Federal census. A Japanese Consul report by Fujita, while not an official census, did provide a list of proper names for 69 males and one female who lived in Port Blakely in July of 1891 (Fujita 1891). This list of individuals with full names was an excellent transition from Territory to Federal census, and at this point we established a marker to begin tracing the population in subsequent Federal census records. Additionally, there were references to housing, personal habits such as work ethic, and occupation, though none of this data corresponded directly to specific individuals (Hata 1978:76-77). The 1891 report provided some data to address the destroyed 1890 Federal Census. We reviewed the 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 Federal Census (US Census 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930). The Federal provided the most names, which we could then use to track individuals in Yama/Nagaya. The intention was to provide greater depth by adding more stories to the narrative and to track which individuals owned their own businesses or were employed in occupations within Yama/Nagaya. However, the reader will notice relatively few names of community members are presented in this paper. This was a choice on the part of the authors, and it was not done to ignore the names and contributions of those whose accomplishments are familiar from previous research or to dehumanize the hundreds of individuals who emerged in this current research. Rather, it was to acknowledge that more people than we know or can name have played a role in the development of the Lifecycle of Yama/Nagaya and the Japanese American culture of the region. We acknowledge, recognize, and celebrate all of the courageous women, men, and children for their contributions to this community, but whose stories have been obscured by time and by the structural limitations of the historical and archaeological records. While the dataset differences between the Federal and Territory Census exist, the data needed for our purposes, with one exception of housing information, was sufficiently recorded in both. Five categories were chosen for data collection from the censuses: housing, personal data, marital, citizenship, and occupation. These five categories contributed to documenting the Lifecycle, from Pre-emergence to Dissolution. Each census column heading containing data corresponding to one of the five categories we chose were compiled into Excel spreadsheets, which allowed for easy manipulation of the data for comparative analysis. Table 1 lists the five categories we chose and the Territory Census column headings we placed under our categories. An X represents the fact that the census contains the information. The data found in the Federal census was instrumental in documenting the Inception, Growth, Maturity and Dissolution of the Yama/Nagaya Lifecycle. The information collected for each category was compared and contrasted between Federal censuses. Housing data was the most difficult to interpret, even when enumerator instruction booklets were consulted. For instance, “one building with a partition wall through it and a front door for each of the two parts, counts as two dwelling-houses” (US Department of Interior 1900:24). Therefore, we may know how many dwelling houses there were, but we were not always able to determine the number of buildings. Enumerators were also given instructions how to move from house to house and street

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:663–685 Table 1 Categorized Data from Port Blakely Precinct, Kitsap County, Washington Territory 1883

1885

1887

1889

Housing Data Dwelling number in order of visitation

x

-

-

-

Family # in order of visitation

x

.

-

-

Personal Data Name

x

x

x

x

Race or Color

x

x

x

x

Sex

x

x

x

x

Age at last Birthday

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

Marital Data Marital Status Citizenship Birth place Occupation Occupation, trade, profession

to street based on maps. No maps have been located with sufficient detail to correlate the path of the enumerator to the Federal Census schedule. Within the Personal data category, inconsistent spelling complicated comparison of names between the censuses. In a few cases, the names were familiar enough from other historical data that questions could be resolved. Other cases required more scrutiny and often required the addition of another data column from the census, such as age or immigration year. Marital data was also occasionally used during name comparison but was more often coupled with housing data for understanding the layout of Yama/Nagaya. The Citizenship category was most often a support category. It is important to understand we did not correlate the immigration dates with the Lifecycle stages because immigration is country specific only. The Occupation category was most clearly understood when the multiple columns of the occupation were studied not only together, but also in conjunction with enumerator instructions. Additional historical data were also available to bolster and supplement the Occupation findings from the census. Table 2 lists the five categories we chose from the Federal Census and the census column headings we placed under our categories. An X represents the fact that the census contains the information. While census records are not without challenges, we found them most useful to anchor our research and populate the phases of the Lifecycle of the Yama/Nagaya community. Furthermore, integration of the other documentary sources we have available means that we can create a more holistic narrative, as well as “play to the differences in resolution inherent in the materials” (Wilkie 2006:25).

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:663–685 Table 2 Data used from U. S. Federal Censuses 1900

1910

1920

1930

Housing Data House-Dwelling number

-

-

x

-

Dwelling number in order of visitation

x

x

x

x

Family # in order of visitation

x

x

x

x

Name

x

x

x

x

Relationship to Head of Household

x

x

x

x

Race or Color

x

x

x

x

Sex

x

x

x

x

Date of Birth (Month)

x

-

-

-

Personal Data

Date of Birth (Year)

x

-

-

-

Age at last Birthday

x

x

x

x

Marital Data Marital Status

x

x

x

x

Number of Years married

x

x

-

-

Mother of how many children

x

x

-

-

Number of these children living

x

x

-

-

Citizenship Birth place

x

x

x

x

Immigration year to the U.S.

x

x

x

x

Number of years in the U.S.

x

-

-

-

Naturalization

x

x

x

x

Occupation Occupation, trade, profession

x

x

x

x

General nature of Industry

-

x

x

x

Employee, Employer, or Own Account

-

x

x

x

Months not employed

x

x

-

-

Lifecycle Stages: Yama/Nagaya Data The Lifecycle of Community framework allows us to merge different scales of data and fill out the different stages of community development. We define five stages. Pre-emergence is the first stage. People are not actively creating a community of their own but are reliant on another community or communities for their economic, social, and political institutions. The demography, the reason for integration, and the labor movement contain variables that will change in each historic case. Inception is the next stage. There is evidence of the institutions that facilitate supra-household interactions within the defined geographic space. These institutions often meet socio-cultural needs of the developing community. During the third stage, Growth, there is evidence of varied and increasing institutions that integrate economic, social, and political supra-household interactions. Maturity, 99

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the fourth, is defined by the variety and complexity of the economic, social, and political supra-household interactions. The institutions and interactions continue to happen regardless of demographic fluidity. Dissolution is the final stage, and it is marked by fewer institutions. Reliance on external institutions occurs. None of the stages are defined by isolation from other communities, even though we are focused on a defined geographic space. Additionally, these phases are not defined by any specific event. The stages of the Lifecycle are not rigidly dated. It is expected that the end of one stage may blend into the threshold of the next. Though this may create a challenge for deciding how to categorize the data and give specific, discrete, hard and fast date ranges to each stage (or in the case of Yama/Nagaya by decades), the framework ultimately allows for a living narrative that can grow in breadth and depth and reflect the dynamic nature of community.

Pre-emergence According to the Territory census, the first Japanese in Port Blakely were all male ranging in age from 19 to 42, most between 20 and 30 years old (Table 3). Only two of the men were married, but neither of them had wives with them. The use of epithets in place of names was consistent through all four Territory censuses. Comparing the epithets through all four censuses, only two sets of “names” were similar enough to possibly be the same person. Of those two sets, only one set was found in sequential years. Based on the census, it is probable that these early Japanese immigrants did not stay in Port Blakely for two or more years. Evidence from Ito (1973:52) and Tanaka (1977:73) support this finding. In the Territory Censuses, all men are listed under the occupation of Mill Man or Laborer in the town of Port Blakely (Table 4). While the general definition of a laborer is an unskilled worker, the skill set of Mill Man has not been identified. Within two years of the last Territory census, according to the 1891 Japanese Consul report by Fujita, the Japanese population more than doubled to 70. It is the first time there is record of a Japanese woman present in Port Blakely. For the first time familial relationship is recorded; the woman is married and living with her husband. Also, there is a mention of a father and an eldest son.

Table 3 Port Blakely Precinct, Kitsap County, Washington Territory Census month & year

Total Persons

Single

Married

In preceding census based on name

In preceding census based on age

In preceding census based on both age and name

Feb 1883

2

2

0

0

0

0

Feb 1885

7

7

0

0

1 possible

0

May 1887

10

10

0

0

5 possible

0

April 1889

31

29

2

1

10 possible

0

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:663–685 Table 4 Port Blakely Precinct Kitsap County, Washington Territory Census month & year

Occupation Mill Man

Occupation Laborer

Feb 1883

2

0

Feb 1885

0

7

May 1887

9

1

Apr 1889

0

31

Fujita did not indicate that any of the Japanese owned their own businesses, nor did he record any Japanese clubs or associations in Port Blakely. The report states that the men all lived together, though does not mention the married couple (Hata 1978:76-77). The patterns found from 1883-91 correspond with the Pre-emergence stage of a community. We have not been able to determine that a bounded space outside the mill specific housing existed for Japanese. Nor is there evidence of Japanese-developed institutions within the community of Port Blakely.

Inception After 1891, the composition of the Japanese population in Port Blakely changed as evidenced by the birth records of Kitsap County. Two children were born in Port Blakely, one in 1892 and the next in 1894, both to the same married couple who were not recorded in the Fujita report (Deaths 1891-1912). This family is recorded in the 1900 Federal census report. By 1900, the Japanese population had changed significantly (Table 5). The population had tripled since 1891 to a total of 222. Within the Japanese population, adult males constituted the majority; most were between 20 and 34 years old. Seventy-five of the males were married, but only 26 of them lived with their wives. Of the males listed in the 1900 census, one was also listed in the 1891 Fujita report. Considering possible spelling variations, two other males may have also been in the 1891 report. The overall population had nearly 100% turnover of males since 1891. Adult females who constituted less than .01% of the population in 1891 represented 11% of the population in 1900. With the exception of two, all adult females were in their 20s and 30s. The female from the 1891 report was not listed in the 1900 census. Children age 0 to 19 comprised over 14% of the population. Ten of the 32 children were born in Washington State. None of the children age 13 to 19 lived with their

Table 5 United States Federal Census Port Blakely Precinct, Kitsap County, Washington State June 1900

Children (0-12)

Children (13-19)

M

F

Total P ersons

S

M

W

Possibly in Fujita Report

11

21

165

25

222

121

101

0

3

m=male f=female s=single m=married w=widow/widower

101

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parents, and most lived with others close to their own age. One child, age six, attended school, most likely in the mill community. Every Japanese male who worked at the mill had the same occupation listed: Day Laborer, Sawmill (Table 6). However, two Japanese males had occupations listed that were not associated with the mill: Restaurant and Landlord. There is no additional information regarding these occupations in the census. There are no women listed with Occupations. According to the census column labeled Number of dwelling-house, in the order of visitation, 67 separate dwellings were itemized for the Japanese population. The Japanese population was not listed continuously within the census but was listed in two sections. Within both sections, the population was a mix of males, females, and children in various age ranges. The patterns found in this data of 1892-1900 correspond with the Inception stage of the Lifecycle. We determined a bounded space outside the mill-specific housing existed for Japanese. There is evidence of possibly two Japanese-developed institutions (Restaurant and Landlord) within the geographic boundary Yama/Nagaya.

Growth Multiple archival sources provide evidence of varied and increasing institutions that integrate economic, social, and political supra-household interactions within the first decade of 1900 in Yama/Nagaya. In merging the sources and data, we found that the boundary between the Growth and Maturity stages is not rigid. This is for two reasons. First, the definition of where one stage ends, and the other starts is not necessarily discrete because of the nature of community. Second, while the Federal census provides a wealth of data, as noted in the methodology, it is only recorded every 10 years. Therefore, the institutions listed in the 1910 census started prior to the date the 1910 census was taken. The book Deaths 1892-1907 Births 1891-1912 Kitsap County recorded five deaths in Port Blakely from 1900-1910. Though many grave markers in the Port Blakely cemetery are in Japanese and not yet translated, at least four of the graves have a date in the first decade of the twentieth century. The headstones indicate ceremony took place and the possible development of institutions to address death may have existed. Two such institutions did develop in the early 1900s. Though these institutions are in the bounded space of Yama/Nagaya, they had interdependent relationship with institutions outside the bounded space. According to Hirakawa (1897-1940:35), in 1901 a Japanese Baptist Church was dedicated in Yama. It had close ties to the Seattle Japanese Baptist Church. Hirakawa Table 6 Occupations According to United States Federal Census Port Blakely Precinct, Kitsap County, Washington State Census year 1900

Mill Worker Male age (15-19)

Mill Worker Male age (20+)

Mill Worker Female

Landlord

Restaurant

Total # of Wage Earners

20

163

0

1

1

185

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(1897-1940:39) also states that the community decided to start a Sunday school because of the little girls at Yama, and that both boys and girls attended the Sunday school at a later time. In 1903, a Buddhist Temple was dedicated in Yama. As discussed in Grim (2017), a 1936 volume of Buddhist North American Mission History documents the establishment of the Port Blakely branch of a Buddhist mission by the end of 1902 and dedication on January 18, 1903. The documentation places the temple within the geographic boundary of Yama/Nagaya. Historian Ronald Magden (2008:18) not only references a recreation hall in Yama/Nagaya, but also specifies that the temple was within the hall. He also states that the recreation hall was used for English education classes. The classes were most likely for adults, as photographic evidence shows the children attended Port Blakely public school where they learned English. No school records have yet been located. The search for sources that support the opening of the retail store (Fig. 2), restaurant, green house, and garden business listed in the 1910 Federal census in Yama/Nagaya continues. The most common narrative places the institutions of a hotel (Washington Hotel) and a community bath (Price 1989; Tanaka 1977) in Yama/Nagaya in the first decade of the 1900s. Neither of these institutions are listed in the Federal census. The search for supporting evidence continues. Regardless of two fires, one that closed the mill in 1907 and one that burned 20 houses in Yama/Nagaya in 1908, the Japanese community was able to withstand the impacts. Within three years of these events, the 1910 census shows a resilient community existed, and that new homes had been built. During the latter half of the first decade of the 1900s, the community was on the cusp between Growth and Maturity.

Fig. 2. Retail store in Yama & Nagaya Village. “Takayoshi general store and delivery”. (1890s). (ddr-densho34-158). , accessed August, 2019. Courtesy of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community.

