Glamour in the Pacific: Cultural Internatioinalism & Race Politics in the Women's Pan-Pacific 0824833422, 9780824833428

Table of contents :
Contents
Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
One Civilization at the Crossroads
Two Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific
Three Interracial Friendship
Four Population, Peace, and Protection
Five Culture and Identity
Six Race Politics in the Cold War
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Citation preview

(Continued from front flap)

—Antoinette Burton Bastian Professor of Transnational and Global Studies University of Illinois

“In this deeply researched and elegantly analyzed book, Fiona Paisley extends our understanding of the history of transnational feminism by shifting our focus from the transatlantic to the transpacific. And more. With a nuanced deftness, she shows the complex results when the desire of white Euro-American women to overcome racism and imperialism through cultural internationalism met the articulated interests of women from Asia and the Pacific islands. No one committed to global social justice today can afford to ignore this history.”

Glamour in the Pacific

“This book places at center stage an organization that embodies many of the crises of colonial modernity that scholars have been grappling with and refracts it through a set of actors and geographical locations that deserve to be better understood and taught widely. Paisley lays out her story in accessible yet analytically sophisticated ways that in turn make manifest the complex unfolding of cultural politics in the Pan-Pacific. The scholarship is extraordinarily impressive and represents the best kind of transnational research there is.”

Paisley

war geopolitics on the ideal of international cooperation in the era of decolonization were also considered. The work concludes with a discussion of the revival of “East meets West” as a basis for world cooperation endorsed by the United Nations in 1958 and the overall contributions of the PPWA to world culture politics. The internationalist vision of the early twentieth century imagined a world in which race and empire had been relegated to the past. Significant numbers of women from around the Pacific brought this shared vision—together with their concerns for peace, social progress, and cooperation—to the lively, even glamorous, political experiment of the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association. Fiona Paisley tells the stories of this extraordinary group of women and illuminates the challenges and rewards of their politics of antiracism— one that still resonates today.

women’s studies/gender studies/pacific studies

—Leila J. Rupp Professor of Feminist Studies University of California, Santa Barbara

Glamour in the Pacific Fiona Paisley is a cultural historian at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. Jacket photo: “Where East Meets West.” The Vancouver Daily Province, July 13, 1937, 1. Courtesy of The Vancouver Daily Province.

University of Hawai‘i Press

Jacket design: April Leidig-Higgins

Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822-1888

Cultural Internationalism and Race Politics in the Women’s Pan-Pacific ISBN 978-0-8248-3342-8

90000

9 780824 833428 www.uhpress.hawaii.edu

Since its inception in 1928, the PanPacific Women’s Association (PPWA) has witnessed and contributed to enormous changes in world and Pacific history. Operating out of Honolulu, this women’s network established a series of conferences that promoted social reform and an internationalist outlook through cultural exchange. For the many women attracted to the project— from China, Japan, the Pacific Islands, and the major settler colonies of the region—the association’s vision was enormously attractive, despite the fact that as individuals and national representatives they remained deeply divided by colonial histories. Glamour in the Pacific tells this multifaceted story by bringing together critical scholarship from across a wide range of fields, including cultural history, international relations and globalization, gender and empire, postcolonial studies, population and world health studies, world history, and transnational history. Early chapters consider the first PPWA conferences and the decolonizing process undergone by the association. Following World War II, a new generation of nonwhite women from decolonized and settler colonial nations began to claim leadership roles in the Association, challenging the often Eurocentric assumptions of women’s internationalism. In 1955 the first African American delegate brought to the fore questions about the relationship of U.S. race relations with the Pan-Pacific cultural internationalist project. The effects of cold

fiona paisley (Continued on back flap)

Glamour in the Pacific

     Perspectives on the Global Past Jerry H. Bentley and Anand A. Yang SERIES EDITORS

Interactions: Transregional Perspectives on World History Edited by Jerry H. Bentley, Renate Bridenthal, and Anand A. Yang Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World Edited by Victor H. Mair Seascapes: Maritime Histories, Littoral Cultures, and Transoceanic Exchanges Edited by Jerry H. Bentley, Renate Bridenthal, and Kären Wigen Anthropology’s Global Histories: The Ethnographic Frontier in German New Guinea, 1870–1935 Rainer F. Buschmann Creating the New Man: From Enlightenment Ideals to Socialist Realities Yinghong Cheng

Glamour in the Pacific Cultural Internationalism and Race Politics in the Women’s Pan-Pacific

Fiona Paisley

University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu

© 2009 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 14  13  12  11  10  09   6  5  4  3  2  1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Paisley, Fiona.   Glamour in the Pacific : cultural internationalism and race politics in the women’s Pan-Pacific / Fiona Paisley.    p.  cm.   Includes bibliographical references and index.   ISBN 978-0-8248-3342-8 (alk. paper)   1.  Pan Pacific Women’s Association—History.  2.  Feminism— Pacific Area—History.  3.  Intercultural communication— Pacific Area—History.  I.  Title.   HQ1865.6.P35  2009   305.4209182'3­—dc22 2009009201

University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group

Contents

Abbreviations

vii

Acknowledgments

ix



1

Introduction

1 Civilization at the Crossroads

29

2 Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific

63

3 Interracial Friendship

97

4

Population, Peace, and Protection

129

5 Culture and Identity

161

6 Race Politics in the Cold War

189



218

Conclusion

Notes

229

Bibliography

263

Index

281

v

Abbreviations

ASAPS FBI ILO ILOA IPR LNA MWWL NAA NLA PPSEAWA PPU PPWA UHM UN UNESCO WCTU WILPF YWCA

Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation International Labour Organization International Labour Organization Archives Institute of Pacific Relations League of Nations Archives Maori Women’s Welfare League National Archives of Australia National Library of Australia Pan-Pacific and South East Asia Women’s Association Pan-Pacific Union Pan-Pacific Women’s Association University of Hawai‘i at Ma¯noa United Nations United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Young Women’s Christian Association

vii

Acknowledgments

Over the several years it has taken to complete this project, many colleagues and friends have offered insightful comments on the work-in-progress as presented at conferences and seminars in Australia, New Zealand, Hawai‘i, North America, Canada, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. A particular thank-you goes to the participants and audience at the Crossroads Conference, Centre for Japanese Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Ma¯noa, Honolulu, in 2001; the 2004 Pacific Coast Branch–American Historical Association annual meeting, Honolulu; and the Transnational Feminisms Conference at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2006. Earlier versions of some of the material in this book have appeared in published form as “Cultivating Modernity: Culture and Internationalism in Feminism’s Pacific Age,” Journal of Women’s History 14, no. 3 (2002): 105–132; “Performing ‘New Zealand’: Maori and Pakeha Delegates at the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference, Hawaii, 1934,” New Zealand Journal of History 38, no. 1 (2004): 22–38; and “Glamour in the Pacific: Cultural Internationalism and Maori Politics at Pan-Pacific Women’s Conferences in the 1950s,” Pacific Studies 28, no. 4–5 (2006): 54–61. I am grateful to those publishers for allowing me to use material from these articles. In addition, numerous archivists and librarians in and around the Pacific have been enormously helpful and courteous, including those at the Swarthmore Peace Collection, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore; Puke Ariki/Taranaki Museum, Plymouth; the Mitchell Library, Sydney; the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington; the Women’s Library, London Metropolitan University; the State Library of Victoria, Australia; Special Collections, University of British Columbia; the Macmillan Brown Library, the University of Canterbury, Christchurch; Archives New Zealand, Wellington; the Hocken Library, University of Otago, Dunedin; the League of Nations Archives, League of Nations, Geneva; the National Archives of Australia, Canberra; the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Archives, UNESCO, Paris; Special Collections, the Hamilton Library, University of Hawai‘i at Ma¯noa; the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts; the Auckland War Museum; the Center for Archival Collections, Bowling Green State ix

University, Bowling Green, Ohio; and Melbourne University Archives. My gratitude goes to various PPSEAWAs for generously permitting me access to their collections. I have been supported in this work by an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship and through study leave and research grants from the Australian National University and Griffith University in Queensland, where I have been sustained also by the friendship and intellectual stimulation of colleagues and students. Special thanks go to Antoinette Burton, Vera Mackie, Patricia Grimshaw, Margaret Jolly, Leila Rupp, and Angela Woollacott for their enthusiasm for this project over the years, and to Pamela Kelley at the University of Hawai‘i Press.

x  Acknowledgments

Introduction

F

rom the late 1920s to the present, a Pan-Pacific women’s network has operated out of Honolulu. This book focuses on its first three decades. During these years, from 1928 until 1958 and over eight conferences, the association witnessed and contributed to enormous changes in world and Pacific history. Through turbulent years of Depression, world war, decolonization, and cold war, its delegates met to practice a new way of being in the world, one combining social reform with an anti-racist politics built upon ideals of cross-cultural exchange and interracial harmony. As such, the PanPacific women’s network contributed to a larger movement emerging out of the Pacific, its organization providing a specific venue for and by women internationalists of the region. What makes this group virtually unique as an object of study is its commitment to both rationality and affect as modes in which new models of being might be not only imagined but also put into practice. Delegates from nations on the Pacific Rim, and from those newly formed or still under trusteeship within the Pacific Basin itself, would prove eager to promote through its auspices an emotional as well as a political and intellectual response to the myriad changes being rapidly wrought by globalization and Westernization in their region. Through its parameters, they imagined a way forward in which political and historical differences, shaped by the previous century of imperial and colonial race politics, might be ameliorated in a shared respect for and engagement in cultural diversity. In so doing, they sought to combine the ideals of cultural internationalism with the realities of diversity, to combine a set of ideas with the actualities of individual subjects meeting in time and space and trying to learn more about the myriad obstacles to their greater understanding. That this project—to transcend the past—was inherently flawed is the starting point of this study, but equally a starting point is the acknowledgment of the motivation and intention of those who committed themselves to these claims for a cultural internationalist future. The conversation arising among this diversity of women across this Pan-Pacific represents a significant contribution to longer-standing internationalist interests in the formation of community, 1

the expression of constituency, and the politics of representation. For its participants, the first Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference in 1928 appeared to launch that debate into a new era, one in which women’s cross-cultural awareness was to provide a new praxis for peace in a globalizing world. In 1928, exciting news of this gathering in the Pacific reached the Berlin Congress of the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance. Recently formed in Hawai‘i, the Pan-Pacific women’s network was declared to “[offer] a unique opportunity to take a forward step in human progress.” Meeting in “the cradle of a new civilization free from prejudices and hatreds of the Old World,” delegates had discussed social reform in the Pacific, its participants endeavoring “to cultivate inter-racial friendship, coupled with knowledge and forethought” as they set about providing a new cross-cultural foundation for world politics.1 This sense of being part of a significant moment in the modern history of women’s and world cooperation was reiterated by the conference’s honorary president, US feminist Jane Addams, who asserted that “something vital [has] been born in the Pacific.”2 Following these propitious beginnings, the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association (PPWA) was formed at a second conference held two years later, in 1930. The several high-profile international gatherings convened by the association in and around the Pacific over the ensuing years went on to promote global perspectives on the status and conditions of women in the region, and on democracy and international cooperation. They generated substantial local and international interest. Inspired by the cross-cultural and interracial politics characterizing its cultural internationalist outlook, the association and its conferences captured the imagination of several generations of women activists of the Pacific Rim and the Pacific Basin. Involving thousands of delegates from more than a dozen countries and trusteeships, conferences were held in Honolulu (the association’s headquarters) in 1930, 1934, and 1949, in Canada in 1937, in New Zealand in 1952, in the Philippines in 1955, and in Japan in 1958. Mostly middle-class, Christian, Englishspeaking, and Western (or Western-style) educated women, these delegates spoke as modern experts in fields ranging from education, social work, and health to peace, population, and cultural anthropology. A core number among them, from the United States, Hawai‘i, New Zealand, and Australia, would provide continuity in leadership, while a new cohort would shepherd the project into a Pacific marked in the 1950s by decolonization and cold war. Given the “East meets West” theme dominating early conferences, delegates from Japan and China would be particularly important figures, while non-Western women in growing numbers from the settler colonies, the Pacific islands, and then Southeast Asia would emerge as potent figures in the association’s collective imagination and practical achievement. (Reflecting 2  Introduction

the “East” and “West” framework that dominated the early PPWA, historical categories are used throughout this book alongside more current terms such as “Euro-American,” “Anglo,” and “Asian.”) Across the Pacific, women were mobilized as modernizing forces by both Western and non-Western nations; part of that mobilization included involvement in international networking. By the 1930s delegates from Pacific island nations and indigenous delegates from the settler colonies came to play an increasingly important part in shaping the PPWA’s self-representation as a progressive contributor to world politics, their involvement effectively fracturing the essentializing and universalizing categories of “East” and “West” frequently deployed by the association and contemporary commentators alike. Their contributions, challenges, and sometimes explicit interventions in the historical development of a Pan-Pacific women’s community, initiated in their name, constitute the driving interest of this book. The PPWA was an association deeply interested in the role of interpersonal relationship and affect in the formulation of a truly international world order. This attention to the negative influence of racism and to its remedies in self-awareness and the praxis of open-minded cosmopolitanism complemented the PPWA’s interest in the formulation of ideology, in intellectual debate, and in factual exchange. Given this self-consciously dual aim, the early decades of the association offer a remarkable opportunity to investigate both the ideological and the experiential and subjective in internationalism, as well as their interconnections. As recent moves to situate US and other imperial national histories within a transnational context suggest, international politics also offer a productive framework through which to investigate circulating flows of imperialism and colonization, of immigration and trade, and of ideas and scientific cooperation exceeding the boundaries of national history.3 Paul Gilroy in 1993 called for cultural historians to study “cultural and political exchange and transformation” in order to produce “an explicitly transnational and intercultural perspective.”4 Certainly, thinking “beyond the nation” has resulted in greater focus on globalizing discourses emerging particularly strongly in the interwar years, but while the Atlantic has received considerable attention, the Pacific is only now beginning to gain recognition. It has emerged as a complex and dynamic site, one crisscrossed by imperial, colonial, and national histories thoroughly anchoring the United States and other Pacific Rim countries within its oceanic vastness.5 Moreover, the interwar years, during which this study begins, were decades of particular crisis in colonial modernity, as assumptions about empire, whiteness, and progress were undermined, and anticolonialism and decolonization appeared to threaten the old world order. While Europe Introduction  3

descended into a world war, the dawning of a “Pacific Age,” anticipated early in the twentieth century, found renewed valency among postwar internationalists promoting peaceful cooperation between the West and the rising powers of Japan and China. In interwar Hawai‘i, a Pan-Pacific community to parallel Europe’s League of Nations was heralded at the ocean’s crossroad.6 Among those progressives aiming for “development” along Western lines in the region, cultural internationalists rejected nineteenth-century racial foundations on which the world community continued to imagine itself, disavowing dominant anti-Asianism and proclaiming in its place a worldly outlook.7 PPWA women would contribute a glamorous (if mostly maturely so) dimension to this Pan-Pacific model, creating in its wake an international network for a women’s transnational, cooperative politics. But while the politics of culture offered a language of shared expectation about the cooperative future of humankind, it was the management of population and development that gave literal expression to the modern global outlook, and social reformism constituted the practical work of the association. Just as “culture” and notions of civilization were closely aligned in Japanese thought as much as in the West, so were matters of population and social hygiene; indeed, the two themes combined in the interests of nationalisms across the region.8 For many women’s groups in various countries (as for other Christian progressivisms claiming a global outlook), population management included eugenic intervention such as sterilization of the “unfit,” and some members of the PPWA in the 1920s also supported such ideas.9 The eugenic interests of the association, however, would be expressed in softer forms, those of population engineering, social welfare, education, factory regulation, maternal health, and so on. The point here is that global thinking in terms of population and cultural thinking in terms of international cooperation did not preclude “racial” thinking bound by national borders, territory, and sovereignty. Matthew Connelly shows that these two trends—the one global and the other state-based—coexisted, if in tension, throughout these decades, leading on the one hand to notions of a “global family” and on the other to new ways to divide nations over competing concerns about racial degeneration, famine, or uncontrolled immigration.10 At the same time as ideas about global population and health management were articulated through the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization (ILO), nongovernmental organizations like the Pan-Pacific women’s network proliferating in the Pacific similarly aimed to promote reforms with universal application across culturally diverse nation-states.11 Through an investigation of this women’s Pan-Pacific, therefore, this book sets out to situate a women’s version of cultural internationalism within 4  Introduction

the rewriting of twentieth-century world history of recent decades. By bringing together critical scholarship from across a range of fields—including cultural history, international relations and globalization, gender and empire, postcolonial studies, population and world health studies, world history, and transnational history—this study aims to bring into dialogue fields and analyses more usually held separate. This multifocal strategy is designed to extend the brief of a transnational scholarship in recent decades seeking to reach beyond state-centered and nation-based parameters. Necessarily, the study of cultural internationalism pushes the field of international feminism in particular further into the transnational domains of global race and culture politics, and into investigating the possibilities of progressive subjects among its memberships (not all of them privileged women). Without a nation or state as its prior object, this study of Pan-Pacific internationalism requires a substantial deterritorialization of thinking and approach—a greater attention to the complex and dynamic relationships between subjects and their various accounts of modernity than, for example, recent studies of cosmopolitan desires among national subjects.12 The PPWA calls for an investigation of the cross-cultural dimensions of multiple cosmopolitanisms, diversely articulated at international and transnational as well as national and local levels. Whereas my earlier work traced an interwar network of Anglo-Australian women interested in using British Commonwealth conferences held in London to advocate reform in their own country, including challenging aspects of Aboriginal policy in Australia, today in comparison this project seems restricted by its nationalist parameters and almost exclusive focus on white women. The limits of internationalist interventions into the politics of “race” and the historical legacies of imperialism, nationalism and colonialism familiar to much contemporary world history were fundamental questions preoccupying women at the PPWA also. As I argue in this book, the resilience of race thinking and the limits of the cross-cultural ethos within the PPWA should be read not as constituting the organization’s failure to somehow transcend history, but rather as a reminder of the inherence of racialism to modern feminism and liberal thought more generally. Wishing to be unbounded by territory yet inevitably preoccupied by territorial issues, the Pan-Pacific conferences discussed in the following chapters provide unique insight into the profoundly interconnected histories of race and gender that have shaped feminist internationalism, as well as other progressive politics, and illustrate their on-the-ground, embodied, and passionate contestations. By viewing the interwar Pacific as a newly conceived territory of modernity in both spatial and temporal terms, this book sees the interwar period as a pivotal moment in the twentieth century, one in which new ways of thinkIntroduction  5

ing about the world opened up, however partially, to questions of diversity and difference at the global level that still occupy us today. Not least, these decades saw new accounts of the flow of populations across the Pacific, encouraging a generation of ethnographers, demographers, and anthropometrists to declare the similarities between the races and cultures and in the Pacific in particular, to announce the future intermixing of peoples and cultures as the Pacific solution to world affairs, and to predict the future advancement of world civilization. Warwick Anderson points out that racial intermixture was claimed by many of those undertaking studies in the Pacific such as Felix and Marie Keesing, who feature in this study, to announce the way forward for humankind, thus envisaging interracial relations in stark contrast to the disavowal of racial mixing in the United States and its anxious management in Australia and elsewhere. The Keesings were also critical of the mandate of their own country, New Zealand, in Samoa (alongside the United States), contrasting that regime with their ideal of advancement through dynamic racial and cultural flows.13 As Tony Ballantyne explains, the region was conceptualized spatially and temporally as the product of waves of population linking more recent colonization to deep time.14 Feminist internationalism offers an important site from which to view these shiftings of race and culture politics and their interrelationship to the history of gender and modernity in the twentieth century. Writing out of the history of women’s suffrage, feminist historians in previous decades have noted in interwar transnational women’s networks articulations of anxiety about the management of progress and its relationship to inequalities between women. On the one hand, the Euro-American members of these networks sought to maintain cultural hierarchies by which progress was measured against Western feminist models. Following suffrage, women activists became involved in peace campaigns and in social reform advocacy, promoting the rights and conditions of women and children. Many joined professions then opening up to educated, middle-class white women such as social work. As the first decades of the last century proceeded, however, it appeared all too evident that women’s rights were taking shape differently among decolonizing nations, where non-Western women had begun to occupy public office in larger numbers than were their supposedly more advanced Western sisters.15 On the other hand, those non-Western women who did participate in transnational networks faced highly contradictory conditions. While they claimed agency and voice within the world community of women, they were considered by their Western colleagues to have progressed less along the road to citizenship, both as individuals with limited experience in international activism and as representatives of the non-Western races, cultures, and nations.16 Thus, although they were figures of central importance to Western 6  Introduction

feminist internationalism’s progressive discourse, simultaneously they were the objects of its civilizing mission. Adding further complication to any simplistic narrative of “progress,” as we will see, of key importance to the PPWA in its aims to consolidate a women’s community in the Pan-Pacific was the participation of women from newly decolonized nations like Indonesia and from trusteeships like Samoa. While delegates from these emerging nations and trusteeships were expected to learn how to be modern through their involvement in the PPWA project, they would come to use the opportunities of internationalism to articulate “advancement” in ways pertinent to their own personal, cultural, and national political aims. PPWA women of both Western and non-Western backgrounds shared a desire to promote cooperative relations through which a more humane world civilization could take shape. But they variously imagined a global community in which international cooperation between nations would lead to a transnational outlook capable of the complexities of increasing world interdependence.17 Hitherto, insufficient attention has been given to the role of nonWestern women in shaping these dual histories of internationalism and modernity. Looking beyond established networks of Euro-American women’s internationalism, during the interwar years we find a diversity of feminist international collaboration. Recent scholarship on women’s internationalism has called for greater attention to the contributions of non-Western women to feminist internationalist efforts to think beyond national borders.18 In their edited collection on feminisms and internationalism, Mrinalini Sinha, Donna J. Guy, and Angela Woollacott argue that we should aim to “defamiliarize” our assumptions about feminist internationalism by applying a global framework to our investigation. In this way, they argue, we can begin to acknowledge the “decolonizing impulses” that have driven “political organising across cultural boundaries,” as well as the multiplicity of local, national, and imperial histories from which these impulses have grown. New work has shown that significant numbers of women internationalists sought to grapple with questions of hegemony in global power relations, of which Western feminism was itself far from innocent. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and other organizations not only invited women from beyond Euro-America into its membership but also saw in racism the roots of human conflict. While, by the 1920s, numbers of non-Western women adopted a degree of self-critique of the Eurocentrism dominating international collaboration between women in these years, others—such as Latin American women—founded their own regional networks.19 Other new scholarship has shown that where non-Western women continued to participate in predominantly Euro-American women’s international networks, through them they might criticize global standards set Introduction  7

by Western nations. Reminding us of immigration’s impacts across national borders, for example, historian Rumi Yasutake has pointed out that members of the Japanese Woman’s Christian Temperance Union ( Japanese WCTU) worked with Japanese Americans of the WCTU in California toward the marital protection of immigrant Japanese women.20 Modern theories of culture and cultural difference have played a key part in the history of cultural internationalism, no less so than in its important articulation as a women’s politics in the Pacific region. Among international critiques of cultural and racial politics in a globalizing world, the PPWA offered a third kind of venue. It argued that a global world community would succeed only by embracing a politics of diversity. In effect, it sought to relativize Western women’s asserted ascendancy through working with non-Western women. Locating itself, as it were, between Western and non-Western women’s international networks, and drawing on both in the process, it imagined the women’s Pan-Pacific as a site in which diverse individuals and their constituencies would produce cross-cultural dialogue at the regional level. The PPWA aimed to take women’s internationalism into a new era in which solidarity would be built on, rather than succeed in spite of, racial and cultural difference. In doing so, it contributed to larger debates about the role of culture in understanding humanity. Wherein nineteenthcentury models of “savagery versus civilization” structured notions of “race,” by the early twentieth century “culture and personality” came to dominate anthropology and other forms of intellectual and political thought. Under the cultural model of the “mental differences of mankind,” writes George W. Stocking Jr., those denied full participation in modern society were considered hampered not so much by “race” inheritance as by race prejudice and discrimination. And yet, like the racial hierarchies that cultural theories claimed to supersede, the mantra of “culture and personality” foundational also to PPWA anti-racism, could itself function as a form of determinism whether in pluralist or assimilationist applications.21 This plasticity of articulation expresses something of the valency of culture politics in the twentieth century. Through its conferences in and around the Pacific, the PPWA aimed to enact an ideal of cross-cultural community in which a new cultural politics was to overcome the violent histories of “race.” Claiming to find an antidote to racism in the promise of “culture,” the PPWA would fail to come to terms with its own contribution to cultural hierarchies by which the relative “advancement” of peoples and nations was routinely measured (whether through the ethnographic claims of Western anthropology or toward justifying the genocidal impacts of colonization).22 In aiming to distance itself from these relations, the PPWA posited a postcolonial community for women in the Pacific, through “encounters” staged at conferences.23 8  Introduction

No previous study of the PPWA has followed its first three decades, a longer perspective allowing for due attention to the various means by which non-Western women shaped the Pan-Pacific project. Here again, the importance of affect to the association lends itself to the closer investigation of both ideology and experience in the formulation and reformulation of racial and cultural theory and identity politics. Where previous studies have focused on the interwar years, the following traces continuities and contrasts between the women’s Pan-Pacific as imagined in the interwar years and the Pacific and Southeast Asia organization it became in the 1950s. Western and non-Western delegates who responded to the women’s Pan-Pacific project over these decades were in large part familiar with Western (particularly US-dominated) feminist politics. They were members of local branches of Euro-American international networks with reach across the Pacific, including Federations of University Women, the WCTU, the WILPF, National Councils of Women, Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), Women Teachers’ Associations, Women’s Institutes, and the Leagues of Women Voters established in the region in previous decades. As historian Patricia Grimshaw has pointed out, the considerable non-Western membership of these associations indicates the appeal of Christian social-reform feminism to women activists from many different nations and cultures.24 Although women of many denominations, including Catholic and Protestant, and of a range of social views (both anti- and pro-birth control, for example), ultimately they shared the asserted democratic values of “liberal Christianity,” emphasizing individual fulfillment through reform work toward improving the opportunities for women individually and collectively, perhaps universally, and through expanding women’s influence in the areas of education, health, public life, and employment.25 The PPWA provided for these possibilities and more. It was a clearinghouse through which new information on women and children in the Pacific—routinely overlooked by the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization (ILO)—hoped to find global circulation, influence public opinion, and, hence, shape national and international legislation. At conferences, delegates shared information concerning their work to improve the status of, and conditions for, women and children in their own countries. The association took seriously its role of informing Europe about Pacific women’s affairs.26 As this book illustrates, it was also concerned about providing its delegates with cross-cultural experiences designed to challenge Western women’s Eurocentrism, the resilience of which has been noted by Chandra Talpade Mohanty, writing of the figure of the “Third World woman.”27 The greatest challenge to this outlook would come through interventions made by the Introduction  9

non-Western delegates themselves. A significant number of PPWA delegates were professional women employed in the burgeoning social sciences; others were established leaders in women’s affairs in government departments in the United States or were employed in health and education departments, hospitals, and schools across the region. As a result, North Americans among them would argue initially that a women-only forum was not needed in the Pacific, given that mixed-gender, nongovernmental organizations located in Honolulu already provided opportunities to report on research and find influence with public opinion. They would be persuaded otherwise, however, reminded of the necessity of a community among women in facilitating the progress of their “less advanced” sisters of the Pacific. By investigating these trajectories, this study reasserts the role of internationalism in the first half of the twentieth century, and of international feminism as a dynamic force in the reconfiguration of world affairs into the postwar era. Previous research on the PPWA has highlighted several important aspects of its early years. These have included its location in Honolulu, the early participation of Japanese women, and the significant part played by West Coast and Hawai‘i-resident US women in its Western membership. Writing in the late 1970s, Paul Hooper has shown that the PPWA contributed to, while emerging from, a Hawai‘i-based world movement promoting international collaboration on cultural grounds. Hooper has situated the feminist internationalism of the Pan-Pacific network within the larger history of cultural internationalism emanating from Honolulu.28 Since his writing, scholarship has emphasized the role of Japan in the emergence of this international environment and in nongovernmental organizations and international cooperation more generally.29 Similarly, Rumi Yasutake has argued for the centrality of the Japanese delegates to the successful formation of the PPWA. Without their cooperation, she asserts, the association would have failed.30 Given the significance of East-West cooperation to the PPWA, her argument is well founded. Looking at US history, Alexandra Epstein, a historian of California women and internationalism between the wars, asserts the considerable impact of West Coast—and particularly California—women, who looked to the Pacific (as much as or even more than the East Coast) as their own backyard. Epstein shows that women in western states enjoyed their early experiences of enfranchisement in an era of great optimism for the League of Nations and the ideals of international community. Many activists living in Hawai‘i considered themselves to have a specific role to play in its future too and joined the PPWA. As Epstein points out, “the Pacific” offered these women a ready location from which to pursue their interests in the transnational implications of research and campaigns for the protection of women, including in employment and 10  Introduction

education, while working toward increasing the cultural diversity of the modern women’s community.31 Viewing the PPWA from Australasian historiography, one is struck by the significance of the Pan-Pacific ideal to Australian women internationalists also. Along with women from the United States and New Zealand, Australians were key figures in the Pan-Pacific women’s movement. Historian Angela Woollacott argues that the Australians among the PPWA membership were significant contributors to its efforts of cross-cultural collaboration. Despite the hierarchical context in which the PPWA was conceived, and in comparison with the British Commonwealth League (a contemporary Dominion women’s network concerned with the conditions of women and children within the British Empire), Woollacott concludes that the early PPWA included greater numbers of non-Western delegates than seen previously in any Western feminist internationalist organization, a fact underlining the importance of non-Western women’s interests to its reform agenda.32 Adding due attention to New Zealand women, this study shows that both Australians and New Zealanders were particularly significant to the substantial if uneasy account of settler colonialism made by the association. From the early decades of the last century, Australasian women had claimed a unique position within Euro-American international feminism as success stories of their day; by securing national suffrage at the turn of the last century, they encouraged women’s campaigns elsewhere in the world. At the same time, although allied by “blood” and history to Europe, they lived in the Southern Hemisphere and were situated geopolitically within the Pacific and Southeast Asia.33 For such women, the future of world cooperation in the Pacific was of particular importance. At a distance from decision making in European-based international networks focused on the League of Nations, they knew about the politics of geography and were eager to call attention to the significance of their own region in formulating international cooperation. For these settler colonial women, the implicit premise that white women were to be the facilitators, and, if temporarily, the leaders, of the Pan-Pacific movement provided an exciting challenge. In her appraisal of the significance of the Pan-Pacific women’s initiative, Woollacott notes the genuine commitment of Western women in the PPWA to engage with their non-Western counterparts in the Pacific. The PPWA’s determined move into the region, she writes, represented a significant attempt at “global decentralisation” by feminist internationalism. The association exhibited a desire to “develop women’s cooperation on women’s issues across developed/developing, political, racial, religious and cultural divides.”34 As this book is able to elaborate, the essentially white women’s network, with its rather amorphous aims of understanding and exIntroduction  11

change, would indeed succeed in providing a stage from which a diversity of non-Western political perspectives and agendas gained an international presence, if not exactly in ways originally imagined. Perhaps because of its porosity, a wide range of women from different political as well as cultural backgrounds found a place under its banner, even where their intentions extended well beyond, or even contradicted, its benevolent politics of inclusion. As is discussed in chapter 6, a Black Nationalist arrived unannounced in the late 1930s and spoke to delegates about uplift and hope, for example, and Communist Chinese women participated in the 1950s. Ironically, given its predominantly middle-class membership, the determinedly cooperative outlook of the association provided a radical effect: the very act of women meeting across lines of significant sociopolitical difference would constitute one of the association’s greatest achievements. In its politics of unity within diversity, the PPWA shared with WILPF, and with the World YWCA and the WCTU, a commitment to cultural explanations of difference and to the capacity for modernization among the less advanced peoples of the world, previously (in their view) hampered by Western imperialism.35 Peace was an essential element of this community—the practice of peacefulness articulated through an engagement with, rather than fear of, other cultures and peoples. Drawing on these cultural and pacifist feminist traditions, the association saw a future in which cultural exchange could provide the basis for peaceful cooperation in a racially and culturally diverse Pacific, and hence a progressive model for the world. As well as extending beyond the interwar years, my study extends previous accounts in its use of case studies detailing the interactions of nonWestern women with their Western colleagues in the organization. These interactions illuminate, I argue, the intimate nature of the world of international politics where exchanges between women of diverse races and cultures were considered the very basis of its praxis. Over the years, the PPWA would begin to attract a small but varied population of non-Western delegates from beyond established internationalist networks among those largely unknown to Western women’s circles (and hence to feminist historiography). These women would seek international recognition of their local campaigns, agendas, and concerns, as well as aim to shape the cultural international project of the association itself. In the process, they would often aim to disrupt resilient Eurocentric notions of “progress” and prescriptive notions of social reform, as well as challenge accepted organizational practices in which they, as “less advanced” women, were expected to play a subordinated role. While the disagreements that emerged between Western and non-Western women constitute a main subject of this book, so too does the glamour these women’s presence ensured for Pan-Pacific women’s internationalism. Being women 12  Introduction

internationalists in the interwar Pacific was an exciting prospect, combining research and formal presentation with the thrill of exotic surroundings and the companionship of fascinating co-delegates. These evident attractions would find a new generation in the postwar era: in the aftermath of World War II, the association witnessed increasing participation by women from Southeast Asia, their importance to its future acknowledged in the name change to the Pan-Pacific and South East Asia Women’s Association (PPSEAWA) in 1955. The cultural internationalist ethos of the PPWA suggests the need for historians to think harder about the role of culture and consumption in feminist political, intellectual, and social history. Not only Western women who participated in the PPWA understood themselves to be cosmopolitan and modern in their efforts to model a new relationship between the races, peoples, and cultures of the world. In an age of burgeoning tourism in the Pacific, they enjoyed the ready combination of the delights of travel and tourism with the serious work of activism.36 Contemporary interest in indigenous art and cultures expressed the importance of cosmopolitanism to