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Maturity As noted earlier, designating a specific date that separates the Growth from Maturity stage is not possible. The recorded Maturity of this community is best documented by the 1910 US Federal census (Table 7), but other archival sources document the emergence of institutions prior to and after this census. It is a time when the most institutions are available to meet the community’s needs, and yet it is also a continuously evolving community. Interestingly, in 1910 the population of Yama/Nagaya, at 139 individuals, was lower than the population of both Growth and the early stages of Dissolution. Name comparison, aided by age and immigration information, reveal only seven people were possibly in both the 1900 and 1910 censuses, and none of those seven were also in the 1891 census. However, Deaths 1892-1907 Births 1891-1912 Kitsap County confirmed that at least five families arrived between 1903 and 1907 and were still at Yama/Nagaya in 1910, and Washington State delayed birth certificates indicate an additional three families arrived between 1900 and 1905 and were still in Port Blakley in 1910. Several key individuals, including two of the four men instrumental in founding the Japanese Baptist Church (Hirakawa 1897-1940:34), had left the community by 1910. The individuals listed in Restaurant and Landlord occupations in 1900 are not listed in the 1910 Federal census, implying the institutions changed hands or closed and others were established in their place. Therefore, even while the community is reaching the Maturity stage, there is still tremendous turnover in population, indicating the importance of institutions in community. At 53%, adult males constituted the majority of the population. Most men were between 20 and 34 years old. Men over 40 years of age had increased and constituted about one-third of the male population. There were no married men living without their wives, but there were two widowers. Women and children age 0 to 12 (there were no 13- to 19-year-olds for this census) comprised 47% of the Japanese population. Women represented 18% of the population, up from 11% in 1900. With the exception of one, the women were all in their 20s and 30s. For the first time, a Japanese woman, a widow, was a head of household. The 0 to 12 age group jumped from 5% in 1900 to 29% in 1910. Thirty-five children were born in Washington, three in Japan, and two in Hawaii. The 40 children belonged to 18 different families. Ten of the children, aged six to 12, attended school and seven of them could both read and write. According to the census, even allowing for possible variations in name spelling, none of the children age 0 to 12 in the 1900 census remained in Port Blakely in 1910. In 1910, the majority of the wage earners still worked at the mill, and most of those were still generic Laborers (Table 8). However, roughly 38% of those wage earners had Table 7 United States Federal Census Port Blakely Precinct, Kitsap County, Washington State Apr 1910

Children (0-12)

Children (13-19)

M

F

Total Persons

S

M

W

Possibly in 1 900 census

40

0

74

25

139

88

48

3

7

m=male f=female s=single m=married w=widow/widower

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been out of work in the past 12-month period. Ten men were still listed as out of work as of April 1910. Of the 77 wage earners, only four were female. However, for the first time the Japanese men were employed at the mill with jobs that required specific expertise and one had officially been place in authority over other workers. The 24 wage earners who did not work at the mill worked in 10 different industry types (Table 9). For the first time, Japanese not only owned their own businesses but also employed workers. Also, for the first time a woman was the primary income earner for her household. An anomaly found in this census was a man listed with a profession of “own income” and the business as “Sawmill Cripple.” This entry in the census was not added to Table 9 because it was unclear that the sawmill was paying him compensation. However, the entry was of note because it was the first and only time that a disability is mentioned in the reviewed census data. Other institutions not listed in the census, but found in Taihoku Nippō (The Great Northern Daily News), are a Western cuisine restaurant, pool hall, a Japanese men’s association, and community waterworks (Anonymous 1911:5). PBMCo records also reference payment for a Japanese sewage rep. but give no other specifics (Time Log Book 1913). The proprietor of the retail store ran a photographic studio (Matsumoto and Umezuka 1980), which provided photographic evidence of his studio, store, ice cream parlor, tea garden, and laundry service. Other photographs document the community institutions and activities including theatrical productions (Fig. 3), the hotel, church, community bulletin board, and community celebrations. And, there was a Japanese doctor who regularly visited the community, if he was not in residence (Deaths 1891-1912). The same pattern in housing continues from the 1900 Federal census in Number of dwelling-house, in the order of visitation. Sixty separate dwellings were itemized for the Japanese population. The Japanese population was not listed continuously within the census but, again, was listed in two sections. Within both sections, the population was a mix of males, females, and children in various age ranges. Maturity stage has the most documentation for social, economic, and political institutions. Though the mill remains the largest external employer, there is more specialization as documented by workers’ job titles. Nuclear families are more predominant as more institutions support reproductive labor.

Dissolution of Community The 1920 Federal Census, taken in January of that year, indicates that the transition of Yama/Nagaya into the Dissolution stage began in the latter half of the 1910s (Table 10). Though the population count, at 171, was higher than that of the 1910 census, the number of social, economic, and political institutions had declined. The Table 8 Mill Job Titles According to United States Federal Census Port Blakely Precinct, Kitsap County, Washington State 1910

Laborer

Slab Handler

Planer

Fore-man

Tally-man

Lumber Piler

Total # Mill Workers

42

1

4

1

2

2

52

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# Working in Industry

Owner

Owner & Employer

Worker

Restaurant

5

-

2

3

Shipboard Cook

2

-

-

2

Farm/garden

3

1

1

1

Greenhouse

6

1

1

4

Japanese School Teacher

1

-

-

1

Servant

1

-

-

1

Retail

1

1

-

-

Barber

2

2

-

-

Boarding house Keeper

2

2

-

-

Laundress

1

1

-

-

dissolution was gradual but complete by 1930. The Japanese individuals listed in the 1930 census did not live within the geographic boundaries of Yama/Nagaya, as evidenced by the street names now listed in the 1930 census. In 1920, women and children became the majority of the Japanese population at 55%. With 33 adult females, women comprised 19% of the population, up only 1% from the previous census. The women’s ages varied more in this census with slightly under half being over 40 years of age. Both age groups for the children expanded for a total of 61 children belonging to 26 different families. Four were born in Japan, and 57

Fig. 3. Theatrical Production in Yama & Nagaya Village. “Drama at Yama”. (1905). 2017346. Image courtesy of the Bainbridge Island Historical Museum, Bainbridge Island, WA.

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:663–685 Table 10 United State Federal Census Port Blakely Precinct, Kitsap County, Washington State 1920 Children (0-12) Children (13-19) M 48

13

F

Total Persons S

77 33 171

M

W Possibly in 1910 census

79 88 4

38

m=male f=female s=single m=married w=widow/widower

were born in Washington. Twenty-seven of the children, aged four to 18 years old, attended school. Adult males constituted 45% of the population. Of them, 53% were over 40 years of age. One 66-year-old male was listed in both the 1900 and 1910 censuses as well. Three of the men in the community were widowed and 18 were single. The majority of the wage earners continued to work at the mill, and the number of workers with job titles other than Laborer had doubled (Table 11). In contrast to the Maturity stage, there were no female wage earners, and three of the mill workers were 17. Yet, in 1921 PBMCo records list only 12 Japanese men on the payroll. Based on the pay, most of the Japanese listed probably worked less than a week at the mill in 1921 (Summary 1921). The closure of community institutions is a significant marker for the Dissolution stage. In 1920, the number of people self-employed, or working for them, decreased to seven (Table 12). The search for archival data regarding the closure of both the Buddhist Temple and the Japanese Baptist Church in Yama/Nagaya continues. In 1920, the owner of the retail store passed away, though his wife maintained the store for a short time after his death (Price 1980:24). Also, due to his death, the photographic documentation post-1920 is limited. A difference in the housing pattern is evident in the 1920 census. There was a total of 52 dwellings for the Japanese population, but the population was divided into three sections, one larger and two smaller. The demography remained a mixture of males, females, and children in various age ranges. The mill officially closed in 1922 (Price 1989:179), though the property was not sold. By January of 1925, the PBMCo records for Japanese rent listed only four names, and by May of the following year there was only one person listed in the rent book Table 11 1920 Mill Job Titles According to United States Federal Census Port Blakely Precinct, Kitsap County, Washington State Job Title

# Working in Job

Job Title

# Working in Job

Laborer

48

Lumber piling

2

Trimmer

3

Janitor

1

Tallyman

1

Grader

1

Tractor Driver

1

Cleanup

1

Signalman

1

Foreman

2

Setter

2

Feeder

2

Marker

1

Oiler

1

Helper

1

107

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:663–685 Table 12 1920 Self-Employment Industries According to United States Federal Census Port Blakely Precinct, Kitsap County, Washington State Occupation

# Working in Industry

Owner

Owner & Employer

Worker

Baker

1

1

-

-

Steward on Ocean Vessel

1

-

-

1

Farm/garden

2

1

-

1

Greenhouse

1

1

-

-

Japanese School Teacher

1

-

-

1

Retail

1

1

-

-

(Japanese 1925). In the spring of 1925, one man returned to Yama/Nagaya to salvage lumber to build a new Japanese Baptist Church in a town about five miles away (Hirakawa 1897-1940:81). The termination of the retail store’s phone in 1929 (Price 1980:25) signals the end of the Lifecycle.

Discussion and Interpretations Yama/Nagaya evolved through five stages of the Lifecycle. From 1883-91, Japanese migrated to Port Blakely, representing a Pre-emergence community stage. They worked in the sawmill and lived in company housing. There is no current evidence that they developed any businesses. Inception of Yama/Nagaya began in the 1890s. The growing population of Japanese lived in several dwellings and started at least two businesses in the geographic bounded space of Yama/Nagaya. The housing areas, regardless of location in Yama/Nagaya, were a mix of families and single males. The Growth stage occurred during the first decade of the 1900s in Yama/Nagaya. Community (e.g., temple and church) and economic (e.g., retail store) institutions became established. The Maturity stage occurred in the one or two years before 1910 and continued into the 1910s. During this time, many of the earliest community and economic institutions remained and more institutions, such as the first political institution (e.g., Japanese Association), are documented in the archival record. Dissolution of Yama/Nagaya began gradually sometime during the later 1910s, as fewer institutions are present in 1920. Dissolution gained speed with the closing of the mill and the community was disbanded by 1929. The documentation of the Yama/Nagaya Lifecycle provides us with two opportunities. First, in the future we can continue to integrate data from more sources into the Lifecycle, “tacking back and forth” (Wilkie 2006:25) between different social scales and scales of time, and refining the stages. Second, based on the Yama/Nagaya Lifecycle, we now can propose an adjusted, broader, deeper narrative; an evolving one. With the Lifecycle and adjusted narrative, we recognize that Yama/Nagaya was not a community built by a continuous cohort. In and out migration was a consistent pattern throughout the Lifecycle. This fluid demographic impacted the shape of the community. A reasonable assertion is that newcomers, regardless of marital status, took an open home available, lodged within an existing dwelling, or built a new one on the land designated by the PBMCo. This practical approach created a blending of single people Reprinted from the journal

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and families, linking Yama and Nagaya firmly together in the Lifecycle of the Japanese community. These two findings, a fluid demographic and mixed residential areas, have many implications for interpretation of the historical and archaeological record. With constant in and out migration, we propose that Yama/Nagaya was a critical center for the Japanese in the region. While it clearly had close ties to the Seattle Japanese community, the two shaped and influenced one another in equal, yet distinct ways. For example, certain individuals integral in the development of the church in Yama did not stay. But ministers from the Seattle Japanese Baptist Church visited Port Blakely weekly to teach English and the gospel (Hirakawa 1897-1940:37). The temple in Yama also had close ties to the Seattle Japanese Buddhist community. However, the Buddhist temple in Yama was dedicated in 1903, and in 1907 Buddhist items from the Hongwanji Headquarters in Kyoto were sent to Yama/Nagaya (translated by Misaizu, Terakawa 1936:84, as cited in Grim 2017:12). The Seattle Buddhist temple was not completed until 1908 (https://historylink.org/File/10785). Therefore, the temple in Yama may have been the first dedicated in the Puget Sound area (Grim 2017:12). In economic terms, Yama/Nagaya also played a critical role in its interactions with the Seattle Japanese community. Ito (1973:395) discusses a Seattle Japanese restaurant owner who traveled to Port Blakely to buy Japanese rice for his business following the Seattle fire, though it is unclear from whom he purchased the rice in Port Blakely. Based on Ito’s description, the reference is most likely to the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. We were surprised by the early date as we found no evidence of Japanese businesses in Port Blakely from 1883-91: the restaurant owner most likely worked at the mill. The relationship between the Port Blakley and Seattle Japanese business communities continued throughout the Lifecycle of Yama/Nagaya. Seattle Japanese businessmen referred men to the Port Blakely mill for work (Hirakawa 1897-1940; Tanaka 1977:70). One Seattle Japanese businessman, Masijiro Furuya, sent salesmen to Yama/Nagaya once a month to take orders for goods from different families (Matsumoto and Umezuka 1980). The Furuya Company provided goods to many other Japanese sawmill communities in the region (Ito 1973:399). On the other hand, the businesses in Yama/Nagaya may have attracted shoppers from a broad area. A newspaper ad in the December 26, 1917, Hokubei JiJi (North American Times), lists the retail store in Yama/Nagaya (called Port Blakely in the ad) as one of several “branch locations” where bacterial culture to make amazake (a sweet drink made from fermented rice) was sold (translation by Etsuko Evans). Politically, Yama/Nagaya may have been important in the region as well. On January 25, 1921, The Great Northern Daily News (one of the Seattle Japanese language newspapers) published a special English language edition (Arai 1921). The edition was devoted to challenging and destroying racial prejudice. According to the article “My Conception of America,” author Tama Arai, who was born in Yama/Nagaya, references the early years of Yama/Nagaya and discusses the role her generation (Nisei) would now play in the Japanese American community. While she was not living in Yama/Nagaya when she wrote the article, she opens her article with a brief story of Yama/Nagaya (referred to as Port Blakely Japanese community). Within the geographic confines of a site, placing data in the timeline provides multiple benefits for archaeologists. First, it allows for the geographic boundaries of the site to be confirmed. In the case of Yama/Nagaya, beyond Pre-emergence, there was no separation of the demography. Next, the strategy for analyzing the site may be refined, or may shift 109

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due to clarity provided by the Lifecycle. In the case of Yama/Nagaya, at least a portion of the community lies outside of the current surveyed geographically bounded area of the site. Third, the material culture within the site can be understood in context with a given stage of the community Lifecycle. This prevents assumptions, based on preconceived notions of the demography, about the expected location of material finds. Within Yama/Nagaya, it prevents the expectation that child related artifacts are found only in specific locations of the community. Fourth, knowing the Lifecycle gives clarity to the institutions of the community, thus providing context for locating and understanding material finds. For instance, knowing that an institution was started only in the Maturity stage creates the strategy for analyzing artifacts to document what the community did prior to the opening of that institution. Also, one expects the institutions to be in proximity to the hub of the community. And, finally, referring to the Lifecycle of the Community while analyzing the material culture allows for more context. It provides possible explanations for seemingly inexplicable artifact patterns. The adjusted narrative of Yama/Nagaya supports the interpretation that the community played a critical and interactive role in the broader Puget Sound region. While the institutions were critical, the fluid demography of Yama/Nagaya does not fully support the interpretation that sawmills offered a degree of stability for Japanese (Campbell 2017:64). The case of Yama/Nagaya supports the interpretation that a Japanese community with a number of institutions developed and persisted for a number of years but the population itself was not static. This raises the question as to the meaning of stability and to what exactly the word describes (e.g., people remaining in place and/ or institutional resilience). We recognize that the fluid demographics of Yama/Nagaya may be an aberration in comparison to other Japanese communities associated with sawmills. Comparative research of early Japanese sawmill communities would aid in understanding the uniqueness and commonalities among the Japanese mill communities in the region.