“Two gorgeous entertainments were tendered the delegates . . . one an afternoon Tea in honor of the Japanese delegates . . . the other a Tea by the Chinese community.” Mid-Pacific Magazine 36, no. 6 (1928): 426. Courtesy of the Mitchell Library, Sydney. Introduction  13

new ideas about culture, gender, and modernity in this era, as progressive women saw in the collecting of traditional handcraft, dress, or furnishings expressions of themselves as modern women.37 Writing of Western feminism broadly, Caren Kaplan has described this cosmopolitanism as the “belief that the entire world is equally available to be occupied or represented or identified.”38 Kristin Hoganson writes that elite white women and men of the early twentieth-century United States interacted intimately with the politics of cultural imperialism through their consumption of exotic objects. But while white women were seeking assurance of their modernity in the world, increasing globalization was creating anxiety concerning the maintenance of political and national hierarchies. Anxiety over cultural authority was expressed in enduring “colonial attitudes” and “colonizing ambitions” evident in the cosmopolitan appropriation of “lesser” non-Western cultural products, while seeking to maintain a civilizational superiority.39 In her study of Asian cultures in the Western imaginary, Mari Yoshihara has revealed that fascination for “the Orient” formed a central theme within progressive gender politics in the early twentieth-century United States.40 Cultural internationalism, with its interest in diversity, implied also a relative displacement of the West and Western women from the center stage of development and progress. This process of displacement would also be experienced by the PPWA, faced with criticisms by its non-Western contributors and selfcritique within its Western-dominated leadership. Just as critical histories of gender and empire have brought into question “the community of women,” so have they drawn attention to the investments of white women in the relations of empire and colonialism.41 Western women were themselves the beneficiaries of these relations of power, even as they sought to rearticulate them through relatively benign forms of leadership, such as in the Pan-Pacific women’s community. Women who participated in the PPWA were therefore grappling with not only the contradictions of world history but also the future of world politics. As Nancy Stepan has pointed out, the popularization of cultural theory in the first half of the twentieth century did not dissipate the ordering power of “race” in world affairs.42 Rather, the opposite was the case, as non-Western activists and writers increasingly claimed their place on the world stage. Calls for equity between the races (made by Pan-African groups and others in the late nineteenth century) had elicited “white panic” and saw the rise of white nationalisms in the early twentieth century. One of the first actions of the League of Nations had been to reject Japan’s call for an anti-racism clause to be included in its convention, in large part due to the refusal of settler colonies like Australia to remove immigration barriers.43 Thereafter, the Japanese government would mobilize its own version of militant nationalism in its 14  Introduction

efforts to consolidate a Greater Asia.44 In spite of the “guardianship of native peoples,” and the protection of minorities established under the League of Nations’ mandates system, the Wilsonian promise of self-determination for Asia and Africa failed to materialize.45 Susan Pedersen shows that while the Permanent Mandates Commission at the League offered little hope for colonized peoples, “merely talking about administering territories differently” forced public debate about questions of empire. “Minorities” were part of the political landscape and international discourse in which the PPWA shared, given its interest in diversity.46 In response to contemporary Pan-African, Pan-American, and Southeast Asian nonalignment movements calling for race equity, many commentators in the United States, Australia, and elsewhere wrote of the rise of the nonwhite races, conceiving of “the West” as an embattled alliance between nations bound by blood and civilization.47 Political leaders in the United States and Australia, for example, drew from each other’s writings and strategies in formulating national policies designed to protect “whiteness.”48 Following World War I, which had been fought in part on racial grounds and involved peoples in the colonies in European conflict, by the interwar years nonalignment and decolonization politics provided a critical counterpoint to Western domination, heightening Western anxieties. Far from signaling an end to Western domination, anti-racism became absorbed into the vocabulary of modern cultural imperialism, as much as of humanitarianism and internationalism. Following World War II, crosscultural knowledge was widely considered an imperative to the progress of Westernization and “development” in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. During this period, the United States emerged as the world’s most powerful nation. Claiming to bring prosperity and democracy to the peoples of the region, it “sought to legitimate its world-ordering ambitions by championing the idea . . . of racial equality.”49 Significant Anglo-American cooperation in the Pacific expressed a shared politics of whiteness.50 But while the British Empire was being superseded as a global power, the United States did not label its own expansionist interests as imperial, this “inchoateness and insecurity,” providing the very conditions for subaltern alternative visions of international community to emerge in these decades.51 According to Erez Manela, both anti- and pro-Americanisms were often closely aligned in the larger, global contexts of contemporary modernization, anticolonialism, and decolonization.52 This complexity was also apparent in newer imperialist nation-states expounding anticolonial rhetorics alongside the virtues of cultural nationalism.53 Accusations of cultural imperialism against the West would make their presence felt at the PPWA, as global tensions around race and rights were played out within its own community. During these decades, women in both imperial and anticolonial naIntroduction  15

tions were routinely mobilized as bearers of national and racial as well as cultural invigoration. Reproduction, population, and immigration were considered matters for government and international study and intervention. In their account of Western nationalists in the early twentieth century, Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds note the paradox of this crucial period in world history when geopolitical alliances based on white nationhood expressed transnational and international inspirations but were necessarily biological and territorial in their methods and goals.54 By the interwar years, the settler colonies in particular were undergoing considerable upheaval in regard to the reproductive ordering of racial relations. Increasing populations of mixeddescent indigenous people were becoming more vocal about rights to land and cultural heritage and about exclusion from the conditions of citizenship. Declining Anglo populations feared being “swamped” by immigrant newcomers who in wartime were said to threaten internal security and to require internment. Relations between nations, but also between populations within nations, were in a state of flux. As Mrinalini Sinha argues, what constituted individual and collective rights and how nations should act toward them were differently articulated across intersecting imperial and colonial locales with “entangled” histories and places, where European concepts of progress were at once shown to be partial and parochial yet to have the potential to be universal in their application.55 This deconstruction and reconstruction process also characterized the PPWA, where Western women both described learning of their relative advancement and their own dissatisfaction with European standards of rights (especially concerning women and children) and hoping, through international work with women from other cultures and nations, to contribute to the potential for universal standards to be articulated cross-culturally and then achieved nationally. Analyzing the cultural politics articulated by the Pan-Pacific women’s association offers insight into the ways in which one network saw women’s efforts in the arena of “culture” as the basis for a nonviolent, equitable world order. Its aim of incorporating diversity within unity has constituted a core tension during much of the past hundred years and more of feminist political thought.56 The following account celebrates this tension, not as evidence of the PPWA’s relative success or failure, but as an expression of the necessary dissonance between its cultural internationalist ideal and the histories of race, empire, and colonization that marked its region and membership. As it would turn out, the Pacific provided little escape from the past. For one thing, while the attraction of the PPWA was enhanced by being headquartered in Honolulu, considered the alternative “Geneva” in the Pacific,57 the much-admired melting pot of Hawai‘i had been annexed by force and was such a racial mix in part through the effects of indentured labor on which 16  Introduction

the profits of its white US elite (haole) substantially relied. The PPWA never confronted these matters. If the Pan-Pacific figured in the cultural internationalist imagination as the site of harmonious development, a myriad of European powers had continued to hold colonial interests in the region since the previous century. From the 1870s, US expansion into the Pacific and Southeast Asia also proceeded rapidly. In addition to territorial acquisitions in the Philippines, Guam, and Hawai‘i, US empire building reordered the economies of the region.58 From the end of World War I, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia had gained mandate over previously German colonies in Samoa and Papua New Guinea. The postwar environment of increasing decolonization saw the growing influence of the United Nations (UN), with its focus on development and trusteeship. Arguing that inequality was the result of ignorance that could be changed by reeducating attitude—terms familiar to PPWA cultural internationalism—the UN proposed that “guardianship” now become “trusteeship” with the aim of selfrule. All peoples were entitled to a “peace founded . . . upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind,” and the emergence of new nation-states was deemed crucial to the development of international cooperation.59 The “dependencies” of the Pacific islands were to be shepherded toward independence under the administration of Western nations, including Britain in Fiji, the United States and New Zealand in Samoa, and the United States in Hawai‘i.60 Where League of Nations assertions of guardianship toward native peoples influenced PPWA “East meets West” internationalism before the war, the UN focus on social justice and development in the Pacific nations would have an impact on the association’s postwar aims. The formation of a syncretic world civilization was at the heart of the PPWA’s feminist inheritance. The idea of forming cross-cultural alliances between women of different nations and “races” had shaped liberal and Christian social-reform feminism from the late nineteenth century, particularly through explicitly theosophical women’s politics in which “the East” constituted a much admired source of renewal in the imagination of avowedly “anti-imperial feminists.”61 The PPWA offered a more secularized outlet for these complex desires. In his account of the discourse of civilization and decolonization, Prasenjit Duara describes the contradiction within the concept of Western civilization, seeking to justify imperial domination, to civilize and uplift but at the same time wishing to be “desired by the Other.” Following the disillusionment of World War I, other civilizations (often linked to decolonizing movements in India and Asia but also in the United States and the settler colonies) seemed to offer a more inclusive model for world citizenship. Having attributed opposite characteristics to Western and Eastern civilizations, it was a logical step to call for their Introduction  17

synthesis toward establishing a truly global worldview.62 Women delegates in the PPWA ascribed to this orientalist yet decolonizing perspective, hoping that a syncretic Pacific would rehumanize Western modernity in its relationship to community and cultural life, while bringing the advancement of Westernization and industrialization to so-called less developed nations. Various antimodern movements of the early twentieth century similarly promoted the value of a renewed connection with cultural production, including in the Arts and Crafts movement that was important, for example, to the settlement project in Chicago.63 The critique of Western-style progress would have its part in PPWA ideology as well. Ensuring the importance of women to both domestic and public life was essential to the feminist critique, and perhaps Eastern women’s growing involvement in national regimes would provide a way to find greater compatibility between the two. Several world-famous women internationalists quickly became advocates of this Pan-Pacific women’s project. Best known among them was US feminist Jane Addams, founder of the American women’s settlement movement and a renowned pacifist; she became the association’s first honorary international president. Following a tour in 1922, Addams was nothing less than famous in Japan, and the Japanese WCTU would establish its own “Hull House” in Tokyo in 1927.64 Already by 1925, Addams had agreed to act as honorary chair for the anticipated first conference, the appearance of her name on early correspondence no doubt lending the nascent movement substantial prestige. Another well-known and respected woman of her generation, the head of the League of Nations’ Slavery Section, Dame Rachel Crowdy, would attend the first two conferences as the League’s observer. Early recognition by the League of Nations and later affiliation with the UN and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) confirmed the standing of the PPWA while securing its reputation beyond the Pacific. Not least, conference papers would contribute to a major study on women begun under the League and carried through by the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women in the 1950s. In addition to these two stars of the international circuit, female and male experts from various countries within and beyond the Pacific, including from Britain and India, would be guest speakers at conferences. The self-critique of Western feminism that took place within the bounds of the PPWA was in itself a politics of reform. Extending the influence of Western women’s organizations already present in the Pacific, the PPWA provided a unique location from which social reform and liberal women’s internationalism might revisit its own history. Rearticulating Western social reform and pacifist and protectionist feminism in the Pacific context, the PPWA not only relocated Western women’s internationalism geographically 18  Introduction

but also sought to turn back the clock, attempting to rewrite its genealogy through the conditions of “less advanced” cultures and women, while looking toward a more syncretic world model for the future of women’s cooperative work. It hoped to achieve these aims with the collaboration of the “women of the East”—women from Asian countries whose civilization contained the familial and communal elements considered since lost to women in the overly individualistic West. Where pacifism had split the movement during the war, peace politics were given renewed significance in a Pacific in which globalization increasingly entailed socioeconomic cooperation between nations. Where dispute over protection versus equality politics had divided the women’s movement in the past, so now the cross-cultural context of an unequally developed Pacific appeared to confirm the need for legislation governing the conditions of women in order to ameliorate the impact of Westernization on their lives. The aim of self-determination through protection dominated the League of Nations’ accounts of women’s and minority rights in these years but would later lose favor at the UN, when feminists supporting an Equal Rights Amendment in the United States ultimately superseded “equity with difference” feminism and its protectionist approach.65 Those continuing to support separate legislation protecting women’s economic, social, and political rights would find commonality within the PPWA. Here the protection of difference found renewed currency through its cultural application. Among opponents to the Equal Rights Amendment, Mary Anderson of the US Women’s Bureau would become a US Mainland delegate to the PPWA and the international director of its Standards of Living and Wages Project. She would lead a committee to study wages among women in the Pacific, work that underlined the PPWA’s central role as a leading body for new research on the socioeconomic, political, health, and welfare status and conditions of women and children in the Pacific.66 Given this mix of social reformism with a self-consciously anti-racism politics, PPWA’s concentration on international culture extends our understanding of the woman-centered concerns of Western-style feminism. The women’s Pan-Pacific project was not feminist in the simple sense of being concerned primarily with suffrage; rather, it envisaged a role for professional women in advancing the status of not only women in general but also of cultures and peoples around the globe. The process of debating how this advancement would take shape in different nations and cultures brought the commonalities and differences between women into sharp focus.67 The universal application of Western-style progress, like the premise itself of a community of Pan-Pacific women, highlighted the question of how to apply a politics of diversity to the needs of political collaboration. Women of the Pacific were seen to be awakening from the constraints of “tradiIntroduction  19

tional” society to face potentially new forms of exploitation through rapid Westernization. Considered not yet in a political or social position to collectively demand equity in the workplace, at school, or in the home, they were to learn about social reform and its transnational application through the mentorship of women in “more advanced” nations. Hopefully, they would not make the same mistakes as their Western peers. Through this teleological lens, the impending processes of modernization looked similar to the ravages of industrialization experienced by women in Western communities during the previous century, when Western women were considered to have lost their former status in community and family life. With its cornerstone conference experiences of “interracial friendship,” “international cooperation,” and “cross-cultural understanding,” the PPWA was one of the first feminist groups of the twentieth century to confront the competing claims to territory, resources, and representation that result from globalization (and its imperial precedents) and that we recognize today as challenges facing modern democracies around the world.68 Non-Western women were among initiators and shapers of this political, intellectual, cultural, and social agenda. For Westerners who also supported cultural internationalism, the substantial involvement of non-Western women signaled the success of the PPWA to secure a future of interracial harmony in the Pacific. Building on their experience of women’s internationalism, these Western-oriented women from the non-West pursued the potential of feminist organization toward moderating the impacts of development in a globalizing world. Asian, Indian, and Chinese women had become members of local branches of Western women’s international organizations (many represented at the PPWA) engaged in the promotion of “Christian internationalism, civilization and women’s liberation” in the Pacific region from the 1890s.69 A small number had directly participated in international conferences in Europe, alongside Western women who were considered to be their guides into international community.70 Their collaboration in far greater numbers in the new Pan-Pacific project appeared to legitimate the PPWA’s claim to provide a vital and unique forum in which the women of the region might find their own voice. Indeed, its cultural feminist outlook emphasizing democratic, national development and the need to moderate globalization proved amenable to women from newly decolonized countries in the Pacific, to those from the trusteeships and settler colonies (many of whom were involved in anticolonial movements alongside men) and, as we will see, to African American women from the United States. The diverse contributions made by these women would take the Pan-Pacific women’s community beyond the realms imagined by its founders. The quite different impacts of engendered histories of race, empire, and colonization upon the 20  Introduction

lives of women delegates would be reflected in their diverse perspectives on the significance and value of social reform and cultural internationalism to their region. The PPWA’s interest in diversity extended beyond the question of inclusivity to that of development. The “Pan-Pacific ideal” already held weight in Asian as well as Euro-American Christian reform circles. While the League provided a European perspective on world affairs, among Asian progressives dialogue between “East and West” in the Pacific was widely considered equally essential to the future of world peace. Across the Pacific, internationalists hoped that, in the “Pan-Pacific” dominated by Japan and the United States, competing East-West interests might be peacefully negotiated. Writing of cultural internationalism in the Pacific, Japanese scholar Akira Iriye shows that in Asia, as well as in Europe and America, internationalists recognized the need to regulate the rapidly advancing effects of globalization. These advocates of East-West internationalism were concerned that, unless steered in a “peaceful, constructive direction,” unregulated Westernizations would have negative impacts on the region.71 The moderation of competing Japanese and US nationalism was a key issue in this future, while, as nationstates proliferated in the postwar era, power relations shifted more generally around the globe. Those inspired by internationalism hoped that “a wider world over and above separate states and national societies” would result and that “individuals and groups, no matter where they are, [would] share certain interests and concerns.”72 The global consciousness of this women’s network situates its historical emergence and contribution to contemporary debate about the future of world affairs centrally within the major themes of twentieth-century world history. Not least among these was Japan’s contentious place among the advanced nations. If accepting that non-Western cultures might follow their own paths toward modernization, internationalists hoped to ensure nonetheless that the Pacific would do so alongside the West.73 The rise of Japanese nationalism and the struggle between the United States and Japan for domination in the Pacific had undermined early hopes that the Pacific would provide the birthplace of world cooperation in the twentieth century.74 Nevertheless, argues historian Tomoko Akami, by advocating “a Pacific-centred perspective of the world” Pan-Pacific activists helped to transform the region from a periphery of Europe to a “central stage in world politics.”75 Furthermore, the persistence of international organization throughout these decades constitutes an extraordinary counternarrative to a twentieth century dominated by racism, war, and violence. And, as Iriye adds, the affiliation between the UN and nearly two hundred international organizations (including the PPWA) after World War II “was a major chalIntroduction  21

lenge to the geopolitics of the emerging Cold War that was threatening to divide the world.”76 In both spatial and temporal terms, the PPWA’s contribution to the emergence of the Pan-Pacific as a force in world politics points to the significance of orientalism to the study of twentieth-century women’s internationalism. Integral to this mapping of the Pan-Pacific was the idea of an “awakening” of the Orient. The notion of meeting with the Oriental woman in her “own” domain—the Pacific—represents a twentieth-century chapter in a longer history of orientalism within Western feminist thought. Feminist historian Leila Rupp has shown that Western feminist internationalism had long been invested in the “hierarchical rankings embodied in dominant assumptions about progress, civilization, and the emancipation of women” and that the “startling contrast” between the veiled, confined, and degraded Oriental woman and the Western woman bolstered their claims to leadership in the international movement before World War I.77 The “woman of the East” had long been considered by Western women to be among the most oppressed and enslaved of womankind, standing for the degeneracy of Eastern culture as a whole. Western women travelers, missionaries, activists, writers, and painters contributed to gendered views of the East in which the oppression of Oriental women stood for the backwardness of Oriental cultures.78 Liberating the Oriental woman, along with campaigns for abolition, suffrage, and pacifism, constituted founding features of Euro-American feminism.79 Historian Ian Tyrrell has noted of the WCTU that “the world of women could never be separated from the world of empire” and that non-Western women were mostly understood as joining the international women’s movement under the guidance of their Western colleagues.80 The shared secular Christian values that played an important role in encouraging the involvement of non-Western women in the PPWA social reform agenda continued to provide for the “relations of rescue” intrinsic to the white woman’s civilizing mission.81 At the same time, writes Tyrrell, Western women who were engaged in “mobilising” local temperance and women’s societies inevitably came into contact with nationalist politics. In the process, they saw evidence of a future in which European authority would be questioned, and Westernization described as cultural imperialism.82 In anticipating the combination of East and West, the PPWA joined numbers of Western intellectuals who, from the late nineteenth century, had adopted a less virulent attitude toward the East than the xenophobic, antiAsian policies instigated by various nation-states might suggest.83 Among them, theosophists saw in cross-cultural exchange between East and West the seeds of unprecedented advancement in human culture.84 Other anticolonial internationalist traditions hoped similarly to establish a new basis for 22  Introduction

relations between West and East in the (supposedly) postimperial age. The democratic replacement of the “empire subservience” previously experienced by India, Turkey, China, and Japan, it was hoped, would help to defuse the emergence of anti-imperial nationalisms. Engagement with the “awakening East” was considered by many commentators to be essential to a cooperative world future.85 But if the Orient was a place of both oppression and possibility in the Western feminist imagination, it was also an actual realm in which elite women from Eastern countries used Western feminist principles to advance their own feminist traditions. Orientalism was a transnational feminist language shared between elite Western and Eastern women, in which Eastern women were to become agents in their own progress. Tomoko Akami argues that Eastern internationalists were engaged in a form of selforientalizing through their participation in Pacific-based internationalism, as Japanese members of the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) identified with aspects of Occidentalism.86 In joining Western women’s international networks, Karen Kelsky adds, Japanese women expressed a desire for forms of Western modernity and universalism “eroticized” in Japan from the late nineteenth century.87 Alongside the “woman of the East,” increasingly the involvement of Pacific island women constituted the success or failure of the PPWA project. In an era in which imperial nations faced the need to reconstitute themselves in an increasingly postcolonial context, indigenous peoples and cultures offered a new originary moment, typically imagined as prehistoric, by which to proclaim a connection to place for settler nationhood.88 Native cultures, while not considered civilizations, were to contribute, nonetheless, to the emergence of a new era in world affairs through the connection they maintained between community, land, and cultural life. Furthermore, Indigenous women were considered the most in need of protection and guidance. Western international feminist traditions had long claimed to uplift “native” and indigenous women. In forwarding their own enfranchisement, from the late nineteenth century British imperial feminists had sought to speak in the name of these “less fortunate sisters” throughout the empire while, by the 1920s and 1930s, British Commonwealth women—including Australians— had begun to criticize internationally the conditions of indigenous women in settler colonies or under colonial rule.89 Pacific island delegates who joined the association—not unlike women from Japan and China—held necessarily complex identifications with the version of Westernization promoted by its internationalism. They asserted their own agency within a feminist narrative that mostly assumed their premodern status as women of less advanced—even primitive—cultures. Tourist images of the Native Hawaiian woman expressed in modIntroduction  23

ern form longer-standing colonial projections of sexual fantasy and adventure.90 Ironically, it would be for similar reasons that Pacific island women would become prized delegates at PPWA conferences, where they were soon to take center stage. Their presence seemed to assure the PPWA’s achievement of its goal to become an innovative, cross-cultural regional network working for the women of the Pacific Basin. Along with Asian and Southeast Asian women, they contributed to the frisson that characterized PPWA conferences. Initially not expected to participate in their own right, they would come to dominate proceedings—from the 1950s, alongside women from newly decolonized nations such as Burma and Indonesia. Most had received Western-style education from missions, while some were still living under forms of trusteeship. New histories of missions point to the pivotal role played by such women in negotiating changes within their own cultures through mobilizing various forms of Christian respectability politics.91 As Kumari Jayawardena has shown of South Asia, the emergence of women’s rights networks applying Western Christian ethics toward anticolonial politics was an inadvertent outcome of missionary women’s efforts to Christianize local woman.92 This presence of women from the non-West requires a rethinking of the routine opposition between the international and the national in world history. At the PPWA, as at the League, nationalism and internationalism were not situated in opposition but were considered to be complementary. The association saw the formation of loyalty to a national constituency to be integral to an international outlook. Thus national delegations were to be nominated by national branches (where these had been established), usually comprising representatives of key international women’s organizations. On paper, the tenor was conservative. For the most part, governments actively supported their national delegation’s involvement in the PPWA through providing letters of approval and greeting to hosting conferences. Only two attempts at government intervention would take place in this period, the first relating to Aboriginal policy in Australia, and the second to communism and the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union, each a subject of considerable controversy. A peremptory report on the association by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, undertaken in 1956, would find little of concern. Rarely controversial, PPWA conferences were seen as glamorous and elite affairs between intellectual women and were positively reported in local and national press, attracting large audiences to public sessions wherever they were held. However, the nation was a more volatile foundation for a cross-cultural organization than the PPWA allowed, emerging as a concept inherently radicalizing of its conference proceedings. Like other internationalist move24  Introduction

ments interested in Western and non-Western collaboration, the PPWA aimed for the formation of national identity not inspired by race or constrained geography but by the ascendancy of “culture,” a shared experience of difference offering “oneness” with global humanity.93 The newly modernizing non-Western woman was to learn this condition of oneness through understanding herself first as an individual, then as part of a national collective. She would then come to see beyond those boundaries toward world identity. As Leila Rupp reminds us, however, national identity was experienced differently between women involved in international networks.94 Among many non-Western delegates, nationalism represented anticolonial struggle against a history of imperialism and colonialism in which white women were inevitably implicated.95 In one sense, the emotive, cultural model of national representation adopted by the PPWA allowed for these different investments.96 But nor did anticolonial nationalist governments necessarily enfranchise women, and many in this position joined in the hope of improving conditions in their own countries. Similarly, by the mid-1930s Japanese women peace activists would be condemned by an increasingly militaristic government.97 By participating in the PPWA, such women engaged in an implicit critique of their own governments.98 At the same time as “progress” in the West was being questioned by Pacific internationalists, and “race” was rejected by progressives as a measure of capacity for advancement, the idea of “national culture” as a way of reformulating global civilization remained attractive to many contemporary progressives, including women in the PPWA. In her discussion of pre-World War I British imperial feminist interests in “the Indian Woman,” Antoinette Burton has pointed to the fundamental interconnection between the imperial and the national in feminist articulations of their civilizing mission within the British imperial nation-state. These women were engaged in the “invention of new, ‘feminist’ narratives of national history,” she writes, built upon “distinctly feminized narratives of cultural progress.”99 A similarly close interrelationship between culture, civilization, and national status would frame the “anticolonial” project of development and modernization under the PPWA. In her study of the IPR, Akami has shown that the rise of national culture and national character or “type” among interwar progressives constituted a highly political process aiming to (re)instate the nationstate above emergent gender, class, ideological, or race identities.100 Similarly, national type was articulated through the PPWA and not always to “progressive” effect. As we will see in chapter 4, through the asserted incompatibility of Asian people with Western national cultures, Australian delegates argued in favor of discriminatory immigration laws to protect national whiteness in countries like their own. Introduction  25

Reflecting the fragility of “the nation” as a representational category, the formation of national delegations at the PPWA saw the reinscription of slippages between race, people, and culture characteristic of a world still marked by empire and colonization. Decisions concerning the membership of national delegations gave expression to various anticolonial, settler, and indigenous politics, as well as other minority identity politics abounding in the Pacific, often reiterating racial and colonial hierarchies. Put most simply, membership in a delegation might be earned through residency status alone. Thus a white Australian woman social reformer working in Shanghai would lead the first Chinese delegation in 1928. Or, reflecting settler colonial relations between delegates, Maori women (indigenous people of Aotearoa/ New Zealand) who first joined the PPWA did so under the leadership of a white (Pakeha) New Zealander and contributed to perform interracial harmony for the 1934 conference. The excitement caused by their presence underlined the powerful effect of cross-encounters staged at conferences. These were women whose apparent nonwhiteness constituted them as desired commodities of the PPWA, combining the visual appeal of diversity with the political intention of cross-cultural exchange. The desire to reformulate interracial relationships—taking them from the racial hierarchies of old-world imperialism into the new global delights of interethnic mix—necessarily focused PPWA attention on reformulating settler colonialism. Through their involvement in the PPWA, settler colonial delegates found opportunities to represent themselves as engaged in a cooperative project with indigenous minorities. Indigenous women who became involved in Pan-Pacific women’s internationalism were also interested in this notion but, as we will see, reversed its intention by calling on their settler colleagues to work with them on rights campaigns at home. In so doing, they articulated their own versions of “national” identity, from a minority, but also often elite, perspective.101 These women embarked selfconsciously on a process of becoming internationalists, in which their shared but at times opposite experiences of Westernization became the subject of disagreement as much as cultural exchange.102 This study of the PPWA aims to extend the parameters of “the political” to include the investigation of such intimate encounters enacted at conferences. Now that non-Western women were “awakening” in the 1920s, a new women’s cooperative agenda for the Pan-Pacific region would need to be articulated. The PPWA promoted a politics of interracial “friendship,” emphasizing the importance of affectionate relationship between individuals, and the collective kinship found in challenging the status quo.103 At PPWA conferences, the rational work of social reform was to be complemented by the emotional and spiritual benefits of interpersonal change. Historian Jon Davidann argues that although 26  Introduction

a leading Honolulu-based internationalist network, the IPR asserted the rational nature of international exchange. Without attending to the emotive and the interpersonal, such ideas could never succeed.104 Within the PPWA, the practice of cross-cultural friendship meant challenging deeply held suspicions about difference that blocked peaceful relations between peoples and cultures. The idea was that from individual change would grow world change, an aim necessarily difficult to translate into practice or to quantify and, as we have noted, ultimately doomed in its wish to transcend history— although, as this book argues, the attempt is worthy of our attention. In the 1930s at least one leading delegate would refuse to treat cross-cultural awareness with the worthiness often reached in opening conference keynotes, her irreverent accounts of conference meetings (discussed in chapter 3) a welcome counterpoint. In summary, this study sets out to investigate the global vision of a PanPacific women’s community. It investigates the fractured and flawed nature of that effort’s achievements through the eyes of several of its central participants as they struggled with the central concerns of their day: diversity and progress, universalism and difference, globalization and cultural identity. Jane Haggis, a historian of gender and colonialism, suggests that we acknowledge the complexity of these kinds of cross-cultural interactions between women by recognizing them as “worldly” exchanges. Such interactions involve diverse agents engaged in acts of translation across cultural, racial, and political divides and in complex negotiations of knowledge and power.105 When viewed as sites of worldly interaction, PPWA conferences emerge as dynamic spaces exceeding the notions of advancement articulated by their Western progenitors. In such spaces, writes cold-war historian Christina Klein, “the multiple voices of allied, but still distinct, voices [can] be heard. [These spaces] serve as forums in which ideas associated with residual, emergent, and alternative models of international engagement [can] find expression alongside affirmations of dominant ones.”106 Where initially the PPWA envisaged a PanPacific in which Western women traveled into the region in expression of their responsibility to the international women’s community, the diversity of non-Western women encountered there spoke to a multiplicity of PanPacifics. Racial and national loyalties, as well as cultural politics and social reform, energized these women in their Pacific work. By their very presence, indigenous delegates’ involvement in the PPWA refuted primitivist narratives of inferiority or even “disappearance.” In a more dynamic sense, their various participations in the association expressed the resilience of their own cultures as well as their own interests in internationalism and modernity for women. They were also (if necessarily differently) engaged in the antiracist project of the women’s Pan-Pacific; they too anticipated that, by formIntroduction  27

ing personal and collective connections with women of other races, peoples, and cultures, they would be advancing a Pacific women’s community. How and why such women claimed the cultural internationalist vision as their own, inserting themselves as key figures within the Pan-Pacific organization, structures the following chapters. Chapter 1 considers the first conference and the ambiguous position occupied by Oriental women as both future collaborators in the Pan-Pacific project and as women considered yet to emerge into modernity. In chapter 2 we investigate the ways in which the association was established and the decolonizing process it underwent as questions about representation and the Pacific island woman took center stage. Chapter 3 looks at the increasingly important part played by settler colonial indigenous women at Pan-Pacific conferences as the performers of interracial harmony. Chapter 4 considers the theme of peaceful cooperation promoted on the eve of World War II in 1937 and examines how anti-Asian immigration restrictions operating in Australia and Canada threatened the cultural internationalist ideal of the friendly and cooperative exchange between women delegates. Following the war, the association gradually re-formed, to meet again in Honolulu in 1949, and a new generation of nonwhite women from decolonized and settler colonial nations represented their own organizations in the Pan-Pacific. Chapter 5 investigates the relationship between handcraft and identity promoted at the 1952 conference and how the cold war affected the ideal of international cooperation in the era of decolonization. At the 1955 conference, held in the Philippines, the association changed its name in response to the growing importance of women from Southeast Asia to its profile and future. In chapter 6 the appearance of the first African American woman at the 1937 conference is compared with the first African American delegate, who in 1955 brought to the fore questions about the relationship of US race relations with the Pan-Pacific cultural internationalist project. In the conclusion the revival of “East meets West” as a basis for world cooperation endorsed by the UN in 1958, and a PPSEAWA conference, at last in Tokyo, return our discussion to the first Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference held thirty years earlier and the contributions of the association, in the interim, to world culture politics.

28  Introduction

One Civilization at the Crossroads

S

oon after a Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference was first suggested, one of its future participants addressed colleagues in the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR). Mary Emma Woolley was the president of Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts and an experienced internationalist who would become an important figure in the Pan-Pacific women’s movement. During the IPR conference held at the Bishop Hall in Honolulu in 1925, Woolley spoke of women’s determination to contribute to cooperation between countries of the Pacific. In a eulogy to the progress of world civilization, she concluded: The problem of the twentieth century is to learn how to live together, class with class, nation with nation, race with race. It is the problem that we must master in the Pacific before it masters us, that we may build up civilization, not tear it down, a civilization fairer and stronger than any that the world has ever known, because East and West, the Old World and the New, each makes its contribution for the common good.1

Echoing these sentiments several years later as the chair of the Program Committee for the first Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference, Australian Ethel Osborne reflected on the capacity of women in particular to respond to the urgent question of cross-cultural and interracial harmony that were now facing the world. Of Western colleagues at the first Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference, she recalled: “We set out perhaps with a spirit of curiosity tinged with scepticism, in a desire for knowledge, in a search for wider contexts, or in a sincere desire for the well-being of the women of these countries.” She reported the conference had contributed a solidity of purpose to these feelings, providing participants with “a definite inspiration, a stimulation, and a realization of the vast significance of the force which has been put into action in the world.”2 This chapter investigates the origins of the Pan-Pacific women’s cultural internationalist movement within a larger Pacific-based call for a new 29

world civilization. It then describes the first Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference held in Honolulu in 1928. Initially anticipated as a women’s forum on maternal health, the PPWA quickly emerged as a reform network with wideranging welfare and social justice interests reflecting those of its predominantly middle-class clientele from both sides of the Pacific. While Western women’s agendas concerning social reform and the parameters of cultural internationalism dominated these early years, the paradigm of East-West exchange would be central to its purpose. Delegates from the US Mainland, Hawai‘i, Australia, and New Zealand considered themselves best placed to facilitate the all-important collaboration between Occidental and Oriental women. The 1928 Pan-Pacific conference was the first such collaboration to be held outside Europe or America. As Australia delegate Bessie Rischbieth asserted, on the Oriental woman’s “own” ground, the Pan-Pacific they imagined was under Japan and China’s intellectual and political if not directly territorial leadership.3 Given the common understanding of Japan and China as modernizing Eastern nations, it was to Japanese and Chinese women that non-Western colleagues turned for partnership in the Pan-Pacific women’s project, their involvement in growing numbers seen to confirm the progressive agenda of the women’s international community. However, in the name of cultivating the modernity of Eastern colleagues, Orientalist hierarchies of advancement would be applied by the Western-dominated Pan-Pacific Women’s Association (PPWA) as its members sought to measure their own (Western) “progress” toward a cultural international outlook. Equitable and friendly relations with delegates from Eastern countries came to stand for the capacity of cross-cultural understanding among internationalists. Under this double consciousness, “culture” within the Pan-Pacific model represented both a deep attachment to the ideal of cultural diversity and a potential obstacle to be overcome if world cooperation were to advance. The pivotal question was how notions of advancement would sit alongside those of cultural difference. For the China delegation, this question was particularly pertinent, as Western allies still held direct control of Shanghai and numbers of Western feminist organizations, including Australian and US, carried out women’s missions among Chinese women living there. As a result, tensions between US, Australia, and China delegates surfaced openly by the end of the first conference, as disagreements were aired concerning the constituency of the China delegation and whether its Western leader had the right to represent the interests of “the women of China.” The second half of this chapter focuses on the protest made by the Chinese delegates concerning Pan-Pacific internationalism’s claim to speak for the future of all women in the region.

30  Chapter 1

Women’s Internationalism in the Pan-Pacific The PPWA drew its intellectual origins from the involvement of the EuroAmerican women’s movement in international networks emerging out of Hawai‘i in the first decades of the last century. As Paul Hooper has shown, the PPWA combined feminist politics with the cultural internationalism of Honolulu-based US philanthropic and mission communities.4 American philanthropist Alexander Hume Ford had formed the Hands-Around-thePacific Club to promote peace and brotherhood in Honolulu in 1911, renaming the club the Pan-Pacific Union (PPU) in 1917. The PPU would provide contacts, funds, accommodation, and administrative support to the first four Pan-Pacific Women’s Conferences. In 1925, US business and philanthropic interests had formed another network, the IPR, which later moved to New York. Congresses run by these organizations in Honolulu in the human sciences involved women and men experts in a range of health, social, and policy issues, mostly professionals eager to share ideas about modernization and what would later become known as development. Several women from these congresses would join the PPWA also. Sponsorship of the women’s organization by Alexander Hume through the PPU, providing funds through the early years as well as a headquarters for its first conference, reminds us that men contributed also to the PPWA over the years, including in roles as government officials, visitors, observers, and sometime guest speakers. Indeed, one man is remembered as being pivotal to the earliest conceptualization of the PPWA. According to official history, it was a New Zealand parliamentarian, Mark Cohen, who first suggested a women-only conference for the Pacific region.5 A member of the Upper House of the New Zealand Legislature and of the board of trustees of the PPU, Cohen made this proposal at a luncheon given by the Women’s Auxiliary of the elite Outrigger Canoe Club in Honolulu during the 1924 Pan-Pacific Food Conservation Congress convened by the PPU in Honolulu. Following his assertion that New Zealand would support such a “Motherhood and Child Welfare Conference” on maternal health in the Pacific, Cohen found a staunch ally in Julia Judd Swanzy, the president of the Free Kindergarten and Children’s Aid Association of Hawai‘i. Swanzy would later become the president of the Hawai‘i delegation of the PPWA and an organizer of the first two conferences. From this initial discussion, a larger debate ensued regarding the purpose and focus of such a women’s forum, concerns that would continue into the first conference as delegates considered whether to form an ongoing association. The maternal theme was at first dominant. Jane Addams would note in her opening address at the first conference that motherhood offered Civilization at the Crossroads  31

a unifying subject on which to found a women’s Pan-Pacific organization. Industrial development across the region was uneven, she argued, and many women in the region retained a closer relationship to family and community life. As these conditions changed in the process of globalization, women would become directly involved in negotiating the difficult relationship between work and family life already confronting their Western counterparts.6 But a focus on motherhood did not necessarily imply a “woman-centered” approach to maternity or infant health. For Addams and her contemporaries, a focus on motherhood also signaled the importance of matters of population and nationhood—concerns crucial to the future of peace in the region.7 Circulating information on advances in maternal health in Western countries would provide women in developing countries with best-practice models while supposedly aligning their population policies with international benchmarking. As part of a world tour to promote his model for maternal and infant health, Sir Truby King, the well-known president of the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children, known as the Plunket Society, did indeed present a lecture about the maternal and infant health system in New Zealand at the first conference.8 Such settler colonial investments in welfare, with their implications for population and fitness, were typical of many Western nations in this period. Moreover, as histories of eugenics and natalism in the first decades of this century indicate, women social reformers were often among frontline promoters of racially inspired social welfare reforms, finding in their pursuit avenues for employment in infant and maternal health and in the kindergarten movement and thereby establishing themselves as experts in the broadly popular areas of racial and social hygiene.9 The greater majority of the PPWA members would reflect this historical trajectory, joining the international network in order to share knowledge of best practices and to present their own research on social welfare in national and international context. Maternalism was to become only one among a range of welfare subjects important to the PPWA. Others considered of equal importance to national development and international cooperation included education, health and employment. Australia and New Zealand were widely admired for setting early standards in the provision of social welfare, including in the area of child endowment. Australia delegate Mildred Muscio (member of the Royal Commission on Child Endowment) proudly noted this progressive record at the second conference in 1930. Not surprisingly, in the same way New Zealand delegates dominated the early association. Jean Begg, who worked for the New Zealand YWCA in India and was an expert of health and welfare for girls, would become international director of the PPWA’s Social Service Project in 1930 and would remain a staunch participant in the movement 32  Chapter 1

over the following years. Another New Zealand woman, educationalist Elsie Andrews, became the leader of the New Zealand delegation and then PPWA international program chair in the 1930s. Involved in inviting the first Maori delegates to the New Zealand delegation (discussed in chapter 4), Andrews would speak on equal access to education for all children, regardless of cultural and racial difference. These individuals, and many others like them, contributed to the significance of universal (even socialized) health and educational opportunities to the PPWA social reform agenda. While Australia and New Zealand women were ascribed dominance through their representation of social advancement in the Pacific, ultimately US delegates dominated both numerically and by influencing the PPWA’s agenda. From the outset, US women living in Hawai‘i and the “US Mainland” (the term adopted to distinguish their two constituencies) were significant contributors to its social reform program. Many were actively involved in the IPR and PPU, along with the YWCA and WCTU, organizations with strong connections in Asia that supplied substantial numbers of delegates to the PPWA. US women living in Hawai‘i, who were all early contributors to the PPWA, included Harriet Cousens Andrews (Honolulu YWCA), Dr. Vivia Appleton (who had returned from YWCA work in China), and Rosamond Morgan, from a missionary family and president of the League of Women Voters in Honolulu. Julia Swanzy, Morgan’s mother and the head of the women’s auxiliary of the PPU, would lead these women in forming the Conference Committee (to plan for the first conference) and would later chair the Executive Committee of the second conference, becoming the honorary president of the PPWA from its formation in 1930 until World War II. Ann Satterthwaite, a Quaker (United Association of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and World Brotherhood), was to become secretary of the association, regularly corresponding with its members around the Pacific and serving as a linchpin at its Honolulu headquarters. Gladly shifting her energies from the PPU and its rather difficult director to the women’s association, Satterthwaite would remain a stalwart promoter of the PPWA over decades to come. Many of those who became involved in the early PPWA already had a history of direct involvement in internationalism. They provided experience and knowledge to colleagues who were moving for the first time from nation-based campaigns into the terrain of international exchange. The formation of the League of Nations and the anticipation of greater world cooperation and an end of warfare had inspired many such internationalist women in the early 1920s, and several brought to the PPWA this larger vision for a women’s Pan-Pacific. Of early key PPWA women from the US Mainland, for example, Mary Woolley was perhaps the most experienced in Civilization at the Crossroads  33

international affairs, being the only woman on the China Christian Education Commission to investigate missionary colleges, and in 1932 the only woman delegate from the United States to attend the Geneva Disarmament Conference.10 She was a delegate to the IPR and well traveled in the Pacific, becoming in 1930 the chair of the second conference. In the 1930s, on behalf of the US Women’s Bureau and as a member of the American Women’s Trade Union League, Woolley would oppose the Equal Rights Treaty, proposed to the League and the International Labour Organization (ILO) by a conglomerate of women’s groups led by the National Woman’s Party. She asserted in its place the need for a women’s charter based on the specific conditions of women. Out of these debates emerged the League’s Status of Women Commission, which was charged to gather information about the conditions of women around the world and to which the PPWA would contribute essential research on women in the Pacific region.11 These existing internationalisms provided a basis on which the first conference was built. They also potentially limited its capacity to reach beyond well-trodden networks and create something new. The PPWA aimed to attract women outside the established membership in order to bring a new generation into internationalism. Being cognizant of the importance of existing international networks to its early formulation nonetheless, the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference Committee convened its first meeting to coincide with an IPR conference held in Honolulu in 1925. Yet the committee well recognized the limits of this approach. IPR delegate Janet Mitchell (YWCA, Melbourne) advised her co-committee members that they should endeavor to attract delegates from a range of backgrounds, rather than through one or another women’s organization and, given the impending industrialization of the region, to seek out women with a knowledge of industrial reform. She named Muriel Heagney (Australian Trades Hall Council) and Eleanor Hinder (Shanghai YWCA) as likely sources for these networks from Australia.12 Due to her trade union background, Heagney’s participation in 1928 would prompt the Attorney-General’s Department of Australia to initiate a file on the membership of the Australia delegation.13 Hinder had taken a year’s leave from her work as a science teacher in 1923 to study industrial welfare on behalf of the YWCA. She had traveled in Asia and Europe, and had visited the ILO in Geneva, before being invited by the National Committee of the YWCA of China to assist in the development of its new industrial department. There she joined Viola Smith, US assistant trade commissioner in China and secretary of the Joint Committee of Shanghai Women’s Organizations, who would become her long-term companion.14 These two women would be directly implicated in the controversy surrounding the China delegation to emerge late in the first conference. 34  Chapter 1

As much as maternal health and child welfare, women in work and public life would constitute a central theme of the first decades of the PPWA. Considered intimately interconnected with global issues such as populations, development, and democracy, women’s domestic and paid working lives constituted practical sites in which the world’s future was to be decided. In her list of likely candidates, Mitchell might also have mentioned Ethel E. Osborne, an industrial hygienist from Australia with international experience who would also become an important figure in the early years of the association. Osborne had established an international reputation, and was soon to present a report on industrial health at the Pan-Pacific Surgical Conference in 1929. She had spoken previously at various international organizations in Europe, including to members of the ILO and League of Nations. Woolley, Osborne, and Hinder would help confirm the PPWA’s expertise in the area of women’s working conditions. Another delegate from Australia, Bessie Rischbieth, was an expert on women in government and a longtime president of the Australian Federation of Women Voters. Rischbieth successfully lobbied in the late 1920s for women to attend the League of Nations as Australia’s supplementary delegates. She was an influential figure at the British Commonwealth League conferences that met annually in London, as well as being a veteran traveler and theosophist with interests in Indian spiritual and cultural life.15 Rischbieth led the way in establishing a national PPWA committee in Australia following the 1930 conference. A consistent promoter of the conferences through her women’s journal, The Dawn, Rischbieth would reflect on twenty-five years of involvement in the association when she wrote in 1951 that the dual tasks for women internationalists remained “to study the conditions in their own and other lands” and to work to overcome “misunderstanding, fear, and injustice between peoples.”16 As her carefully maintained archives reflect, Rischbieth’s contributions to global politics in both the British Commonwealth and Pan-Pacific arenas were substantial, and her sense of its value unshaken throughout. While expanding the reach of membership was early identified as an issue, and would remain so throughout the period under study here, establishing links with the League of Nations and the ILO (and later the UN) would also occupy an ongoing place in the PPWA’s organizational strategies. Already by 1926, members of the Conference Committee had begun corresponding with Martha Mundt, women’s organizations liaison officer in the Intelligence and Liaison Division at the ILO, and with Princess Radziwill, liaison officer in its Division of Intellectual Cooperation. Both were highly supportive of the Pan-Pacific project, with Mundt offering a list of women working in areas of interest to its aims and as possible delegates to its future conference.17 Over the years, conference reports were circulated through Civilization at the Crossroads  35

ILO and League offices, and, in turn, ILO and League materials (and UN materials also) were disseminated through the association. ILO director Albert Thomas included the Pan-Pacific conference in his annual report for 1930, in which he pointed out to member countries that the Pacific was an area of increasing world importance.18 As the Pan-Pacific women’s international program director, Australia’s Ethel Osborne would visit Geneva in 1929 to further these connections. She reported that Thomas, Mundt, and their colleagues welcomed the “Pan-Pacific Women’s Movement,” anticipating its capacity to hasten the spread of international ideas in Pacific communities and to function as a source of vital information about the region, thereby helping prepare the groundwork for cooperative planning in the “field of labour and industry.”19 And yet these connections with European-based internationalism were always tenuous. Although the conference organizers hoped Mundt would attend in 1928, for example, she was unable to secure funds or official leave from the ILO to cover the time needed to travel all the way to the Pacific and back by boat. These practicalities remind us of the financial burden, and the time away from home and work, faced by most women seeking to contribute to the Pan-Pacific project. It is worth remembering that delegates from Australia, for example, took six weeks to sail to Honolulu and back, a relatively expensive (if exciting) undertaking entailing several stopovers en route. Letters posted on one side of the Pacific took sometimes weeks to arrive at their destination on the other.20 Conversely, for US Mainland and Hawai‘i delegates, traveling to New Zealand and Canada for later conferences would prove a major investment of time, energy, and money as well. Satterthwaite, not a woman of independent means, gladly advised that she was able to secure a free passage to conferences held elsewhere than Honolulu when nine or more in her party paid full fare.21 Despite these difficulties, the League’s Rachel Crowdy, chief of the Social Questions and Opium Traffic Section, did attend in 1928 and 1930. Crowdy was directly interested in the region, and her focus on the sexual enslavement of white women fleeing the Russian Revolution into China no doubt added weight to her involvement. While the item “Traffic in Women” would be included within the early PPWA program, at later conferences the blanket eradication of prostitution, considered a symptom of the sexual double standard being advocated internationally by Crowdy through the League, would come under question by non-Western delegates. Well before the first conference, however, an emerging resistance to the universalizing imperative within Western feminism had already become evident in the idea of national delegations. Nationalism, considered by many to be the greatest obstacle to world peace, was also a site of anticolonialism 36  Chapter 1

and, therefore, of the decentralizing of Western power (including, of course, the power of Western women and their networks). But it was to provide a first step toward an international outlook. This internal contradiction was perhaps the greatest challenge the PPWA faced, yet the ambiguous place of “the nation” in its organizational structure—through the adoption of national delegations—would constitute one of the PPWA’s most profoundly innovative initiatives. In its efforts to engage with the views of women from beyond established international networks, the committee had circulated a questionnaire to women in the “Oriental” Pan-Pacific. Aiming to ascertain views beyond those involved in internationalism in Pacific Rim countries, it sought suggestions for conference themes and topics from diverse contacts in Japan, Shanghai, and even India. (Although India was not in the Pacific, its self-rule was considered to provide a valuable model to the women of the Pacific region.) No doubt reflecting the rise of nationalism in the postwar era, the committee reported that replies uniformly asserted that whatever the mix of issues and topics addressed, the conference should recognize the diversity of “national points of view.”22 Seeing itself as setting in place modern cooperative exchange in the region, the committee concluded that national delegations be instituted and decided that the first conference theme should be “The Exchange of National Experience.” Five sections or programs were nominated (education, government, health, industry, and social service), and various areas of research identified within them, including women in industrial work, diet and health, legislation governing the domestic and political status of women, child welfare, and film censorship. Present knowledge on these aspects of the lives of women across the region was partial in some cases and nonexistent in others. Nor had there been any substantial effort in their collation or comparison. This was to be effectively new research, discussed in new ways, and among a new collective of women. Exactly how exchange and discussion would take place also concerned the committee. Eager to promote the idea of open exchange, its members recommended the IPR practice of roundtable debates, a method considered highly modern and experimental for its informality and appropriate to advancing “cross-cultural exchange” in the newest region on the world map. Roundtables drew together delegates from each section, such as social service or health, whose task was to identify, debate, and report back to the whole conference on general issues raised by formal papers presented at earlier sessions. These meetings were “strictly private and confidential,” to allow for the free exploration of solutions to contentious issues such as population pressure and birth control (described further in chapter 4). Ideally, the roundtable was to achieve a collective consensus, to articulate “something quite different” from the ideas of any one of its participants but the “result of Civilization at the Crossroads  37

many minds.”23 But would women from non-Western cultural backgrounds respond positively to this informal method? Jane Addams, among others, was opposed initially to adopting this “Pacific Method,” arguing that Japanese women would be less confident contributors within its unstructured format.24 The Orientalist assumption was that women from Asia would be too polite and soft-spoken to hold their own. In fact, the opposite was found to be the case, as women from Japan—with its thriving debating tradition— excelled in informal discussion. The use of roundtable forums would turn out to be one of the most successful aspects of the Pan-Pacific women’s experiment. In addition to these practical concerns, less tangible aspects of the PPWA experience became apparent, as the first conference was under way. The more diffuse impacts of the conference experience included its inherent glamour by making the contemporary desire for cosmopolitanism and travel among modern women into the core of its political praxis. Writing of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Euro-American internationalism, Leila Rupp has argued that women’s conferences reflected efforts to create a collective identity of and for membership. Rupp concludes that, through the invention of conference tradition, women internationalists sought to assimilate difference—racial, cultural, and national—into a community of shared experience.25 PPWA conferences ascribed to this imperative too, but obversely—that is, by making the disorienting but pleasurable experience of cultural difference integral to its community identity. In effect, conferences were akin to cultural events, where non-Western people performed cultural diversity, whether through the cultural troupes employed by the conference organizers or in the donning of traditional dress by non-Western delegates. Public lectures, conference papers, and roundtable discussions were interspersed with performances by cultural groups, while social gatherings were to be enlivened by the colorful traditional dress of non-Western co-delegates, film viewings, and handcraft displays. The glamour of these overtly cultural experiences was further enhanced by their locations. Involvement in PanPacific conferences brought travel to exciting destinations in and around the Pacific at a time when the Pacific was being promoted as a tourist playground. The “Friendship Cruise” marking the end of the first conference formally recognized this relationship between pleasure and politics. Those extending their conference experience on board the ship combined sightseeing with the dissemination of news of the conference to women in the region while making use of an around-the-Pacific ticket. The PPWA brought its own version of glamour to feminist cosmopolitanism. Its members were among the most modern of professional women, many from established families, and all included fashionable outfits in their 38  Chapter 1

preparations for being Pan-Pacific internationalists. They were eminently newsworthy figures, given the already heightened media interest in the Pacific and the growing importance of the photograph to the newspaper or magazine story. As a result, conferences were to become highly publicized events, with newspapers and magazines in conference cities appointing special correspondents to write about and photograph delegates. Several newspapers would publish features on participants, complete with photomontages and biographies. Delegates might also supply media reports whereby home countries were kept in touch with their representatives overseas. A number of leading magazines published extensive proceedings of conferences throughout these decades. Promises of pictures of unprecedented quality were put to great effect in profiling women and conference events. Full conference reports, including research papers, appeared in The Women of the Pacific, a PPU publication, as well as conference features in special issues of the widely circulated Pan-Pacific; and the Mid-Pacific Magazine brought considerable regional and global attention to conferences and, through them, to the status and conditions of women and children in the Pacific. This publicity ensured a growing transnational audience for the association and aided its outreach to new membership. Following the committee’s recommendations, over the next three years national delegations were formed in China, Japan, the Philippines, the US Mainland, Hawai‘i, Australia, New Zealand, Samoa, the Dutch East Indies, and Fiji. (The United States would send the maximum number of twentyfive members.) Alexander Ford agreed to provide approximately $40,000 from PPU funds, as well as infrastructure and key venues in Honolulu. Various governments and state departments contributed diplomatic but not financial support to proceedings, as letters of recommendation were duly sought. Thus the State Department in Washington, D.C., would advise the ambassador of Great Britain that the first conference was being held with its knowledge but not its direct auspices or patronage.26 By August 1928, delegates were ready to set sail for Hawai‘i, sometimes weeks in advance, to finally constitute what Canada delegate Elizabeth Bailey Price would later call the Woman’s New Geneva in the Pacific.27 Woman’s New Geneva By August 9 more than 125 women (and the same number again of observers) had gathered in Honolulu to attend the first conference. Japan and China delegates were among the first to arrive, soon to be joined by the rest of the delegates occupying shared accommodations over the next ten days at what is now the University of Hawai‘i at Ma¯noa. (The second conference Civilization at the Crossroads  39

would move to Hawai‘i’s YWCA buildings, thenceforth the association’s headquarters, underlining the importance of that network to the PPWA.) Among them were Mei Iung Ting, medical director of the Peiyang Women’s Hospital in Tientsin, China; Tsune Gauntlett of Japan, a World WCTU representative; Maria Paz Mendoza Guazon, professor of pathology and bacteriology from the University of the Philippines and an IPR member; the leading feminist in Japan, Fusae Ichikawa, who had worked in the United States for two years and had direct experience of American women’s organizations; and Yoyoi Yoshioka, president of the Tokyo Women’s Medical College and pioneer of women’s medical training in Japan.28 The Union Signal, the bulletin of the WCTU, noted that among important women from the United States, Jane Addams was to attend, along with Valerie Parker, president of the National Council of Women, and Frances Parks, secretary of the WCTU and organizer of the US Mainland contingent.29 Over the next two weeks, meetings were held in the impressive Bishop Hall, named in honor of Charles R. Bishop, founder of the Bishop Museum of Polynesian cultures. Meals were taken in Dole Hall, named for Sanford B. Dole, the US president of annexed Hawai‘i. Seated at tables of eight, delegates were instructed to change companions at each mealtime, aiming to meet as many of their colleagues as possible during the conference. Many sessions were open to the public, and overviews and commentaries, as well as papers and photographs, were made available every day to the press. Delegates presented discussion papers on health, education, women in industry and the professions, and women in government and social service in their own countries, aiming to summarize existing legislation, ways of life, opportunities and obstacles to women and girls, and their conditions at work, at school, in the home and family, and in employment. Attention was given to the professionalization of social work and other fields in which women were increasingly present. These and other topics, including the traffic in women and film censorship, reflected lively connections already established with the League of Nations and the ILO. At the same time, they represented participants’ expertise in various urban-based welfare, health, and education professions. For example, Mary Anderson, director of the US Women’s Bureau in the Department of Labor, spoke on research undertaken by the agency on women and work in the United States, while Japanese women talked of progress in girls’ access to education in their country. Overall, papers emphasized the role of women experts in socioeconomic and political change, and their interest in ensuring the fulfillment of women and girls in their personal and public lives. Their social reform agenda assumed on the one hand women’s equity with men (based on their equal intellectual or superior moral capacities), on the other hand, their right to protection from sexual exploita40  Chapter 1

tion (as women, and hence different from men) and from work conditions dangerous to reproductive health. Each day during the conference, delegates were involved in a program of social exchanges designed to engender a cross-cultural internationalist outlook. In the morning, discussion groups conducted roundtable discussions, tabled reports, shared reform agendas, and prepared conference recommendations. In order to safeguard the conference from internal divisions, delegates were instructed to listen without critical comment, a practice considered formative to mutual understanding. In order to facilitate free and friendly exchange, public lectures and only some evening events were open to the public and the press. In the afternoons, excursions (such as a trip to the local pineapple factory) dominated, allowing for the consolidation of friendships. And in the evenings, individual delegates presented overviews of the social, economic, and political cultures of their own countries or attended official events such as cocktail parties. At night, often by torchlight, cultural groups gave performances of traditional dance and music. On the grounds of the conference venue in Honolulu, giant hedges of night-blooming cereus released wafts of perfume in the cool evenings. The exotic surroundings of Hawai‘i were to be integral to the conference experience. Already well known as a tourist destination by the 1920s, Hawai‘i appeared to provide the perfect meeting place for cosmopolitan women eager to enhance their cultural awareness. The idea of a melting pot was routinely mobilized by delegates as they sought to encapsulate their vision of a racially and culturally mixed future. In this era, Hawai‘i was commonly proclaimed as the most successfully racially mixed society in the world, home to twenty races, languages, and cultures.30 According to S. D. Porteus, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Hawai‘i, in a report he completed for the IPR, Hawai‘i was a “human laboratory,” a “unique opportunity to study the effects of racial mixing in a society.”31 Arguably, this racialized representation, while hardly reflecting the historical reality of annexation, immigration, and indenture, expressed a “scientific” approach to human existence also sought by the PPWA, but one it translated into cultural terms. The Pan-Pacific women’s practice of friendship was also to be scientific, in the sense of being experimental and leading to a new understanding of the dynamics of human interaction and in its use as a strategy with universal application. Nor would the racial basis on which identity was somatically measured be expunged from PPWA thinking, despite its antiracism stance. Conferences were intended to be transformative experiences. That sense of transformation was expressed in the importance of images to capturing the history-in-the-making project. On arrival in port after a cruise Civilization at the Crossroads  41

that for many had lasted several weeks, delegates, like other tourists, were presented with leis in a “traditional” Hawaiian greeting now appropriated also by the conference Welcoming Committee. The proclivity for photographs that marked PPWA conferences began on deck and proceeded dockside, to continue throughout the conference. While delegates were asked to provide head-and-shoulder shots to be distributed to local press or to accompany the Mid-Pacific Magazine’s publication of their papers, each morning notice-boards offered for purchase copies of many conference photographs taken during the previous day. Following PPU practice initiated by Alexander Ford, these images were combined into filmstrips and sent to other international organizations, where they could be shown during meetings. At the more personal level, signed photographs might be collected as mementos of the conference and as evidence of cross-cultural friendship, such as the pictures of Oriental women collected by Australians and other delegates or, in the case of Jane Addams, given in gestures of mentorship toward adoring junior women. Australia’s Eleanor Moore described an audience with Jane Addams in 1930, following Addams’ appreciation of her earlier conference presentation. As a symbol of her regard, Addams gave the deeply impressed Moore a signed photograph of herself and several flowers from her presentation bouquet.32 Sharing accommodation was considered helpful in recognizing and then overcoming prejudice or “misunderstanding.” Beyond exchanging sociological research and engaging in social interaction, the would-be cultural internationalist woman was to become aware of her own need to learn about cultural relativism: of her own background as merely one of the many cultures in a globalizing world, and of her misinformed assumptions about cultural life as obstacles to world cooperation. Such realizations, made individual by individual, would add up to a new world order. For example, Australian correspondent and delegate Isabel Randall-Colyer asserted: “During the conference the idea of living together proved an excellent way of blending the nations, and breaking down any little personal prejudices that may exist.” She continued: “The women of the Orient our most treasured confreres . . . have much to offer us from their age-old traditions and spiritual conception of life . . . just as they feel we have much to give them in exchange in the upto-date ideas of modern educational processes that they so eagerly strive to comprehend.”33 Despite this modern world and its modern women, older understandings of the role of women in international affairs were not entirely expunged. In his welcome to the initial conference, PPU president Ford expressed his enthusiasm for the women’s project, though unfortunately less in terms of the virtues of cultural exchange than of the essentialist capacities of women. 42  Chapter 1

Rather than cultural diversity within feminism, he focused on the supportive and moral role of the feminine in aiding the world evolution of men. Asserting that the duty of womankind was to protect civilization, Ford announced to the gathered delegates in 1928 that henceforth “a new phase of life in the Pacific begins. Its womanhood is assuming its share of responsibility for the welfare of half the population of the globe.” Ford claimed that the Pacific offered a momentous opportunity to “meet and mingle in perfect peace, harmony and understanding” and to bring together representatives of the “oldest and the newest civilizations of the world” in intercultural harmony. While he patronizingly declared his organization delighted to claim paternity of the first Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference, that “lusty girl child” fathered out of the virgin territory of the Pacific, it was womankind, he asserted, that carried the burden of seeing this progeny to adulthood. Ford continued in similar vein, stating: “You believe God has created you equal to man. The hope of the world is that He has created you superior. Certainly, if you cannot lead us in ideals of peace and understanding, the cause of civilisation is lost.”34 On the shoulders of women from the civilized nations rested the future, not merely of the peoples of the Pacific, but of the whole human race. Thus Ford saw women as commandeered in men’s international cause. Although a great supporter of the women’s gathering, Ford would soon become the subject of complaint from the conference secretary, Ann Satterthwaite. She found him temperamental, and, given his paternalistic views of women internationalists more generally, it would be with considerable relief that the association separated from his sponsorship in 1930. At individual and collective levels, Ford’s view that the work of women lay in promoting maternal health was soon outpaced by the PPWA’s broader social reform agenda. In considerable contrast to Ford, Jane Addams offered a more suitably progressive outlook in her opening speech. Nonetheless, she also mobilized a strongly Eurocentric account of women’s leadership of the world into a new era. Emphasizing the importance of the “woman’s point of view” for the future of world civilization, Addams asked Western delegates to show leadership in the Pacific as it advanced into modernity. Through this involvement, Western women could observe women’s part in the “beginnings of civilization” because “many women in the Pacific have kept to these [familial and communal] roles longer.” Addams located the origins of feminist internationalism within the Western, Christian women’s movement, sketching a short history of its impetus in the development of women’s activism in the Pacific. The earliest women internationalists, she asserted, were those missionary women who had “interested themselves in the historical and anthropological aspects of various countries.” They were soon followed by the WCTU, founding branches in the Orient, and then the International Civilization at the Crossroads  43

Jane Addams receives her portfolio. Mid-Pacific Magazine 36, no. 6 (1928): front cover. Courtesy of the Mitchell Library, Sydney.