Conclusions The purpose of this paper was twofold: to introduce a flexible framework that allows for the integration of evidentiary lines of data, and to use the framework in the specific case of Yama/Nagaya, an historic Japanese community. By creating the Lifecycle of Yama/Nagaya, we integrated diverse sources and used the Lifecycle to create an adjusted, broader, deeper narrative. In this process, we learned that Yama/Nagaya had a fluid demography through its existence. Over 600 Japanese individuals that we have found names for migrated in and out of Port Blakely in just over 40 years. This number, no doubt, will continue to grow as we continue our research. The story of Yama/Nagaya is more expansive than initially thought. We want to recognize the significance of all the individuals that made Yama/Nagaya their home, even if only for short periods of time. We challenge ourselves and others to continue to broaden and deepen historic narratives to bring forth voices from the past that have not been heard. We found, for example, individuals whose names were not in previous narratives, listed as business owners, and, in some cases, business owners we expected (based on the initial narrative) were not listed. While we knew the names of some families, we found one family who had resided in the community for decades and yet Reprinted from the journal

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was not mentioned in any other source but the census. We were surprised by the number of families who called Yama/Nagaya home. As most women were married, further tracking of individual females would determine which left with their husbands and which left without them, providing understanding of individual and family stories. Based on the fluctuation of the population and re-composition of community members, we propose several strategies for future archival and archaeological research. Continued exploration of historic Japanese and English newspapers, oral histories, photographs, the PBMCo records, delayed birth certificates and other government records will contribute to the comprehensive picture of Yama/Nagaya and the role that in and out migration at regional, national, and international levels played in the evolution of the community. The research will contribute to building broad narratives inclusive of those familiar and well recorded in the historical record and those who are not. Analysis of the Yama artifact collection, as well as comparative archival and archaeological research among the region’s early Japanese sawmill communities, will contribute to inclusive narratives. Yama/Nagaya was one of a number of Japanese communities associated with the region’s lumber industry (see other articles in this volume). Comparing census and migration data among the early communities would build a picture of the regional emergence of the Japanese American culture. It may also help show whether Yama/Nagaya, with its institutions, fluid demography, and complex relationship to Seattle, is an aberration or reflects a broader pattern among the early Japanese sawmill communities in the Pacific Northwest. Especially interesting would be a comparison of the Yama/ Nagaya and Japanese Gulch (Mukilteo) archaeological collections. The two communities shared much in common, and similarities between the two are noted in Taihoku Nippō, (Great Northern Daily News), “Other than the towns along the Pacific Coast, there would be no communities except Port Blakely and Mukilteo where 40-50 houses are built side by side and the residents are the owners of the houses at the same time” (Anonymous 1911:5). Both of the archaeological collections associated with these sites are housed at the University of Washington Burke Museum. Future archival and archaeological research and analysis at Yama/Nagaya and among regional sites will contribute critical information about the emerging Japanese American culture and provide more inclusive narratives of the individuals who created the Japanese American culture that continues to evolve and shape the region. Acknowledgments We wish to thank the following organizations and individuals for their support of the Yama Project: Bainbridge Island Historical Museum, Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community, Bainbridge Island Historic Preservation Commission, Bainbridge Island Metropolitan Parks and Recreation District and Foundation, Bainbridge Island Community Foundation, Bainbridge Island Rotary, Cultural Resource Consultants, Inc., Kitsap History Museum, the Norcliffe Foundation, Olympic College Foundation, Olympic College Social Science & Humanities Division, University of Washington Burke Museum, The Densho Digital Repository, Japanese Baptist Church of Seattle, Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Temple, Floyd Aranyosi, Tim Bird, Rick Chandler, Katy Curtis, David Davis, Robert Drolet, Patricia Drolet, Mike Grose, Etsuko Evans, Donna Fliger, Ashley Garrett, Bridget Grim, Joe Hannah, Glenn Hartmann, Hank Helm, Eleanor Lagman, Koji Lau-Ozawa, Theresa McDermott, Rie Misaizu, Clarence Moriwaki, David Moore, Edward Sponholz, and Courtney Sprague. It is our sincere intention that we acknowledge and thank all organizations and individuals that supported the project and us. If we overlooked anyone, it was not our intention.

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References Anonymous (1908). Japanese settlement is wiped out. Seattle Star, p. 7, Chronicling America, , Accessed January, 2019. Anonymous (1911). Nihonmura no Kinkyō (Updates on Japanese Villages): Fife, Vashon, Port Blakely. Misaizu, R. trans. Taihoku Nippō (The Great Northern Daily News), p. 5. University of Washington, Seattle. Arai, T. (1921). My conceptions of America. New Year Greetings From the Great Northern Daily News. Seattle, pp. 79-80. Aranyosi, E. F. (2019). Results of Data Recovery and Excavations at the Yama/Nagaya Site 45-KP-105, Bainbridge Island, WA. Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, Olympia. Barnes, J. A. (2011). An archeology of community life: Appalachia, 1865-1920. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 15(2): 669-706. Campbell, R. J. (2017). Reanalysis of Japanese-manufactured ceramics recovered from Japanese Gulch Village (1903-1930), Mukilteo, Washington. Archaeology in Washington 17: 62-89. Carlsson, L. (1992). Port Blakely Mills and Milltown Historic Buildings / Cultural Resources Survey for Port Blakely Mill Company. Port Blakely Mill Company, Seattle. Daugherty, R. D. (1993). A Cultural Resource Survey of the Proposed Port Blakely Development Part II Testing and Evaluations. Port Blakely Mill Company, Seattle. Deaths 1892-1907 Births 1891-1912 Kitsap County (1891-1912). Washington State Archives-Puget Sound Regional Branch, Bellevue. Ficken, R. E. (1987). The Forested Land: A History of Lumbering in Western Washington. University of Washington Press, Seattle. Fliess, K. H. (2000). There’s gold in them thar–documents? the demographic evolution of Nevada’s Comstock, 1860 through 1910, and the intersection of census demography and historical archaeology. Historical Archaeology 34(2): 65-88. Fujita, T. (1891). Zai Pooto Burukkure Nihon Jin [Japanese at Port Blakely]. Ano, M. (trans.). Bainbridge Island Historical Museum, Winslow, WA. Grim, B. (2017). Yama Shinkō: Traditional Japanese Religion at Yama. Paper prepared for the Yama Archaeology Field School: 45KP105. Burke Museum, Seattle, Washington. Hata, D. T. Jr. (1978). “Undesirables” Early Immigrants and the Anti-Japanese Movement in San Francisco 1892-1893. Arno Press, New York. Hirakawa, K. (1897-1940). Autobiography. Kihachi Hirakawa Papers. Accession Nos. 2418-001 and 2418002, Special Collections Library, University of Washington, Seattle. Ito, K. (1973). Issei: A History of Japanese Americans in North America. Nakamura, S. and J. S. Gerard (trans.). Japanese Community Service, Seattle. Japanese Rents (1925). Port Blakely Mill Company Records. Accession #0001-9, Box 4. Suzzallo Special Collections University of Washington, Seattle. Kitsap County Census, Kitsap County Territorial Auditor (1883). Washington State Archives, Digital Archives, , accessed August, 2019. Kitsap County Census, Kitsap County Territorial Auditor (1885). Washington State Archives, Digital Archives, , accessed August, 2019. Kitsap County Census, Kitsap County Territorial Auditor (1887). Microfilm. Washington State Library, Tumwater, WA. Kitsap County Census, Kitsap County Territorial Auditor (1889). Washington State Archives, Digital Archives, , accessed August, 2019. Magden, R. E. (2008). Mukashi Mukashi Long Long Ago The First Century of the Seattle Buddhist Church. Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Temple, Seattle. Matsumoto, M. N. and Umezuka, C. S. (1980). Yama descendants still keep old ties. Bainbridge Island Review, September 3, 10, 17. Murdock, G. P. (1949). Social Structure. Macmillan, New York. Price, A. Jr. (1980). Tamegoro and Tamao Takayoshi Port Blakely Pioneers 1898–1925. Bainbridge Island Historical Museum, Winslow, Washington. Price, A. Jr. (1989). Port Blakely: The Community Captain Renton Built. Port Blakely Books, Seattle. Prince, A.D. (1906). Forty-two lives lost in the wreck of the Steamer Dix off Alki Point. Seattle Star p. 1, < https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov>, accessed January, 2019.

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:663–685 Summary Pay-Rolls 1921 P.B.M.Co. (1921). Port Blakely Mill Company Records. Accession #0001-9 Box 4. Suzzallo Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle. Tanaka, S. (1977). The Nikkei on Bainbridge Island, 1882-1942: A Study of Migration and Community Development. Master’s thesis, University of Washington, Seattle. Time Log Book (1913). Port Blakely Mill Company Records, April. Accession #0001-9, Box 4. Suzzallo Special Collections, University of Wshington, Seattle. US Census (1900). Database with images. , accessed August, 2019. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC. US Census (1910). Database with images. , accessed August, 2019. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC. US Census (1920). Database with images. accessed August, 2019. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC. US Census (1930). Database with images. accessed August, 2019. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC. US Department of the Interior, Census Office. Instructions to Enumerator (1900) Government Printing Office. Washington, DC. Wilkie, L. A. (2006). Documentary archaeology. In Hicks, D. and Beaudry, M. C. (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Historical Archaeology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 13-33. Yaeger, J. and Canuto, M. (2000). Introducing an archaeology of communities. In Canuto, M.A. and Yaeger, J. (eds.), Archaeology of Communities: A New World perspective. Routledge, London, pp. 1-15. Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:686–717 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-020-00563-7

The Materiality of Anti-Japanese Racism: “Foreignness” and Racialization at Barneston, Washington (1898-1924) David R. Carlson 1 Accepted: 20 September 2020 / Published online: 3 November 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract Archaeologies of Japanese American labor reveal how company towns served as vehicles for racialization. Labor hierarchies at sawmill towns in Pacific Northwestern United States reified Nikkei immigrants as “foreign,” incapable of being full members of American society. Contests over “foreignness” are materialized on the landscape of Barneston, Washington. Community responses to anti-Japanese racism are visible through signage, while sawmill town owner strategies are reflected in the Nikkei’s spatial segregation. These arguments demonstrate how historical archaeology can link research in Asian American studies, racism and racialization, and company town labor to develop new syntheses of labor history. Keywords Racialization . Japanese Diaspora . Materiality . Racism . Company Towns

Introduction Like so many of his fellow countrymen, Kanzu Matsuoka made the multi-week journey from Japan to the United States in search of economic fortune. When his first wife died in Hawai’i in 1905, his son Takeo returned to Japan and he went on to the mainland, eventually finding work on the rapidly expanding railroad network that crisscrossed the Pacific Northwest. Kanzu’s original intent was to return to Japan to be with his family, but stories of fortunes to be made in Washington state’s strawberry fields kept him in the United States. Farming held a certain appeal to Kanzu; his family had farmed in Hawai’i, and farm life was seen as superior in many ways to the difficult conditions of section work. Unfortunately, farming did not serve Kanzu well; the price of strawberries had dropped, leaving Japanese farmers without a profitable crop. By 1912, the

* David R. Carlson [email protected]

1

Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Box 353100, Seattle, WA 98195, USA 115

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failure of strawberry farming and rumors that there was sawmill work available eventually drew Kanzu to Barneston, Washington, a small sawmill operation east of Seattle on the Cedar River watershed (Brown and Schroeder 1996). Operated by the Kent Logging Company from 1898 to 1924, Barneston was a profitable operation with a significant Nikkei (e.g., Japanese Americans and other individuals outside of Japan with Japanese heritage) population. Like many mill towns, it was remote, though a railroad allowed workers to make day trips to Seattle. Kanzu did find the work he was looking for at Barneston, but it came with a cost. Like most other sawmill operations in Washington State, Barneston employed a discriminatory labor managerial strategy which drew on racial and ethnic tensions to maintain control over labor (Beda 2014; Carlson 2017). This meant, among other things, that workers like Kanzu often found themselves restricted to the dirtiest and most difficult labor, and that they were often hired as bulwarks against labor agitation. But the labor structure of Barneston and other towns did more than just function as a means of control over workers. These labor hierarchies reinforced racial categories centered around the perceived “foreignness” of Japanese immigrant and Japanese American workers. In doing so, company towns like Barneston fit within a wider pattern of Asian American exclusion: they drew upon and made use of Asian immigrant labor even as they contributed to the very racial logic anti-Asian movements used to exclude immigrants from American society (Saito 1997). In referring to “company towns,” I am speaking about settlements where one or more companies so dominated local industry and society that they had unusually greater power over the daily lives of inhabitants. This includes settlements that fit the traditional definition of a company town, where a single company was both employer and landowner (Borges and Torres 2012:9). Such influence over residential life gave companies the power to set policies about domestic affairs, policies which concerned everything from worker welfare to labor unrest (Allen 1966; Borges and Torres 2012; Garner 1984). Such influence was often one of the goals of company town owners. In addition to ensuring a supply of labor in often-remote locations, these operators often construed their power in moral and ideological terms. Their power was a means to create good laborers through policies of paternalism, corporate welfare, and at times, Americanization (Borges and Torres 2012; Camp 2013; Crawford 1995). One of the key unifying themes of archaeological research into company towns is their relationship to capitalism and labor, something shared by many historical works as well (Dinius and Vergara 2011:9). Company towns and associated spaces, as “vanguards” of capitalism into previously uncommodified natural areas, are excellent locales for studying the materiality of working-class identity, mechanisms of social control, trauma and violence, and corporate paternalism/welfare (e.g., Gillespie and Farrell 2002; Hardesty 1998; Matthews 2010:135–141; Mrozowski 2006; Mrozowski et al. 1996; van Bueren 2002; see also Larkin and McGuire’s [2009] study of the Colorado Coal Field Strike, which touches on the difficulties of company town life). This emphasis on capitalism and worker identity has been amended by research investigating the intersection of gender, labor, and class (Hardesty 1994; Wood 2002, 2009). Wood’s (2002, 2009) work on women’s labor, economic agency, and class consciousness is a good example of this. Wood notes how, after the Colorado Coal Field strike, Rockefeller’s Industrial Representation Plan (IRP) attempted to socially engineer the family structure of his workers through modifications to worker Reprinted from the journal

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households and landscapes. These modifications, among other effects, restricted women’s economic agency by building single-family homes that discouraged boarding, a source of income often controlled by women. At the same time, working-class women were still able to engage in cooperative measures of persistence through the practice of home canning, which encouraged the kind of social networking that the IRP attempted to end. This body of research does much to aid in archaeology’s collective understanding of capitalism and people’s responses to it. However, relatively less work has been done on the relationship between company town daily life, managerial strategies of control, and structural racism (see Shackel and Larson [2000] for one such exception). By this, I do not mean to say that racism is ignored; several works above note the role ethnic and racial tensions play as strategies for undermining class consciousness (though see Jacobson [2009] for a particularly innovative take on this from a side of a union). However, in doing so, race is framed in a way that makes it out to be subordinate to class relations and identities. It is a tool against—or in Jacobson’s (2009) case, a hurdle for—the emergence of class consciousness, which leaves unanswered the question of how racism and racialization create unique experiences and difficulties for differentially “raced” members of the working class. What I wish to do here is begin to address the relationship between managerial strategies of control and structural racism— understood in Bonilla-Silva’s (1997, 2001) terms as a kind of racialized social system in which social, economic, and cultural relationships and hierarchies are influenced by racial meanings which are entangled with, but not reducible too, class or gender relations. By “racial meanings,” I am referring to “race,” a “symbolic category, based on [perceptions of] phenotype or ancestry and constructed according to specific social and historical contexts, that is misrecognized as a natural category” (Desmond and Emirbayar 2009:339). Historically and geographically contingent (Omi and Winant 2015), racism here is understood as “structural,” in that it is both the context and (potential) consequence of human action, maintained and perpetuated through conscious and pre-conscious action (Bonilla-Silva 2014; Giddens 1984). One way of understanding the perpetuation of racism is through racialization, the specific processes by which racial meanings and categories are applied to groups, things, individuals, and other “non-racial” phenomena. It is essentially a process of constructing difference, often in the form of both positive and negative stereotypes (Kobayashi and Jackson 1994). While often explicitly defined as the application of racial meanings to previously unracialized phenomena (e.g., Omi and Winant 2015; Orser 2007), I treat it here as a continuing process to which all are subject. This is an acknowledgement that “race” is something constantly being made, remade, and challenged through everyday action in the context of racism (Fields and Fields 2014). Understanding the imposition of and contests over racial meanings is of supreme importance to social scientists and historians, as association with these categories has a direct and—for people who cannot claim whiteness, a distinctly negative—impact on life changes, opportunities, and access to capital (Bonilla-Silva 2014). In the historical and archaeological literature on company towns, two works stand out as sources of guidance on how to approach structural or systematic racism in company town life. The first is Michelle Brattain’s (2001) work on paternalism and white supremacy in the American South. Surveying the Southern textile industry from the late 1800s to the 1970s, Brattain carefully documents how hiring practices and the 117

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extension of the benefits of paternalism created new avenues and modes of whiteness in the industrial South. This simultaneously functioned as an attempt to use racial tension as a means of labor control and, in the context of Jim Crow racism, reinforced white supremacy through material inequality and the maintenance of the “psychological wage” of whiteness (Roediger 2007). The second work is Stacey Camp’s (2009, 2013) archaeological investigation of the Mount Lowe Resort and Railway. Camp’s research demonstrates how mechanisms of labor control at Mount Lowe drew upon and reinforced racial stereotypes and the “otherness” of Mexican immigrants. Of particular note is an Americanization campaign run by the Pacific Electric Railway company, which, from 1902, owned Mount Lowe. This campaign, ostensibly aimed at helping Mexican immigrants integrate into American society as citizens, actually served to reinforce racial and labor hierarchies. It only attempted to train Mexican immigrants to fill the low-paying and ill-respected professions often disdained by middle- and upperclass Anglo-Americans. What unites these two works is the way in which they ground their framing of company town life and politics in larger-scale patterns of racialization and structural racism. Both Camp and Brattain show how strategies of managerial control—which might otherwise be framed solely in terms of company town politics or capitalism— also draw upon and reinforce American racial hierarchies and meanings. This paper draws inspiration from these multiscalar approaches to company town life by arguing that the labor structure of sawmill towns in the Pacific Northwestern United States relied upon—and by extension, reified—a wider American construal of Nikkei immigrants as “foreign,” incapable of being full social and cultural members of United States society. This “foreignness”—a concept drawn from Asian American studies (Kim 1999; Saito 1997)—had and continues to have a profound impact on the daily lives of Japanese Americans, not to mention anyone else who find themselves racialized as Asian American. Grounded in their perceived “immutable difference” from white or Anglo-Americans, this “foreignness” was further materialized on Barneston’s landscape. This town’s Nikkei community is the subject of the Issei at Barneston Project (IABP), my dissertation research project aimed at understanding the impact of and responses to anti-Japanese racism in the daily lives of the town’s Nikkei residents (see Carlson [2017] for more on the IABP). To make these arguments, this paper draws on a variety of different bodies of evidence, including: oral testimonies gathered as part of the Survey on Race Relations and past heritage research into Barneston; English-language newspaper articles referencing the town; photographs and maps created as part of a 1911 assessment of the value of the town; and preliminary results of archaeological survey as part of the IABP. What follows is a discussion of the racialized labor structure of sawmill company towns in the Pacific Northwest, followed by an argument that “foreignness” played an important role in how the Nikkei were construed by town managers and laborers. I then turn to Barneston and analyze how patterns in spatial segregation and signage reflect the materialization of contests over Nikkei “foreignness.” In doing so, I aim to not only argue that sawmill towns functioned to reinforce racial categories, even as they may have provided economic opportunities, but also demonstrate how the history and archaeology of Japanese workers and the Japanese Diaspora are sources of needed and critical perspectives on the sociopolitics of company towns in the United States. Reprinted from the journal

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Racialization and Sawmill Town Labor Structures Labor issues on Pacific Northwestern sawmill towns in the United States have historically been framed in the context of paternalism, corporate welfare, and union tensions (Beda 2014; Carlson 2003; Ficken 1987; Loomis 2008), with a few focusing on the racialized and ethnicized nature of sawmill town labor hierarchies (Beda 2014; Carlson 2017). However, no one has analyzed what it is that makes sawmill towns racialized, nor have they been contextualized within an understanding of particular histories of racism. In using the Nikkei as a means of labor control, sawmill town operators also reinforced racial stereotypes of East Asian immigrants, effectively participating in an ongoing system of social and economic exploitation. East Asian labor was used as a cheaper, foreign workforce to maintain capitalist expansion while simultaneously being denied full access and participation in America’s society and political system. By exploiting the perceived “foreignness” of Japanese workers and framing them in terms consistent with Asian American racialization, the labor hierarchy and managerial practices of sawmill town owners contributed to the Nikkei’s racialization. In this manner, sawmill towns in the PNW US paralleled those in British Columbia, where Nikkei racialization not only provided the means by which Nikkei labor could be exploited, but also helped to structure economic competition among workers along racial lines (Kobayashi and Jackson 1994). They also bear some similarities to the plantation system which dominated the Hawaiian sugar industry during this time. Like in Hawai’i, the lumber industry in the PNW US also relied on the exploitation of immigrant labor (Liu 1984; Takaki 1983). However, it appears that, owing perhaps to increased labor mobility (courtesy of railroads) and the economic geography of logging, there were far fewer examples of severe, autocratic paternalism in post-1890s sawmill towns than seen on Hawaiian plantations. Their operators had to rely on more subtle means of maintaining control over labor (see Chapter 3 of Beda [2014] for more on this). Broadly speaking, the racialization of Asian Americans has typically taken one of two forms: stereotyping the group as a threat to white supremacy and dominance (a “yellow peril”) or as an ideal example of immigrant advancement in American society (a “model minority”). When seen as a threat, Asian Americans are stereotyped as inscrutable, sneaky, unfairly competitive, and clannish. Conversely, as a “model minority,” they are seen as hardworking, thrifty, studious, industrious, and familyoriented (Saito 1997:72). Dominant framings of Asian Americans in the United States vacillate between these two poles throughout American history, though historical consensus puts the emergence of the “model minority” stereotype later than that of “yellow peril” (e.g., Wu 2015; though see Lau [2013] for a possible exception). One of the unifying elements which makes this transition between dominant framings work is an underlying, consistent attribution of “perpetual foreignness” to Asian Americans (Kim 1999; Saito 1997). This involves the consistent construal of Asian Americans as foreigners or outsiders, people who can never be fully part of American society. “Foreignness” is partially what allows for the transmogrification of various Asian American groups from enemy/threat to model minority and back again, and for people to draw upon a common set of stereotypes to racially characterize one group in a positive manner and others in a negative manner at the same time (see, for example, Saito’s [1997:81–85] discussion of Chinese vs. Japanese racialization in World War II). 119

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“Foreignness” is one of the key “attributes” that supports and unifies the concept of “Asian American” across the various racial formations of the United States. “Foreignness” is also what allows for and informs the exploitation of Asian American labor, and I argue that it is a key element of the labor hierarchy on sawmill towns. It is, in fact, what makes these labor hierarchies racialized and, at Barneston, racializing through the daily actions and policies of operators in power. In the following sections, after a brief foray into methods and contextual issues, I will use testimonies, gathered by Ronald Olson as part of the Survey on Race Relations, to lay out in detail the nature of sawmill town labor hierarchies and how the various framings of Nikkei workers act as a vector of racialization by reinforcing Nikkei “foreignness.” Archival Methodology and Contextual Evidence The following material draws on transcribed answers to interview questions posed by Robert Olson during a sociological survey of sawmill towns in the early 1920s. Some of these results are missing, but the remaining archival evidence (available online through the Hoover Institution. See Box 27 to 28, Folders 199 to 216 at Hoover Institution Archives 1924/1927) includes 11 different sawmill operations, as well as testimonies from both European American and Nikkei persons. A total of 40 individuals from this collection are represented, most of whom are European or European American. They are classified into three groups: labor (n=13), which consists of everyone not in a managerial or supervisory position (combining the “general labor” and “specific labor” categories I have used in previous publication [Carlson 2017]); management (n=18), which are all of those in managerial or supervisory positions; and local (n=9), which are all of those who do not fall into one of these two categories. Due to the way in which Olson conducted the survey (by surveying each operation one at a time), locals are often associated with particular sawmill operations and their testimonies bear upon such operations. A summary of the distribution of interviews appear in Tables 1 and 2. There are some contextual issues surrounding the use of this data, which are a result of the way data were collected. First, interviewees appear to be selected both systematically and opportunistically. Managerial interviewees are the most ubiquitous and most consistently interviewed, as at least one from every operation was included. However, other interviews are more haphazard, and some are not actually interviews, Table 1 Distribution of interviews by occupational category Occupational Category1

Number of Interviewees

Labor

13

Local

9

Management

18

Grand Total

40

1 Labor includes everyone employed by the company but not in a managerial position. Management are those employed by the company who are in managerial positions. Local refers to local residents not employed by the company.

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:686–717 Table 2 Distribution of interviews by company Lumber Company

Number of Interviewees

Carlisle Pennel Lumber Co.

3

Crown Lumber Co.

4

Eatonville Lumber Co.

3

Ernest Dolge, Inc.

2

Fir Tree Lumber Co.

4

Gray's Harbor Commerical Co.

5

N&M Lumber Co.

3

Pacific National Lumber Co.

2

Rucker Brothers Lumber Company

4

St. Paul & Tacoma Co.

5

Walville Lumber Co.

5

Grand Total

40

but comments or discussions Olson randomly overheard or participated in and then recorded. I consider this material to be more representative of managerial perspectives than others. When I rely upon non-managerial testimonies, I supplement them with outside studies to better establish their generality and mitigate these shortcomings. Note, too, that these interviews were conducted during a highly contentious time in Japanese American and lumber history. The laborers interviewed, for example, were at the time employed by the very companies whose policies they were being asked to comment on, companies that were specifically selected because they were known to hire Nikkei workers. This may mean that laborers would be less likely to comment negatively on Nikkei workers or management, for fear of retaliation. Interviews of management were possibly influenced by the fact that the 1924 Naturalization Act had recently been debated and/or passed (depending on timing of the original interview). While this act was primarily aimed at curtailing Southern and Eastern European immigration, lobbying by anti-Japanese groups successfully altered the act to completely exclude Japanese immigrants from entering the country (Ngai 2004). As this would lead to a cut-off in new workers that management depended upon, they may have felt compelled to frame the Nikkei in a more beneficial or positive, though still prejudicial, light. At least one sawmill town operator (“Mr. Galbraith, Jr.”) recounted how his father attended a series of 1920 Congressional hearings in Seattle to argue on behalf of his Nikkei workers, only to come away angry at the anti-Japanese sentiment he encountered there (Olson 1924h). Overall, I recognize that this material cannot be said to be statistically representative of the population of sawmill town owners but, as with the work of Ito (1973; see Carlson [2017] for my synthesis of testimonies regarding sawmill towns), I contend that it represents an effective way to develop a general overview of Nikkei racialization in sawmill towns. I relied on previous literature on Nikkei racialization and racial discrimination (Azuma 2005; Geiger 2011; Ichioka 1988; Kim 1999; Lau 2013; Saito 1997), and my own initial notes, to develop preliminary categories representing ways in 121

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:686–717 Table 3 Number of interviewees by occupational category and framing1 "Reliable" Anti- “Foreign” "Sly" Non- Labor Quality- "Clean" Other Unknown Labor Invest Threat of-Life Labor

2

2

0

2

0

1

0

0

3

4

Local

2

1

6

2

3

2

2

0

1

2

2

2

4

0

2

0

2

0

2

Management 18

1 Note that while each interviewee could be coded with multiple categories, they could only be coded with a particular category once.

which Nikkei might be framed. I coded each testimony according to these categories, creating new ones to account for unexpected framings. I aimed to be as conservative as possible in categorizing testimonies, particularly with regard to categories like “antiagitation,” which bear directly upon my arguments below. A list of categories and total interviewees per category appear in Table 3, and a brief description of each category is in Table 4. Note that, while each interviewee could be coded with multiple categories, they could only be coded with a particular category once. Case in point, it was very common for managers to expound upon the reliability of their Nikkei workers, but no matter how many times they mentioned it, each manager was only counted with the “reliable” category once.

Table 4 Descriptions of Framing Categories Framing

Description

Count

“Reliable”

Individual frames Nikkei workers as steady or hard working or willing to do work 22 that others will not do. Does not *explicitly* indicate anti-agitation, though that's likely part of the equation

Anti-labor

Individual explicitly frames Nikkei workers as a solution to union or agitation problems

“Foreign”

Individual explicitly frames in some way that Nikkei workers are irrevocably foreign, 8 unable to be Americans, or otherwise emphasizes their foreignness

“Sly”

Individual explicitly frames Nikkei workers as sly, clever, or otherwise manipulative 8 or working to “game the system”

Non-Invest

Individual explicitly frames Nikkei workers as not investing “locally” (read: in non-Nikkei businesses)

3

Labor Threat

Individual explicitly frames Nikkei workers as a threat to non-Nikkei labor and employment

5

5

Quality-of-Life Individual explicitly frames Nikkei workers as being a threat to the quality-of-life of 2 non-Nikkei workers “Clean”

Individual explicitly frames Nikkei workers as clean

Other

Other framings not listed here, including “stubborn,” “honest,” “preferable to other 4 non-Whites,” and “working men”

Unknown

Statements that do not quite fit into one of these categories, or which might not be 8 examples of “framing” but were worth recording anyway. Some of these were eventually reclassified into other categories.

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2

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Finally, these testimonies about a racially oppressed group were gathered during a period prior to the dominance of color-blind racism (Bonilla-Silva 2014). As might be expected, virtually all of them make use of racial epithets to refer to individuals with Japanese heritage. As a general rule, I substitute any such epithet with the word “Japanese” in brackets. The only exception to this is when the use of said racial epithet is itself the evidence I use to support a claim, something which is not the case for most of these testimonies. In those few (2) cases of exception, I quote the term as is. Labor Hierarchies and Social Control One of the many tools used by lumbermen to control labor was a racialized hierarchy in which perceptions of the reliability and labor sympathies of different racialized groups informed what tasks they were hired to do. Fear of unionization and agitation, particularly the International Workers of the World (IWW), was common among sawmill town owners and operators (Beda 2014; Ficken 1987), and characterizations of different groups of workers were frequently triangulated in terms of managerial perceptions that said group would be disruptive. For example, Northern European immigrants were seen as some of the most skilled—due to the perception that many had a background in logging—but, especially after 1910, were also seen as dangerous, since they were also thought to have experience with unionization (Beda 2014:40). Nikkei workers were not excluded from this logic and tended to be stereotyped as both “hardworking” and “loyal,” willing to work when others would not. They were also hired as bulwarks against labor agitation and “kicking,” a managerial term for times when workers complained or simply refused to do work. Case in point, Mr. Ninemire—President of the N&M Lumber Company—contrasted Nikkei “reliability” with the “unreliability” and “disloyalty” of other groups: The [Japanese] are more dependable than Whites. They stay on the job a longer time and they are the only ones who will work overtime and on holidays and I think that now the Whites would rather have Orientals working with them than Greeks. Those Greeks and Finns are great agitators and most of the trouble we have had here has been with them (Olson 1924k). Here we see an example of triangulation of the Nikkei, as a group, in relation to other groups that management does not see as “white” (Greeks, Finns) based on perceptions of their propensity towards agitation. “Greeks” and “Finns” are agitators, and Nikkei reliability is contrasted with this. We also see an explicit motivation for hiring Nikkei workers: they are perceived as doing jobs that white workers will not and working when white workers will not. This characterization—“hardworking” or “reliable”—was easily the most common among managerial interviewees (n=18), and in fact was far more common than explicit references to the hiring of Nikkei for anti-agitation purposes (n=2). Despite this relative paucity of explicit anti-agitation language, I argue that there is a strong contextual case for seeing Nikkei reliability as entangled with anti-labor sentiment. Perhaps the most important evidence is that those in subordinate roles in the labor system of sawmill towns—both non-Nikkei and Nikkei workers—recognize the importance of the Nikkei’s role as a bulwark against agitation. For example, Eatonville Lumber Company 123