Council of Women with its national federations of women’s organizations. More recently, suffrage and university women’s societies had arrived in the Pacific. And now the Pan-Pacific women’s movement heralded a new era of cooperation between women in their own region. Where, previously, international organizations had met to share the asserted common interests of women around the world, the present gathering aimed (through the work of women) to shape a recently formed region of crucial significance into the epicenter of world politics. Leaving out the matters of indentured labor and US occupation from her account of Hawai‘i, Addams concluded with the dominant narrative rehearsed by many humanitarians and progressives of her day: that the multiracial Islands of Hawai‘i offered a model of “the mutual friendliness of many races” on which world peace and just development depended.35 The cooperation of Eastern women was crucial to this project. In recognition of her commitment to the cause of cultural internationalism, the conference appointed Jane Addams its first “Minister of Friendship.” In practice, however, enhancing a mutual friendliness between the races meant learning to recognize and accommodate “national character” more than simply cultural difference. National delegations established by member countries were designed to reinforce the cultural internationalist ideal that it was cultural type, rather than race, that united a people. Concerned to end racism by rejecting “race,” PPWA delegates were encouraged to read for national character. As the international chair of the 1930 conference, US delegate A. H. Reeve (International Federation of Home and School), explained, mere “surface” differences should no more “affect the judgment of our relations to each other . . . than do our eyes or the fashion of our garments.”36 But in seeking to dispel racialist assumptions, paradoxically Reeve pointed to one of the most enduring of Orientalist racisms, the contrast between Caucasian- and Asian-shaped eyes. Nor was this way of thinking confined to Western women. When M. I. Ting of the China delegation listed the qualities of fellow conference delegations for the 1928 conference report, she wrote: “We brought home vivid recollections of the hospitality of Honolulu hostesses, the ambition of our Japanese sisters, the thoroughness of British representatives from Australia and New Zealand, the innocence of the Samoans, the womanliness of the Philippine delegation and the humbleness of the Koreans.”37 The problem of using a national typology was that it returned to stereotypes, whereas the asserted purpose of a shared civilizational project was to transcend such views. In a sense, the PPWA was searching for a language of diversity still to come into being. It was not until the postwar era that sociology would provide the association with a mainstream account of the social construction of “race.” In 1950, when University of Hawai‘i academic and Civilization at the Crossroads  45

journalist Robert Ezra Park proclaimed “a new civilization . . . of the Pacific . . . coming into existence,” he reminded his readers, “Civilization is not . . . a biological, but a social, product. It is an effect of the coming together for trade and for intercourse of divergent races or divergent cultures.”38 Where the PPWA already complicated the commentaries of men like Park was in its growing awareness of the role of national identity in shaping the political agendas of its membership from among previously colonized or marginalized parts of the world. Moreover, as the comparative study of women and girls indicated, the West was itself in need of reform. In her presidential address, Jane Addams expressed a more critical view concerning the productive relationship between civilizational development and the transnational movement of peoples and cultures. As different levels of civilization were reached across the world, it was her hope that Eastern women would not experience the same “tyranny of mechanization” that had blocked the healthy “approach to life” in the West. Although its premodern traditions might restrict the rights of women, she asserted, Eastern civilization held within it the capacity to lead world civilization onto a more human and humane path.39 As historian John MacKenzie has pointed out, “so many [Orientalist] representations of the attractions of others’ life-styles” contain within them an implicit (and sometimes explicit) critique of a home culture.40 The figure of the Oriental woman was central to Addams’ vision for a more humane, if ultimately Western, global future. Cultivating the Oriental Woman The idea of the advancement of Oriental women was crucial to the PPWA project. Its assumption was that recent developments in democracy and Westernization in the region had profoundly improved the lot of women in the East. The reality was far more complex. Then, as now, Eastern delegates were undoubtedly more familiar with Western feminist politics than Western women were with the history of women’s rights in their countries. Beyond direct involvement in Western women’s networks, in previous decades Western and non-Western political texts had combined within their indigenous women’s rights movements. Japanese and Chinese governments had begun promoting forms of Westernization from the late nineteenth century, including some relating to women’s rights and status. In 1879, John Stuart Mill’s Subjection of Women was partially translated into Japanese and influenced elite interest in democratization along European lines, including girls’ education and the teaching of English. In 1889, the first Constitution of Japan incorporated a degree of women’s rights while at the same time limiting access to suffrage and outlawing women from attending political meetings 46  Chapter 1

or forming political organizations. Women were to be educated in order to become better mothers and domestic organizers. Historians Yukiko Matsukawa and Kaoru Tachi argue that this selective Westernization by Japanese governments sought to contain women’s rights activism within nationalist concerns for the growth and health of the population.41 In China, the emergence of the “woman question” had been facilitated by the Boxer War indemnity scheme, providing Chinese students with scholarships to Cornell and other American universities in the first decades of the twentieth century. The “New Woman” in the United States had impressed Chinese scholars in the New Culture Movement in China. This movement promoted ideals of democracy, liberalism, and individualism, including Western models of family life and women’s rights. When Chinese progressive Hu Shih, educated at Cornell University, addressed the Peking Women’s College in 1918, for example, he spoke on American women’s education and called for an end to foot binding and the sexual double standard. The New Woman became a revolutionary figure and was incorporated into the May Fourth Movement, inspired by the League of Nations’ decision to hand German-seized territories to Japan rather than back to China. The first two women enrolled at Peking University in 1920, and by 1922 a total of twenty-eight universities and colleges in China had women students. In March 1922, US activist Margaret Sanger was invited by Peking University to give a public lecture on birth control. Chinese women’s suffrage organizations called for equality in marriage, work, education, and inheritance rights.42 The influence of the WCTU and YWCA was significant to women’s internationalism in both countries. Women’s rights activism in Japan had received a boost in 1886 when Mary Leavitt of the World WCTU arrived to evangelize Japanese women. The Japan delegation would include members of the WCTU, as well as of the YWCA, the Women’s Suffrage League, and the Women’s Peace Association, while Japanese women in Hawai‘i were delegates in the Hawai‘i delegation and in the United States were members of US-based branches of these same organizations.43 By 1921 the Japanese Women’s Suffrage Association had been set up through the World WCTU, and, drawing on decades of work by smaller, discrete women’s groups, the organization held its first annual convention of women’s suffrage organizations in 1930. These conventions continued in following years, agitating for universal suffrage for Japanese women, reform in Japanese politics, and women’s rights in the family. Several times rejected by the Japanese House of Peers, the association’s Women’s Suffrage Bill was finally passed in the early 1930s by the House of Representatives on the grounds that Japanese women should become citizen advocates of the economic restrictions necessary for Civilization at the Crossroads  47

Japan’s war with China.44 Small but significant numbers of Japanese women had joined the WCTU in Japan, while Japanese women living in the United States would become central figures in the California WCTU.45 Through these networks, Japanese and Chinese women were among those experts participating in the burgeoning of internationalism in Hawai‘i, including presenting papers for IPR conferences. Of Japanese women who contributed early advice to Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference organizers, Kikue Ide provided “material of such a scholarly nature,” wrote Eleanor Hinder, “that I am greatly impressed with possibilities of it for us in international education.”46 Ide would become a popular figure at the first conference in Honolulu, her signed photograph providing a souvenir of cultural internationalism at work. In addition, numbers of professional women in Japan were producing other studies of women and girls in their country. Teachers and students of the Household Administration Department of the Women’s University of Japan had recently completed the first study of diet and work in Japan and had forwarded it to the ILO.47 Most were financially independent women, although among the Japan delegation a couple were teachers who, without substantial personal funds, were forced to travel to conferences

Roundtable led by Kikue Ide. Mid-Pacific Magazine 36, no. 6 (1928): 441. Courtesy of the Mitchell Library, Sydney. 48  Chapter 1

in second- and third-class cabins.48 Beyond their own national delegations, Japanese and Chinese women living in Hawai‘i were also participants in the PPWA through the Hawai‘i delegation. While cultural diversity was the delight of the conference, the representations of a diverse modernity were its fascination. Beyond the significance of their expertise and contributions to conference business, Eastern women, and later Pacific island women, would come to embody the difference within modernity desired by the association. At PPWA conferences, considerable attention was directed toward Asian women, not only in regard to the social reforms they promoted but also more broadly in regard to their modern appearance and behavior. Western women’s accounts of the conference record their enormous admiration for the sight of modern Japanese women wearing kimonos, expressing a romantic nostalgia for the lost feminine world they seemed to evoke. Writing for the Sydney Morning Herald in 1934, for example, Australia delegate and psychologist Isabel Randall-Colyer described the novelty of Eastern delegates, their “colourful national costumes mingl[ing] with the smart up to date fashions of Western women.” While the “deep sincerity of the oriental women” was to be admired, they were also “picturesque,” their outfits “the envy of their Western sisters.” “No more romantic a setting” could have been chosen for a modern conference, surrounded by “myriad flowering trees and exotic settings,” the Eastern delegates themselves “making a picture of loveliness in their many and varied costumes.”49 Underlying this fascination was an equal desire to see Eastern women in Western dress. The highly charged atmosphere created by the combination of traditional and modern engendered ambivalence toward the modernized Other woman that fundamentally marked early Pan-Pacific women’s conferences.50 Historian Joan Jensen has argued that white women’s proclivity for dressing up as “Other” women in colonial and imperial contexts can be read as instances of border crossings, as moments of performance and imagination as well as appropriation.51 And in her study of New Women as the performers of American Orientalism at the turn of last century, Mari Yoshihara argues that admiration for the East “signified the formation of a new type of womanhood, one that offered adventure as well as cultural refinement.”52 Western delegates at the PPWA enjoyed these pleasures by proxy, consuming in proximity (rather than through quasi-impersonation) those Eastern delegates who appeared among them and whose images could be souvenired in conference photographs. Their appearances during the formal program in modern or traditional dress, or at night in glamorous Western evening gowns, fascinated their Western colleagues. Already in these examples the hierarchy of progress underlying the PPWA ethos had begun to break down. Under these conditions, the lines Civilization at the Crossroads  49

between modern and not-yet-modern delegates were no longer so selfevident. Although the exoticism of Eastern delegates in traditional costumes was emphasized in conference photographs where they appeared alongside Western women wearing modern suits and hats, as Reina Lewis has argued, images that signal “modern” versus “tradition” are complicated by location and circulation.53 Non-Western delegates were particularly sophisticated in mobilizing a complex dual identity as both traditional and modern figures. They wore national costume at social events while transforming themselves into exotic versions of the modern woman in the latest Western fashion for their conference presentations. The combination indicated a considerable

Dr. Ting and conference favorite Kyong Bae-Tsung. MS 2004/6/361, Rischbieth Papers, National Library of Australia. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia. 50  Chapter 1

capacity to perform the emerging modernity expected of them by cultural internationalism. As the leading Japan delegate, Tsune Gauntlett, who was married to a British professor in Tokyo, discovered through earlier international participation in Europe that she would need several kimonos, as well as the Western suits, permed hair, and horn-rimmed glasses fashionable among women internationalists in the 1930s, if she was to be taken seriously on the international women’s stage.54 Women from countries who thus adopted sartorial signs of modernization purportedly indicative of changes in national status and behavior (and, hence, of their relationship to their own culture) made multiple decisions about what to wear when, and why. Whereas, in the international women’s domain of the PPWA, appearance in traditional and modern dress was interpreted unidimensionally as evidence of becoming international, donning a kimono may have held many meanings for modern Japanese women of Gauntlett’s generation. Among these were pride in cultural tradition, nationalist modernity, and expressions of wealth and status. They might indicate also a willingness to assume the kind of Japanese femininity expected by Western visitors. At conferences, such delegates conversely mobilized a recognizable vocabulary of Western dress, hairstyle, and deportment in order to signal their status as modern women. Its vocabulary included a suit for daywear and a glamorous evening dress for social occasions, often accompanied by a graceful, moderate (feminine but not retiring) approach to all things. Chinese women’s sartorial concerns negotiated a different set of relationships between national and international femininities and feminisms. Historian Louise Edwards notes that, in this period, the figure of the modeng (modern) Chinese woman was a focal point for political factions seeking to promote their own versions of nationalism. At times she was commended for her revolutionary dress (the short hair and the figure-hugging qipao recorded in PPWA photographs), and at others she was castigated for superficiality as an empty-headed consumer of the West’s decadent modernity. Modeng women, identifiable by their appearance, were even tortured and murdered in their own country as promiscuous and counterrevolutionary women.55 If the appearance of delegates was taken to provide some insight into their cultural and political formation, it was evidence of interior change that finally established the credentials of the cultural internationalist woman. Although attentive to appearance and deportment, the PPWA claimed a greater interest in those changes to the inner self that signaled the cultivation of an international outlook. In the first instance, facilitation of these changes was the task of the Western feminist. Newly political women had to be educated by her example in the interior process of becoming individual and then national before they could fully participate in the international community Civilization at the Crossroads  51

of women. But for every woman internationalist, inner change was considered of crucial importance. In 1930 Georgina Sweet exhorted all Pan-Pacific delegates to awaken to importance “not only of what we do but of what we are.”56 “Awakening” was a metaphor popular within contemporary feminist and theosophical circles and was well suited to cultural internationalist ideals. One of the key claims of the spiritualist movement was that Eastern esotericism could offer the necessary corrective to Western industrial society’s extreme individualism and materialism.57 Such views echoed those expressed by contemporary theosophists. Influential in the lives of many PPWA delegates, theosophy was then a transnational movement with strong connections between Australia, India, and the United States.58 Señora Consuelo Aldag, the sole Mexico delegate in 1928, provides a case in point. Widowed and with a young child in early adult life, she had left Mexico to pursue a career in education, arriving in Sydney to train in “theosophical work” and opening a studio for languages at Adyar, the Australian theosophical headquarters. Believing that Pan-American unity could be achieved through developing understanding between North and South America, she then decided to study American culture and lectured in California and Hawai‘i.59 Another important figure was Julia Swanzy, a North American living in Hawai‘i who had been present at the very beginnings of the PPWA. An anthroposophist (another was Rudolf Steiner), Swanzy was avidly interested in the preservation of the culture of Indigenous Hawaiians through her membership in the Daughters of Hawaii, a haole women’s organization. In 1929 she invited the visiting US theosophists James and Margaret Cousins to attend a PPU meeting in Honolulu. Already involved in the All-India Women’s Association, however, Margaret Cousins considered the meeting lacked the “touch of reverence, the humanitarianism, the grace and beauty of Indian womanhood.”60 Among Australia delegates, Bessie Rischbieth was a member of a clandestine women’s theosophical sisterhood based in Western Australia, the Order of Isis.61 Theosophical contacts with Indian women established by Rischbieth and others influenced the invitation from the PPWA for India delegates to attend as special guests of Pan-Pacific women’s conferences. Though not in the Pacific region, India constituted a major element of the Orient admired by Western feminists. Less directly, but nonetheless potently, a broader spiritual sensibility often shaped the language used by PPWA leadership. As international president, in several of her conference keynotes Georgina Sweet mobilized spiritual imagery then popular within international feminism. An Australian university graduate with awards in biological and botanical research who had become vice president of the World YWCA in 1928, Sweet emphasized the altruism and insight necessary to the formation of a truly international elite 52  Chapter 1

in which science and emotion combined. At the 1934 conference she linked political activism with creative potential: The world cries out today for men and women of winged intellect and flaming spirit, self-spending sons and daughters of truth and power and love— who have wrestled with reality—and justice and equal opportunity for all and friendliness toward and between all are the controlling characteristics of life and thought and feeling. Then only will each have happiness in work and tranquility in leisure and enjoy a more radiant and joyous expression of life through the arts and crafts, a wider and greater culture of mind, and higher and deeper graces of the spirit.

Before reaching such heights, she asserted, Eastern women would have to pass through three phases. First, they would need to acquire “personality,” the sense of individuation from which social action emanates. “Personality,” advised Sweet in her 1934 address, “(being something) precedes cooperation.”62 Personality grew out of political engagement. Speaking on behalf of the women in one’s own country was considered a first step along the road to internationalism. Once nationally minded, advised Sweet, Eastern women might come to embrace the international collective of women extending beyond national borders, peoples, or cultures. Gender unity provided the key to transcending national sentiment. Meeting as women bonded by common oppressions, aims, and achievements was an important first step in moving beyond nationalism to comprehending women’s rights in “world” perspective—that is, from the world perspective of women who considered themselves already internationalists. Few, if any, women were considered to have achieved the heights of international personhood, although Sweet was thus lauded in 1934 because “she belonged to all countries.”63 Such developments appeared to confirm that the women-only forum had proven efficacious in seeding the ground for a new era in international cooperation between women and their nations. And yet the initial formation of the PPWA had not proceeded without opposition. Why a Women’s Forum? In 1928 the journal Pacific Affairs included the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conferences among its reports on “world programs.” Its commentary stated: “No matter how completely women may take their place in the everyday affairs of the world and share in the conferences of men on general human problems, there will probably always remain a certain residue of questions Civilization at the Crossroads  53

which may be more profitably considered by women alone.”64 By extension, if women were taking part in mainstream conferences in the Pacific, they were still, in effect, minority contributors to conferences dominated by men. Soon, the Pan-Pacific women’s network would itself face the parallel accusation of minority membership as it sought to involve non-Western women in what was essentially a Western women’s association. But for now the conference was concerned with the question of whether a women’s network in the Pacific represented a backward step. Moreover, were the energies of EuroAmerican women better spent on domestic campaigns for international reform? In 1928 one member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) responded to the idea of meeting in Honolulu by exclaiming: “We have, we women of Europe, better things to do . . . [than] go so far, at enormous expense.”65 Speaking against the proposal for a Pan-Pacific association when attending the 1927 Pan-Pacific Conference on Education in Honolulu, the former president of the International Association of Women and cofounder of the National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War, Carrie Chapman Catt, argued that a Pacific network would deflect from efforts to mobilize American women in the fight for peace and equality.66 Catt had enormous respect for Jane Addams, although they had worked on opposite sides in the pacifist movement. On the Pan-Pacific question, the two were equally opposed.67 For other US women, a women-only forum was a retrograde proposal effectively segregating women presently working alongside men in conferences convened by the IPR and the PPU, and risking the omission of women’s issues from the wide range of topics considered there. Near the close of the first conference, when delegates formally debated the question of their collective future, three groups emerged concerning “the desirability or otherwise of any permanent organization for the women of the Pacific.” Members of the first group expressed doubts because they felt that “the time had passed for separate men’s and women’s organizations.” Of these, several agreed nevertheless that, despite their own sense of having progressed beyond its necessity, a women’s organization in the Pacific would be essential in uplifting Oriental and eventually Pacific island women. A middle group supported unreservedly the formation of a Pan-Pacific Women’s Association (this included the Australians and the New Zealanders). And a third group, composed entirely of the Chinese members of the China delegation, expressed outright opposition to a women-only organization. While “granting the great friendship and stimulus coming out of the conference,” reported Sweet, “the women of China today are very concerned to do things which men do, and in the way men do them.”68 The Chinese delegates represented themselves as primarily nationalists, less interested in solidarity between women than national unity with men. As we will see in 54  Chapter 1

following chapters, the tension between national identity—or, in settler colonial contexts, between racial and cultural rights and nationality—and the international community of women would continue to enliven discussion within the PPWA. Reflecting her views on the evolution of women, the international president of the PPWA, the Australian Georgina Sweet, dismissed the antiassociation view as lacking an international outlook. Its proponents had failed to recognize “how very isolated, both geographically and psychologically, the women of the Pacific area felt, and in large measurement were, from the headquarters of the great International Women’s Organizations, most of which not only met in Europe but thought in terms almost entirely of the Western world .  .  . although there were obviously women of equal mentality and equal needs in the Pacific area.” She continued: “I know that some American women think that special women’s conferences are unnecessary . . . but I believe that no man, woman, nation or State lives unto itself, and while the women of the Pacific are not as free as the women of Australia and America, no-one can say that there is no need for special women’s conferences.”69 Eleanor Hinder pointed out in Pacific Affairs that “even women of the United States, from some of whom this challenge has come, have not attained a complete equality of legal status, or professional opportunity in actual practice, with men in their own country, and for women in Oriental countries the task is even more insistent.”70 This doubt about North American women’s uniform advancement would be made even more strongly in the 1950s, when the relative status and conditions of African American women was first considered at a Pan-Pacific conference. As a result of this debate, a reassuring account of the hierarchy between women was rearticulated. Even if delegates from the United States questioned the necessity of a women-only forum, Bessie Rischbieth added that by denying its veracity in the Pacific they would “not be doing their full duty and exercising their full privilege in relation to the women of the more backward countries.”71 Where women in the more advanced countries might feel they had moved beyond the need for women’s conferences, United States and other opponents should know that their less advanced sisters had not. Advancement in some Pacific Rim countries could never be assured until the uplift of the least advanced women across the region had been achieved. Dame Rachel Crowdy echoed these sentiments in her report to the League of Nations on the 1930 conference, advising that “for the time being, at least, it was probably advisable” to continue to convene a conference for women in the region.72 Where political action to forward social reform continued in each member nation of the association, understanding and, hopefully, intervening in globalization drove the women’s cultural internationalist Civilization at the Crossroads  55

project. For Rischbieth, the initial conference “clearly demonstrated the inter-dependence of social conditions between countries to-day, and the inter-action of problems between one country and another.” At this pivotal moment in world history, as the Pacific became a locus point of human progress, “the women of the Pacific nations should seize this opportunity and direct their social-political-human energies towards peaceful development in the Pacific area.”73 Following the decision to continue with a second conference in Honolulu, the Constitution and Program Committees were established, and a constitution written mostly by Australian Georgina Sweet was adopted. Resolutions from the 1928 conference were passed, ranging from endorsements of the professionalization of teaching and social work to studies of health and diet, girls’ access to full educational opportunities, the use of arbitration and conciliation in the “complete exclusion of war,” the protection of women in factories, and the influence of women police.74 Study projects on topics such as education, standards of living, social service, and government were under way through the auspices of committees formed in the constituent countries in preparation for the 1930 conference. National delegations were formed—the US Mainland branch, for example, in 1933.75 Correspondents were established in Australia, China, the Dutch East Indies, India, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, Chile, Fiji, Indochina, Panama, Peru, Salvador, and Samoa.76 A newly formed Executive Committee was constituted, including Viola Smith (chair of the Continuation Committee), Jane Addams (chair of the meeting), Hinder (chair of the Resolutions Committee), Dr. Ting, and her colleague Kyong Bae-Tsung from the China delegation. Next they turned to the question of which nation should host the second conference. The subject immediately embroiled the nascent association in controversy and disagreement. Already doubtful concerning the value of a womenonly network and the role of national delegations in their development, Chinese women brought into question its Orientalist assumptions about the progress of non-Western women. That Western women might represent non-Western women considered not yet able to do so, or who did not send their own representative, had been accepted as an initial strategy by the PPWA (as the formation and makeup of the China delegation already illustrated). But even as a strategy it soon became a matter of heated debate when the Anglo-Australian leader of that delegation, Shanghai resident and activist Eleanor Hinder, along with her friend and colleague Viola Smith, the US trade representative in Shanghai, proposed that China host the next conference.

56  Chapter 1

“The Women of China” The nomination of China revealed parallels between the PPWA and the overtly colonial context in which the women of China were being welcomed into the international community. Just before the final session of the conference, Viola Smith forwarded to the Executive Committee an invitation from China to host the next conference. Smith made the invitation with the support of the program secretary, Eleanor Hinder, her colleague in China as the executive secretary and director of the Joint Committee of Shanghai Women’s Organizations and the China Preparation Committee. The Shanghai Committee represented women’s organizations in the International Zone. Chaired by a European woman but with Chinese vice presidents, its severalthousand-strong membership was drawn from the American Association of University Women, the American Women’s Club of Shanghai, the Portuguese Women’s Association, the British Women’s Association (by far the largest group), German women’s clubs, Netherlands women’s clubs, the Japanese WCTU, a number of China-based women’s clubs and suffrage associations, and the YWCA (of which an undisclosed number were Chinese). It was through this network that a delegation from China had been sent to the conference. Hinder informed the Executive Committee that a little over a month earlier she had reported to the Joint Committee of Shanghai Women’s Organizations of her efforts to attract Chinese women to attend the first Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference. Hinder told them that although she had been able to secure “only two [Chinese women] to represent a population of two hundred million,” she was pleased that Dr. Ting was one of them. Thankfully, she advised, Ting had responded positively to her heartfelt message: “No other first rate physician available: please sacrifice [your time] for China’s sake.”77 Further discussion revealed, however, that no Chinese women had actually participated in the Shanghai-based decision. As a member of the PPWA Executive Committee, the paternalistic Alexander Ford of the PPU commended Hinder and Smith for having led “Chinese and foreign” women into the Pan-Pacific network and for raising funds to cover the expenses of the two Chinese delegates, the Peking-based hospital medical director Me Iung (Mei) Ting and the industrial secretary of the YWCA in Shanghai, Kyong Bae-Tsung.78 He expressed his support for the invitation proposed by Smith, stating that, prior to the conference, he had traveled to Shanghai, where he had heard from these same women’s organizations their enthusiasm for the idea that the next women’s conference be hosted by China. But in response to a probing question from Addams, Ford admitted that no Indigenous Chinese women had yet been appointed to the board of the Shanghai Civilization at the Crossroads  57

Joint Committee. At her suggestion, Ford promised henceforth to appoint Ting to its number and thereby establish the direct representation of Chinese women in decisions made by their own organization in Shanghai. Her directive that priority be given to indigenous leadership in non-Western networks dominated by Western women highlighted the Pan-Pacific Executive Committee’s own complicity in a parallel, well-meaning, but nonetheless colonial relationship with the “women of China.” While the PPWA had appointed a Chinese woman to its executive, it was still prepared to accept an invitation in their name initiated by a US citizen and an Anglo-Australian living in Shanghai. As one of the two Chinese members of the China delegation, Dr. Ting mobilized cultural internationalism’s emphasis upon national identity as a starting point on the road to modernization by pointing out that in this case such essential groundwork had not been undertaken: “First we want to get the Chinese women interested—at present they are ignorant about this thing.” Kyong Bae-Tsung agreed. Muriel Heagney (Trades Hall Council, Australia delegation) and Harriett Andrews (Hawai‘i delegation) lent their verbal support also. Thus encouraged, Ting decided that she should present her viewpoint to the conference as a whole.79 In its report of Dr. Ting’s statement from the floor of the conference, the Mid-Pacific Magazine gave her intervention a positive spin. It echoed the PPWA’s attitude that Oriental women were in the process of becoming modern members of the international women’s community and hence gaining in independence. Again, the modernized dress of the Chinese women was integral to this narrative of emergence. Alongside the story, a full-page photograph of the Chinese delegates showed a smiling Ting, “who electrified the Conference by her dramatic declaration that the time had now come when the women of China demanded the right to speak for themselves.” The accompanying article opened in celebratory tone with the declaration: “Again China is a united nation.” In this context, Ting—“a little white robed lady”—had made a “sensational declaration” that “Chinese women will no longer be forced to say ‘Yes, Yes’ through foreign women in our land. From now on we will say ‘No, No’ when we mean it and we will speak for ourselves to whomever we please.” (Here Ting seemingly equated internationalist women with imperial powers.) Focusing not on disagreement so much as the celebration of progress, the article asserted: “It was the great moment of the Conference and the delegation of women from every Pacific land rose to cheer her.”80 Alexander Hume Ford summed up the event in characteristically paternalist humor when, at the close of the conference, he advised gathered delegates: “I am happy to see an Oriental woman who will stamp her foot like an American woman and mean it. I have been waiting for that for twenty years.”81 58  Chapter 1

No doubt Hinder and Smith were taken aback by the rejection of their plans for the next conference. Working with women activists in China, these two were progressive in their collaboration with Chinese women in the Shanghai YWCA. Hinder wrote a report for the conference on women’s work in China, while providing information from the conference to the Joint Committee of Shanghai Women’s Organizations on the “Participation of Women in Government in European and Pacific Countries.”82 They contributed wholeheartedly to the indigenous women’s campaign for women’s rights in the family and at work. Yet, as Sarah Paddle has pointed out, they enjoyed a greater freedom than Chinese women in China while simultaneously celebrating their own involvement in the modernization of Chinese conditions.83 Hinder was not unaware of the contradictions inherent in her position as a foreigner. In a report she wrote on behalf of the China delegation prior to the conference about the emerging status of “Chinese Women in Pacific Affairs,” she predicted the concerns later expressed by Dr. Ting. She concluded: Chinese women alone can reveal to the women of other Pacific countries the inner significance of the happenings as the womanhood of their country emerges to a consciousness of its unity and potentiality. But Western women, resident in China, experienced in the women’s movement, sympathetically observing trends and events may have temerity to attempt to outline some of the historical features of the Chinese women’s movement, and may further do what Chinese women alone might hesitate to do—indicate where it is conceived a Chinese women’s movement has its contribution to make to international movements. . . . But indeed, . . . it would be poor demonstration of friendly relations if a statement should go forth which had no reference to the Chinese.84

The World YWCA rehearsed this same rather contradictory position when it reported in 1933 that the opening of new, modern premises in Shanghai promised renewed impetus in the “development of the international mind” among Chinese women.85 Shepherding the women of the new nation had been uppermost in Hinder’s thoughts when she wrote to Albert Thomas at the ILO about the first Pan-Pacific conference. She anticipated that national advancement would flow from the improvement in the conditions of women.86 Where Ting differed from Hinder, and from the approach of the World YWCA, was in her insistence that China follow its own path. She sought to shift the locus of influence, authority, and innovation away from Western feminism and toward the women of China themselves. “Inspired by the spirit of new China,” the press reported, Ting had protested that “foreign women Civilization at the Crossroads  59

coming from Shanghai ha[d] arrogated rights not theirs.”87 According to the Mid-Pacific Magazine, the Chinese delegates had demanded, therefore, the right to speak for themselves, “without interpretation of the foreign middlewoman.”88 Reporting to the Melbourne Herald, as special correspondent to the conference from Australia, Constance Stevens concluded with some admiration that Ting had “resented the attempt at foreign domination with hot speech and flashing eyes. Her outburst was the most dramatic incident of the conference.”89 But admiration did not necessarily translate into popularity. The contrast made between the “almost fanatical” Ting and the “quick and intelligent” Kong Bae-Tsung may well have secured the latter’s election as conference personality that year. In 1928 the young industrial secretary of the China delegation was voted most popular conference personality, a model of advancement in the terms set out by Sweet. She was considered charming and was admired for her shingled hair and pearl stud earrings.90 Ting had come to represent a less amenable modernity, one concerned primarily with the enormous responsibilities of the New Woman in new China, rather than for the accoutrements of international solidarity among women. Ting explained that while the China delegation had arrived in Honolulu with open minds, the majority of Chinese women remained “shy” of international participation, and considerable time and education would be needed to challenge their resistance. Moreover, the costs of hosting a conference and the years of organization required would be prohibitive, given China’s current period of “reconstruction” under its new government. More pressing issues were at hand: Confronted with numerous and perplexing home problems, we women are convinced that we should aid our government in certain phases of the reconstruction work. We are clear as to the sufferings of our people, who are ignorant, poverty-stricken, and physically handicapped by poor health. . . . Whether at this opportune moment we women should devote our energy and effort to entirely home problems or divert a part of our attention toward an extra programme which is not of immediate importance to our national life is a consideration that needs the careful thought of our women leaders.91

In the end, Ting’s protest was assimilated into the Pan-Pacific worldview under the cultural internationalist rubric of the hierarchy of culture and nations. Her outburst was reinterpreted, not as a refusal of white women’s benevolence, but as evidence of an Eastern woman’s early steps on the road to modernity. Ting’s insistence upon speaking to the conference was taken to exhibit personality and individuality, while her positive identification with her constituency gave evidence of a new national category, “the women of 60  Chapter 1

China.” This constituency represented a healthy sign among the hitherto “backward” women of the Orient and another step toward their international outlook.92 In 1929, Ting was guest of honor at a luncheon organized by the IPR while she was en route to a research fellowship at the University of Michigan.93 Although appointed vice president of the PPWA during the conference held in Honolulu in 1930, she preferred to continue her international work through Pan-Pacific medical conferences instead. And for her part, after her brief if central involvement in the organization of the 1928 conference, Hinder would leave the Pan-Pacific women’s network, ultimately disappointed with the outcome concerning China and, perhaps, also with her role in the controversy. In future, she channeled her research findings on work conditions in China mostly through the IPR. In each of these cases, the virtues of a women’s forum had failed to impress. Where disagreement over national representation and the right of self-representation might have raised doubts about the Pan-Pacific ideal, the PPWA quickly reasserted its progressive agenda. Elated by the overall success of the conference, numbers of its leading Western delegates declared it to have confirmed the potential of a women’s movement in the Pacific region. In characteristically expansive style, Bessie Rischbieth considered that the conference had opened a new chapter in “the Woman Movement of the World.”94 Rather more cautiously celebratory, the PPWA’s first vice president in 1930, as well as US delegate and president of the International Federation of Home and School, Margaretta Willis Reeve, argued that, rather than simply producing an outcome, the conference had begun a “process” by which like-minded individuals would “continue to move slowly towards objectives but dimly glimpsed through the mists which veil the future.”95 Others considered that the experience had been life-changing, commenting that their outlook had been forever “altered by this conference” in some difficult-to-measure but nonetheless “vivid” and “intellectual” way.96 This sense of breaking new ground and undertaking a heroic task evoked the iteration of pioneering tropes more familiar to colonialism. In this sense, the Pacific was newly available to various forms of colonization, feminist internationalism among them. In a talk that aired on the Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s broadcasting station, Australia delegate and industrial psychologist Ethel Osborne defended the “extravagant,” even “far-fetched” ideals of the women’s Pan-Pacific, finding in its early formation admirable evidence of the “spirit of travel and pioneering” such as had provided for colonization in the past and that now brought women from across the region to its headquarters in Hawai‘i. Such a heroic commitment from women gave hope for the future of interracial and cross-cultural relations: Civilization at the Crossroads  61

No wonder that it has been called the Cross-roads of the Pacific. We can look on the map of the world, but we shall find no other place just comparable. In the West, great ocean crossroads have a very different history and a very different story to tell . . . over long ages . . . tinged . . . with memories of rights slighted, wrongs unadjusted, and with all the trains of evils attendant on hatreds of the past, and suspicious for the future. [In the Pacific] . . . is it likely that we shall really see the germ of sound development in social well-being of the Eastern and Western world; from which is one justified in hoping the social well-being of the world may spring.97

Establishing its independence from the past, the newly formed association proclaimed its aims for the future. Where Alexander Hume Ford had called the first conference a “daughter” of the Pan-Pacific Union, the association that formed at the 1930s conference considered itself to be a “sister” organization with its own agenda.98 In acknowledgement of its momentous opportunity to contribute to world affairs, the new constitution of the association established two fundamental aims: (a) (b)

To strengthen the bonds of peace among the Pacific people by promoting a better understanding and friendship among the women of all the Pacific countries. To initiate and promote co-operation among the women of the Pacific region for the study and betterment of existing social conditions.

The success or failure of these rather general objectives would rely in large part on the participation of non-Western women. One of the most remarkable aspects of the early PPWA was that, despite some difficult beginnings within the association and the then growing hostilities between nations in the region, China and Japan delegates continued to participate in its conferences over following years. Their joint participation would become even more remarkable by the late 1930s as hostilities worsened. Arguably, the social reform internationalism holding together the PPWA’s cultural internationalist aims provided individual women with sufficiently valuable opportunities to speak out against the gulf between opposing worldviews that would soon wrench apart the region. As following years would show, Polynesian and Melanesian women would become increasingly involved in the intellectual and organizational decolonization of the women’s Pan-Pacific. Dr. Ting had been only the first of many anticolonial voices to be heard at the PPWA.