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foreman and bookman R. Ode recalls saying the following to his supervisor to stop Nikkei worker pay from being cut: ‘Johnny, you know my boys. Aren’t they all good men?’ And he said, ‘You bet.’ And then I said to him: ‘You ever see any of my boys gamble? You ever see my boys drunk? You ever see [Japanese] boy make moon-shine here? You ever see [Japanese] boy who comes and works one week and then go away? You ever see [Japanese] I.W.W.?’ And of course he always says no. And so I say to him: ‘Well, Johnny, that’s what my boys are like. But if you think some boy is not worth what he is getting now then you cut his wages. But if he’s worth what he’s getting now, then you keep his wages the same.’ And Johnny, he never cut wages of even one man (Olson 1924m) Here we see explicit referral to the fact that his fellow Nikkei workers were (a) reliable (staying on for more than one week) and (b) not part of the IWW, the union that, in the first two decades of the twentieth century, lumber companies most feared (Ficken 1987). Ode recognized the value of hiring Nikkei workers as an anti-agitation strategy for lumbermen. Nikkei workers—and their own unions—often faced hostility and tension from white, non-IWW unions like the American Federation of Labor (Frank 1994; Kurokawa 2007). Having workers who would work overtime, on Sundays, and who had a troubled relationship with more established and powerful white unions meant that lumbermen could hedge against individual and collective labor action and ensure sufficient continued production to meet their needs. That Nikkei workers were hired as a bulwark against labor unrest can also be seen in the following quote from A. R. “Dogface” Johnson, Superintendent of Ernest Dolge, Inc.: “But I think if we had an all-[Japanese] crew we would have as much trouble with them as we do with the whites because the [Japanese] get cocky if they think you can't get along with them” (Olson 1924e). A similar sentiment is expressed by other managers, and quite a few note that they only have “a few” Nikkei workers or, as in the quote above, that they keep a team or “crew” of them on hand for particular jobs. With two exceptions, Nikkei workers are seen as skilled enough and hardworking enough to hire, but only in small numbers, else they might agitate like other workers and defeat one of the purposes of their hiring. Foreignness and the Yellow-Peril So how, then, does “foreignness” enter this picture? I argue that “foreignness” is one of the operating constructs of the racialized labor structure in sawmill towns. It does the symbolic work of othering Asian immigrants in order to undermine the formation of a common labor consciousness among sawmill and lumber industry workers. After all, simply construing the Nikkei as “reliable” or “loyal” is not enough to account for the anti-agitation function of their hiring, as “reliable” workers could still band together against managerial interests. Something else must be marshalled in order to make use of Nikkei as bulwarks against agitation; that something is their perceived foreignness, the presumption that Asian immigrants and Asian Americans were essentially incapable of fully “being” Americans (Saito 1997).

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Reliance on non-native-born labor is nothing new for sawmill towns. For example, this use of Nikkei workers can be seen as part of a larger trend of hiring cheap, foreign—particularly Asian and Pacific Islander—labor to maintain sawmill operations. Lumbermen began turning to Nikkei workers in part to replace Chinese workers lost after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the efforts of groups like the Knights of Labor (Ficken 1987; Kurokawa 2007). While Nikkei workers had largely achieved pay parity with white workers by the 1920s (Olson 1927), their perceived efficiency and work ethic made them still seem less expensive than white ones. As Carlisle Pennel Lumber Company manager Mr. Stout noted, “we feel that we can operate more cheaply by employing the [Japanese]” (Olson 1924l). Furthermore, lumbermen were well aware of the nativist leanings of their native-born workforce, and historically were willing to exploit this. The Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen (the 4-L)—a conservative union established by lumber companies and the US Army during World War I to quell labor unrest and maintain lumber supply—frequently advertised itself as a key tool in the “Americanization” of the lumber workforce. These campaigns were intended to forcibly assimilate or, such as with the Nikkei, drive off or exclude non-native born workers, and were entangled with worker nativism and conservative notions of masculinity (Loomis 2008). The role of "forgiveness" in supporting the racialized labor structure of sawmill towns—at least as they relate to the racialization of Nikkei workers—is expressed in a number of testimonies in the Olson collection. This expression takes two general forms: explicit and implicit. Explicit expressions of this construct involve interviewees framing the Nikkei as incapable of becoming citizens or of being part of the United States. For example, Jasper Howe, a carpenter in Lake Stevens, said this regarding labor strife against Nikkei workers at the Rucker Brothers Lumber Company: “It's just like this: those fellows can never become citizens in Christ's world and people don't want them around. They will never be citizens and you can't blame the people for doing as they did” (Olson 1924f). Here, Howe—a local citizen who is describing the motivations of anti-Japanese agitators—asserts the inability of Nikkei workers to become full members of United States society, effectively construing them as irrevocably foreign. Such oppositional framing was often directed at Nikkei workers and farmers, including those in Washington State (see examples in Kurokawa 2007:12–19; Nomura 2005), and draws on stereotypes that Asian immigrants threatened to culturally and socially replace American (“white”) citizens (Saito 1997). Even managers appear to engage in such framing, though they generally express it in a subtler way. As noted above, Nikkei were frequently triangulated as a group in reference to other non-white immigrants (e.g., “Greeks”) as well as in opposition to “whites.” The latter contrast was found almost universally among managerial interviewees, and is significant because “white” has historically been a shorthand for “American” (Saito 1997; Spickard 2007). Furthermore, in most cases, Nikkei foremen were prevented from having any kind of authority over white workers; the one exception (the Eatonville Lumber Company) is explicitly called out as such by interviewees (Olson 1924c). While this is certainly part of the wider managerial strategy of labor control, it also likely reflects genuinely held beliefs in the racial differences between “Japanese” and “white” workers. One manager, Mr. Hoff of the Pacific National Lumber Company, made this explicit when he claimed to his foreman that he is “now in America and, this is the United States of America and this is an 125

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American country for Americans. Japan is a Japanese country and is for Japanese and when you come over here you can't expect to boss American citizens” (Olson 1924i). The second type of expression consists of implicit ones. These rely on stereotypes or critiques associated with “yellow peril”-esque fears, and thus indirectly render Nikkei “foreign.” One example I have found, from local informants (n=3), is the perception that Nikkei workers did not spend enough money locally. “They [people in Eatonville] feel that the Whites should have those jobs,” expressed an editor for the Eatonville Dispatch, “because the Whites would spend more money with the local merchants and would not be sending all of their money out of the country like the Japanese do” (Olson 1924o). This perception was common both in and outside of sawmill towns (e.g., Campbell 2017; Lau 2013; White et al. 2008) and can be seen as an expression of the prejudicial belief that Nikkei (and other Asian immigrant) individuals were both economic competitors with white, US born workers and unwilling to participate in US society and consumption habits. Here, the racial logic is that Nikkei immigrants are working in “American” jobs (taking them, in effect) and sending that money to support the economy of a foreign country, rather than support economic development here in the United States. This kind of “underconsuming,” as Lau (2013:51) puts it, is linked with both fears over economic competition and the potential for Nikkei to lower the standard of living of white workers. In addition, members of all three groups of interviewees made reference to the “sneakiness,” “slyness,” or “cunning” of Nikkei workers (labor, n=2; local, n=2; management, n=4). For management, this is typically framed in terms of the willingness of Nikkei workers to agitate if their numbers get high (see A. R. “Dogface” Johnson’s quote above). For laborers, Nikkei were seen as “cheaters,” who would work hard when the bosses were around, but laze about when they were not looking (Olson 1924g). For locals, the Nikkei were potentially dangerous: honest to your face, but willing to “knife you in the back” if you were not careful (Olson 1924n). Such constructions of the Nikkei are again consistent with “yellow peril”-esque racism, which frame Asian immigrants and Asian Americans as fundamentally untrustworthy (Saito 1997). As a final note, Nikkei workers in these towns were aware of this racial structure. In several testimonies—including those of Takeo Matsuoka—they complain about having to do the hardest or dirtiest work in the towns (Brown and Schroeder 1996; see also Ito 1973:395-398). There is also evidence of Nikkei workers attempting to join up with and participate in union activities. At least one informant, Tokuichi Maeda, recalled attempts by his Nikkei boss to get the local union to allow the Nikkei to join. It did not work (Ito 1973:397). As we can see from R. Ode’s testimony above, the Nikkei were very much aware of the rules of the labor structure they were operating under, and proved willing to mobilize the concerns and interests of sawmill town owners in an attempt to maintain access to labor (see also Azuma [2009] for a similar example from the realm of chick sexing). Nikkei throughout the Pacific Northwest had to balance sympathies and common concerns with other working-class communities against the need to maintain access to jobs (Kurokawa 2007). Workers in sawmill towns undoubtably had the same experiences, though it would take much more than I have written here to do these struggles full justice. Ultimately, evidence from Ronald Olson’s work as part of the Survey on Race Relations provides us with a direct look at how various groups in or associated with sawmill operations constructed and racialized Nikkei workers. While workers were Reprinted from the journal

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seen as “reliable” and “loyal,” they were also hired as a bulwark against labor agitation in all its forms and were generally hired for the dirtiest and most physically demanding work, work that white workers often refused to do. Underlying all of this is the notion that Nikkei workers were irrevocably foreign, fundamentally different from (white) Americans, a notion that was mobilized by those in management, partially because they believed it and partially because it served as a division between Nikkei and white workers. The Nikkei themselves were aware of this, and in at least some cases it clearly had an influence on their own strategies for securing labor.

Barneston and the Materiality of Contests Over “Foreignness” When workers like Kanzu Matsuoka arrived at Barneston, they found a racialized labor structure much like the ones described above. The Kent Lumber Company largely restricted its hiring of Nikkei workers to unskilled labor, adhering to the wider industry pattern of racialized hiring (Carlson 2017). The town itself was spartan, almost certainly a reflection of the restrictions the economic geography of logging placed on logging companies (Beda 2014), but this does not appear to have prevented the materialization of racial inequality and racialization on the town’s landscape. Contests over the “foreignness” of Nikkei workers were reflected in the various patterns of signage and spatial location of communities at Barneston. These phenomena evidence the ways in which racism manifested in the daily lives of Barneston’s Nikkei workers, informing the kinds of strategies they needed to adopt to navigate the inequities of American society as they pursued their interests and dreams. The following analysis draws on historical maps and photographs taken as part of an assessment of the town. This is supplemented with English-language newspaper articles, as well as oral testimonies gathered in the 1990s by student researchers at the University of Washington (see Brown and Schroeder 1996; Gilbert and Woodman 1995). When the city of Seattle began purchasing land in and around the Cedar River watershed, it sent out assessors to determine the value of the various parcels it would need to purchase. In March, June, and July of 1911, these assessors visited Barneston, and the resulting maps, photos, and notes provide the most detailed picture we have of the landscape and arrangement of the town. They include 40 photographs and a survey map, the latter of which was made by city engineer R. H. Thompson (or one of his employees). The photographs and their notes are available online via the Seattle Municipal Archive’s photography portal. The R. H. Thompson map is available in original form at the Gale Heritage Library of the Cedar River Watershed Education Center near North Bend, WA. For the IABP, the map was photographed and stitched together in Adobe Photoshop. It was georeferenced to a road feature—formerly part of the Kerriston line of the Northern Pacific railroad—identified on a 1-mr LiDARderived digital elevation model (DEM) provided by the City of Seattle. Barneston was founded in 1898 by the Kent Logging Company to log the Cedar River Watershed (Fig. 1). Located in King County, Washington, east of Seattle, the town was one of many that logged the forests there; its presence coincided with a wider boom in the timber industry (Ficken 1987). After the Great Seattle Fire of 1899, the City of Seattle decided to seek out a fresh water source to help prevent future disasters and to insure the continued growth of the city. The Cedar River Watershed was chosen 127

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Fig. 1 Map of the Barneston townsite, georeferenced from a 1911 R.H. Thompson survey map

for this, and the City began buying up land throughout that area (Getz 1987; Klingle 2007). After initially agreeing to sell in 1913, the Kent Logging Company managed to extend operations until 1924, when the city finally acquired and razed the town (Gilbert and Woodman 1995). There is no other evidence of further occupation of the site. Like most mill towns, Barneston cut and processed lumber gathered by loggers in camps; these camps could range as far as five miles away and up to elevations of 3,300 ft (1,006 m). While life here was more comfortable than in distant logging camps, both situations were dangerous, and accidents, including deadly ones, were common. Large saws, wide fan belts and conveyors, deafening noise, and the movement of tons of lumber made working in the mill towns a hazardous activity. The labor force was diverse and multiethnic, hailing from Japan, northern and southern Europe, and a multitude of US states. According to Takeo Matsuoka, a worker at Barneston, the Nikkei did the dirtiest and most difficult work (in terms of physical labor; Brown and Schroeder 1996). All of the Nikkei workers here were Issei (first-generation Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans), and they lived in their own community on the western side of the town. As with most other towns, Nikkei workers here were relegated largely to “general labor” (or unskilled) positions, which can be seen in US Census data on Barneston. There were few Nikkei workers in more skilled positions, such as sawyer (the individual who controlled the cut of the board in the sawmill). That being said, by 1920, there were no Nikkei workers who were not listed as either general laborer or foreman for Nikkei laborers (Carlson 2017). This may be a result of a resurgence in anti-Japanese hysteria and nativism during and after World War I (Daniels 1998). Reprinted from the journal

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Fig. 2 Historic photograph of barracks for single and married, but living alone European immigrant and European American workers. Southernmost cabin facing east-northeast from the southwest. Image courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives, Item No. 48030

Spatially, the town was centered around the mill pond, where logs were stored before being processed in the mill. To the south and southwest of the pond were the main production areas. These areas included the sawmill, planing mill, kilns, boiler houses, and other areas necessary for cutting and processing lumber. Several railroad connections and loading docks were intermixed among the buildings, allowing for lumber to be transferred from lumber piling areas directly to rail for shipment. There were also barracks for single European and European American workers (Fig.2), their dining and cookhouse (Fig. 3), a company store (one of the few two-story buildings at Barneston), and what was likely the home of the Smith family, the owners of the town. The town’s owners lived on-site, and this residence—one of only a few painted

Fig. 3 Historic photograph of European immigrant and European American dining house. Facing southeast from the northwest. Image courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives, Item No. #48051

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Fig. 4 Historic photograph of town owner’s residence. Facing east from the west. Image courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives, Item No. 48052

buildings, and the only one with its own manicured lawn (Fig. 4)—was almost certainly where they lived. Many structures were built on wooden stilts to deal with the naturally undulating topography of the landscape, and, as Brown and Schroeder (1996) note, there is very little sign of the intensive investment in infrastructure found on “model” company towns. This was likely the result of economic restrictions originating in the economic geography of the lumber industry (Beda 2014). The areas to the north and east of the mill pond consisted largely of households and fenced areas for gardens and animals. From west to east, there was a hotel, a line of cabins for families (Fig. 5), a schoolhouse, and a series of barns, sheds, and housing structures.

Fig. 5 Historic photographs of family housing north of mill pond. Facing northwest from the southeast, just south of the school. Image courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives, Item No. 48058

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Further to the east of the pond were households with picket fences, gardens, and chicken coops. Most of the buildings in these areas were cabins or longer houses constructed of the same wood planks as every other building in the town; they were elevated to deal with the undulating topography. The houses near the school had access to running water. They are square with pyramid-shaped roofs and, while they were elevated like almost all other structures, it was concealed with wooden boards, which gave them an overall “neater” appearance. The households in these various areas were highly likely to be the ones the company built for workers with families (Anonymous 1909). A Spatial Summary of the Nikkei Community The Nikkei community itself made up the majority of the western-most area of the town. This was at least the second occupation of this community; prior to 1907, it was located to the southwest, closer to the river. It was on the east side of the west-east loop of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and was surrounded by a short wooden plank fence. The community appears to have numbered between 50 and 60 individuals at any given time. It included bachelors, married men living alone, and families, though over time, a greater proportion of the community was made up of families. Nikkei worked for Kent Lumber from at least 1903, based on an early map of the community by Seattle City Engineer R. H. Thompson’s office (Thompson 1903), and continued to do so until the town closed in 1924. At that time, any remaining workers either moved to another town, moved to a farm, or found work elsewhere. Major residential and non-residential buildings in the community were organized into two rows oriented roughly NNW to SSE (Fig. 6). The eastern row included four habitation structures and a final, southern-most structure that photographic and oral historical records indicate was a bathhouse (Figs. 7, 8, and 9; Brown and Schroeder 1996). Most of the structures were rectangular, with triangular prism roofs. In the second row, the structures were mostly square, with pyramid-shaped roofs. They look very similar to the structures in the northern part of town, being cabins constructed of wood paneling with shingled roofs and hinge doors. Unlike some of the homes on the northern part of Barneston, the spaces under their houses were not hidden by wooden paneling. Archaeological evidence indicates that these houses had access to running water (Fig. 10) and confirms that this area was logged prior to the Nikkei living here (Carlson 2019). Several chicken yards and coops could be found in this community, none of which appear to have been attached to any particular household. There were also five areas marked “garden,” three of which were attached to specific household structures. A fourth was attached to an outhouse; this may be a mistake on the map or a mistranslation or misidentification on the part of the surveyor (who likely spoke only English). The fifth, and largest, garden stood on its own, adjacent to a chicken coop. Three “rock piles” are noted in that garden, and archaeologically speaking it overlaps with several of the largest rock formations found on the site. There are, in fact, a multitude of rock formations at this site, and they likely had diverse functions, ranging from reinforcing the landscape against erosion to supporting houses (Carlson 2019). There were also several miscellaneous structures, including a number of outhouses and a storehouse. There was one building on the map marked “Other Building.” Its function was not noted, but given archaeological material in that area, 131

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Fig. 6 Map of the Nikkei community, georeferenced from 1911 R. H. Thompson survey map

it may have been associated with a rock formation and definitive pit feature (see Figs. 6 and 10). The Materiality of Foreignness While Barneston itself was multiethnic, the labor structure of the town was dictated by the same racialized logic as other sawmill towns, as indicated by US Census data and Reprinted from the journal

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Fig. 7 Historic photograph of Nikkei community, from south facing north. Includes bathhouse (second building from left) and unknown building (second building from right) in the foreground. Image courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives, Item No. 48039

oral testimonies (see Carlson 2017). As such, this labor structure can be said to have drawn on the “foreignness” of Nikkei workers in the same way, maintaining general worker precarity as it relied upon them to ensure profitable operation. “Foreignness,” however, was not simply present within this labor structure. It also operated on the landscape, appearing to intervene in the materiality of daily life at Barneston in at least two ways: through attempts by the Nikkei community to downplay visible, material signs of difference, and through the spatial segregation of this community from the rest of Barneston.

Fig. 8 Historic photograph of Nikkei community, from north facing south, eastern column of households. Image courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives, Item No. 48035

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Fig. 9 Historic photographs of Nikkei community, from north facing south, western column of households. Images courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives, Item No. 48036

One strategy used by first-generation Nikkei to deal with anti-Japanese hysteria was to avoid architectural features or elements that would draw attention to their Japanese heritage, particularly in the case of very public buildings (such as schools) or Japaneselanguage signage. Dubrow et al. (2002), for example, have argued that while rural Japanese immigrants created spaces to practice ethnic traditions, overt expressions of cultural identity in the built environment were limited in part due to a conscious strategy to deflect anti-Japanese sentiment. This is consistent with the kinds of recommendations and anti-exclusion campaigns embarked upon by Nikkei business leaders, newspapers, and Meiji-era diplomats in the early twentieth century. They advocated a mixed strategy of internal reform (particularly anti-gambling and anti-prostitution campaigns) and surficial masking of ethnic differences as an answer to anti-Japanese racism (Azuma 2005; Ichioka 1988). While Nikkei embarked on a variety of social and political strategies to deal with racism (Geiger 2011; Ichioka 1988), these are the most relevant here. Such a strategy—enacted in response to the racializing nature of sawmill town labor relations, and likely some kind of tension with non-Nikkei workers—explains the signage at Barneston’s Nikkei community. By signage, I am referring to the sign above the door of the bathhouse, which reads, in English, “The Baths” (Fig. 11). This traditional Japanese bathhouse was used by most people within the community, though families sometimes had their own baths. Men bathed before women and children, and the “bathing” was more akin to soaking, as everyone made sure to clean themselves before getting into the communal tubs (Brown and Schroeder 1996). This bathhouse was only used by Barneston’s Nikkei residents. Bathhouses in immigrant Japanese communities were important locations for social interaction, relaxation, and the socialization of traditional Japanese gender norms (Dubrow et al. 2002). In addition to this function, the structure served as the cookhouse for the entire community, who collectively paid an Issei woman to cook for them (Brown and Schroeder 1996). Reprinted from the journal

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Fig. 10 Archaeological features identified through field surveys conducted in 2016 and 2017. Note in particular the pipe features, which are water pipes

This use of an English-language sign for a structure that served only the cultural needs of the Nikkei community—and was used only by members of that community— indicates an example of awareness, explicit or implicit, on the part of Barneston’s Nikkei of the role “foreignness” played in affecting their lives. Were this a structure that non-Nikkei would be expected to use, such as a store, the English-language sign could be explained as simply good business strategy. Some might seek to explain it as a form 135

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Fig. 11 English-language signage (“THE BATHS”) on the Nikkei community’s bathhouse in Fig. 7. Image courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives, Item No. 48039

of acculturation or assimilation, except that (a) such theories are inadequate for explaining immigrant lived experiences and social change (see, for example, Dubrow 2005; Fong 2013; Omi and Winant 2015; Spickard 2007), and (b) strategic choices over cultural expression among Japanese immigrants were hotly debated topics within that community, closely entangled with experiences of oppression and concerns over economic and social opportunity (see examples in Asato 2003, 2006; Azuma 2005; Ichioka 1988). Tactics like this represent strategic choices, not the internalization of norms. Given the role “foreignness” played in the maintenance of Barneston’s racialized labor structure, and by extension in the experiences of the Nikkei there, this English-language sign is almost certainly an attempt to downplay visible markers of ethnic difference and reduce anti-Japanese racism. It is, in fact, one of the surficial changes encouraged by some prominent voices within in the Nikkei community (Ichioka 1988:185). “Foreignness” also operated through the spatial segregation of the Nikkei community. One function of material culture is to “naturalize” social relationships and hierarchies by creating physical-symbolic indices of meanings, tropes, or associations created by those relationships and hierarchies (Preucel 2006). The thing or object in question becomes something one can “point to” in reference to said associations, such as a flag for a country or a monument for a memory. In the case of Barneston, the Nikkei community’s spatial segregation from the rest of the town functioned as one such materialization of difference. Nikkei workers were segregated within the labor force, a segregation that was influenced by and in turn reinforced perceptions of Nikkei “foreignness.” The spatial segregation of Nikkei workers certainly benefited the Kent Lumber Company. It rendered this labor segregation physical and material in the form of a space and collection of structures which were distinctly “Japanese,” distant from the housing of other workers and the town’s production centers. The spatial clustering reinforced and reflected their “racial” distinctiveness, and Nikkei “foreignness” was represented spatially through literal distance from everyone else. Reprinted from the journal

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The easiest way to support this argument would be through the naming of the community and discursive associations between the space of said community and some other set of negative attributes (e.g., “dirty,” “unsafe”; see White 2017 for an archaeological example of this). Unfortunately, due to the lack of company archives and minimal testimonies, I have been unable to find specific acts of naming among the nonNikkei workers or management, though it is possible such naming occurred. The Nikkei’s segregation on the 1911 map was, after all, reflected in their daily lives and practices. As noted previously, only Nikkei workers lived in that camp; informants do not recall seeing any non-Nikkei workers there (Brown and Schroeder 1996). They had their own cook and cookhouse (integrated with the bathhouse) and their own running water. This segregation is even reflected in their work environment; Nikkei worked entirely in the lumber yards and, according to one informant, white workers worked almost entirely in the buildings (Brown and Schroeder 1996). The social environment seems “ideal” for such naming and association to occur. It certainly did in various contexts outside of the town. The assessor’s notes, for example, refer to this area as the “Japtown” (Thompson 1911), and both reports and newspaper articles on Barneston refer to this as a distinctly Japanese community. A report by John Freeman (1906:483) on the Cedar River’s water quality, for example, mentions the “village of the Japanese sawmill laborers” at Barneston, and several 1904 articles from the Seattle Star and Seattle Post-Intelligencer make reference to a distinct Nikkei village or community there (Fig. 12; Anonymous 1904e). There is also the question of Nikkei agency to consider. As with other examples of racialization (e.g., Azuma 2009, Kobayashi and Jackson 1994), the Nikkei workers themselves may have contributed to this segregation. The structural nature of racism and the ongoing process of racialization frequently create situations where the actions of racialized groups end up inadvertently reinforcing racial meanings even as these groups work to survive their imposition. Strategies of endurance or resistance, cultural norms, and changes or differences in class, ethnicity, and gender identity within racialized communities can all end up unintentionally contributed to a communities’

Fig. 12 Sketch map of pre-1907 Nikkei community by a reporter from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Note epithet used to refer to the Nikkei community

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racialization, in large part by unintentionally reinforcing the racial perceptions of noncommunity members (in this case, local laborers and management). At the moment, I have not been able to uncover much evidence that speaks directly to the perceptions of Nikkei workers vis a vis spatial segregation, either at Barneston or elsewhere. Reading back from historical events, though, can allow us to partially (and with a fair degree of ambiguity) assess possible motivations. First, it certainly seems the case that this iteration of the community was initially constructed by the Kent Lumber Company. Originally, the Nikkei were located closer to the Cedar River, outside and to the southwest of the curve of the Northern Pacific railroad. In 1904, the Seattle Star began a month-long campaign to have the Nikkei community eliminated, claiming that they posed a particularly dangerous health risk to the city of Seattle (Anonymous 1904a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h). The Cedar River was used as a fresh water source for the city and was advertised by the city as an exceptionally clean source of water. At this time, clean water was seen by engineers and burgeoning public health professionals as a critical tool for cities to avoid epidemics, particularly typhoid fever (Klingle 2007; for contemporaneous discussions, see Alvord 1906; Freeman 1906; Sedgwick 1906). The Star claimed that the Nikkei—who it characterized as dirty and ignorant in the ways of proper sanitation—were polluting the Cedar River. After an investigation by the city Board of Health and a further series of sensationalist articles on the “Barneston Menace” (as the Star called it; Anonymous 1904d), the Kent Lumber Company agreed to move the Nikkei community further into the town. They did so sometime prior to 1906 or 1907, according to a line in the Freeman water report: “At Barneston the village of the Japanese sawmill laborers, in time of heavy rains, now drains directly into the Cedar River, but I am told that new houses for these laborers are already approaching completion” (Freeman 1906:483). From the language of reports like this and the fact that Kent Lumber built housing and facilities for all of its other workers (Anonymous 1909), it appears that they were responsible for the initial construction of the new Nikkei community. This would also explain the considerable architectural similarities between Nikkei and non-Nikkei buildings. Most of the structures in the Nikkei community are rectangular with triangular prism roofs, or square with pyramid-shaped roofs. They look very similar to single-dwelling structures in other parts of town, though they lack the wood paneling that hides the spaces under houses (see Figs. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9). The structures lack any decorative features which distinguish them from other similarly sized dwellings and structures at Barneston and are constructed in a similar manner (wood paneling, shingled roofs, hinged doors). Even the bathhouse does not look particularly different in style or construction. Still, we cannot entirely discount the possibility that Nikkei workers might have preferred or requested some degree of spatial segregation. Even though the company built the community’s initial houses, Nikkei workers were certainly allowed to—and did—build their own, often using cheap wood purchased from the company. If they built some of the structures in Figs. 7, 8 and 9, then the similarities noted above are likely the result of attempts to downplay visible differences with other communities at Barneston (like with the English-language sign). Furthermore, there are certainly theoretical reasons why Nikkei workers in general might prefer some degree of distance from other working communities. While we do not yet know the range of ethnic, linguistic, religious, and prefecture Reprinted from the journal

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backgrounds of the community members, they almost certainly had more in common with one another, culturally, than with non-Nikkei workers at the town. Japanese immigrants—living in a new and, in this case, hostile country—likely preferred rooming with their fellows. Beyond this, there are other, more historically particular reasons segregation was valuable to Nikkei sawmill communities. For example, such a situation may have been especially attractive to undocumented Nikkei workers. While we have no evidence so far that there were undocumented workers at Barneston, it is very likely that some were present. There are multiple accounts of Nikkei smuggling themselves, or being smuggled, into the United States (Ito 1973:55-90; see also Geiger 2011). One Nikkei resident in Seattle estimated that, from 1906, he must have helped at least 100 undocumented Nikkei immigrants find their way off boats. He frequently sent them to remote settlements—like sawmill towns or railroad camps—to avoid getting caught (Ito 1973:73). Of course, if Nikkei workers did have some say in the initial location of their community, then these choices must be understood as occurring within a wider social context where racism would have led to complex and seemingly contradictory choices, benefits, and drawbacks. Take the aforementioned undocumented Nikkei; the very isolation that may have benefited them also put them at risk. Despite solidarity among Nikkei workers (Ito 1973:75), one recounted how he became so worried over being caught that he left a sawmill to work at a Japanese-run restaurant (Ito 1973:60). And by 1924, immigration officials had caught on to the value of these isolated communities for undocumented Nikkei. News reports and oral testimonies from the mid-1920s indicate that immigration officials performed a series of raids on sawmill towns leading up to the 1924 Johnson-Reed Naturalization Act, which barred Asian immigration to the United States. Accounts of these raids indicate that officials and (presumably deputized) assistants surrounding Nikkei communities on sawmill towns and required each worker to come out and show papers (Ito 1973:57–58, 76–77; Olson 1924a, 1924d, 1924j; R .H. G. 1924). Such tactics—which are still used by US immigration enforcement today—would have served to unnerve and terrify these communities and were likely made easier by communities’ relative spatial segregation and isolation. Clearly, whatever Nikkei agency existed when it came to spatial segregation (and, by extension, self-racialization) must be understood within the context of racial exclusion.