62  Chapter 1

Two Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific

D

uring one afternoon of the 1928 conference, numbers of PPWA delegates watched an official reenactment of Captain Cook’s “discovery” of Hawai‘i. As the performance proceeded, Hawai‘i’s status as a settler colony of the United States threatened to disrupt its carefully constructed narrative of heroic British colonization. In her account of the event, Australia delegate Britomarte James noted the amusement of the audience as Hawaiian actors who spoke in the place of their ancestors did so with American accents. This brash evidence of a larger American ascendancy in the Pacific underlined the ways in which previously British, imperial relations were now being rearticulated. Racial distinctions were in the process of shifting from older imperialistic styles, and histories were being rewritten in the process. As James noted wryly, perhaps it was for the best that the last chapter of Cook’s expedition (his spearing) was quietly edited from the enactment’s final scene.1 Within PPWA ranks this combination of British and US imperial perspectives produced both nostalgia for and a determined break with the past. While seemingly harking back to an imagined era when imperial relations were simpler and the colonial subject was still authorial, the reenactment of 1928 had been organized for the first Polynesian Conference in the Pacific at the initiative of the PPU’s Alexander Ford.2 Ironically looking back toward a carefully edited version of the past, it marked a new era in the recognition of collective indigenous rights in the region. US delegate and PPWA program chair Alice Parsons reflected something of this contradictory outlook in her welcome to the 1930 conference. Mobilizing nineteenth-century notions of “Orient” and “Occident” alongside the newer term “Polynesian,” she conjured a Pan-Pacific composed of three types, of which the former two represented civilizations already actively engaged in world affairs. Their mission was to awaken the third. The first delegate to acknowledge the Pacific as home to the Polynesian peoples, Parsons expressed the hope that the association would offer an opportunity for “the Oriental and Polynesian as well as Occidental women to make a contribution and [to] attract attendance . . . 63

[from] representatives of new and hitherto uninterested groups of women.”3 The colonialist’s vision of a Pacific encountered on the beach (the moment rehearsed in the reenactment) was not erased so much in Parson’s words as refashioned by them toward the needs of modern social domains and the interests of an international women’s association. This chapter looks at contradictory efforts made by the newly formed PPWA toward decolonizing its own practices and attracting greater numbers of women of the Pacific nations into its ranks. Western women’s experience of this process was contemporaneous with the dissipation of British imperialism’s previous hegemony and its replacement with Anglo-American cooperation.4 For British and US women, and for women from Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, this sense of renewed authority in the Pacific would be differently felt. But more pointedly it was the direct involvement of increasing numbers of non-Western women that shifted their notions of the Oriental woman’s role in the Pan-Pacific and heralded the involvement of Polynesia in shaping their worldview. Following Prasenjit Duara’s notion of the decolonization of civilization through the relativization of the West in the early twentieth century (a notion also captured in the “provincialization of Europe” identified by Dipesh Chakrabarty), the following sets out to investigate the rearticulation of the PPWA’s logics of “East meets West” as it welcomed a range of Pacific island cultures within its cultural internationalist project.5 As the population of the PPWA shifted over these years, it became increasingly apparent that Western feminist history was not simply going to be reenacted in the Pacific. Nor would it be sufficient to assume the application of Western feminist strategies to the challenges facing all Pacific women. Moreover, while suffrage politics had dominated late nineteenthand early twentieth-century women’s activism in Europe and America, and campaigns for the entry of women into public life its second phase, in the Pacific this apparently self-evident progression was complicated by decolonization. For many, national liberation and the collaboration of men and women in the struggle took precedence over the unity of women imagined by women’s internationalism. Reflecting on the first conference, Jane Addams pointed out that in the Oriental countries women seemed to be “making the most surprising political advance [in public office], as they are . . . in industry.” This fact, she concluded, led to their broader interest in business and professional life than a focus on suffrage would provide.6 PPWA conferences attracted mostly financially independent women from such countries as the Philippines, Siam (Thailand), and Ceylon (Sri Lanka), who were involved in public office, whether fully enfranchised or not. The 1930 conference attracted numbers similar to those in 1928, with delegations from Hawai‘i, the US Mainland, Japan, China, the Philippines, Latin America 64  Chapter 2

(Chile and Mexico), Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the trusteeships of (British) Fiji and (American) Samoa. While suffrage was important to women across the region, their approaches to gender politics and nationalism were varied. For Japanese women, international involvement offered a chance to resist the growing militarism of their government, as Fusaye Ichikawa, the renowned Japanese suffrage feminist, explained when she spoke on the political status of women in Japan at the 1928 conference.7 For others, being an internationalist provided a form of extranational citizenship, membership within a world community that required self-education in matters of national and world import. International participation represented a way of looking at one’s own country from the outside. Women with and without suffrage who attended the PPWA shared in this larger gain. When International Project deputy chair Mrs. Harry Kluegel spoke about the participation of women in government in 1930, she argued that the vote offered but one way in which women could access a greater share of the “responsibilities” of life. “No woman,” she asserted, “whether enfranchised or not, can afford to fail to inform herself of the great economic and political problems facing her government.”8 In this sense, the vote was not the core issue for women activists in the region. How to constitute their community to reflect the changing world order remained a pressing concern for the association as a whole. Among numbers of Western delegates, several doubts quickly emerged regarding the new association’s capacity to create this tripartite international community comprising (equally, by implication) Occidental, Oriental, and Polynesian women. As had been all too obvious at the first conference, the large numbers of American women in both the US Mainland and Hawai‘i delegations, and the presence of white women more generally, had dominated proceedings, their whiteness appearing to swamp those women of color who were present. Western women were self-consciously concerned about this somatic effect. Some also questioned their cultural awareness as internationalists during a period in which English increasingly dominated global affairs. Concerns were raised that the English language had been adopted as the conference language without any thought for non-English-speaking women likely to become delegates. Some moves were taken also to ensure that white women were not the majority on the Executive Committee, but on the whole these self-criticisms of Eurocentrism were more symbolic than fundamental. As to the larger question of how to attract greater numbers of non-Western women to join in the Pan-Pacific project, numerous efforts to pursue them would rely for the most part on existing Euro-American networks, more or less condemning the association to its early pro-Western configuration. Only after the war, with the securing of UNESCO travel grants designed to Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific  65

encourage the participation of women from the less wealthy Pacific nations, would the PPWA become more successful in securing the desired cohort of non-Western women into its ranks. The question of decolonization was pertinent in other ways to the configuration of delegations from settler colonies, where categories of Western and Eastern, Occident and Orient, or Orient, Occident, and Polynesia were reduced to terms like “natives” and assimilation. The second half of this chapter considers settler colonial women’s representations of “their” indigenous women as potential contributors to the Pan-Pacific. The relative absence of such women raised the possibility of the association’s reproducing the very kind of colonialist race relations it claimed to have left behind. Settler colonial women’s responses to this specter differed dramatically, reflecting the uneven histories of colonization in the region. In particular, the absence of Aboriginal women from the Australia delegation contrasted strikingly with the presence of Maori women on the New Zealand delegation from 1934. If indigenous women were recognized by the PPWA as particularly important contributors to its vision of the Pan-Pacific women’s community, they occupied a deeply ambiguous position within its collective imaginary. Given its aim to invite Pacific island women into the world community, it was ironic that one of the main vehicles for PPWA conference reports, the Mid-Pacific Magazine, routinely featured primitivist images in its promotion of the association. The contradiction seems to have escaped both PPWA organizers, adept at using the media to promote the association through photographs and conference reports, and its educated and politically engaged readership. Thus, the magazine advertised the 1930 conference with a front-page image of the leading US delegate, Margaretta Willis Reeve. Although festooned in leis, her serious expression reflects her expert status. In the same year, however, the magazine also used an image of a smiling Native Hawaiian woman to advertise the conference. This representation of Hawai‘i as alluring yet innocent is one of the most widely recognizable tropes of the Pacific. In her account of the Pacific in the Western imagination of the 1920s, Patty O’Brien points out that such tourist images of island maidens trivialized senior indigenous women who were then involved in opposing colonization.9 It also sexualized and made primitive the very Polynesian women the PPWA hoped to secure among future collaborators. In spite of such reiterations of primitivist representations of indigenous women, the PPWA leadership set out to instigate a number of internal reforms designed to improve its claims to inclusivity and cultural awareness. Efforts were made to streamline the aims of the new association: organizers of the first conference acknowledged that the PPWA was not going to change the world—at least not all at once, and certainly not without care66  Chapter 2

ful attention to conference preparation. Rather, greater attention should be paid to internal equity. Representation was to be better managed through the sharing of official positions with non-Western women, with the (problematic) proviso that they first prove themselves capable of such responsibility. According to the constitution of the PPWA, officers were to be nominated by delegations numbering no more than twenty-five individuals, with five delegates from each having voting rights in the program sections. Associate delegates of up to five per delegation could attend meetings but not vote. Honorary delegates were invited by the council from “countries not in the Pacific but having dominions, territories, or dependencies in the Pacific area” or that were otherwise considered pertinent to the region, such as India, thereby incorporating non-Western women leaders from other forums. These women were to act as models for their less experienced peers, as well as improve the cross-cultural credentials of the PPWA. In practical terms, the outcome of structural reform  remained conservative, with EuroAmerican women still dominating. Through the Executive Committee, Georgina Sweet was elected the international president (Australia), Julia Swanzy the honorary president (in Hawai‘i), Margaretta Willis Reeve the first vice president and program chair (US Mainland), Mei Ting the second vice president (China), and the indefatigable Ann Satterthwaite the honorary secretary (Hawai‘i). The council of the association was composed of representatives of the charter countries: Australia, Canada, China, the Dutch East Indies (later Indonesia), Fiji, Hawai‘i, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, American Samoa, and the United States. Although a Filipino president would be elected in 1955, the reality was that Australia, New Zealand, and US women would continue to occupy the key roles in the association throughout its first decades. While national delegations were encouraged from all countries in the region, only those with fully established national committees were provided with full voting rights, and they formed the core of the organization: New Zealand, Australia, Japan, the United States, Hawai‘i, and Canada. Although this number would double by 1955, this internal power division remained a significant legacy. Early criticism of this state of affairs arose from among Western delegates whose internationalism had emerged out of an awareness of the imperialist outlook of their own countries. Almost immediately, the prevalence of US women was protested, but even more noticeable to many was the domination of Anglo women across delegations. Already, from 1928, the influence of US delegates was considered by numbers of delegates to threaten the Pan-Pacific ideal. Sheer numbers illustrated the problem, while their considerable influence only confirmed suspicion. The United States commonly sent the maximum number of delegates, twenty-five, to the early Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific  67

conferences whereas, to make a pointed comparison, only one delegate represented Mexico. Combined with the Anglo-American members of the Hawai‘i delegation, white US delegates dominated conference gatherings. The antecedents were obvious. US-led Pan-Pacific internationalism in Hawai‘i had been fundamental to the formation of the association, and US government connections remained strong. At the request of the Planning Committee, the territorial governor of Hawai‘i, Wallace R. Farrington, had asked the US Department of State to send invitations to the first conference on the committee’s behalf to all the Pacific nations.10 More specifically, the northwest coast of the United States saw the Pacific as its own backyard. As Alexandra Epstein points out, California women made up the majority of US women in both the Mainland and Hawai‘i delegations, despite the latter’s inclusion of Japanese and Chinese residents of Hawai‘i among its members.11 At one level, this concern about equity reflected the ascendancy of whiteness and its role in shaping political sensibility in a world enamored of racial theory, eugenics, and social engineering. It was against this predominance that the PPWA had constituted itself as fundamentally cultural in its outlook, interested in promoting neither the eugenic segregation of the races nor its opposite, racial mixing. Rather, it focused on the evolution of the nation as a new place within and across which various ethnicities might coexist. Solidarity between white women might exist, but so did cultural, political, and national differences that came between even them. Indeed, despite the “ties of blood” between the white nations, numbers of delegates from the other settler colonies were eager to distinguish themselves from the Anglo-Saxon US contingent.12 As is described in the next chapter, the leader of the New Zealand delegation in 1934 would consider her wariness of her North American colleagues the greatest obstacle to achieving an international outlook. While America’s “fitness for leadership” would be questioned by the Pan-Asian nonalignment movement of the postwar years, so, on a smaller scale, non-American white women in the PPWA would seek to distinguish their separate role in world affairs.13 Given the increasing presence of the United States as the leading power in the region, and eliding the colonial ambitions and settler colonial status of their own nations, they proclaimed themselves essential interlocutors between the United States and the new Pacific. According to Eleanor Hinder, writing to the ILO in 1928, US women were held in some suspicion due to the dominance of their nation in the region, particularly in relation to Japan and China. In comparison, she asserted, Australians represented a small and relatively innocent nation that enjoyed a particularly warm relationship with women in the Pacific: 68  Chapter 2

I find myself in the position of being the one person, a woman, who has lived all over this Pacific area, who has been concerned with these matters, who is by training originally in a scientific field, more or less equipped, and who is not American. This matters, both in the Southern hemisphere and in China and Japan, where they are very used to having things “put over” by Americans. . . . Hence, despite my lacks, I am challenged to consider what can be done.14

That the US women were most often identified as dominant figures at early conferences held in Honolulu perhaps also reflects, some degree of ambivalence regarding their nation’s occupation of Hawai‘i. At the end of the 1928 conference, Jane Addams stated that she was pleased the conference had been held in Hawai‘i; given that “Honolulu is an outpost of America in the midst of the Pacific,” she hoped that “we are giving of our best here instead of our worst” and was reassured by her visit that this was the case.15 In her work on Pacific internationalism in this period, Akami notes also the “self-righteousness” of the “American mission in the Pacific” flowing out of the occupation of Guam and Hawai‘i16—or, for that matter, of the Philippines, also annexed in 1898 and where the 1955 conference would be convened.17 But while the Pacific evidenced US imperial ambitions, it was the region’s earlier history of continental colonization that inspired the strongest criticism. From the start, Latin American women were particularly uncomfortable at the level of US involvement in PPWA. Although they were invited to send a delegation to the association, their participation was only ever partial until 1958. The first Congress of Latin-American Women had been held in Panama City in 1926. Previous relations with US women internationalists had rapidly deteriorated since efforts at their inclusion in a Pan-American Congress of Women in Baltimore in 1922 appeared little more than patronizing.18 Following the war, the PPWA continued to have difficulty in securing a Latin American contingent. As Isabel Morelock, a Hawai‘i delegate and the chair of the Constitution Committee, along with Ann Satterthwaite, would be quick to point out as early as 1941, the situation would only worsen with the plan of the leader of the US Mainland delegation, Alice Parsons, to rename that delegation. By calling it the United States of America delegation, Morelock and Satterthwaite pointed out, she would be reneging on an original decision not to use “American.” They also pointed out that should the word be now adopted, countries like Chile, Mexico, and Brazil would be within their right to use the term too. Parsons, who in 1930 had taken over the role of program chair from Ethel Osborne, rejected their claims, however, advising that the name change was simply Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific  69

administrative, having been requested by the US State Department.19 By the 1950s the name of the US delegation was formally changed, reflecting the postwar confidence of the United States in relation to its southern neighbors. Very few Latin American delegates attended future conferences, and those who did, such as a representative of the YWCA of Mexico who participated in 1937, were attracted through their existing involvement in established women’s international networks. Some US delegates considered the absence of Latin American women a matter of animosity not toward the United States but toward the universal claims of the PPWA’s reform agenda. The first vice president of the PPWA, US Mainland delegate Margaretta Willis Reeve, advised Julia Swanzy in 1934 that the “Latin” perspective was almost entirely absent from the association because Western women’s interests had set the early agenda of the association.20 She could have extended this criticism to the Westernist focus of many non-Western women also. These were matters relating to decentering Western thought as much as  the replication of imperial power relations. The potential correspondence between representation and Anglocentrism was argued also in relation to the association’s internal hierarchy. The PPWA responded to such criticisms by increasing the number of vice presidents it appointed, and by using these positions to promote key non-Western delegates. In 1931 Reeve wrote to Georgina Sweet again on the question of breaking the hold of Western women within the association. While agreeing that appointing more vice presidents would be one way to distribute positions of responsibility among a wider circle of women, she suggested that henceforth the board of directors should include one person from every national delegation. Toward this end, she enclosed an extract from a letter she had written to Parsons in which she argued that greater awareness of equity within the association would express “a modest desire not to force upon others our own progress.”21 Her suggestion was adopted, but the radical nature of its intention would be much more difficult to carry out. At the same time, an overloaded program threatened to swamp diversity of perspective and voice. Recognizing that the sheer weight of topics might undo the PPWA’s efforts at modern communication, behind the scenes the US Mainland committee recommended that greater attention be addressed to thinning out and slowing down conference business. Here it gestured to the needs of non-Western delegates, as the speed of interaction was considered likely overwhelming to those for whom English was not a first language.22 Since the 1928 conference, national working groups had researched and would then report on projects in education, health, industry, social service, “women in government,” film, and international relations. Questionnaires were circulated, seeking information about the status 70  Chapter 2

Bessie Rischbieth, Ann Satterthwaite, and Alice Parsons[?] at their glamorous best. MS 2004/6/344–369, Rischbieth Papers. Courtesy of National Library of Australia.

of women in the region in relation to health and education and to women in government. Papers from conferences were published as Women of the Pacific, and proceedings and resolutions duly recorded in the Mid-Pacific Magazine and the Pan-Pacific. Pan-Pacific research was gaining international recognition. Dr. Louise Stanley (chief of the Bureau of Home Economics, US Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific  71

Department of Agriculture) would present a paper on the women of the Pacific to a conference in the White House recently convened by President Herbert Hoover and designed to survey agencies dealing with women workers and child welfare. (Another presenter would be Ella P. Stewart of the National Association of Colored Women, who would join the US delegation in 1955 and is the subject of chapter 6.)23 By reducing the number of programs and presentations, conferences would be better able to draw together and focus this ever-increasing body of social research on the Pacific. Undeniably, the conference language of English favored Anglo women. The constitution of the association reflected an awareness of this issue, with conference rule number five advising that for delegates not speaking English a translator should be made available. Other than very rare references to Esperanto (the global language considered by a few to offer the grounds for equity between the peoples of the world), however, the issue of proficiency and the speed with which conference business was conducted, like other concerns regarding the practice of equity, was never fully resolved. Australia delegate Doris McRae (Victorian Teachers’ Union) noted this fact several years later when attending the Vancouver conference in 1937. There her fellow delegate, Millicent Preston-Stanley Vaughan, caused offense when she called upon women of the “English-speaking countries” to join together in response to criticism from Asian delegates on the question of immigration restriction (discussed further in chapter 4). The notion of white women forming an English-speaking (that is, Anglo) bloc was anathema to the PPWA ideal—while also a little too close to reality for comfort—and Vaughan was promptly censored. With Vaughan “sent to Coventry” by the Australia delegation, McRae took her place on the conference program. Previously the delegation’s secretary, she now found herself hastily preparing for a delegation report to a public conference forum scheduled for the very next evening.24 Aside from these important issues of organization and representation, the PPWA continued to aim to contact women who were not yet known to the women’s international community. While various well-meaning strategies were mobilized to achieve this end, it would be the agency of women of the Pacific nations themselves that would prove most effective. In her preparations for the 1930 conference, for example, US chair Mary Woolley set about the important task of attracting more delegates from the region. Having attended conferences convened by the IPR in previous years, she had traveled widely in China, Japan, and the Philippines and sought to use these networks for the PPWA. Despite her efforts, a similarly small group of Chinese women arrived in 1930, repeating a situation that had caused a stir in 1928 (suggesting that, rather than numbers, the core issue was how and from 72  Chapter 2

what localities these women were brought into international networks). And even with Ting’s appointment as a vice president of the conference, fulfilling one of the PPWA’s strategies to encourage non-Western participation, the China delegation she brought with her numbered only four. Two, like Ting, were the recipients of fellowships at Michigan, while one was the member of a Bible society based in New York. Even less encouraging, the fourth was a white woman, Geraldine Fitch (YWCA and American Women’s Club, Shanghai). Others who spoke about China at the conference were Chinese women living in Hawai‘i, such as Ruth “Babe” Yap, an assistant professor at the University of Hawai‘i. Yap spoke of the great advances made in China, including in the status of women, pointedly comparing these to the loss of rights experienced by Chinese American women who married Chinese men immigrating into America.25 If the association was to make new connections in the region, then diversifying the range of Western delegates in its membership was crucial. Widening the reach of its white constituency appeared to offer another strategy toward reaching diversity. As non-Western delegates were drawn largely from women’s international networks, especially the World YWCA, the individual contacts of Western women involved in these organizations remained essential to the PPWA. Several women with extensive connections across the Pacific region, established during dynamic careers in a variety of fields, constituted the bulwark of these inevitably flawed efforts to democratize. Women with a strong sense of contributing to world history, their carefully preserved archives of photographs and documents contribute greatly to our understanding of these decades in the association’s history. Following the Second World War, Hawai‘i delegate Vivia Appleton became a leading member of the association, assuming the role of its international secretary. Appleton was a pediatric surgeon who had worked as a young woman at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore before being sent by the YWCA to work in China. Arriving in Hawai‘i in 1924, she went on to complete her master’s degree in public health. Appleton’s trenchant advocacy of the socialization of health led to her resignation as director of infancy and child health for the Honolulu Health Department,26 but she pursued these interests through the PPWA. Also involved through the YWCA, Jean Begg was an officer in the New Zealand Army, by 1945 a lieutenant colonel who was made a Companion of the British Empire. During her posting overseas, Begg endeavored to contact as many as possible of the YWCA’s 137 local branches in India, Ceylon, and Burma.27 Her wartime travels established Pan-Pacific links with Burmese women. Other women brought expertise in crosscultural aesthetics, creative practice, and cultural production. Willowdean Handy, for example, joined the postwar association to become its program Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific  73

chair in 1947. Married to an ethnographer and herself a published author of ethnographic studies in the Pacific, Handy attended the Pacific Science Congress in 1926 as a representative of the Bishop Museum, contributing to discussion about the preservation of Pacific cultures. Handy went on to study art and culture in Japan and India before returning to Hawai‘i. Like Begg, she was already strongly connected in the region but drew on her culture-based knowledge rather than women’s networks to attract new delegates from Pacific nations.28 Despite these efforts, Western women routinely represented Pacific island constituencies at conferences. This colonial legacy was particularly apparent regarding the Crown Colonies, which until recently had been under imperial rule and whose women were considered least ready —by both colonial regimes and within women’s internationalist circles—for the responsibilities of self-representation. At the 1949 conference, for example, a British woman described the status of the women of Sarawak (a British protectorate): She lived there, she explained, and, interested in the PPWA, she had been able to attend the conference through her own finances. Her status as a colonial was paralleled in her capacity to speak on the international stage. Some acknowledgment was given to the fact that she did not formally represent the women she described, however; as was the case with other nonindigenous delegates participating under these circumstances, she was not made a full delegate with voting rights. The expense of attending conferences contributed another factor limiting the scope of membership. Beyond elite networks, delegates of lesser means confronted the prohibitive cost of attendance. While ostensibly a question of socioeconomic class, in the context of the Pacific Basin and attracting women from less wealthy countries, it was also one of colonization. Many Pacific island women in the region had little access to either personal or organizational funds. Financial equity was not a matter directly considered by the culturally focused PPWA, and women of lesser means would sometimes travel second or third class in order to attend conferences. Each delegate was required to pay a registration fee and was to cover the costs of her own travel or have them paid by a sponsoring association such as the YWCA. Ten percent of annual dues and $100 contribution from each delegation helped offset the association’s costs in running conferences. Some US delegates found it difficult to raise funds for the conference held in New Zealand in 1952, for example. Women of even high status from indigenous communities were often unable to secure funds for travel, and fewer still were able to contribute to the conference levy by which conferences were funded. Action would have to be taken on the question of funding if women from poorer countries were to attend. 74  Chapter 2

Whereas the association of the interwar years was not able to subsidize conference costs, by the 1950s the participation of women delegates from nations in the Pacific and the emerging subregion of “Southeast Asia” was given a major boost through travel grants secured from UNESCO. These grants—if on a smaller scale—were similar in intention to the Colombo Plan, through which the United States, in partnership with Australia, offered overseas educational scholarships to young people from Southeast Asia.29 Now able to access support through these UNESCO grants, delegates without the benefit of government or personal funds began to arrive from countries like Cambodia, Burma, New Zealand Samoa, Tonga, New Guinea, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Many were involved in local campaigns promoting reform familiar to the PPWA agenda, including education, health, women in public life, and the problems of youth. By joining the association, these women secured international attention to the local conditions not only of their fellow women but also of their people, while at the same time advancing their own reputations. They enjoyed what Karen Kelsky has described of Japanese women, an “internationalist modernity” alongside peers in the region.30 Through these funds, the PPWA was finally better able to diversify its membership base. Promising UNESCO to continue its focus on the education of girls and the promotion of women in public life, aims that were in any case at the core of its cultural internationalist agenda, the association continued in the 1950s to operate as a valuable clearinghouse, supplying knowledge about women and children in the region while disseminating UNESCO information through national organizing committees.31 Although the grant scheme was beneficial to both UNESCO and the PPWA, the association’s leadership had to lobby persistently throughout these years to maintain the arrangement.32 Another strategy used by the PPWA hierarchy was to seek women leaders from beyond the Pacific. Given the significance of women to selfrule, Indian women internationalists immediately came to mind.33 India was also the source of a spiritual renewal anticipated by many women internationalists in their quest for the Pan-Pacific. In 1925 the US Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference Committee had recommended that “the women in India” be included in the conference, although (reflecting its interwar difficulty with thinking outside of its Orientalist origins) in the first instance those it named as likely speakers were not Indian but British or, more precisely, Anglo-Indian.34 If the PPWA were to facilitate the emergence of an international Pan-Pacific community of democratic nations, then India’s recent history, and the role of Indian women in its growing independence, seemed a worthy example. Indian women also lived across the region, the flow of migration complicating the internationalism’s preference for national constituencies. Responding to the original organizing committee’s questionDecolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific  75

naire about future conference themes, Margaret Cousins, an Irish feminist who had contributed to the founding of the All-India Women’s Association, reasoned that the involvement of Indian women would be essential to the future of the Pacific, not least because of the impact of Indians living in the region.35 Moreover, “the Orient” included India, and even though it was not a Pacific nation, the women of India figured centrally in Western delegates’ understanding of a Pan-Pacific. In particular, they were crucial to the Western women’s imagining of a syncretic future in which progressive elements of the two world civilizations of the Orient and the West would combine to bring about global renewal. Theosophist women in Australia, Europe, the United States, and elsewhere were deeply impressed by the notion that a synthesis of East and West would be achieved through spiritual as well as cultural engagement with India.36 In her study of the foundations of the Indian women’s internationalist movement, Catherine Candy has argued that during the transition from colonialism to self-rule Irish theosophists, Indian middle-class feminists, and British imperial feminists each claimed the “Indian woman.”37 Conversely, while imperial maternalism toward the Indian woman had long characterized British feminism,38 by the 1920s Indian women were undeniably international figures in their own right. Antoinette Burton has shown that numbers of leading Indian women were transnational advocates contributing to their country’s transition toward independence.39 Indian women would become valued members of the PPWA as well. On the final day of the 1928 conference, the idea of extending an invitation to Indian women was reiterated by honorary international president Jane Addams. Aiming to persuade her fellow delegates that India should be considered part of the Pan-Pacific, she advised the conference that, as Indian women were “facing many of the problems of women of other Oriental countries,” their experience would be invaluable.40 Decades later, an unidentified commentator—clearly a New Zealander, and more than likely the inimitable Elsie Andrews (soon to become the leader of the New Zealand delegation)—recounted the scene. She began with a joke about Australia’s relationship to New Zealand: A large map of the Pacific was hung in the Auditorium mainly that people might see that New Zealand was not part of Australia. A point that we had to stress very much, as even on the last day of the conference Addams spoke of Melbourne as the capital of New Zealand. [Melbourne is the capital of the state of Victoria in Australia.]    Also on the last day the question of India came up. . . . Miss Addams asked “Is India in the Pacific Ocean?” Everyone turned to the map and there was a murmur of assent. Then Mrs. Thompson Seton spoke for India, Miss 76  Chapter 2

Griffin from Fiji spoke of the number of Indians there, and Mrs. Rischbieth [Australia delegate] said that Western Australia was only three flying days distant [from India], and anyway if India did not join in with the Pacific [women’s network] with whom could she join. Then the Conference with one voice declared that India is in the Pacific, and delegates will be invited to the next Conference.41

Such a creative mapping of the Pan-Pacific stretched even its rapidly changing dimensions in these decades. While India is, of course, in the Indian Ocean, the delegates were correct in noting that Indians were among vast immigrant populations scattered throughout the Pacific, including across Australia, and that considerable numbers of Indian women would indeed have familial and community interests in the region. Rischbieth’s prediction that Indian women would have no other international network to join would be proven incorrect, however. Nearly ten years later, in her opening address to the 1937 conference, international president Georgina Sweet described her recent attendance of the All-India Women’s Conference as a representative of the PPWA.42 Confirming the “miraculous awakening of India’s women during the past ten years,”43 she reported, however, that her invitation for the All-India Women’s Association to send a formal delegate to the PPWA conference had been rejected. She had been advised that “Indian women felt that until India had full political independence it was impossible to cooperate actively in outside affairs.”44 (The Chinese delegates had made a similar point in 1928.) Instead, a white woman from the United States who was a medical missionary in India for a number of years spoke about the “women of India” at the 1930 conference.45 While New Zealand delegate Jean Begg maintained contact with All-India Women’s delegates during a trip through the region in 1939,46 only finally in 1952 did the All-India Women’s Association sent its own delegates to a PPWA conference. In her opening speech at the 1952 conference, Josephine Schain, PPWA president and US Mainland delegate, celebrated the arrival of Indian women in Christchurch, New Zealand. Schain spoke of the women of “newly styled Republics,” those of the decolonized nations, for whom nationalism brought “the advancement of women’s status.” Of these, she identified the women of India as having assumed their national responsibilities with the greatest alacrity.47 Nevertheless, the Indian delegates were not prepared to forget the past and, by implication, the effects of British rule. Mrs. Raksha Saran, a vice president of the All-India Women’s Association, responded by advising her audience that “the history of women in India had been one of tragic neglect,” marked by poverty and injustice.48 Saran was a university graduate from Punjab who had spent two years in Oxford, where she took diplomas Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific  77

in social and political science and was a member of the International Federation of University Women. Her colleague Begum Hussain, a Muslim social worker, playwright, and also vice president, explained that she had lived in purdah during her early life, and only as an adult had she been able to move freely in the public domain.49 Confirming the positive impact of Westernization, Saran asserted that enormous changes were taking place in the lives of women in India and that, conscious of their significance to other women in the region, “they [felt] the eyes of the world [were] upon them.”50 Overall, the dialogue between Pacific and Indian women that PPWA conferences facilitated constitutes a notable achievement in the organization’s early history, and one that would be expanded in later decades. The later involvement of Indian women reflected their considerable sympathy with PPWA’s cultural internationalist aims. The first All-Asia Women’s Conference, of which Indian women were a large part, had met in 1931 to promote unity among the women of “a common Oriental culture.” Counterpointing many of the PPWA’s aims, it set out to establish and preserve elements within Oriental culture, such as family, the veneration of motherhood, and art, and to take from Occidental culture what was appropriate to Asia. Not unlike their counterparts in that first All-Asia Women’s Conference, PPWA women were engaged in what Mrinalini Sinha has described as an “alternative internationalism that recognized the claims of self-determining ‘national’ communities.”51 Relative to the role of Britain in India, in this context the influence of the United States within the PPWA could be argued as a positive force, ameliorating past imperial animosities. Furthermore, Indian women found in the association a range of non-Western delegates equally engaged in negotiating the impact of colonialism as global power shifted from the British Empire to the United States.52 The Pacific Island Woman If Western PPWA women no longer held the same authority in a decolonizing Asia Pacific, this loss was somewhat counterbalanced by the arrival of the “Pacific island woman.” In previous years, the primitivist and maternalist image of the “silent, suffering” indigenous woman of the British Empire had motivated women internationalists to various humanitarian campaigns promulgated through British women’s networks.53 Similarly, those delegates arriving at first in small numbers from the “native” cultures of the Pacific were considered most reliant on their more experienced Western colleagues. For many, the opportunity to speak of conditions among their own peoples still depended on the conditions of trusteeship under which they lived, or it relied on the sympathies of white women among their once-colonial overseers. 78  Chapter 2