Conclusion Managers of Pacific Northwestern sawmill towns made use of racialized hiring practices as a means of maintaining control over worker labor and ensuring profitable operation. These hiring practices relied in part on the construction of Nikkei workers as perpetually “foreign,” simultaneously drawing from and participating in a wider process of Japanese (and other East Asian immigrant) racialization. The effects of this racialization can be seen in the patterns of signage and, more ambiguously, the organization of the landscape at Barneston, Washington. Contests over “foreignness” appear in the use of English-language signs for buildings associated with strictly Japanese cultural practices. They may also be reflected in the spatial segregation of Nikkei workers from the rest of the community, a practice which spatialized their 139

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“otherness” through distance from the rest of the town. These elements together make a compelling case that sawmill towns did not just exploit laborers who otherwise faced social, political, and cultural discrimination. They also perpetuated an ideological logic of racial meaning, even as they ostensibly provided economic opportunities to workers who might otherwise have had none. The story of Barneston’s Nikkei community is, of course, more than that of people being subjected to racism. Archaeological research at Barneston, as part of the IABP, seeks to understand how Nikkei workers negotiated the racial meanings ascribed to them and persisted in the face of the difficulties and inequalities of sawmill town life. While this work is ongoing, preliminary archaeological data from surface surveys of the town hint at complex patterns of consumption and practice (Carlson 2017, 2018, 2019), including a ceramic assemblage heavy in the Meiji-produced ceramics that are consistent with dining practices at other Nikkei sites in North America (e.g., Bowden and Larson 1997; Campbell 2017; Ross 2011). These data, along with the overall horizontal integrity of the site and the lack of post-Nikkei occupation, suggest that Barneston’s Nikkei community will not only be able to provide a window into Nikkei racialization, but also illuminate the ways in which this racialization was negotiated through daily practice and consumption. More specifically, this project is investigating the role various “moral reform” movements played in influencing the consumption practices of Nikkei workers. Nikkei communities and organizations responded to racial exclusion through diverse legal, political, and social strategies. One particular response was an attempt to promote within their communities an array of sociocultural practices that would presumably reduce anti-Japanese hysteria, out of the belief that some or all of the racial exclusion they faced may be due to some inadequacy on the part of their fellow immigrants. These “anti-exclusion practices” were propagated by local and regional Issei leadership (e.g., newspaper editors, clergy, business leaders), and had the support of both key United States–based representatives of the Meiji government as well as white progressive reformers (Azuma 2005; Ichioka 1988; Oharazeki 2016). Deeply gendered, and at times expressly nationalistic, these movements frequently targeted working-class Nikkei for a kind of “class uplift” aimed at producing an immigrant population that would more closely adhere to what proponents considered “model” immigrants (Lau 2017). As part of these efforts at internal change, local and regional Issei leaders—religious and secular—embarked on campaigns of moral reform aimed at curbing prostitution, gambling, and drinking. These included not only proscriptions against such activities, but more overt acts of social control. Leaders publicly outed gamblers, saw to the deportation of pimps and other such undesireables, blocked access to key legal and government services, and even reported the names of violators to their families back home (Ichioka 1988; Oharazeki 2016). Reformers were particularly keen on policing the domestic sphere; they saw both children’s education and women’s work as key targets for improving the “quality” of the Nikkei immigrant population (Lau 2013, 2017). Nikkei workers at places like Barneston were thus forced to navigate between reformers within their community and anti-Japanese movements outside of it. As one might imagine, the relationship between workers and their leadership was not always rosy (Azuma 2005; Ichioka 1988).

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For the IABP, then, the question is: how did Nikkei workers at Barneston negotiate, on the one hand, their racial exclusion within American society and, on the other, a set of transnational anti-exclusion strategies aimed at class uplift, fostered upon them by Meiji diplomats and community elites, all of which presupposed workers’ “inadequacy” as immigrants? To address this question, the project is—as of summer 2019— conducting subsurface survey and excavation at site 45KI1424, the Japanese Camp at the Barneston Townsite. We are focusing our efforts on comparing material culture associated with gaming and drinking activities from various types of spaces (e.g., private, communal, interstitial, and so forth). These activities are among the ones targeted by reformers and are thus our best chance of understanding how the Nikkei here dealt with these social pressures. Through a comparison of these different areas, we aim to reconstruct some sense of what types of alcohol and what kind of gaming were considered appropriate, and in what kinds of spaces. This, in combination with a careful investigation of already-translated—and a limited amount of newly translated— material from primary and secondary sources, will help us to understand the extent to which consumption practices at Barneston reflected workers’ attempts to navigate both American racial exclusion and class reform movements within the Nikkei community. By 1919, the school at Barneston had closed. Soon after this, Kanzu Matsuoka and most of his family left Barneston for O’Brien, Washington, where his children could attend school and Kanzu could return to the farm work he had originally been seeking. Like many Nikkei sawmill town workers, they earned what money they could before moving on to other things. But their stories and experiences in the towns—insomuch as we can reconstruct them—speak to the complexities of both American and global history. They allow us to link histories and theories of labor and racism, enriching our understanding of the past while simultaneously making spaces for the voices and histories of marginalized groups and explicating the nature of the inequities they faced (and continue to face). By serving as a methodological bridge between different scales of analysis, historical archaeology can help to craft the kinds of narratives that speak to these histories.

Acknowledgments I would like to first thank Koji Lau-Ozawa and Douglas Ross for organizing both this special issue and the symposium upon which it is based. A special “thank you” also goes to Yoli Ngandali and Hollis Miller, whose comments on an early draft of this paper were extremely helpful. I would also like to thank my anonymous reviewers for their useful and insightful comments. I would like to acknowledge and thank the City of Seattle and the Cedar River Watershed Management District for their permission and ongoing support of my research. Watershed personnel—Ralph Naess, James Amspacher, Katie Klahn, Christopher Holland, and Julie Stonefelt—have been extraordinarily helpful and supportive. The Japanese Community and Cultural Center of Washington, and Stephanie Ikeda in particular, have also been tremendously helpful. Finally, my field crew and volunteers also deserve thanks: Hollis Miller, Jiun-Yu Liu, Mikhail Eschavarri, Yoli Ngandali, Megan McCrea, Thao Tran, Sam Hordeski, Jackson Miller, Joyce LeCompte-Mastenbrook, Joss Whittaker, Nicholas de Vry, and Anna Cohen. Without them, this project would not be possible. Material 141

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from this paper was collected with the support and permission of the Seattle Municipal Archives, the Gale Heritage Library at the Cedar River Watershed Education Center, Seattle Public Utilities, and the City of Seattle. Research conducted in support of this paper was funded with monies from a Department of Anthropology Pilot Study grant and a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (#1743498).

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:718–739 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-020-00567-3

Japanese Ceramics and the Complexities of Consumption in “this Knife-Fork Land” Renae Campbell 1 Accepted: 22 September 2020 / Published online: 15 October 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract Japanese Gulch Village was home to a community of Japanese millworkers and their families between 1903 and 1930. During this time, village residents pursued a wide range of options for acquiring goods. This article uses a consumption framework and archaeological Japanese ceramics to explore the ways that village residents negotiated among purchasing options to increase communal wellbeing and express individual agency. As a case study, Japanese Gulch Village highlights the complexities of consumption in transpacific contexts and the importance of drawing connections between the Japanese ceramics industry and its Japanese diaspora customers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Keywords Ceramics . Consumption . Japanese diaspora

“Chopstick customs go Right with me, throughout my life In this knife-fork land.” –Yukiko Japanese journalist Kazuo Ito included the above senryu, a Japanese poetry form that focuses on human experiences and emotion, in his now-classic anthology Issei: A History of Japanese Immigrants in North America. Ito (1973) identifies neither Yukiko’s legal name nor a date of composition, yet his placement of this senryu among other poems, stories, and anecdotes about pre-World War II sawmill communities in the Pacific Northwest suggests a broader context. At the turn of the twentieth century, Washington State was home to a rapidly expanding lumber industry with a growing need for labor (Ficken 1987:150). At the same time, the Pacific coast was a locus of

* Renae Campbell [email protected]

1

Asian American Comparative Collection, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Idaho, 875 Perimeter Drive, Moscow, Idaho 83844-1111, United States 147

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labor immigration that included a large number of Japanese migrants. By 1910, at least 22,000 Issei, or first-generation Japanese immigrants, were employed in Oregon and Washington sawmills (Ichioka 1988:57–64). It is probable that the semi-anonymous Yukiko was one of these employees, since their senryu appears amidst other firstperson accounts of life in the sawmill community known as Japanese Gulch Village. Japanese Gulch Village was located in Mukilteo, a small coastal town in the Puget Sound region of Washington State (Fig. 1). This community of Japanese millworkers and their families was established in 1903 or 1904 on a 20 ac (8 ha) complex owned by the Mukilteo Lumber Company. Ownership of the mill complex and the village later transferred to the Crown Lumber Company, which became one of the largest sawmill facilities on the West coast, producing over 1.7 billion feet of lumber before closing in 1930 (Kaiser 1990:1,17). Japanese immigrants were some of the first employees of the Mukilteo Lumber Company and made up the majority of the mill workforce by 1909, yet legal and social restrictions prevented most of them from living in the neighborhoods where non-Japanese employees resided. Thus, Japanese employees constructed their own village on Mukilteo Lumber Company property. Village members built homes, community buildings, and other facilities like a playground along either side of a drainage that came to be known as Japanese Gulch (Kaiser 1990:3–4; White et al. 2009:10–12). Interviews with former village residents suggest that many of the first Japanese Gulch Village inhabitants were recruited directly from Japan by contracting firms (Mitsuoka 2007). At least some of these early arrivals were from Wakayama Prefecture, but historical records also mention Japanese Gulch Village residents who immigrated from Hiroshima, Kumamoto, Shizuoka, and Shiga Prefectures (Ito 1973:398–400; Mitsuoka 2007; Mukilteo Historical Society 2017; Odoi 2007). Later arrivals to Japanese Gulch Village describe joining family members already employed by the

Fig. 1 Map of the state of Washington showing the former location of Japanese Gulch Village and the nearby market centers of Everett and Seattle

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Mukilteo Lumber Company or relocating from other Western states where they worked in various industries (Ito 1973:398–400; Odoi 2007). Sawmill labor was known to be physically demanding and dangerous but tended to offer slightly higher wages than many other jobs available to Japanese immigrants. It also provided comparatively stable living conditions that could accommodate families—a fact that is reflected in Japanese Gulch Village demographics (Dillingham 1910; Ito 1973:412; Mitsuoka 2007). At its peak population in 1920, Japanese Gulch Village included at least 94 men, 29 women, and 44 children of Japanese ancestry (White et al. 2009:62). This article uses archaeological materials, specifically Japanese-manufactured ceramics, first-hand accounts, and historical data to explore consumption patterns among Japanese Gulch Village residents. The former location of Japanese Gulch Village was recorded as an archaeological site in 2006 and a series of compliance-driven archaeological projects between 2007 and 2012 documented materials related to the village (Copper 2012; Miss and White 2007; Valentino et al. 2011; White 2008; White et al. 2009). Two large artifact collections, which contain over 100 Japanese ceramic vessels, were recovered from 2007 excavations and are now curated at the Burke Museum of Natural and Cultural History in Seattle, Washington. Using a typology built around Japanese ceramic terminology, this article reanalyzes ceramics from these collections within the context of the Japanese ceramic industry and the experiences of its customers among the Japanese diaspora. This approach reveals the ways that Japanese Gulch Village purchasing decisions were mediated through both local and global contexts. It also attempts to reframe Japanese ceramics, too often interpreted as emblems of static tradition, as complex and diverse expressions of social, cultural, and aesthetic capital.

The Archaeology of Transpacific Consumption and Discourse Archaeological literature on consumer practice and consumption encompasses a broad range of studies that explore the structural, economic, social, cultural, and symbolic aspects of material goods (Heath 2017:2). Many early investigations of consumer choice focused on specific artifact classes as indicators of socioeconomic status or, as was particularly prevalent within the field of Asian American archaeology, as indicators of social differentiation and/or assimilation on the part of minority ethnic populations (Carroll 2002:126–127; Mullins 2011a:136). Since the 1990s, however, consumption scholarship has been increasingly concerned with detecting nuance and symbolic meaning. Historical archaeologists who employ this approach (e.g., Beaudry et al. 1991; Burley 1989; Carroll 1999; Heath 2017; Mullins 1999; Mullins 2011b; Purser 1992) consider the often-overlapping influences of social processes, context, individual agency, and mutable identities in shaping the acquisition and use of material culture. Within this flexible framework, consumption is defined as any approach that “embraces the agency of consumers and recognizes that goods assume meaning in a tension between structural and localized processes that cannot be described as being either wholly deterministic or disconnected from consumer symbolism” (Mullins 2011a:134–135). Explicitly consumption-oriented approaches are rare among archaeological investigations of Japanese diaspora sites (which themselves are still underrepresented), but the growing literature in this and related fields share many theoretical concerns with consumption studies that emphasize, among other things, strategic agency, multiple 149

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contexts, and the symbolic discourse embedded in artifacts. Consumption patterns as potential “strategies of action” (Dietler 2005:63) can be seen in studies of Chinese diaspora communities that illustrate the power of consumer practice to forge alliances (e.g., Baxter and Allen 2002; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 2001; Sunseri 2015, 2020), to express intracommunity or intraethnic difference (e.g., (Praetzellis et al. 1987; Rains 2003), or to negotiate white racism (e.g., Fong 2013, 2020; Orser 2007). Individual agency and the impact of structural racism are also inescapable themes in the archaeology of World War II confinement sites (e.g., Branton 2000, 2004; Burton et al. 1999; Camp 2019; Ng 2014; Skiles and Clark 2010) that, through analyses of various artifact assemblages and architectural and landscape features, reveal both “widespread structural influences and consumer agency” (Mullins 2011a:135). Rejection of monolithic acculturation models has also helped make room for more dynamic explorations of consumption and identity. Challenges to the view that Asianmanufactured artifacts evidence “static and traditional” ethnicity (Voss 2005:425) promote human behavior and material culture as capable of expressing multiple possible meanings. Recent alternatives to assimilation-based interpretations of Japanese ceramics appear in the work of Benjamin Barna (2015), who connects tea and alcohol-related artifacts to social bonding among multiethnic ranching communities of Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino laborers; and in a report by Mark Walker and his colleagues (2012:200– 203) that aligns ceramic consumption with the multidimensional identities of Orimoto household members in Oakland, California. Advocates for transnational, transpacific, or diasporic perspectives (e.g., González-Tennant 2011; Ross 2013; Voss 2008, 2016) point out that, particularly at sites occupied by international migrants, holistic artifact analyses are necessarily both global and local. This literature is particularly well poised to follow the “trajectories” (Appadurai 1986:5) of material culture back and forth across cultural and national boundaries and so shares much with consumption frameworks. In a recent article, Voss and her colleagues (2018:411,419) explore evidence of the “dynamic and recursive” role that global exchange networks had in shaping the material culture available to Chinese consumers in migration origin and diaspora sites. Tracing the nuance of these mutual influences reveals that, in addition to country of origin, functional, and aesthetic attributes also influence consumption. These studies provide an entry point for viewing Japanese ceramics as artifacts of a larger transpacific discourse. Numerous authors have demonstrated the capacity of ceramic consumption to create and communicate meaning. Case studies by Beaudry et al. (1991), Gary (2017), and Purser ( 1992) map the construction of localized discourses in which seemingly trivial attributes such as ceramic form or decoration take on symbolic value, linking individual behavior to communication through shared systems of knowledge (Appadurai 1986:4, 6). Although shared systems of knowledge can take many forms, for Japanese migrants, knowledge about Japanese ceramic vessels would have been informed by their awareness of both production and use contexts. It is likely, therefore, that the meaning embedded in these artifacts emerged from the symbolic dialogue of the Japanese ceramic industry, as well as from localized processes. Japanese Ceramics and Consumer Culture Art historians, economists, and a limited number of archaeologists have written about the development of a distinct consumer culture in Japan (e.g., Brandt 2007; Cort 2000; Reprinted from the journal

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Francks 2009; Ross 2013; Rousmaniere 2012). These authors expose the robust role that ceramics have played in the performance of wealth, status, and/or urban modernity for individual consumers. On a larger scale, ceramics, including everyday tablewares, have also been used to promote regional heritage, nation building, and international exchange. Some of the first ceramics to be recognized as symbols of elite sensibilities in Japan were tea wares and imported Chinese porcelains. Archaeological excavations in Tokyo have uncovered expensive Chinese porcelain vessels that were likely displayed in upper-class households as early as the sixteenth century. Research summarized by Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere (2012:103–111) indicates that ceramic consumption was substantial enough among upper-class Japanese consumers that by the mid-sixteenth century, Chinese kilns began producing wares with motifs designed to appeal exclusively to Japanese markets. Chinese Shonzui wares, which have been found at archaeological sites throughout Japan but only near the Ningbo trading port in Southern China, are an early indication of this phenomenon. Shonzui and other wares evidence a distinctive consumer culture that developed in urban areas during Japan’s Edo period (1603–1868). This consumer culture grew to encompass a range of domestic and imported ceramics that, “filled the dual roles of furnishing the daily necessities of dining and catering to the yearning for luxury and prestige” (Rousmaniere 2012:106). By the end of the Edo period, urban markets were well established across Japan (Francks 2009:142–143; Hanley 1997:156). Households with the means to do so embraced more complex cooking and dining practices, including multi-course kaiseki meals that required a growing number of specialized ceramic vessels (Francks 2009:36–37). Increasingly, these ceramics were supplied by a domestic industry that produced stoneware, earthenware, and porcelain wares in a range of styles. These vessels featured both Chinese and Japanese motifs, which were promoted and published in design manuals, and that helped to create a standardized lexicon of symbols accessible to an expanding middle class (Ross 2012:18). By the close of the eighteenth century, consumers in large cities had access to Japanese-manufactured ceramics that, although still reflective of locally distinct materials and styles, exhibited surprising uniformity of form, quality, and design (Cort 2000:230; Gordon 2009:31). For many, these products signaled the newly emergent affluence and social status of consumers (Rousmaniere 2012:104). Forced trade with the West and Japan’s transition from a feudal government to a constitutional monarchy in 1868 ushered in the Meiji era (1868–1912) and a series of changes that restructured many aspects of Japanese society. For the Japanese ceramics industry, some of the most dramatic changes of the late nineteenth century were technologies imported from America and Europe, industrialization, mass production, and the introduction of new markets (Amagai 2003:35; Jahn 2004:112–113; Sanders 1973:54–55). Mass production made porcelain vessels affordable and available to a widening middle class (Ross 2009:152–153; Sanders 1973:54) but, particularly in the first several decades of the Meiji era, much of the Japanese ceramic industry was focused on export markets. Japanese ceramic exports took on new significance as an essential source of funding for industry and infrastructure expansion, and as a means of promoting the new Meiji-era government on a global stage (Amagai 2003:36; Ross 2009:152; Wilson 1995:32). Beginning with the Vienna World’s Fair of 1873, two official state organizations, the Exhibition Bureau and the Design Bureau, actively 151

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marketed Japanese ceramics at international exhibitions and directed stylistic and technological production at home. Through these programs, Japanese ceramics became entwined in global efforts to enhance Japanese cultural and political authority (Jackson 1992:252; Jahn 2004:18–19; Wilson 1995:32). At the turn of the twentieth century, the Japanese ceramics industry began a gradual shift back toward domestic markets that was accompanied by a resurgence of interest in historical styles and local traditions (Jahn 2004:65–66, 81–82). Economic growth during World War I and a corresponding growth in individual incomes, employment opportunities for women, and the availability of manufactured goods, all contributed to an overall rise in domestic consumption in the late Meiji and early Taishō (1912-26) eras (Francks 2009:147-159; Gordon 2009:118,157). Ceramic tablewares, now available to urban and rural consumers in a variety of forms, styles, and price ranges, were at the heart of growth during these years (Francks 2009:152) and soon became a focal point for several emerging folk craft movements (Brandt 2007:2; Kikuchi 1994:257– 258). Intellectuals and activists in the Mingei (Folk-Craft) and similar movements placed ceramics at the center of debates about the role of tradition in a modern world. Social historian Kim Brandt ( 2007:3, 10) traces the Mingei movement’s exploitation of “aesthetic capital” to resistance against Western encroachment, justification of Japanese colonial interests in Korea, and the establishment of a “distinctly Japanese modernity.” Mingei advocates, who traveled to rural areas and offered support to potters engaged in production of mostly handmade ceramics, encouraged the incorporation of this new form of aesthetic capital into everyday tablewares that reached the general public through stores such as Takumi in Tokyo (Jones 2014:143–144). All of these trends show that, as the context of Japanese ceramic production evolved between the Edo period and the Taishō era, so did consumers’ options for participating in local and global discourse, expressions of personal and national identity, and performance of status or class. It is this evolving consumer culture that migrants would have brought with them to Japanese Gulch Village and that, in combination with their local context, would help shape the tactics of consumption employed by village residents.

Japanese Gulch Village and the Tactics of Consumption In the first few decades of the twentieth century, Mukilteo was a small town with a population hovering between 300 and 800 people (Polk and Co. 1911:572) yet transportation systems, retail networks, and ingenuity provided its residents of Japanese descent with various means for acquiring food and goods. According to oral histories, Japanese Gulch families had the option of using credit at the company store, making purchases at local businesses, or ordering from regional merchants. Many people supplemented their diet by fishing, gathering clams and seaweed from the beach, or growing vegetables in household gardens (Mitsuoka 2007; Odoi 2007). Additionally, the same transportation systems that distributed lumber products from the mill, connected Japanese Gulch Village residents to national and international markets. A Great Northern Railroad depot, located adjacent to the lumberyard, offered daily service to commercial centers in Everett and Seattle, both of which could be reached within an hour. According to former residents, more clandestine options for acquiring goods

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included purchasing alcohol from the Japanese cargo ships that loaded lumber at the sawmill’s wharf (Ito 1973:396–397; Kaiser 1990:11, 24–31). With access to so many different options, motivations behind consumer choices appear to have taken both individual and collective forms. For larger quantities of Japanese products, residents pooled resources and placed orders with regional import companies (Ito 1973:397–398, 399; Mitsuoka 2007; Odoi 2007). According to Masa Fujie, who began work at Crown Lumber in 1920, the M. Furuya Company and the Asia Company each sent traveling salesmen to the village at least once a month (Ito 1973:399). The Seattle-based M. Furuya Company was one of the largest Japanese import/export companies in the Pacific Northwest and catered to Japanese communities as far away as North Dakota (Ito 1973:710). Ordering from the M. Furuya Company was likely a group decision because, as former resident Masaru (“Mas”) Odoi (2007) remembers, “if the men came to take their orders, they wanted to give them something to make it worth his [sic] while.” Ordering from out-of-town sources provided Japanese Gulch Village residents with many familiar Japanese products, but it also had repercussions on a local level. This issue became a focal point for anti-Japanese sentiment in 1910 when the Sea View Improvement Club of Mukilteo began petitioning Crown Lumber to replace their Japanese workforce with “white” labor. In a February 18 editorial printed in the Labor Journal, the club outlined their complaints, which included concerns about labor competition, the unfounded suspicion of Japanese spies, and the charge that Japanese Gulch residents did not contribute to the local economy by shopping at Mukilteo stores (Anonymous 1910). Sawmill employee Tokuichi Maeda remembers that Japanese Gulch Village residents were criticized for ordering products from Seattle or Tacoma because this did not funnel money back into the local economy through taxes (Ito 1973:397–399). In response to these complaints, some Japanese Gulch Village residents mounted a campaign to increase patronage of local stores. According to Takeji Minegishi, several youth league leaders “voluntarily organized a club and destroyed this old buying custom, changing over and buying all the necessary goods through the company store” (Ito 1973:399). Mas Odoi (2007) adds that the community “went through some pains to build a good relationship” by increasing the village’s spending at local stores. Accounts generally agree that by shifting their consumption patterns, residents of Japanese Gulch Village decreased local prejudice and negotiated a more tolerant relationship with their non-Japanese neighbors. This, in fact, is cited as one of the reasons that the village earned a reputation as an “ideal Japanese sawmill” (Ito 1973: 397–399; Odoi 2007), and it indicates the deliberateness with which Japanese Gulch Village residents structured communal consumption patterns. But while these tactics appear to have benefited the community as a whole, evidence suggests that they may not have been universally adopted. The Mukilteo (later the Crown Lumber) company store stocked dry and canned foodstuffs, clothing, shoes, hardware, housewares, and cosmetics. Fresh fruit and vegetables were offered seasonally, and an adjacent butcher shop sold cut-to-order meat (Kaiser 1990:27–29). Similar items were available from at least two other general stores in downtown Mukilteo that operated between approximately 1904 and 1930, but none of these stores were reported to sell Japanese-made goods (Ferland et al. 2001:22). A limited amount of Japanese food, candy, clothing, and household items could be 153

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purchased from a small store within Japanese Gulch Village that was run by the Tanabe family. According to Laurette Mitsuoka (2007), formerly Laurette Tanabe, her father made monthly train trips to Everett and Seattle so that he could stock Japanese items. Merchants in Seattle and Everett offered a far wider selection of Japanese products. A partial list of M. Furuya Company’s offerings from a 1919–20 import/export catalog advertises tablewares, Japanese and Chinese cotton, personal hygiene products, rice, beans, tea, potato flour, and other food products (Hough :306). Shopping exclusively at local stores meant relinquishing access to many of these international commodities. Pressure to shop at local establishments was not the only consideration in day-to-day purchases made by Japanese Gulch Village residents. Individual desires for specific products almost certainly guided such decisions, as did factors like wealth, mobility, language ability, gender, and age. For example, shopping at the company store was attractive for some because of its proximity and because items could be purchased on credit that would later be taken out of employees’ paychecks (Kaiser 1990:27–28). According to Laurette Mitsuoka (2007), women who did not speak fluent English preferred to shop at her father’s establishment where they could order in Japanese. Additionally, while the youth leaders who helped increase local patronage all appear to have been adolescent males (Ito 1973:399), former resident Mas Odoi remembers that it was his mother who purchased most of the family’s tableware. In his household, plates tended to be of American or European manufacture but “bowls and some special Japanese things…for sake” came from merchants in Seattle because these specific ceramic forms “tended to be special” and had “whole different shapes” than European or American tablewares (Odoi 2007). Archaeological collections offer additional insight into some of the more nuanced factors at work among the tactics of consumption in Japanese Gulch Village.

Archaeological Ceramics from Japanese Gulch Village Archaeological excavations conducted in 2007 recovered approximately 8,000 mostly fragmentary artifacts from an industrial area of the former Mukilteo Lumber Company complex. These materials were excavated from one continuous context but, because the deposit crossed a property boundary, were split into two separate collections and curated according to property ownership (White et al. 2009:1–5). This study reanalyzes Japanese ceramics from both curated collections which, because of the continuity of the materials and the excavation context, are considered to be one cultural deposit. According to the 2009 excavation report, both collections contained structural debris from demolition of mill buildings, along with discarded household items from the 1903 to 1930 occupation of Japanese Gulch Village. The mixed domestic and architectural refuse appeared to have been secondarily deposited downslope from the former village, likely after the mill had closed (White et al. 2009:51). As a result, the archaeological context precludes household-level analysis of these materials, yet they can be used to examine community-level consumption patterns. As curated, the cumulative Japanese Gulch Village assemblage now contains just under 6,500 artifacts. Glass artifacts make up the largest portion of the assemblage (42% of the assemblage), yet over 40% of glass forms are unidentifiable. Those that can be identified include complete bottles, bottle fragments, window glass, light bulb Reprinted from the journal

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fragments, and several glass bowls, tumblers, and buttons. Metal artifacts (26% of the assemblage) consist primarily of machinery parts, nails, and other hardware but also include 25 fragments of bowls, cups, and other tablewares, as well as at least three spoons. Ceramic artifacts account for 18% of the assemblage. Just under 95% are related to food preparation, consumption, or storage. These food-related ceramics represent the largest collection of domestic items within the curated assemblage. Approximately two-thirds of table, sake, and kitchen ceramics are porcelain, while the remaining one-third of the collection is dominated by whiteware and other earthenwares; stonewares make up just 3% of the assemblage (Table 1). Ceramics represent a variety of European, American, and Japanese-style forms that include many bowls, cups, plates, and serving vessels such as several large platter fragments and at least three sake decanters. While these forms evidence a range of cooking, cuisine, and presentation preferences among Japanese Gulch Village residents, it is noteworthy that nearly twothirds of the food-related ceramic fragments are most likely of Japanese manufacture. These vessels appear to support a multifaceted consumption strategy that combined European American products with continued purchases of Japanese ceramics from nonlocal sources. Japanese ceramics are present in a much greater volume than would have been available from the Tanabes’ small store and, as will be shown later, decorative styles strongly suggest that ceramic purchases continued after the Sea View Improvement Club’s 1910 petitions, likely until the sawmill closed in 1930. Japanese Ceramic Forms A closer examination of the Japanese vessels in this collection, which are presented in Table 2 by form, provides further details about the types of items purchased from out-oftown merchants. Identifiable forms represent a variety of vessels for eating, drinking, and cooking food. Tablewares include rice/soup bowls, bowl lids, teacups, and other chawan (a group of hemispherical cups and bowls used for individual servings), soba-choko cups, small dishes, a sauce dish, and several types of teapots. Gohan chawan, bowls primarily intended for individual portions of rice or soup but that could hold a variety of foods, are the most frequent specific form. Supplemented by the European-American bowls and plates, gohan chawan appear to have been standard tablewares for Japanese Gulch Village residents. Many of the specific-use forms in the collection, such as the sauce dish (mamezara), the bowl lid (futa), and the soba-choko, however, may reflect the kinds of vessels that Mas Odoi’s (2007) mother considered “special Japanese things” that could not be replaced by the European-American wares available in Mukilteo. Specific tea and sake forms offer further evidence of specialized vessels and possible personal preferences. Two dobin-style teapots, identified by ceramic lugs that would have held bamboo handles, are communal style teapots, traditionally used to serve tea at family meals (Cort 2000:230–231; Ross 2012:10–12). Kyusu-style teapots, by contrast, are smaller vessels with ceramic handles that project from the side of the pot at 90% from the spout. Kyusu, like the one in this assemblage, were designed for personal use (Ross 2012:12; Walter 2012:111). These two different styles of teapots likely reflect different types of tea consumption among Japanese Gulch Village residents. Large guinomi and tiny sakazuki sake cups were also identified in the assemblage, along with at least three tokkuri (decanters) used to serve and/or warm sake. From historical records, it does not appear that local merchants stocked sake but out-of155

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2021) 25:718–739 Table 1. Summary of All Ceramic Table, Sake, and Kitchen Wares in the 45SN398A and 45SN398B Assemblages. Material Type Porcelain

Whiteware

Other Earthenware

Stoneware

Indeterminate

General Form

Sherd Count

Percent of Totala

Bowl (European American)

25

2

Bowl/Cup (Japanese)

268

25

Cup (European American)

9

1

Dish/Plate (Japanese)

15

1

Plate (European American)

6

1

Sake Decanter (Japanese)

16

1

Sake Cup (Japanese)

23

2

Teacup (European American)

7

1

Teapot (Japanese)

40

4

Indeterminate

315

29

Subtotal Porcelain

724

67

Bowl (European American)

27

2

Cup (European American)

42

4

Plate (European American)

64

6

Saucer (European American)

19

2

Indeterminate (European American)

115

11

Subtotal Whiteware

267

24

Bowl (European American)

12

1

Bowl/Cup (Japanese)

6

1

Cup (European American)

4