Sometimes this interest resulted in a continuation of the PPWA’s earlier practice of allowing a white woman to speak for nonwhite women. Whereas Dr. Ting of the China delegation had spoken out against this practice regarding Chinese women in 1928, at the same conference no indigenous Fijian was present to question representations made by a British Australian woman, Miss A. M. Griffin, on behalf of the women of Fiji. In her report, Griffin spoke of the relation between native delinquency and the availability of alcohol in that country.54 In 1930 an avowedly ethnographic approach gave the appearance of authority to the primitivist lens through which white Fiji delegate Olive Meek declared the tragedy of a “simple-minded . . . Fijian race” still living in the “Stone Age” but facing rapid modernization.55 In 1937, again in the absence of an indigenous Fijian representative, Miss Gwen Atherton, a British woman, described the people of Fiji as “happy, docile, friendly and hospitable,” terms similar to those used in tourist guides to the region.56 Only at the Tokyo conference in 1958 would an ethnic Fijian woman participate as a delegate in her own right. Growing up on a church mission, Lolohea Akosita Waqairawai had trained as a teacher in Sydney (through the mission’s support), before returning to Fiji, where she was a child welfare worker and, with resident British women, ran the Fijian mothercraft movement. Waqairawai was awarded a British Empire medal in 1950 for her work in maternal health, and she spoke of her achievements to PanPacific delegates.57 Thus, while the original inspiration for a women’s community in the Pacific had concerned the dissemination of maternal health to the Pacific, the association came to provide a location for Pacific island women to report on their own motherhood campaigns and develop their own strategies through hearing about similar work in other countries and through the UN. Despite the importance of this shift toward direct representation, the historical relationship between Western women’s movements and indigenous forms on Pacific islands was more complicated than this progressive narrative might imply. Reflecting the strong presence of missions in the region, women missionaries were significant figures in accessing Pacific island women for the PPWA. Arguably a secularized version of their zeal inspired the expansion of the women’s international networking more broadly. From the nineteenth century, most Pacific island peoples had experienced Christianization as a form of Westernization advanced energetically by missionaries. As Margaret Jolly has shown, missions in the Pacific focused on women in their aim to change traditional societies forever.58 An early twentiethcentury anthropological study confirmed missionary reports that Melanesian and Papuan women were the least advanced of the region.59 Their need for guidance into the modern world seemed irrefutable, and most urgently Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific  79

so, given the potentially negative effects of unmediated globalization in the region. In a microcosm of globalization in world affairs, modernization in the islands offered opportunities to retain some aspects of “traditional” life while eradicating others. For Sister Gwen Shaw, a New Zealand missionary who ran Anglican missions in Melanesia throughout these decades, however, modern life brought greater immorality to her charges. In her report on women in Tonga, the Solomon Islands, and the New Hebrides to the 1952 Pan-Pacific women’s conference held in New Zealand, she warned of the “breakdown” of traditional society and its replacement with “a materialistic way of life” through increased exchanges with Europeans. Nor was the process of modernization simply one of progression. Worryingly, although her flocks had adopted European dress, a positive sign of greater civilization, they had retained negative traditional “desires” for drinking kava and practicing polygamy, both antithetical to her mission.60 At the same time, as Kumari Jayawardena has pointed out, mission activity among non-Western women could produce unexpected outcomes, including indigenous women’s involvement in nationalist movements.61 To this we can add that it might also enable access to international women’s networks. From a mission background herself, Alice Wedega was the first Papuan delegate to attend a Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference. Described as having had experienced little contact with the outside world, as a native woman she had an enthralling reputation that bordered on sensationalism, as reflected in the comments of New Zealander Mary Seaton at the 1952 conference: There was one delegate who came from the wild jungle of Papua. Miss Wedega can track people through the jungle, and yet walk so that she leaves no trace by which she herself could be followed. If such a knowledge of nature is not a liberal education then where did Miss Wedega get her poise? At the official opening luncheon she did not know that she would have to give greetings from her country until it was almost her turn. Her short well expressed speech was very moving. She said, “I am not so well educated as most of the women here, but I have come to learn and to pass on that learning to my people, I want you to give me all you can in knowledge so that I can go back and help my people.” Miss Wedega was quite determined that she will form a Pan Pacific Women’s Group when she returns . . . [so] Miss Wedega must have thought she gained something from the conference.62

Although in Seaton’s account Wedega seems to step straight out of the jungle, according to Ellen Lea, another international secretary from New Zealand, her participation was achieved only against colonial and racial 80  Chapter 2

assumptions about her incapacity as a black woman. Reflecting political conditions in Papua, Lea declared that Wedega’s determination to attend the conference had made the “first crack in the colour bar” for women in her own country, because “before that time . . . a Papuan woman had [n]ever been invited to meet a European one.”63 Lea’s comments point to the local forms of racial discrimination faced by women like Wedega and underline the radical potential of the PPWA in simply providing a space in which white and black women from colonies in the region might gather together. This was the sharp contrast that PPWA internationalists sought to highlight in their work. Certainly, inequalities between indigenous and white women continued to operate in many Pacific countries where “advanced” nations like Australia held control. Willowdean Handy remained in communication with Wedega after the conference, forwarding copies of “UN and educational material” to her for her use in talks with “village women.”64 Through their friendship, the PPWA operated as a conduit between local women in Papua and world politics. In welcoming increasing numbers of Pacific island women, many of whom were for the first time involved in international activism, the PPWA renewed its concern for the potentially negative impacts of unregulated Westernization. While social reform in education, health, and employment remained central to its agenda, numbers of Western delegates worried about the effects of Western popular culture on traditional peoples. Such concerns were most clearly articulated in discussions about film and censorship, discussions in which indigenous people were represented as not fully adults. The PPWA was in favor of censorship only in those circumstances where audiences of youth or native people were considered at risk. Both groups were regarded as poorly equipped to resist material designed to fuel base emotions or incite simple desires. As world war had shown, propaganda led young people to join fascist and militarist political movements, while in peacetime, explicit images caused degeneracy. Moreover, white people behaving badly led previously colonized people to reject the West’s moral claim to a continuing global leadership. Both groups needed to see the best of Western modernity, not its worst, and to advance into maturity through following its example. In 1928, US delegates had reported a “rather unpleasant surprise.” Some of the delegates from China and Japan, as well as Australia and New Zealand, had been overheard exchanging negative views about North Americans, based on sensational images in Hollywood movies.65 What of simple native peoples, if their civilized colleagues could be so gullible? Perhaps as a result of this unfortunate break with the praxis of “friendship,” the conference that year agreed that although in principle censorship was not endorsed, US films Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific  81

shown in the future to countries in the Pacific Basin should reflect “the best and not the worst in life.” Similarly, films produced in Britain and distributed around the world should not “bring discredit to the moral standard of Great Britain.”66 These concerns were given a broader cultural scope in 1934, under the conference heading “Cinema and Radio Education.” Henceforth, motion pictures were not only to represent white people in a good light but also to uphold the principles of diversity on which the PPWA was founded. They should show • • • •

regard for the church, creed and religious life of all people respect for the integrity of the family as a social institution accuracy in the portrayal of racial and national customs treatment of crime in such fashion as to discourage imitation67

Thereby, it was hoped, the West might retain its moral right to lead the world through the example of cultural awareness and sensitivity as well as by economic might. The example of Christian family life was to be acknowledged as the foundation of world society, and criminals were not to be glorified as heroes and heroines. Native peoples were to be represented with a degree of accuracy and not in sensationalist manner. Although considering extracts from the Royal Commission on the Moving Picture Industry in Australia, the Cinematograph Roundtable of the Social Section at the conference did not go so far as to recommend, as had the Australian report, that “no moving picture be presented before audiences of aboriginals or natives of the Mandated Territories.”68 But if the separate determination of Aboriginal people in Australia and indigenous people in Australian territories exceeded the parameters of the PPWA’s international culturalist perspective, the question of indigenous involvement from the settler colonies remained problematic to the organization’s objective of interracial harmony in the Pan-Pacific. Indigenous Women in the Settler Colonies For the PPWA, indigenous women in the settler colonies and their place in the Pan-Pacific women’s community constituted a crucial question for Western women’s leadership. While non-Western women were encouraged to become the representatives of their own constituencies by organizing national delegations through their own home-based committees, indigenous women from the settler colonies would necessarily have to share in the membership of their delegations with white colleagues. Moreover, their inclusion relied on their capacity to inspire individual white women to invite them to join. Consideration of the place of indigenous women and indigenous culture in 82  Chapter 2

the women’s Pan-Pacific generated a variety of responses among Western delegates from the US Mainland, Hawai‘i, Canada, and Australia (and their comparison with New Zealand delegates, discussed in the next chapter). The delegations’ distinct responses point to the impact that the very different histories of settler colonialism and whiteness had on the PPWA in its first decades. For many PPWA women, recognition of indigenous peoples meant preservation of passing traditions. Whereas engagement with actual indigenous spokeswomen suggested the need to face ongoing histories of violence and dispossession, the preservation of “dying” cultures evoked a benevolent maternalism. Hawai‘i conference organizer Julia Judd Swanzy, who had been present at the Outrigger Club when the idea for a women’s conference had first been discussed in the mid-1920s, became chair of the Executive Committee of the association formed during the second conference. A member of the Order of the Daughters of Hawai‘i, Swanzy had long campaigned to preserve high forms of Hawaiian culture she considered under threat. In Hawai‘i, as elsewhere, cultural preservation was closely aligned to the politics of colonial rule as well as to progressive thought. The order had recently built a replica of Queen Emma’s house containing indigenous crafts as well as providing a meeting place for various haole women’s clubs, of which small numbers of elite Native Hawaiian women were members.69 Such appropriations of native culture characterized settler women’s cross-cultural contributions at conferences more generally. If culture figured as the difference of “traditional societies” from the West, then claiming a traditional culture as part of one’s own national culture signaled the cultural awareness of the internationalist settler colonial. The US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia delegations routinely used indigenous cultures in their presentations to conferences while mostly doing so in the absence of indigenous women themselves. Delegates contributed native crafts and arts to handcraft displays or enjoyed indigenous cultural performances by the dance and music groups employed at every conference. Tourist departments in the various conference cities were also beginning to promote native cultures, and interest in the novelty of native tradition was widespread. At the 1937 conference in Vancouver, for example, Native Canadian culture was represented by mini totem poles that decorated tables at the formal conference dinner and doubled as conference souvenirs, along with maple-leaf brooches. During the New Zealand conference in 1955, delegates were invited to visit a Maori village to see indigenous people in their traditional surroundings. Although no conference was held in Australia, Australian Aboriginal culture was of particular interest to delegates and was widely considered the most primitive. Although numbers of Aboriginal women and men had been Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific  83

organizing indigenous activist groups in Australia, such perceptions of the Aborigines continued to dominate popular and educated views. In 1927, for example, Maori anthropologist Te Rangi Hiroa (Sir Peter Buck) opened his paper to the IPR, “Races of the Pacific,” with the example of the most “primitive race, the Australian aboriginal.”70 Rather than comment on Aboriginal social justice politics in Australia, in 1934 the Australian Pan-Pacific Women’s Committee secured “films and specimens of Aboriginal Art” from the National Museum of the Commonwealth to present at the conference in Honolulu that year. And it prepared an exhibit that included films showing “Australian White and Aboriginal activities” for the Cultural Relations Project established by anthropologist Marie Keesing after the war. 71 In following years, the Australia delegation would present the increasingly popular notion of an ancient Aboriginal culture as its contribution to Pan-Pacific cultural internationalism. In 1934, Australia delegates noted that white Australia was increasingly claiming this “ancient” cultural heritage as its own.72 And at the Manila conference in 1955, Australia delegates commended the revival of handcrafts in Australia inspired by the growing interest in native culture, contributing examples of Aboriginal art that featured the European-style paintings of Albert Namatjira. This story of an Aboriginal man working not in his “own” cultural style but in ways familiar to Western eyes epitomizes the contradictory experiences of Aboriginal people who sought to achieve equity by negotiating assimilation policies in Australia. Albert Namatjira was an artist from the Hermannsburg Mission in Central Australia who had widely been celebrated as having extraordinary talent. Despite his relative isolation from art galleries or European art, Namatjira painted in a hybrid style that intertwined European representational forms with an Indigenous Australian lexicography largely unrecognizable to early admirers of his work.73 He was heralded not only as a gifted artist but also for his apparent capacity to assimilate into Western society. Exempted from restrictions under which most Aboriginal people lived in Australia, his eventual contravention of its requirement that he not socialize with other Aborigines ultimately caused his fall from favor. His ensuing demise in the public eye provides an insight into the contradictions facing Aboriginal people living under assimilation in 1950s Australia. On one level, the Australia delegation’s use of Namatjira reiterated in an international context the nation’s fleeting celebration of him as a success story, but on another level it disrupted absolute notions of primitive versus modern that more usually governed Australian (and the world’s) account of the Aborigines. After showing a film about the artist to the 1955 conference, the Australia delegation explained that Namatjira’s story proved that a “pure-blooded” Aboriginal man “of the stone age” could produce saleable art. In conclusion, they 84  Chapter 2

reflected: “This picture will perhaps suggest to us that we must revise our ideas of what are primitive peoples. Perhaps we should rather think of some peoples as living in primitive conditions.”74 Despite the ambivalence of the majority of the delegates from Australia (a rare exception is discussed in the following section) toward the notion of modern Aboriginal people, indigenous women from other settler colonies did become participants in the Pan-Pacific project. Admittedly, some made their impact as visitors rather than as official delegates. In 1926, Alice Garry, of Spokane, Washington, had won the Princess America contest, a popular beauty pageant for Native American women. Two years later, she paid her own way to attend the first Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference in Honolulu. Garry advised delegates that she had made the journey to extend good wishes on “behalf of her people” to the first international meeting of women in the Pacific region. In an era in which American Indians were rendered as exotic figures of popular culture, including in film and Wild West shows, actual Native Americans represented an interesting spectacle.75 Honolulu regularly hosted cultural parades and “historic pageants,” attracting crowds of locals and tourists, and in 1930 Native Americans marched as members of the Order of Red Men.76 Garry’s appearance at the Pan-Pacific conference in 1928 was thus highly newsworthy. Despite (or, indeed, because of ) the absence of indigenous women from the US delegation, her image was used afterward to promote the first conference. Once again, publicity of the conference revealed the limits of the Pan-Pacific community of women. A picture of Garry in “traditional” dress was chosen as the cover photograph for the Mid-Pacific Magazine’s first-ever conference issue. Unfortunately, nothing of her larger intention in appearing at the conference was reported inside its covers. Writing about Native American women in the first decades of the last century, historian Laura Jane Moore has argued for greater recognition of their historical role as cultural interlocutors. They were “central actors,” she states, in the rearticulation of US colonialism during the age of global capitalism, thereby contributing to a process of popularization actively promoted by governments at this time.77 In asserting the centrality of the improved status of women and children to the development of the interwar world economy, the PPWA was also engaged in this process of rearticulation in which imperialism appeared in humane and modern form. As Margaret Jacobs has shown in her study of feminism and Pueblo cultures, a strong historical connection existed between feminist desires to preserve elements of native culture and uplift native women while promoting themselves as modern figures on the world stage. White women claimed that native culture was progressive in its attachment to cultural and spiritual life but backward in its Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific  85

treatment of women, and thus it required the discriminating judgment of women like themselves as it moved into modernity.78 At this time, increasing numbers of indigenous women were active in engaging white women in their own version of cultural politics and minority rights, however, a role they also played at the PPWA. Like Garry, such indigenous women wished to contribute indigenous perspectives on the decolonization of the women’s Pan-Pacific. As described in following chapters, Maori women would become perhaps the most successful in carrying out this agenda. PPWA indigenous delegates were rare and hence all the more notable. Roberta Campbell was an indigenous woman of mixed descent who joined the US Mainland delegation in 1937. Although of Native American ancestry, she represented herself as fundamentally European. From Tulsa, Oklahoma, Campbell held the important position of president of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. In her address to the conference, she joked that she was a “terrible mixture of Scotch, American Indian and Irish.” While she blamed her sense of humor on her Celtic blood, she did not comment on the “national” characteristic of her Native American inheritance. In an oblique reference to her mixed racial identity, the Vancouver Daily Province reported that the artificial cherries on Campbell’s smart black hat “suited her dark, vivacious features.” The report concluded ambiguously: “Maybe you think that wasn’t color!”79 Of all the settler delegations, arguably it was the Hawai‘i delegation that most captured the PPWA cultural internationalist ideal. From its first formation it proudly asserted the multiracial composition of its group, proclaiming its intention to include members of all races living on the island.80 As has been noted, Chinese and Japanese residents of Hawai‘i were important figures in debates concerning its platform for “East meets West” exchange. But it was only after World War II that an indigenous woman joined its ranks. Clorinda Lucas was a woman of mixed descent connected to powerful haole dynasties through her father and to important indigenous genealogies on her maternal side. In middle age, she had trained as a social worker in New York, thereby contributing formal qualifications to her long-standing campaign to promote child welfare within the Hawaiian community through the Department of Public Welfare and the Department of Public Instruction. Reflecting the leading role by the 1950s of Indigenous Hawaiian women in social reform in Hawai‘i, Lucas became the delegation’s leader.81 Mixing between the races as well as cultures was a positive element of the Pacific way, according to many contemporaries.82 Although not explicitly articulated by the PPWA as a strategy complementary to its cultural internationalism, the association’s claims that “race” ceased to have relevance 86  Chapter 2

to modern society implied that racial mixture was likely to characterize the future, if not to sit comfortably with nationalist politics—at home, as it were. As an interim measure, mixed settler colonial national delegations were seen to demonstrate a lack of racial antipathy both domestically and internationally. Ultimately it would be the biracial composition of the New Zealand delegation, not that of Hawai‘i, that would make the strongest impact on the PPWA. Given Australia and New Zealand’s historical connection to Hawai‘i, each being “founded” by the same British “explorer” usurping indigenous people’s sovereignty across the Pacific, we might expect some similarities in their representations of themselves as settler colonies. In fact, the contrast between the New Zealand delegation and those of Hawai‘i and Australia reminds us of the fundamental historical differences between these settler colonies and of the ways in which racial and cultural difference was experienced and managed. Notably, attitudes toward intermarriage and integration differed significantly between them,83 suggesting a connection between attitudes toward racial mixing and biculturalism and the degree of indigenous participation in each delegation. As we will see in the next chapter, Maori women on the New Zealand delegation were of mixed descent and of high status in both indigenous and Pakeha cultures. In contrast, strong opposition to intermarriage and social integration contributed to the significant separation between indigenous and nonindigenous women within Australia and effectively predicted the absence of women from early Australia delegations. This determined distance was all the more remarkable given that, by the interwar years, Aboriginal women had become central figures in the burgeoning of the Aboriginal activist movement. Among them, Pearl Gibbs would appeal to her “white sisters” for support and in 1938 would write to the League of Nations, calling for international recognition of indigenous rights in Australia in the wake of a series of scandals, including massacre.84 In this heightened political context, any criticism of Australian Aboriginal policy made internationally was a serious matter, as Constance Cooke—the only Australia delegate to present a paper on Australian Aboriginal policy— would discover to her dismay at the 1930 conference. The PPWA ideal was that settler and indigenous women would share in the project of reforming settler colonialism. The reality was that any shared perspective would require a critical discussion of indigenous rights in member countries. New Zealand appeared to offer an example of both prospects. Reporting for the US delegation on the Women in Government Section, Alice Parsons noted with interest that, of the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, only New Zealand “gives its aboriginal inhabitants a vote.”85 New Zealand was considered by the PPWA to have formed the most “desirable” of democracies, with women’s suffrage, prenatal care for all children, Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific  87

and workers’ rights. In actuality Australia provided state-based rather than federal (national) voting rights to its indigenous inhabitants, but early on New Zealand had established a designated seat in parliament for the Maori —although, as Patricia Grimshaw has noted, this was a political gesture of limited and limiting scope.86 Parsons would later become a member of the League for Industrial Democracy, a network attracting a range of contemporary critics of “race prejudice” in the United States. Bringing together leading commentators, including renowned author and anti-racist Pearl S. Buck, Native American spokesman Charles Eastman, and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People secretary Walter White, the League for Industrial Democracy also sought change through cross-cultural and interracial exchange, but more stridently so. It engaged European, Asian, and African, as well as Native American, speakers in dialogue about the global politics of race.87 Although, as we have seen, Parsons was not particularly concerned by the lack of Latin American representation at the PPWA, she took a more radical stance regarding the question of black people and their rights. Women like Parsons were attracted to the PPWA because they aimed to reformulate relations between white and colonized or previously enslaved peoples. For some, this endeavor entailed an explicitly anti-imperial as well as critically national position. At the global level, peace and anti-imperialism were seen as connected by the need for racial equality. In her guest lecture in 1937, British peace activist Kathleen Courtney advised the PPWA similarly that colonialism was anathema to modern interracial and international relations. She asserted: “The colonial idea is a Victorian idea, out of date, and the time has come when all self-governing colonies (or quite close to it) should be administratively under mandate [of the League of Nations].” Reifying in the process the common distinction between modern and traditional, she condemned the “cruel and pitiless” war being perpetrated by Italy in Abyssinia, despairing of “a great nation in Europe” attacking “an ancient native state in Africa.”88 But if the various legacies of colonialism remained anathema to progress, was there a just future for settler colonialism between traditional and colonizing women? One Australia delegate would speak out on this issue at the PPWA, presenting a highly critical account of the treatment of indigenous people in her country, one based on contemporary evidence recently produced by an official inquiry. Although criticized in turn by her government for this action, and less than vigorously defended by the PPWA hierarchy, Constance Cooke’s comprehensive critique of Australia’s poor record contributed to the PPWA’s celebration of interracial harmony in New Zealand, as performed by the biracial New Zealand delegation only a few years later. 88  Chapter 2

Betraying Australia Claiming responsibility for Aboriginal women was an essential element in the internationalism articulated by white women in Australia in the interwar years. A small but vocal network promoted the rights of Aboriginal women through annual British Commonwealth League meetings in London. Bessie Rischbieth and Ruby Rich, both also at the PPWA, and South Australia resident Constance Cooke presented information on Aboriginal status and conditions to these London conferences, while newspaper reports of their comments influenced governments in Australia and the British Commonwealth, which were sensitive to negative accounts of Aboriginal policy and its administration made from overseas. As Australia was a modern nation in the world, with mandated responsibilities under the League of Nations, international criticism of its race policy betrayed its civilizing status in world affairs. To speak out against the racial policy of one’s own country was seemingly one of the most controversial acts a woman could undertake in the 1930s when the administration of Mandated Territories through the League of Nations (Papua New Guinea) appeared to confirm Australia’s status as a modern nation in the world community. Informed beforehand of Cooke’s plans, the minister for the interior sought to minimize their impact. His efforts represent one of only two occasions in which the PPWA was placed under surveillance and subjected to government interference. The second case would concern the association’s approach to communist delegates during the Cold War (discussed in chapter 6). Anxiety about racial and cultural difference in interwar Australia was articulated in two opposite directions, on the one hand toward the segregation and/or assimilation of mixed-descent Aborigines, and on the other toward the asserted need for racially and culturally absorbable immigrants. Only by the 1950s would these two quite different approaches become closely aligned in official policies of assimilation. Already by 1930 Constance Cooke had established a reputation as an international expert on the situation of Aboriginal people in Australia. A progressive thinker on “race” matters who worked for the government but also spoke about the failures of native administration at British Commonwealth women’s conferences in London, she had begun to despair of feminism’s ability to move beyond either a maternalist outlook or, ultimately, an imperialist one in its race politics.89 Given this experience, no doubt to her mind the Pacific women’s international network would likely be similarly ineffectual. Significantly, Cooke’s relatively radical perspective was shaped by direct contact with Aboriginal communities. Although she rejected the popular idea of the Aborigines as a doomed race,90 a version of Christian maternalism Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific  89

informed her early vision for a just future for Aboriginal people. Determined to help make “a brighter day” for the original owners of Australia through campaigning for improvements in their status and conditions via women’s networks,91 Cooke gave practical expression to her concerns by working for the South Australian government as an inspector of local missions from the late 1920s. As such, she became part of the government department that forcibly removed Aboriginal children and indentured Aboriginal women to barely-paid domestic service, but she also established individual relationships with Aboriginal people living on government missions, and this connection began to radicalize her views. By the mid-1930s, these personal contacts had led Cooke beyond the views of most of her peers in the white women’s movement in Australia, including Rischbieth, and, as would become evident, beyond those of the PPWA. Two years before the first Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference, Cooke had traveled on the newly extended north–south Australian railway that now crossed the continent. Already an activist with interests in Aboriginal rights in her own state of South Australia, she was determined to see Aboriginal conditions in the outback for herself. Describing her experience to the British Commonwealth League women’s international conference in London in 1927, she reported her deep shock at seeing Aboriginal women, men, and children starving in camps along the line. “I was appalled by the misery, want and degradation that I saw,” she said. “I felt ashamed of our treatment of these original owners of the land.”92 For Cooke, unregulated contact by lowly white men with Aboriginal people, their communities, and their families constituted a shameful aspect of Aboriginal affairs, a reality that few urban-living white Australians witnessed firsthand and most preferred to ignore. In 1927 Cooke took her expert knowledge of Aboriginal issues to the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society and the British Commonwealth League in London, speaking to both organizations about the terrible status and conditions of Aboriginal women in zones of contact between white and black. She described “vicious” frontiersmen encouraging the prostitution of Aboriginal women. Already “burden bearers” of the tribe, she asserted, these women had been reduced to the white men’s “prey.” While miscegenation between Aboriginal women and European men was endemic in the outback, the access these men had to Aboriginal girls was the most disturbing. Practical measures were urgently needed. Only reserve land would provide Aboriginal people with their own future, safe from the debilitating influences of “our environment,” which was “not suitable for their stage of culture.” Although laws to protect the Aborigines were on the books, they had not been enforced, and, as a result, she advised: “I know that in the Centre the natives possess nothing; there are no settlements of a happy contented 90  Chapter 2

people, only poor outcast wanderers.”93 Establishing Cooke as a formidable critic of the federal government, the paper was admired by fellow activists in Australia for drawing attention to the destructive effects of “advancing civilisation” on Aboriginal people.94 While in London, Cooke joined a deputation to the Australian High Commission in London, calling for the improvement of Aboriginal rights in Australia (if not making the more radical argument for Aboriginal self-rule on inviolable reserve lands).95 In the ensuing years, she would continue to supply information to the Anti-Slavery Society on the Aboriginal situation in Australia. Without the support of British networks and the threat of bad publicity from Britain, this same strength of purpose would not be easily translated into the US-dominated Pacific world. In 1930 Cooke was invited by the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference Committee to speak at the next conference on the subject of the status and conditions of women in Australia. Cooke wrote two comprehensive papers for the occasion. The first concerned the treatment of “alien” women in Australia and sought to emphasize the humane ways in which immigrants were treated in Australian society (as we will see in the next chapter, a rather one-sided argument that would be most controversially applied at the 1937 conference’s roundtable on population). Reflecting prevailing assumptions about cultural diversity as something to be carefully managed in the preservation of “national unity,” Cooke was unapologetic in her support for the exclusion of women from Asian countries who she considered unassimilable into the Australian way of life. Her views were not out of step with those of the PPWA, where cultural exchange between East and West was something best learned at international conferences. Her second paper concerned the treatment of the Aborigines, focusing on Aboriginal women and children, and was far more critical. In an important moment in Australian women’s activism for Aboriginal rights in the interwar years, Cooke’s second paper, on the status of Aboriginal women, widened the international scope of the campaign to include the Pacific region.96 Turning her attention from the external policy of immigration restriction to the internal policy relating to Indigenous Australians, Cooke pointed to the failure of state and federal governments to uphold the intrinsic rights of the Aboriginal population or to protect them from settler colonial men. In her carefully prepared paper, she argued that “the first great wrong” had occurred when the “original inhabitants were deprived of all their lands”; the second had been the “interference of the white man with the aboriginal woman.”97 These were substantive accusations that implicated settler colonial women as well as men in the promulgation of an ongoing injustice. Just treatment of indigenous peoples was a matter not only of observing the standards of modern government but of making Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific  91

recompense for past wrongs, and colonial women would have to lead the call by first educating themselves and others. Several months before the conference took place, a government report of Aboriginal conditions in the Northern Territory, written by Chief Protector J. W. Bleakley, had provided damning evidence of federal control of Aboriginal affairs, and Cooke readily included this material in her Pan-Pacific paper. She also echoed PPWA concerns for universal social reform with respect for cultural diversity; it was contradictory and detrimental, she argued, that Aborigines were British subjects but were governed by discriminatory legislation.98 She extended these views to argue that settler colonial diversity required a new politics of assimilation based on land, a recognition of cultural difference, and a more equitable access to resources. Only through recognition of their rights to self-governance, as well as to a separate cultural identity within the nation, she asserted, could the Aboriginal people be expected to assimilate. These views put her among the most progressive thinkers of her day. Even before Cooke had arrived at the conference, however, the Australian federal government was insisting that its lengthy response to her paper be read there.99 In the weeks before, a co-member in the Australia delegation had informed the federal government of Cooke’s intentions, in an effort to censor Pacific women’s debate about Australian indigenous rights. As a result, while both her papers were published in the official conference report, Cooke did not present the second, more confronting of the two, on Aboriginal conditions, to the PPWA membership. Just as the conference papers were being finalized for predistribution to delegates, Mrs. C. R. Morris, a member of the Liberal Women’s Branch Committee in South Australia warned Federal Minister C. Hawker (Wakefield, Liberal Party) of an impending public relations disaster. Morris advised that she had learned from an undisclosed source that Cooke would make “some very serious allegations on the treatment of the Aborigines by successive governments in Australia . . . in the hope of stirring up the public opinion of the world against the management of the original inhabitants of our country so that action may be taken to bring public pressure to bear on the Government that it may mend its ways.” Arguing that native affairs were an internal matter, Morris was not prepared to see debate take place internationally; would not it be “in the best interests of our country [if ] this public washing of our dirty linen could be prevented?” Not denying the need for reform, she stated: “I believe the treatment of the Aborigines needs serious amendment, but it is peculiarly our own business which we ought to amend ourselves and not ask other countries to interfere with it.” Perhaps a confidential word from the prime minister might bring “influence to bear” on the conference.100 92  Chapter 2

Once aware that Cooke was to present a paper criticizing Aboriginal policy, the Australian government had a representative approach the Pan-Pacific Women’s Organizing Committee. International president and Australian resident Dr. Georgina Sweet appeared to share his concerns. On behalf of the association, she advised that she had already taken action in an effort to tone down Cooke’s paper. She reassured the official that she had gone to “a great deal of trouble and pains, and had [undertaken] many private conferences and communications with the various experts in Australia. . . . [As a result] the paper . . . [had been] modified to some slight extent by the writer [Cooke].”101 These reassurances would not suffice. At the same time that these communications were taking place, Morris’ letter of complaint had been relayed to A. Blakeley, the minister for internal affairs responsible for Aboriginal policy and its administration.102 Another copy was then sent to the Prime Minister’s Department, along with a request from the Department of External Affairs for further information concerning the “status of the conference, the names of the Australian delegates, the date of meeting, and any other particulars available.”103 As a result, Secretary of the Department of the Interior J. A. Carrodus was instructed to compose a hasty response to Cooke’s paper. The acting administrator of the Northern Territory from 1934, Carrodus was destined to become a significant figure in the formation of increasingly draconian Aboriginal policies from the late 1930s on.104 In his reply, the secretary argued that the northern reserve in Arnhem Land for “nomadic tribes” provided ample evidence of the government’s concern. Acknowledging J. W. Bleakley’s recent inquiry showing that Aboriginal women were insufficiently protected from white men, he claimed that new homes for “halfcastes” in Darwin and Alice Springs were designed to improve the safety of girls living directly under government administration. Defending policies of forced child removal, he claimed that to institutionalize Aboriginal girls “as soon as possible after reaching an age when they can be removed from their native mothers” was an appropriate response to the problem of white men. Lastly, he sent several copies of his paper to members of the “British and American Press.”105 Speaking in parliament a week later, Minister Blakeley advised of a rebuttal prepared for a Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference soon to be held in Honolulu.106 In his letter to Miss E. M. Griffin, the delegation’s secretary and national secretary of the YWCA of Australia, the minister requested that the government’s reply be read in “conjunction” with Cooke’s during the conference.107 He aimed, thereby, to bring pressure to bear on the organization without directly demanding that Cooke’s paper be withdrawn. With its proximity to the Anti-Slavery Society and the London press, even such an Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific  93

indirect approach had not been employed in relation to a similar controversy at the British Commonwealth League. Far from British and European public opinion, interference in the PPWA probably seemed less risky. Certainly, the chair of the Australia delegation, Elizabeth Clapham, advised the minister retrospectively that every care had been taken during the conference not to criticize Australia. She added that she had been careful to carry out the “task of watching the question on behalf of the Commonwealth Government” in “all references to the subject.”108 Although there is no record that Clapham actually took notes for the government or that Georgina Sweet had modified her argument, Cooke appears to have come to an agreement with the PPWA hierarchy that she not read her paper. Perhaps she agreed to protect the organization from further interference, or perhaps she was disillusioned by a lack of support from her Australian colleagues, remarkably quiet on this matter. Nevertheless, her paper was published in the conference proceedings, with Carrodus’ reply a poor second and the government’s statement reduced thereby to defensive reaction. Despite these setbacks, at least one of Cooke’s most determined compatriots, although not a member of the PPWA, would be more than convinced of her contribution to the 1930 Pan-Pacific conference and to the larger PPWA agenda. Mary Montgomery Bennett was an internationalist who had recently published the first book-length account of Aboriginal rights, comparing Aboriginal status and conditions to indentured labor outlawed by an ILO convention (to which Australia was a signatory).109 Bennett, like Cooke, found the women’s movement in Australia unwilling to commit itself sufficiently to the reform of Aboriginal affairs. In a letter to the Anti-Slavery Society of London, she commended Cooke for her impact, not so much on delegates from other countries, but on her fellow Australians. Cooke had done “splendid work winning Australians to an understanding of the aboriginals on the voyage to Honolulu,” she wrote. And while in Honolulu she had pleaded for the rights of the “backward peoples with the result that they are on the map for the next conference.”110 Cooke’s far-reaching resolution—“That the study of family life and interracial relationship shall be included in the study of indigenous people governed by a dominant race, especially in regard to their fundamental right to land ownership”—was endorsed by the PPWA conference that year. And when it considered the status and conditions of indigenous peoples living in the settler colonies, the Women in Government Section resolved that “just and generous legislation to safeguard the well-being of indigenous peoples be enacted.” Clearly influenced by the short-lived presence of Cooke, the leader of the section, Dr. Constance Davey (psychologist, Education Department and University of South Australia), agreed that “for Australians, 94  Chapter 2

the urgent duty under this resolution . . . is the care and right treatment of the aborigines.”111 Beyond her actual paper, cultural internationalism’s insistence upon interpersonal exchange meant that Cooke’s contribution was influential in other, less formal ways. She herself remarked that, despite its evident limitations, the Honolulu conference had been a useful opportunity to talk informally about Aboriginal conditions. While away, she reported, she had been involved in conversations on the rights of less advanced peoples with delegates from other countries and had valued the opportunity to “discuss the question of the treatment of Aborigines.”112 In a letter to the Anti-Slavery Society in London, she wrote: “On the whole, I felt the trip . . . worthwhile; I did a good deal of spade work, and I know that the backward people will be on the next conference program.”113 Perhaps some of this spadework was achieved on the way to the conference, the journey spent on board ship allowing delegation members ample time to coordinate their conference presentations. In her conference diary, Elsie Andrews of the New Zealand delegation recorded discussions between herself and Cooke as they sailed toward Honolulu. Andrews noted that Cooke “is very interested in all matters concerning native races.”114 They had talked “up on deck” one evening “about Australian [A]borigines and [M]aoris,” and Andrews observed, “She has made a study of all questions concerning the Australian blacks.”115 Their conversation about indigenous rights would be significant to the development of Andrews’ emerging views on inclusive representation at the PPWA. As discussed in the next chapter, their exchanges and her experiences at the 1930 conference led Andrews to include Maori women in the New Zealand delegation to the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference in 1934 Finally, although the contrast between the Australian and the New Zealand cases is instructive, their similarities are also evident. While women activists of Australia within and beyond the PPWA aimed to reform race relations in their country, they sought to do so through speaking on behalf of “native women” at home and overseas. In the following chapters, we see Maori women claiming the right to speak for themselves through their membership in the New Zealand delegation. At the same time, their involvement was still attributed to the enlightened outlook of Pakeha women. And both Australia and New Zealand delegations aimed to uphold the virtues of settler colonialism, ascribing to it the humane delivery of modernization to indigenous people. The PPWA’s focus on culture (as a shared affect of existence) rather than on race (as a source of biological difference) provided settler women with a progressive account of themselves as engaged in a mutual process of cultural advancement with indigenous peoples. Nonetheless, Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific  95

more than mere white benevolence was at work in these claims of interracial cooperation. As we will see, the contributions of Maori women internationalists contradicted dominant notions that indigenous cultures and peoples were unable to negotiate modernity or were destined to disappear under the weight of progress. In contrast, the Maori delegates asserted the vitality of their own cultural politics and expressed their energetic interest in the ideals of cultural internationalism.

96  Chapter 2

Three Interracial Friendship

W

riting in her conference diary in 1934, Elsie Andrews recorded with pride that the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association had celebrated the New Zealand delegation as an example to the world. The bilingual and bicultural presentation by its Maori and Pakeha members had been the hit of the Honolulu conference that year. Their performance was considered to have encapsulated the very kind of harmonious and cooperative race relations likely to facilitate a just and humane future between the peoples of the world. This chapter focuses on the efforts of Andrews— both as the leader of the delegation and through her part in that memorable performance—to constitute herself as a modern settler colonial. Through her account of sharing the international stage with the Maori delegates, Andrews sought to consolidate her status as a cosmopolitan and progressive woman internationalist. The intimacy of friendship she sought with the Maori women illustrates the complex interplay of diverse colonial, national, and individual histories in the interpersonal and collective relationships forged between women across racial and cultural lines.1 Andrews’ account of these events was both self-deprecating and celebratory of her success in securing New Zealand’s popularity. Her record provides a wry tell-all account of the work entailed in enacting interracial harmony for the self-consciously cross-cultural community of women. Part travelogue and part conference report, her diary, kept en route as well as during the conference, was primarily designed as an amusing record for her friends at home. Among those appearing with increasing regularity in its pages, however, Maori delegate and YWCA member Victoria Bennett would become a central figure in a more explicitly transformative narrative. Seeing in their growing closeness evidence of her personal journey toward a more progressive race consciousness, Andrews proclaimed their friendship as the measure not only of her own enlightenment on matters of race but also of settler colonialism’s capacity to advance the reform of race relations around the world. She shared this view with the participants of the 1934 conference, who saw in the New Zealand delegation a microcosm of 97

interracial harmony itself. Along the way, Andrews came to envisage settler colonialism as a partnership between equals, requiring a dramatic shift in race relations between colonizers and indigenous peoples as they tackled the legacies of colonization together—such as inequalities in health, education, and employment. Although Andrews’ insights into her own “race thinking,” and her public recognition of its tenacity, are remarkable, it is also the case that at the conclusion of the conference she reverted to the more familiar white woman’s role, that of speaking on behalf of indigenous women. Sliding away from questions of a shared responsibility for social reform, she shifted her attention to preservation, calling on settler colonial women to work to protect their endangered indigenous cultures. While overseas and in the international domain, her friendship with Bennett seemed to elide the colonial relations that shaped their lives at home. Its limited efflorescence relied on a temporary disavowal of the fact of colonization in the name of a shared interest in cross-cultural exchange. By representing the racial mix within the delegation as a version of future New Zealand in microcosm, their joint occupation of the conference stage was seen to parallel settler colonialism’s model of cooperative occupancy, a model much needed in the globalizing twentieth century. Such is the ambiguous territory of friendship across the cultural divide. As a staunch New Zealander with British loyalties, Andrews was deeply invested not only in a positive future for settler colonialism but also in its role in modernizing race relations more generally. Far from desiring an end to settler colonial rule, her aim was to encourage the induction of indigenous leaders into its project, women’s internationalism offering a site in which to extend this politics of assimilation from the national into the international and ultimately transnational global domain.2 That Andrews hoped in this way to secure a just future for relations between the races—with the collaboration of internationally minded Maori women—allowed expression also for her most intimate of desires as an internationalist: to be valorized on the international stage by indigenous women as a worthy partner. While the relationship between Andrews and Bennett may well have been genuine in its mutual affection and engagement, it was also necessarily strategic and tactical on both sides. As Antoinette Burton has pointed out, from the late nineteenth century British feminist concerns for Indian women had contributed only one element in a much larger discussion about the definition of feminism circulating within and between both countries.3 And in her account of transnational networks of abolitionism from the mid-nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century, Sandra Stanley Holton notes that as their interactions with a variety of black activists proliferated, white anti-slavery reformers were confronted by a greater than expected autono98  Chapter 3

my among leaders of the black rights movement; ambivalence toward these changing conditions was more frequently articulated in letters and personal writings than in public pronouncements.4 While Andrews expressed similar tensions between admiration and self-doubt in her written account of her relationship with Bennett, the conference collaboration between the two women underlined the political and personal significance of the performance of “interracial harmony” to both. This desire for an interracial New Zealand was particularly pertinent to interwar settler colonies such as Hawai‘i, where the 1934 conference was held. Though not directly the subject of Andrews’ diary, the considered fate of indigenous peoples around the world figured as a potent impetus in her concern for the urgent reform of settler colonialism. In this sense, she was a humanitarian who saw beyond the dominant belief of her day in the impending disappearance of indigenous peoples. Although proclaimed as a thriving multiracial society, Hawai‘i’s indigenous population was widely expected to disappear—or, at the very least, to be destined to suffer cultural degeneration. As tourism surged in the interwar years, the preservation of a supposedly remnant indigenous culture was promoted by haole asserting a special relationship with Indigenous Hawaiian culture. At the same time, numbers of Indigenous Hawaiian women assumed a leading role in the revitalization (rather than mere preservation) of their own culture, their impressive presence contradicting assumptions of their membership in a “dying race.”5 While tourist versions of Native Hawai‘i created a ready backdrop for the conference, it was this indigenous mobilization of cultural politics that had an indelible impact at the conference in 1934. Evidently neither the Maori delegates nor their Indigenous Hawaiian hosts were under threat of extinction. Rather, their presence asserted their status as elite women of the Polynesian Pacific. Given that Hawaiian royalty feted Maori delegates during the conference, the evident status of the latter contradicted Andrews’ self-appointed role as facilitator of Maori women’s entry into the world community of women. Andrews’ return by the end of the conference to a preservationist discourse provided some closure to these disturbing discoveries. On the other hand, Pan-Pacific women’s internationalism was clearly important to the Maori activists. They, too, were strategic figures, ambitious in their political and personal aims and interested in forming friendships with influential white women. Their collaborations with the PPWA, begun in 1934 and extending into the 1950s and beyond, expressed their interest in the potential of women’s internationalism in the Pacific region to promote Maori women’s concerns for social reform in their own country, particularly in the areas of health and education, and for the greater political recognition of their culture and society. Their critical involvement in Andrews’ selfInterracial Friendship  99

proclaimed journey into greater knowledge points to their evident readiness to encourage a growing race consciousness among nonindigenous women. The PPWA discourse on the politics of friendship is central to understanding this mutual journey. “Friendship” has a long genealogy in feminist organization. As Holton shows, in this case with regard to Quaker women activists, ideals of friendship were used to denote the extension of familial bonds into the public domain: they combined affection between individuals with a shared interest in collaborative social reform.6 Leila Rupp, writing of several Euro-American women’s networks in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, remarks on the complexity of women’s accounts of friendship—including between same-sex couples—and homosociality more generally, shaping the female bonds inspired by women-only activism.7 In her study of the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance from the early twentieth century, Mineke Bosch notes furthermore that friendship was a self-conscious strategy designed to overcome differences of “nation, race, or creed” that potentially undermined international unity between women.8 As we have seen, in contrast to earlier Euro-American networks, the PPWA’s “Pacific way” embraced the nation, with national identity considered essential to the modernization of women in the region. Friendships made at international gatherings were therefore to be expressions of fruitful communication between national types, overcoming the obstacles of racial bigotry and cultural ignorance that historically had caused hostility between nations. Such interpersonal dialogue required a capacity to think beyond not only one’s own racial and national identity but also one’s cultural assumptions. This was a capacity that non-Western women practiced routinely in their negotiations of Western culture and, in the case of women’s internationalism, with Western feminism.9 Now Western women were being asked to think relatively also in acknowledgment of the fundamental duality (indigenous and incoming) within the settler nation. International conferences were constituted by the PPWA as ideal sites in which to undertake this self-reflexive process. Not insignificantly, the friendship between Bennett and Andrews took shape outside of their national contexts and in the heightened experience of traveling to and participating in a women’s conference in Hawai‘i. In the exotic tourist locale, reified for its admixture of races and cultures, these women found an ideal deterritorialized location in which to become temporary collaborators. Indigenous delegates from the settler colony of New Zealand were greatly anticipated by the PPWA. Their capacity to negotiate two cultures seemed to encapsulate the transculturalism desired by the internationalist cultural ideal, while their presence in the association appeared to legitimate its claims to provide an inclusive venue for Pacific women. Settler and indigenous women 100  Chapter 3

would contribute to the world civilization a modern model of the biracial and intercultural “way of life” in which cultural, spiritual, and community were to be provided appropriate emphasis. Writing of women’s autobiography and colonialism, Gillian Whitlock notes the significance of mobility to the formation of fluid and contingent ideas about sexual, racial, cultural, and gendered characteristics. Produced “in a process of interrelationship between home and away, in a process of transculturation,” new ideas take shape, she argues, in “the intersection and interdependence of identities and identifications between European and colonial women.”10 Never simple or linear but always messy and partial, Andrews’ self-proclaimed transcendence of racial thought produced a contradictory effect. Her focus on interracial friendship reflected an awareness that interpersonal intimacy across racial lines would appeal to her readers at home in New Zealand, as it did to those who witnessed its performance during the conference. Yet this focus on the race and sex of bodies and their more usually forbidden proximity redirects our attention toward the taboo associated with interracial relations and, in this case, its pleasures enacted between women beyond the archetypal white man’s imperial gaze.11 Not least, Andrews was writing primarily for her lifelong woman partner and enjoyed the frisson of her proximity to Bennett and other women delegates. Her more explicitly homosexual gaze was not at odds with the larger erotics of conference participation, especially given the glamorous environment of cross-cultural exchange and meetings across the color line. Moreover, Bennett was also a participant in this erotics: her agency within Andrews’ intertwined personal and political agendas belies any simple reading of her as merely an appropriated Other, pointing us away from colonialism’s obsessions with order and fixed identity and toward what Whitlock calls the “multiplicity of histories, the ground ‘in-between’ where differences complicate, both across and within individual subjects.”12 Not least during this period in world history, the beginnings of a global political network among indigenous peoples sought to bring world recognition to the particular status and conditions of First Nations peoples as “indigenous” in a global as well as local sense.13 Simon During has noted that globalization is not simply a negative force on local, indigenous cultures. Rather, in many cases it provided markets essential to their survival and renewal.14 Arguably, the PPWA contributed to this early history through its emphasis on culture and its endorsement of an international indigenous women’s voice on the world stage. Small but significant numbers of indigenous women used the PPWA to further their own political and cultural interests in a global international context as well as the Polynesian Pacific. Their involvement disrupted primitivist assumptions about the demise of native cultures and the plight of voiceless “native women.” If direct involveInterracial Friendship  101

ment in an international women’s organization refuted paternalism in the Pacific, it made possible new forms of nonetheless maternalist engagements between women. In addition, the PPWA provided a range of indigenous women with opportunities to meet and share their politics. Thus, through their involvement in PPWA conferences over the years, Maori delegates came into contact with a range of women from recently decolonized nations such as Burma, Indonesia, and the Philippines, with women from trusteeships such as Samoa, and, by the 1950s, with African American women from the United States. Each contributed to a growing dialogue over the next two decades between the PPWA’s cultural internationalist agenda and indigenous women’s internationalism. Native Peoples of the Pacific Anthropological theory made a significant impact on the PPWA’s understanding of the increasing number of indigenous women within its ranks. In its general representations of the peoples and cultures of the Pacific islands, the PPWA was greatly influenced by Marie Keesing. An anthropologist who joined the association in the early 1930s, Keesing had been employed by the New Zealand government between 1930 and 1934 to complete a study entitled “Dependencies and Native Peoples of the Pacific.” She and her Stanford University–based husband, Felix, who had won a Rockefeller Memorial Fellowship in the 1920s to study the Maori, also provided research on the Polynesian Pacific to the Institute of Pacific Relations during these years. Their work contributed to new ideas about the flows of migrating populations in the Pacific, thereby relativizing the indigeneity of “natives” while incorporating historical time into longer narratives of prehistory. Like S. D. Porteus, a Hawai‘i-based psychologist who studied depopulation in the Pacific due to “culture clash,”15 the Keesings were interested in the widely considered detrimental impacts of Westernization on the way of life of indigenous peoples. One of their advisers was Te Rangi Hiroa (Sir Peter Buck), the leading Maori spokesperson and anthropologist employed in these same years by the Bishop Museum of Polynesian culture in Honolulu (who, as we saw in the previous chapter, considered Australian Aborigines the least evolved within the human race).16 Perhaps through his example, they moved beyond culture clash theory to argue for the need to change Western attitudes toward cultural diversity in Polynesia. Instead of the degeneration of indigenous cultures or the “passing” of Pacific peoples, this change in outlook anticipated “some blend between old and new which would meet the needs of life in a changing world, and which would be based on a critical approach to all existing cultures.” Fundamental to these attitudinal changes would be 102  Chapter 3

an acceptance that Western modernity was itself a cultural product and that the West had much to learn from indigenous cultures more generally. According to the Keesings, “backwardness” was not a matter of “race” but of “historical and local circumstances.”17 Hence, advancement was a matter of chance, not virtue; white people would have to unlearn their misplaced sense of racial superiority. Marie Keesing adopted a decidedly global outlook to the question of cultural relativism, using the Pacific as a case study. Drawing from her considerable expertise in Pacific cultures, she developed a study outline for a new PPWA project called “Cultural Contributions of Pacific Countries.” Shifting the focus of membership from the idea of preserving dying traditions to that of synthesis and exchange between cultures, she envisaged a project for the PPWA that would consider how indigenous cultures could contribute to the “planetary civilization . . . [now] in its birth throes.” Keesing advised that “local cultures,” including those of people “recently in the stone age,” the Oriental cultures, and those of the Occident, “in which science and industrialism have their more immediate roots,” would each contribute toward a new “common civilization.” This new civilization would combine the philosophical and ethical aims of the cross-cultural community with the reality of socioeconomic interdependence as necessitated by globalization, the dual concerns of the PPWA. According to Keesing, involvement in studying the “cultural contribution” of the Pacific to this new world civilization offered a practical means for delegates to seek a better way of living in the world. They would learn that art should not be relegated to the realm of experts, as had happened under the “machine civilization” of the West; rather, creativity should be at the heart of human society, as still was the case, she argued, within primitive cultures. If cultural internationalism were to be successful, it would need to recognize cultural life as “a function of the human spirit” (echoing the theosophical themes we saw in chapter 1). Appreciation of indigenous crafts would build cross-cultural understanding and contribute to the revitalization of cultural life in the West, while at the same time protecting those cultures struggling with increased contact.18 Which was the more primitive, Western modernity or Pacific premodernity? Marie Keesing asked, querying colonial attitudes toward Pacific peoples. On behalf of the International Relations Section of the PPWA, at the 1934 conference she reflected on the growing militarization of the Pacific, asking: “Are national systems in the Pacific really primitive and in need of being modernized? We talk about the primitive tribes of New Guinea [but] I wonder if we should not talk about our own political systems.” Concluding her talk by confirming that the work of women was to lead the world in finding answers to such questions, she turned to her audience and asserted enthusiastically, “Part Interracial Friendship  103

of our job is to be the advanced thinkers of our countries. . . . It will be a woman-sized job.”19 Speaking again on the issue in 1939, on the eve of World War II, Marie Keesing reconfirmed the PPWA’s cause of a peaceful future in the Pacific but felt compelled again to emphasize that culture—not race—would provide its basis: Ten years ago the Western peoples felt that their Western, industrialized civilization was the key to all world problems; now the West is not quite so sure of itself, and is more receptive to ideas from other civilizations. Great advances in civilization have always come from the centre where many cultures meet. The Pacific Ocean has in and around it a greater number of different cultures than any other ocean: it is humanity’s great laboratory for experiments in ways of solving human problems.    Two important points to remember are that: 1. Race and culture do not march together. 2. There is no justification for arranging cultures as higher and lower. Cultures have different values, not more or less.20

Ten years later, following the war, Keesing extended this argument by underlining the political importance, as she saw it, of direct representation by women from the Pacific islands. Reminding the association that the participation of Fiji women had been won by appealing to the benevolence of the Fijian governor, she asserted in Pacific Islands in War and Peace, a pamphlet she wrote for the IPR, that “natives” living in close contact to Europeans would now be “most likely to feel constricted by [such] alien control. . . . [I]n contact with ideas of equality and freedom, [they would be] less likely submissive to white domination.” She continued by pointing to the enormous capacities expected of such women as they operated in two cultures—their own and that of the West, with its racism and colonialist outlook: “Despite frequent prejudice and restrictive policies . . . the peoples are responding to new conditions and opportunities.” Where the PPWA might contribute, she concluded with an anthropological flourish, was by recognizing that some women (and their people) would need more guidance than others, as they responded “at varied pace” and were “strung out at all stages on the road to modernity.”21 In attributing a key role to indigenous cultures in forwarding the PPWA’s aim of humanizing globalization, the Keesings implicitly raised the question of how indigenous people might wish to negotiate their own experience of modernization. This readiness to acknowledge a degree of indigenous agency reflected a longer-term shift in anthropological circles, 104  Chapter 3

from studying the region as a “social laboratory” to wondering about the initiatives of Pacific islander peoples themselves. Within the PPWA, as in other locales, tensions emerged between the two; in the Pan-Pacific case such tensions arose between the primary project of bringing Pacific islanders into a modern community of women and the recognition of such women’s demands for greater self-representation within the Pan-Pacific community once they had arrived. American Samoa provided a further case in point. In 1928, when two “Samoan daughters,” Mrs. Helen Wilson and Miss Grave Pepe, represented the women of Samoa at the first Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference, they did so with the active support of the American governor.22 During the Friendship Cruise that followed the conference, Australia delegate Eleanor Hinder (Shanghai activist and erstwhile spokesperson for the China delegation in 1928) commended Governor Stephen Victor Graham for agreeing that women from American Samoa should participate “in matters of their common interest,” while noting his “extraordinary authority” over the island and its people.23 In 1930 Graham would send Miss Moana Meredith, a Samoan-educated nurse, as Samoa’s representative to the second conference.24 Hinder acknowledged that her brief trip to the island nation had revealed a range of reform issues, but that she had not been provided with opportunities to engage with Samoan women themselves to discuss these concerns. As we have seen, nearly twenty years later Marie Keesing would comment that the kind of colonial power mobilized by the governor in Fiji was unlikely to be accepted for much longer by Fijian women. They would wish to nominate independent representatives to speak on their behalf to the international community, and some might be anticipated to criticize the US protectorship of their island. While the power of the protectorate governors raised doubts about the opportunities for indigenous women to access the Pan-Pacific community, the settler colonies were not planning for the eventual independence of their indigenous populations. While PPWA delegates like Australia’s Bessie Rischbieth expressed support for the “liberation of the smaller nations” toward the equality of women and membership in the world community of nations,25 indigenous nationalism was far more contentious an issue. The Minority Commission at the League of Nations did not countenance the right of indigenous peoples to self-rule, despite petitions in the interwar years from Maori, Australian Aborigines, and Native Canadians.26 Falling back on its strategy of national representation, the PPWA took the position that reformed settler colonialism might provide an equitable way forward. Far from being areas of conflict between the races, the white settler colonies of the Pacific Rim and Hawai‘i would become sites in which women from different races (necessarily) lived peaceably and, in their enforced proximity, Interracial Friendship  105

were destined to jointly shape the future of their shared homeland. Thereby, the historical fact of colonization and its concomitant privileging of whites were resolved under the rubric of cultural difference, and any reminder of original illegitimacy was considered counterproductive. The association focused on cultural exchange and friendship as expressions of productive communication between women who were ostensibly equally motivated to transcend such anachronistic race antagonisms. New Zealand would be celebrated as providing a model of such interracial harmony to the Pacific, a claim given embodied presence in the Maori women who participated at the third conference. Performing New Zealand Arriving in Honolulu in August 1934, the local press warmly welcomed two Maori women among PPWA delegates as the “first of their race” to attend an international conference. In her newspaper interview, however, Victoria Bennett chose to focus not on her unique status (or, for that matter, on the absence of Maori women from the New Zealand delegation to that point) but on the agency of herself and her colleague in joining its ranks. Their intervention signaled the interest in internationalism among Maori women. Like other modern subjects, Bennett asserted, Maori women were “awakening” to the need for world cooperation. Not so much concerned with PPWA’s call for solidarity among the world of women, Bennett commended instead the cross-cultural nature of the endeavor facing her generation, to contribute to the formation of an “international family” without “creeds, of no color or race.”27 Bennett’s words stand in contrast to the hierarchical account of women’s advancement under which the PPWA had been established. The initial idea of a Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference had been to consider the best ways of promoting maternal health information to Pacific islander women, a process to be forwarded on their behalf by women from Pacific Rim civilizations. In contrast, Bennett indicated that indigenous women sought to join the international women’s community on their own terms, aiming to contribute their own insights to its vision of interracial harmony. They too were advancing a new world outlook. Maori women were taking their position on the international stage through leadership in their own (not the Occident’s or the Orient’s) Pacific. As it would turn out, Bennett’s interview with the Honolulu press represented her one chance to publicly articulate the Maori women’s perspective on Pan-Pacific women’s internationalism. As the following account illustrates, her ensuing agency in conference discussion was to be read through the impact of her friendship on the views of Andrews and, 106  Chapter 3

via their collaboration, on other white women in the PPWA.28 Over the next two weeks, the 1934 conference celebrated the New Zealand delegation as an example to the world. Composed of Pakeha and Maori members, the group embodied the kind of cooperative race relations promoted by the PPWA’s cultural internationalism. The biracial and bilingual presentations made by the delegation spoke to the ideal of interracial harmony, not only within the delegation but also of New Zealand. In an interview recorded on her return home following the conference, the Pakeha leader of the delegation, Elsie Andrews, confirmed this optimistic view, proudly asserting that it had been “a surprise and a pleasure for other delegations to know that the Maori and white race were working together [in New Zealand] . . . in such perfect harmony.”29 If New Zealand could forge cooperation between white and black, then so could the world. And if white women in New Zealand were co-joined in partnership with their Maori sisters, then so might other settler women in the region fully realize their civilizational responsibilities by learning from, at the same time as uplifting, the women of “their” indigenous cultures. Such claims of interracial harmony made for New Zealand were typical of this era. Its evidence lay in the cross-cultural roles played by a number of key Maori women and men in New Zealand society. Through assimilationist policies promoting “integration” during the interwar years, a small but influential Maori elite now held key policy, church, and social reform positions and were valorized as modern Maori or, in the words of historian James Bennett, as “honorary whites.”30 Several among them, including Frederick Augustus Bennett—the first Maori bishop, appointed in 1928—became social, cultural, and religious leaders with significant political sway within Pakeha as well as Maori communities.31 Maori women secured an important place within this elite group, as significant agents in the process of integration through social, educational, and welfare provisions. Seeking to promote the improved conditions of women and children, some among them joined Pakeha-dominated women’s organizations in New Zealand such as the YWCA. Through the international networks of these local associations Maori women were connected also with other nonwhite women in their region. More fundamentally, for generations they had already been members of the Polynesian Pacific, with oceanic connections extending into far-distant history.32 Bishop Bennett’s sister-in-law, Victoria Te Amohau Bennett, was a key figure in the New Zealand YWCA in the 1920s and then became prominent in the New Zealand PPWA by joining the delegation of 1934. As elite women in both Pakeha and Maori communities, Bennett and her co-delegate moved confidently within the PPWA, more confidently than many of their other co-delegates expected. Extending Interracial Friendship  107

into the 1950s, the involvement of Maori delegates in the PPWA expressed a lasting commitment to the association and its values and was a testament to its capacity to promote their concerns and interests within the region as well as internationally. As became increasingly clear during the conference, however, the Maori delegates understood themselves first and foremost as part of the Polynesian community. While this sense of belonging predated the association’s Pan-Pacific community, the two were not incompatible. When in Honolulu, the Maori delegates asserted their place among modern women in the region at the same time that the New Zealand delegation leader, Andrews, represented herself as the facilitator of their entry into the international community of women. Each benefited from the other in the performance of interracial harmony. Andrews’ diary of the 1934 conference reveals the kind of interpersonal negotiations involved in its creation. Her story is also one of personal struggle, self-revelation, and genuinely felt transformation. During the voyage to Honolulu and at the conference, she glimpsed in her friendship with her Maori co-delegates something of the deeper praxis of cultural internationalism. Andrews hoped to be recognized as a well-meaning settler colonial. The mid-1930s were turbulent years on the world stage. The next conference had been scheduled for 1933, but a world Depression had intervened and the meeting was postponed until 1934. This was the first gathering under the convenorship of the permanent association and established the PPWA as a fixture in international women’s history. More than 120 voting and nonvoting delegates arrived from ten countries, including voting delegates from Australia (5), Canada (4), New Zealand (9), China (5), Fiji (1), Japan (3), Korea (2), the Straits Settlements (1), the US Mainland (16), and Hawai‘i (25). Anglo-American delegates from the latter two, and their special and associate delegates (or nonvoting guests), overwhelmed the conference, while the next largest contingent came from New Zealand. As the international president, Australia’s Georgina Sweet, noted in her opening address, the Depression had affected the size of other delegations, the uncertainty in the world economy focusing attention on national rather than international concerns. And yet, as she pointed out, the crisis provided overwhelming evidence of the increasing interdependence of nations and hence the need for their greater cooperation.33 In particular, this conference established the importance of the PPWA to New Zealand women’s history. Among members of the New Zealand delegation were some of its most significant figures, including Annie Isobel Fraer (National Council of Women), Jean Begg (Young Women’s Christian Association), and Ellen B. Lea (Women Teachers’ Association). From the late 1930s until the 1940s, Elsie Andrews was international program chair, involved in the organization 108  Chapter 3

of conferences. Ellen Lea was international secretary throughout most of the 1950s.34 Maori culture had become part of the New Zealand presence at the PPWA long before Maori women joined their delegations. It was common practice for Pakeha women in New Zealand to give a “Maori greeting”—and would be also at PPWA conferences. Reiterating the commonplace that their embrace of Maori culture distinguished the Pakeha from other white settlers, Jean Begg explained to the 1934 conference that, like the Maori, who were also early immigrants, her own ancestors who had arrived generations later shared “somewhat the same spirit of those fine old Maoris.”35 In the context of recent findings in migration history, all peoples were migrants in relation to the land. While Andrews reveled in such assertions of New Zealand as an interracial community, she embarked on new territory by inviting Maori to join the delegation. She would be ambivalent concerning the attention they received at the conference, and in her diary veered between proprietorship and deference toward her Maori colleagues. Sometimes maternalistic in her recollections of their popularity, Andrews usually referred to the co-delegates as “our” Maori, her sense of proprietorship reinforced by the fact that, considered to be inexperienced as internationalists, they were not entrusted with the responsibilities of voting. Yet Andrews strongly relied on their cooperation and desired their friendship. The successful performance of interracial harmony by the delegation was crucial to the reputation of New Zealand and undoubtedly contributed to Andrews’ ascendance into a leadership role in the PPWA. Their friendship served to confirm the appropriateness of her leadership of them. At the core of Andrews’ account of the 1934 conference sat a paradox: on the one hand, she was engaged in guiding the Maori women toward their place within the international women’s community; on the other, she depended upon them to achieve the interracial reputation of the delegation. This ambiguity inevitably shaped her relationship with the Maori delegates, and particularly with Victoria Bennett, just as such ambiguity does more generally between women developing relationships across the gulfs of colonial history. Not unlike women travelers and missionaries of the late nineteenth century, Andrews sought to resolve this contradiction by returning to responsibilities of the “good white woman.” Expressing her enthusiasm for novelty and adventure through humor and sometimes ridicule, she sought to contain and familiarize the strangeness of a complex politics of difference by directing its ambiguities back toward the familiar colonialist tropes of progress and civilization.36 In the interim, the challenge of managing diversity faced by Andrews, and the extensive account she gave of her experience of it, offers us a unique study of one woman’s genuine efforts to realize the collective agenda of the PPWA. Interracial Friendship  109

The Bolshie Pacifist Elsie Andrews was forty-one when she first left for Honolulu as a member of the PPWA New Zealand delegation of 1930. Living and working most of her life in New Plymouth, a small town on the South Island, she was a schoolteacher who became president of the New Zealand Women Teachers’ Association and the New Zealand National Council of Women, and the secretary of the Women’s Club of New Plymouth. Because she was not of independent means, the Women Teachers’ Association provided her with the necessary funds to attend conferences overseas. On her return, Andrews undertook lecture tours informing New Zealand women teachers about the PPWA.37 A combination of educational reformism, pacifism, and anticapitalism drove her Pan-Pacific international politics. Characterizing her broader sympathies as socialist, with some humor she described herself as a “Bolshie” and a pacifist who considered global capitalism and militarism to be closely connected. She would find that this version of pacifism distanced her from other delegation leaders, who, she recorded with some surprise, took the more mainstream position of supporting military aggression under mitigating circumstances.38 By the 1930s Andrews was a leading advocate of the principles of “new education” in New Zealand, emphasizing creativity and self-expression for all children, and it was this expertise that led to her invitation to join the New Zealand delegation in 1930.39 For Andrews, educational reform implied more than girls’ access to higher education, or the provision of domestic education for girls, although these were important aims for the Pan-Pacific association. New education was concerned also with instilling the fundamentals of cultural internationalism in the next generation: textbooks should not be racist or derogatory of other peoples, and students should learn about other cultures firsthand, through racially mixed classes.40 The Education Section, to which Andrews was a contributor, was one of the strongest and most culturally integrated sections at the 1930 conference. Leading among its membership was Bessie Goodykoontz, Assistant US Commissioner of Education. Despite her presence, the Education Section report failed to acknowledge that education in the United States was highly segregated, as it would be until antisegregation legislation began a revolution in US education in the early 1950s. The contrast could not have been more evident between the US example, if it had been correctly reported, and the widely endorsed achievements of the Hawai‘ian education system. In its report of the conference, the Mid-Pacific Magazine included a picture of a Hawaiian kindergarten, asserting that the education system in Hawai‘i was fully integrated—drawing “neither color nor race lines”—and that “here the pre-school education in human tolerance has its beginning 110  Chapter 3

and is carried through all grades of the public schools of Hawai‘i and its universities.”41 The report referred to the “zeal and experiment” of education systems still in the “adolescent” stage in countries like Japan and Mexico. “Progressive education,” it concluded, was slowly replacing “formal education” around the world—progressive in the sense that children were provided with aesthetic, spiritual, and ethical frameworks through which to negotiate a rapidly changing global environment. This spiritual and ethical approach to education was strongly endorsed by Shizuko Kawasaki (Musashino Girls’ Supplementary School, Tokyo) during the conference. Kawasaki emphasized the importance of intercultural interaction “to the end that a better society may be founded, that human happiness may be enhanced thereby, for our aim is Universal Brotherhood, International Good-Fellowship and World Peace. The existing system of education in Japan is disproportionately one-sided, namely, that it lays undue emphasis upon the intellectual side of life.” Broadening her analysis to criticize the dominance of Western-style education across the region, she continued: “During the past half century, this system has rendered the present civilization extremely materialistic, thus leading to ceaseless struggles between individuals, classes, and nations, which result that average human nature has been debased, rather than improved by the process.”42 Cultural interaction would provide an important way of reinvesting the spiritual and the ethical into everyday life. In a speech titled “Education for Life” at the conference that year, Andrews—who fondly remembered Maori classmates from her own primary school experience—recommended that Maori and Pakeha boys and girls to be taught together at both primary and secondary levels as “brothers and sisters in a community.” Condemning the mostly segregated secondary school system in New Zealand, she argued that children must be provided with the opportunity to develop the interracial outlook on which world peace depended.43 New education, by extension, implied a greater awareness that children absorbed the racial antagonisms of adults and that they grew up to replicate those antagonisms in the next generation. Cross-cultural education was thus a matter for adults too, especially Westerners who needed to reeducate themselves through a process of greater self-knowledge. For Andrews, the 1934 delegation would become her own life study in the possibility of finding a new self-awareness as an adult, through which she became more intimately involved in the interracial politics of the PPWA. Keeping a record of conferences for her loved ones at home, Andrews wrote detailed and often humorous accounts of her daily experiences. She posted home the top copies of these in the form of letters, while keeping their duplicates as a travel-conference record. Her life partner and her former Interracial Friendship  111

teacher’s aide, Muriel Kirton, had accompanied her on the 1930 trip, and it was to Kirton and a series of close women friends that Andrews sent her conference installments in 1934. Women’s internationalism historian Leila Rupp has shown that same-sex partnerships were a significant feature of international women’s networks in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.44 And as New Zealand historian Alison Laurie has argued, Andrews may be located appropriately within this larger historical context.45 One of the few delegates Andrews invited to read these letters was fellow New Zealand delegate Mary Eleanor Sims (Bennett would be another). A graduate of Otago University and first assistant teacher at Christchurch Girls’ High School, Sims was past president of the Canterbury Association of University Women, Dominion president of the New Zealand Federation of University Women, and the federation’s representative at the National Council of Women, Christchurch. She was also, wrote Andrews, one of the “striking types here of diversely attractive women.”46 By the end of the conference, Andrews exclaimed: “[She] has just walked straight into my heart and taken up a greater space there than I imagined was ‘For Rent’ at this stage of my life.” Making an oblique reference to the limitations this placed on broader conference flirtations, she added lightheartedly that “she has sadly cramped my style.”47 While Andrews’ interest in the women she met at conferences reflected something of her sexual orientation, in a more general sense conferences were exciting, even sexualized experiences. They were decidedly glamorous events electrified by the involvement of important women from Europe and America and by the presence of culturally diverse women from the region. Reflecting on the impact of meeting Rachel Crowdy at the 1930 conference, for example, Australian international president Georgina Sweet wrote to the International Labour Organization that “I think every member of the conference fell in love [with her] as a woman, as well as conceiving a very high appreciation of . . . her many fine qualities.”48 Jane Addams drew the breathless admiration of many delegates.49 Andrews was far from alone in noting the attractiveness (or otherwise) of fellow delegates, several of whom she described as “goddesses.” The attention she and others paid to evening dress at social functions, to who graced whose table at dinner, and to who kissed who on the lips in greeting underlined the erotically charged environment in which PPWA conferences operated. And her focus on co-delegates’ slimness, tallness, and sleekness of attire (often in wry contrast to herself ) underscores the importance of deportment and dress to PPWA internationalism’s emphasis on modern interaction. Andrews was self-conscious about being short, stocky, and not particularly well dressed, but her strengths lay elsewhere, and no doubt she was appreciated for her irreverent sense of hu112  Chapter 3

mor. She advised her readers that the off-the-shoulder evening dress, round horn-rimmed glasses, and red lipstick were de rigueur for the woman internationalist of 1930. Conference photographs bear this out, and they show that Japanese and other non-Western delegates also mobilized such signifiers of feminist modernity when they appeared in modern conference attire. Among the women moving between these registers with apparent ease, the Maori delegates would be extremely successful in heightening the cachet of the conference experience, emerging as some of the most desirable of figures in the highly charged atmosphere of interracial friendship enacted at the 1934 conference. Andrews’ account often expressed a self-mocking disaffection with ideals of interracial harmony and cross-cultural exchange, more usually rehearsed earnestly in accounts of the PPWA conference. She disliked pretension and seemed to consider that if only everyone were as honest as she, they would also admit to preferring the familiar above the cross-cultural. The unfamiliar came in degrees of difficulty. In particular, Andrews found “Oriental” culture unfathomable—unfortunately so, given the emphasis the PPWA placed on East-West exchange. When China delegates invited her and others to lunch one day during the 1930 conference, she reported with delight their eventual escape from “ghastly Chinese tea” and “ghastly looking mixtures.” Deciding in future to limit such experiences to the minimum, Andrews promised that: “If any more such entertainments are planned I’m going to absent myself.”50 Notably, none among the small number of Chinese and Japanese women delegates are named in her accounts, despite their leading roles in early conference debates and within the association’s hierarchy. With her use of xenophobia as a ready humor, Andrews seems likely to be shielding a painful discomfort about her own social skills. Ready to make fun of her own shortness and girth, she was defensive about her interactions with all but a very close few. Noting that everyone was expected to circulate at every mealtime as part of their international practice of making friends, Andrews remonstrated wryly, “My trouble is that I don’t want to meet everybody!”51 Less than cosmopolitan in her outlook, but more sympathetic than her diary implied, Andrews was often disarmingly self-deprecating: “I don’t think I really have any flair for facile international friendships which is a bit of a handicap at an international conference.”52 She parodied the ideal of cross-cultural friendship with a joke: “Sneezes are international you will be glad to hear. We can’t remember the Japanese names and their English is not always easy to follow, but one sneezed yesterday morning and I understood her instantly.”53 But Andrews was also not unaware of the difficulties faced by non-Western delegates lacking fluency in English. In 1936, at the Hawaiian Organizing Committee’s suggestion, she compiled a list of words Interracial Friendship  113

and phrases for non-English-speaking delegates. Ultimately, she would advise Ann Satterthwaite, the only way to overcome the problem was “to remember to speak slowly and clearly, use simple words, and not mind being interrupted.”54 For the most part, Andrews preferred to make her friendships within a small coterie of mostly New Zealand Pakeha women. Through their support, she would prove a powerful conference influence. By the end of her first stay in Honolulu, she concluded: “It seems odd to do and see and eat more different things in three weeks than in one’s previous forty-one years. But still I am a wild cat walking on its wild lone[some,] preferring New Zealand above everything and longing for home.”55 She confessed with mock admonition that “perhaps even if I am not good at international friendships I can congratulate myself on some new ones among my own people.”56 Not only were Pakeha her kith and kin, but their voices were undulating and delightful to her ear. The sound of English was not in itself sufficient to make Andrews feel at home. She was offended by the accents of the Americans and the Australians and disliked what she considered to be their brash style. One of her exceptions would be the leader of the US delegation, Dr. Hildegarde Kneeland (Bureau of Home Economics, US Department of Agriculture). Andrews established an early alliance with Kneeland, and the two women worked together through the last night of the 1930 conference to streamline the structure and focus of the PPWA. Their endeavors were material to the capacity of the future association to convene and run effective and relatively uncluttered conferences. As we learned in the previous chapter, these reforms were also designed to better facilitate the contributions of delegates from non-Western countries. Beneath her self-deprecating style, Andrews was proud to record the recognition she earned from her peers for this important work. Remonstrating rather too loudly, she declared that the presentation of leis to delegates at the dockside as they left the conference was “a very beautiful idea but made me feel like the pet cow of the herd. . . . The weight and scent are almost overpowering.” As she went on to explain, she received nineteen leis from admiring co-delegates: “By the time the last lei [from a representative of the WCTU] was round my neck I [said] I should be a drunkard by way of protest for the rest of my life” (the joke being at the expense of the temperance aims of the WCTU).57 Although ready to play the colonial with a chip on her shoulder, Andrews was also to become a powerful interlocutor between the PPWA and indigenous women in New Zealand. An unlikely experience during the 1930s conference saw the beginnings of her growing commitment to the idea of including Maori women on the New Zealand delegation. While attending the movies one evening, she had a cross-cultural insight, not of “East 114  Chapter 3

meets West,” but as a British New Zealand woman in a US colony. She was astonished to find herself the only person to stand as “God Save the King” was played at the start of a British movie. The moment caused her to reflect on what it meant to be a British woman in an increasingly American world. She remarked in surprise: “It had not struck me before that anywhere in the world ‘God Save the King’ would not bring people to their feet.” She then placed this juxtaposition within a more directly PPWA cultural internationalist context, wondering about Britishness as but one way of life within a globalizing world: “I s’pose it is the same kind of superiority complex which makes us somehow always visualise God as a white man who speaks English.” She considered this point further by wondering whether this attitude might be outmoded: “We British people seem to have a special devil that needs to be exorcised—the devil which leads to a feeling of superiority and arrogance.”58 She did not, however, extend this insight to the ubiquitous presence of US imperialism in the region. At the 1934 conference, Andrews sought to distinguish her behavior from the superiority complex of other (British) settler colonials. First, she did so by asserting her warm relationship toward Maori culture, which epitomized the New Zealand she missed so much. Performances by Hawaiian musical groups reminded her of Maori songs, and the display of a Maori carving in the Bishop Museum was one “over which,” she wrote, “I hung lovingly.”59 When conference delegates were taken to visit the home of “David,” a Native Hawaiian man who sang a welcome and then pounded taro for the tourists, it reminded her of Maori back home.60 Maori were also performing in tourist villages in New Zealand in these years, and the pleasures of viewing Maori in “traditional” surroundings would be a cultural experience enjoyed by delegates at the 1952 conference in Christchurch, New Zealand. But it was Andrews’ second strategy that set her apart from most of her Western colleagues, and that was in inviting Maori women activists to join the New Zealand delegation. As noted in chapter 2, while sailing to Honolulu for the PPWA conference in 1930, Andrews spoke at some length with Australia delegate Constance Ternent Cooke. How Andrews conveyed Maori status and conditions to Cooke can only be surmised, but on her return to New Zealand that year Andrews had already begun to question her own attitudes toward indigenous people in settler colonies. When it came to the Maori delegates, she articulated a rather different relationship to cultural internationalism than recorded in her 1930 diary. Instead of the Pan-Pacific imagined through East-West exchange, her transformative moment came with regard to the international role of settler colonialism. In a newspaper interview given on her return home from the 1930 conference, Andrews declared that she had Interracial Friendship  115

finally rejected “the absolute pettiness of racial antipathy.” Previously unable to overcome this antipathy, although aware of its existence, she had found that only the collective experience of practical cross-cultural exchange at the PPWA had begun to shift her thinking. The report continued: “Before she left New Zealand [Andrews] knew she had that failing and for that reason she had not wanted to go. At the Conference she had felt part of the world’s great sisterhood of woman. There are differences between us of course, but how superficial they seemed.”61 Three years later, she declared to the New Plymouth Peace Council: “I had always felt a stupid and unworthy shrinking from other races especially when they were of another colour. The conference made me realise once and for all the extreme pettiness of any such feeling.”62 While this confessional narrative of self-transformation contrasts with the somewhat dismissive stance adopted in her diary, Andrews would act on the grounds of her newfound insight. When asked to lead the 1934 delegation, she decided that Maori women should be included. She was determined to put her newfound awareness into practice. In early 1934 the Honolulu Star-Bulletin advised its readers of the forthcoming PPWA conference. It announced that the New Zealand delegation was to bring three Maori women selected for their capacity to demonstrate aspects of Maori cultural life. Readers learned that “Noted Maoris Will Come to Session Here—Arts of New Zealand Aborigines will be shown at the Pan-Pacific Conference.” A woman described as being of mixed descent, Mrs. Haria Te Mauharanui Colwill, “the daughter of one of New Zealand’s early settlers, the late Hon. William Swanson,” would attend, along with “a chieftess of the Ngati-Kahunguni tribe.” Also expected were “Princess Te Puea Herangi, a Maori chiefess, and Miss Paiki, a young Maori girl who has a thorough knowledge of Maori mythology, Pa, communal life, and native singing and dancing.”63 (Te Puea would become the patroness of the Maori Women’s Welfare League [MWWL] formed in the early 1950s and discussed in chapter 5.64) Two months later, the newspaper reminded Hawai‘i residents of the uniqueness of the Maori among the other delegations arriving for the conference: “Probably the most colorful and interesting . . . will be that of New Zealand with three Maori women, direct representatives of their race, all of high birth, and excellently qualified to take part in the program. They will bring with them exhibits of Maori handicraft including weaving, which will be demonstrated by one of the women.”65 By the time of the conference, however, the configuration of the delegation had changed, the focus shifting from Maori women as craftswomen to Maori women as internationalists. Instead of simply community leaders and cultural experts, two women experienced also in international women’s networks, Mrs. H. D. Bennett and Mrs. Jean Hammond, had joined the del116  Chapter 3

Victoria Bennett. New Zealand Girl, February 1, 1936, 2. Courtesy of Alexander Turnbull Library.

egation.66 Their membership in the PPWA marked Maori women’s political interest in the Pacific-based women’s network. Victoria Te Amohau Bennett was a member of an important Maori family, her maternal grandmother a “full-blooded Maori.”67 Educated privately at Queen Victoria School for Maori girls, one of the exclusive boarding schools for the daughters of wealthy Maori, she was expected to make a propitious marriage-alliance between two elite families. Bennett hoped to Interracial Friendship  117

have a career as well, but she later told Andrews that unfair expulsion from her school had curtailed her ambition to become a nurse.68 Bennett may have intended to join an emerging group of Maori women health workers who would form the MWWL in the early 1950s and would be at the forefront of lobbying governments for improved conditions for Maori in the postwar era. Nonetheless, by the early 1930s she had become a leader in the New Zealand YWCA, her service later recognized by the governor-general. By 1936 she would be acting president, welcoming the international president of the PPWA, Australian Georgina Sweet, during her tour of New Zealand that year.69 In a letter written by Bennett for one of the very first issues of the New Zealand YWCA journal, the New Zealand Girl, she emphasized the Christian ideals of service and of standing “united and unafraid.”70 By the time she attended the Honolulu conference in 1934, Bennett was in her early forties and a mother of three. We know less about Mrs. Hammond. Andrews wrote in her diary that she “looks twenty turns out to be thirty eight and has a daughter of nineteen, also a son at Nelson College, and two younger girls.”71 Although she describes Hammond as preparing a presentation on birth control for the conference,72 her name does not appear elsewhere in Andrews’ diaries or in reports of the conference. Awarded honorary life membership in the organization in 1960, Bennett was the only one of the two who would be remembered by the official history of the New Zealand PPWA written in the 1970s.73 In Andrews’ diary record, Bennett is shown wielding considerable power as she prepared the Pakeha members of the New Zealand delegation for their conference welcome. According to Andrews, while sailing from Suva to Hawai‘i (with, she asserted, nothing but flying fish to distract them) the New Zealand delegates “practised their native music”: “Mrs Bennett appears able to take any part, high or low, without the slightest trouble, and the rest simply do as she tells them. We shall be fluent Maori scholars when we come home. Songs and speeches, chants and incantations and war-calls will roll from our lips as fluently as blasphemy.”74 Given Andrews’ sardonic sense of humor, the aggressive chanting required by Bennett clearly brought to her mind the act of swearing. But the allusion also refers to missionary Christianity connections between indigenous language and culture and the blasphemous and heathen. Andrews implies that she and her Pakeha co-delegates were at risk of descending into the netherworld of the black arts. Nor could she or the others summon the body-mind synergy required by Bennett. It was becoming apparent to all that merely going through the motions of cross-cultural exchange offered faint substitute for the vitality of embodied cultural knowledge: “We practised our chant with appropriate gestures. Although Mrs Bennett despairs 118  Chapter 3

of us ever acquiring the correct vim.”75 With their lackluster pupils gathered around, Hammond then demonstrated “a most realistic haka like a hula dance and insisted on us endeavouring to imitate her.” But, rather as Maori chants turned to blasphemy in Pakeha mouths, so these movements reduced haka to dance-hall parody. Watching from the sidelines, Andrews reported: “Mrs Bennett thinks we can learn to twist and wriggle as Maoris do, but I am convinced that we can’t. When she and Mrs Hammond dance all their movements are sheer poetry and beautiful to watch, but the others with the best will in the world, are only a burlesque.”76 After a few halfhearted attempts, Andrews refused to take any further part in singing or learning the haka. She admitted to having “failed miserably.”77 Confiding in her sense of inadequacy to Bennett led to the beginnings of the friendship between the two. In the process, Andrews claimed to have learned something of Bennett’s “purple past,” but, she added, “without giving away my own” (maybe her relationship with Kirton). One aspect of Bennett’s purple past, according to Andrews, was her mixed descent. “She is a 3-quarter caste,” she advised. Later, as they recalled the Maori legends that Pakeha as well as Maori children learned in New Zealand schools, Bennett told of how she had been given her (queenly?) nickname, “Wikitoria [Victoria] Te Amohau.” Then they talked about “the entire philosophy of life!”78 At this point, Andrews may have told Bennett about her private life. Certainly, this satisfying exchange led to an invitation from Bennett to spend a night on a Maori hui, a gathering place where everyone slept communally. With this gesture, Bennett welcomed Andrews into her community. Ever inclined to find the salacious for her diary readers at home, Andrews focused on the idea of spending the night with such an attractive woman, and a Maori woman no less. She exclaimed: “Now am I awake or dreaming? I told her my reputation would be gone for ever!!”79 Nevertheless, this was a significant invitation, and one no doubt confirming for Andrews that she was heading in the right direction toward a reformed settler colonial identity. Over the next few days, Andrews was preoccupied with learning the Maori speech she was to present at the New Zealand delegation’s conference welcome. As well as the haka and Maori singing by the delegation, she and Bennett would present the same speech, but with Andrews giving the Maori-language version. Andrews delighted in the symbolic value of the performance but found the process daunting. Far from contributing to the significance of the translation, her knowledge was superficial. She wrote: “It is going to be a terrible task because it conveys nothing whatever to me. Woe is me that ever my brain conceived the notion of demonstrating the friendliness of our two races.” She continued: “I know I should be learning some more Maori. Mrs. Bennett and Mrs. Hammond are so delighted with the Interracial Friendship  119

idea of me giving New Zealand’s greeting in Maori that I feel I must do it even if the effort bursts a blood vessel.” While Bennett was to give the same speech in English, the irony was that, in contrast to Andrews’ poor Maori, Bennett’s “command of English is really remarkable.”80 The Maori women were clearly better equipped than Andrews to engage in cross-cultural communication. From the outset, Maori delegates attracted enormous attention from fellow delegates, who were impressed by their charm and intelligence. They were popular figures already on board ship. One evening, according to Andrews, Bennett and Hammond were invited to stay for supper with the captain, having made a “hit with their infectious laughter.” To Andrews’ amusement, Bennett—a “pillar of the Y[WCA]”—found herself involved in an after-dinner game of cards.81 Once the delegates had arrived in Honolulu, “wherever we went Mrs Bennett and Mrs Hammond captivated everyone instantly.” Andrews enjoyed their company on a shopping expedition for dresses, remarking upon the “stamina of the Maori race!” In dubiously maternalist terms, she added: “Going around with them is like taking two children to a party.”82 Andrews would be less condescending when describing the relationship of the Maori delegates with Hawaiian royalty. It would be through the “royal treatment” of her Maori that Andrews began to see Bennett in the context of the Polynesian Pacific. The larger significance of the Maori presence in Hawai‘i began to be felt as soon as the ship docked in Honolulu. Amid considerable ceremony, the Royal Hawaiian Band welcomed the visitors. This band was important to Indigenous Hawaiians, having been part of royal state occasions prior to “annexation.”83 After the death of Queen Emma, it continued to play at important occasions, but only symbolically, as Hawai‘i was now a colony and Hawaiians had been subjected to colonialism just as had their Maori guests. The New Zealand delegates responded with some of the skills they had rehearsed en route. The moment was extraordinary: a Native Hawaiian band playing for the arrival of two Maori women was replied by Pakeha women singing a Maori welcome. The Honolulu StarBulletin reported: “When the Royal Hawaiian band finished playing at the docking of their ship, the [New Zealand delegation] responded from the deck with a Maori song of greeting.”84 Andrews wrote that Bennett gave the command “Sing,” and they all replied “like obedient school children, with ‘Hoki hoki tonu mai.’” She added, “It sounded beautiful to me and the band applauded to a man.” Having disembarked, they sang again by popular demand, and Andrews admitted that she “pretended to [sing], meself, as well—just to be in the picture.”85 Hitherto identified in PPWA documentation as “Mrs H. D. Bennett,” the Hawai‘i press welcomed Mrs. Victoria Te 120  Chapter 3

Amohau Bennett, her first and Maori names a double revelation. Only in the Pacific “melting pot” of Hawai‘i were she and Hammond acknowledged formally in this manner, not in PPWA records. Heralded as “the first of their race to ever attend an international women’s conference,” the Honolulu Star-Bulletin announced, “First Maoris for Women’s Studies Here,” noting that these “two native women” had brought with them examples of Maori children’s schoolwork as well as their own “native” authority on “Maori lore and customs.”86 In the newspaper article that accompanied their photographs published several days later, Bennett made it clear that she had more than cultural knowledge to contribute to the conference. She was, she asserted, a woman of the modern world. Acknowledging that she and Hammond were “first” among Maori women to attend the PPWA, she asserted that changes within her own community had provided the impetus. It was the growing international outlook among women around the world (including Maori) that explained their presence in 1934. Rejecting the notion that cultural tradition encapsulated the role of Maori delegates at the conference, Bennett called upon nonindigenous women to promote the rights of indigenous peoples as part of a global Christian and interracial family. Pointing to the place of the traditional in Western cultures also, she called upon Western women to uphold European concepts of rights and justice. Demands for independence were growing, she advised, and white women must fulfill their Christian duty to help bring about the just treatment of nonwhite peoples. Cultural internationalism offered a global politics that rearticulated the maternal mission of the WCTU and other women’s organizations into a Christian politics of decolonization. Bennett concluded: “All around us there comes the special call of the subject races in their struggles, political and economic. Redress may not be specific, but the strong white races have their traditions to live up to, their duties to perform. The care of the weak is by God’s will the charge of the strong.”87 Given that decolonization and anti-imperialism were forces then changing the Pacific, participation at the PPWA gave both Western and non-Western women a forum in which to negotiate this changing global dynamic. On the delegates’ arrival at the conference, exciting news spread quickly that Princess Kawananakoa, “last” of the royal Hawaiian line,88 had announced that she would come to the opening of the conference, but only if she was seated between the two Maori delegates. Thus “last” would meet “first.” Abigail Wahiikaahuula Campbell Kawananakoa was the daughter of a Hawaiian woman from Maui and James Campbell, a haole millionaire financier and industrialist who had been a powerful figure in turn-ofthe-century Hawai‘i. Kawananakoa had married a Hawaiian of noble rank Interracial Friendship  121

while living in San Francisco before returning to become actively involved in various Hawai‘i organizations, including the Daughters of Hawai‘i and the YWCA. Like Bennett, she was a woman of mixed descent and was connected internationally through the Western women’s movement. The elevation of the Maori delegates to quasi-royal status elicited expressions of admiration from Andrews but also generated some ambivalence. Royalty would not daunt New Zealand’s Maori “daughters,” she predicted. She wondered if “they are both going to wear full warpaint” for the event, adding that “we were all bursting to see them.”89 “Warpaint” here alludes both to a popular term for women’s makeup and to the preparations of Native Americans in readiness for battle. “Our two Maoris created quite an impression” on the opening night, Andrews continued. Claiming it was too hot for the traditional dress she had brought with her (or did she feel it was inappropriate?), Bennett chose to wear formal evening attire instead. Andrews wrote: “[She] looked absolutely regal in a black lace (backless) dress which she told me she had had made for an investiture at Government House. I was all swollen with pride to be associated with her!” Even greater excitement was to come. After the dinner, as they traveled back to the conference lodgings, the princess put her lei around Andrews’ neck. This was the climax of the night, Andrews wrote, it being “the greatest favour she could show me . . . it made me one of them so to speak.” Then, at the end of the evening, through an unconscious gesture of politeness (or flirtation?) Andrews unexpectedly achieved her ultimate desire. Bennett, after watching Andrews kiss the princess’s hand, “put it beautifully,” Andrews claimed. Bennett advised her: “You have won your place. You have opened the way to our hearts.”90 Andrews, it seemed, had passed the final test of interracial friendship with flying colors. On the last night of the conference, the New Zealand delegation was to make its long-awaited bilingual presentation. To the delight of the gathered audience, the Maori women led the Pakeha members of the delegation (minus Andrews) in the chants and haka they had learned on board ship. Andrews and Bennett’s joint speech closed the presentation. Reversing our present-day cross-cultural awareness, Andrews gave the address in Maori while Bennett presented its English translation. In the process, Bennett appeared to concur with Andrews’ message that: “Maori and Pakeha alike send . . . warm greetings to the women of other lands [in] common sisterhood.” This sisterhood comprised three collectives: first, “our Maoris,” who were bound by “ties of ancient ancestry and tradition” to “our sisters of Hawaii and other island races”; second, Westerners, who were tied to “our sisters of the Orient from whose ancient philosophies we have so much to learn”; and third, Pakeha, who were linked to “our sisters of America and of this terri122  Chapter 3

Elsie Andrews (third from right, back row) and other 1934 delegation leaders. Chatelaine (December 1934): 22. Courtesy of Chatelaine, Rogers Publishing Ltd.

tory [Hawai‘i] and of the Dominions of Canada and Australia who share our Aryan origin and tongue.” British ancestry and English as one’s first language united settler women in a common racial identity as well as a cultural one. Older indigenous connections to land did not preclude settlers’ own attachments; rather, these attachments provided for a shared egalitarian outlook. Addressing her Aryan sisters of the Pacific Rim, Andrews pointed to the geographical foundations inspiring their common outlook: “The same blue waters lap our shores as do yours. The same fragrant winds whisper in our valleys and on our mountain peaks. The same pleasant sunshine caresses our fields and pasturelands. And in our hearts glow the same warm desire for the common weal.”91 Thus Andrews ascribed to colonialism a benign effect: affection for the settler colonial landscape had produced a progressive politics while naturalizing settler colonial rule. How did the audience receive the two? Andrews’ sardonic record reveals the contradictory effects of performing interracial harmony. She seems not to have exaggerated when asserting they were the highlight of the conference: “People were interested in our greeting I know, because one can always sense a kind of breathless attention which means more than politeness.”92 But as she was to discover the next day, that breathlessness was not simple admiration. Responses from various delegates reflected confusion Interracial Friendship  123

about the racial makeup of New Zealand, with some delegates entirely missing the bilingual and cross-cultural point of the performance. Andrew made light of the result: “I’m afraid I shall never live down my Maori speech—on Thursday morning I was introduced to an American who looked at me in a bewildered fashion and then said ‘So you do speak English?’ And someone asked one of our delegates at the dinner: ‘Does that lady speak any English at all?’”93 For others, the presentation had been more moving than even Andrews could have anticipated. Among the audience was Dr. Nadine Kavinoky (a North American specialist in family health), who had presented a paper on sex education, eugenics, and family life. Like many of her contemporaries, Kavinoky spoke in favor of the sterilization of the mentally “unfit” toward improving the white race, but as eugenics was largely outside of the PPWA’s ambit, mostly she advocated gentler forms of social engineering toward facilitating race hygiene.94 Kavinoky was fascinated but also disturbed by the performance of interracial harmony by Andrews and Bennett, not for its complex articulation of a cross-cultural exchange, but for the simple fact of Bennett’s deference toward Andrews. This politeness was in Kavinoky’s eyes symbolic of the capacity of the white race, like the “family” in her research, to become happier and healthier through the eradication of outmoded behaviors. Unfitness (or, in this case, racial bigotry) was the product of bad learning and environment, not of individual goodness or badness. Andrews learned from Kneeland that, during their presentation, Kavinoky had whispered tearfully to her delegation leader: “New Zealand has a lesson to teach the world!” Andrews continued: “But you can never imagine what impressed her most. When we turned to walk back to our chairs I stepped aside to let Mrs Bennett precede me.” This was the first time Dr. Kavinoky claimed to have seen such public “deference extended to a ‘coloured person.’”95 The largely veiled backdrop of US race relations shaping the PanPacific women’s community would be further revealed to Andrews three years later with the unexpected arrival of several African American women to the Vancouver conference. A few days after the conference, likely on the basis of their dual presentation, Andrews and Bennett were invited to speak at an Indigenous Hawaiian church service. The Kawaiahao Church in Honolulu had occupied a grand old building since before US annexation and continued to hold morning services in Hawaiian and English.96 Andrews noted that Bennett was instrumental to the success of their joint appearance. Having a friend of color opened new possibilities for exchange. “It was wonderful,” she wrote, “to see the instant response to the native race. I was a visitor: she was their sister.” It was likely through Bennett that Andrews was asked to speak on the following Sunday as well. Affecting shyness at the proposition, Andrews 124  Chapter 3

exclaimed, “Begobs, I’m never taking Mrs Bennett anywhere anymore,” but noted that if she ever returned to Honolulu, she would have “some brown friends at all events.”97 Andrews saw in her closeness with Bennett grounds to claim a larger friendship with indigenous people. In her sermon a week later, she described feeling “at home” among Native Hawaiians: “In appearance, language and in largeness of heart, our Maoris in New Zealand are very much like you, so when I come among you I do not feel that I am among strangers. I feel that I am at home.” She continued: “I am not of the Maori race, I am a Pakeha, or as you would say, a Haole—but one can be a Haole and still be sincere, anxious to help another race to work out its destiny.” Turning to the future of the Pacific, Andrews asserted that Maori and Hawaiians were likely to face a difficult transition into modern life, the destiny of Maori, Hawaiians, and other Pacific races being to follow in the footsteps of the West. These were matters central to the PPWA. Andrews stated bluntly that Westernization was not something that could be either opposed or turned back, as New Zealand exemplified: My ancestors came to New Zealand a hundred years ago, bringing a more sophisticated civilisation with them than the Maoris were accustomed to. This new civilisation was not wholly bad, and I do not think the Maori race would want to go back and be just as they were before the white man came among them.

While colonial rule in New Zealand had improved the lot of the indigenous people overall, Andrews blamed its previous failings on individual settler colonials who had not upheld their responsibilities towards Maori. Not all Pakeha were “sincere,” she admitted to the congregation, for “unfortunately among the white people there are always some who think that because in certain ways they appear to have advanced further than other races, they are therefore superior and their civilisation should supersede all others.” While the Maori had experienced the negative effects of this superiority complex, this was now mostly in the past: For a long time our Maoris were unsettled and unhappy and grave injustices were done to them, and even when the white man tried to put right the wrong he had done, he did not always act in the wisest way. Consequently because of us the Maori have been handicapped in his development as a free people. But there are many in New Zealand anxious to encourage this development.

Interracial Friendship  125

Clearly, Andrews understood herself to be one of these more enlightened souls. “Development” also brought “exchange,” as Pakeha culture—like other Western cultures—could learn from indigenous peoples who had managed to safeguard their cultural traditions: With the passage of a hundred years the Maori has taught some lessons to his pakeha brother. By remaining true to the tradition of his Maori culture he has earned respect and sympathy and understanding, so that a day of hope has now dawned and the Maori in New Zealand now look forward to a future where they will stand side by side with us in working out the common destiny of our two races.

In settler colonies, destinies were necessarily joined through common domicile: New Zealand is not for the Pakeha: it is not for the Maori: it is ours jointly—our common home, in which we dwell in friendliness and goodwill. What is good in modern civilisation and what is good in ancient civilisation, have become our common heritage.98

Andrews spoke here of a new and as yet uncharted collaboration among virtual equals, but she soon reverted to more familiar paths. Despite the great success of their performance in 1934, Andrews returned to New Zealand, not with interracial harmony in mind, but with the need to “preserve” Maori culture and people. Visiting the modest birthplace of the “last” reigning Hawaiian queen, Queen Emma, just before leaving Honolulu, she may have been hosted there by Native Hawaiian women among the members of the Daughters of Hawai‘i (as had been the case among conference delegates in 1928).99 Princess Kawananakoa was a member of the organization and a leading campaigner for the protection of cultural sites such as the queen’s birthplace, and she may personally have accompanied Andrews. Whether or not this occurred, Andrews saw, in the display of cultural objects at the site, evidence not of a vibrant living culture but of the need for the preservation of rapidly disappearing cultural traditions. Preservation sat more comfortably with settler colonialism than the more complicated and unsettling prospect of cultures developing in tandem through an ongoing process of exchange, something that Marie Keesing would argue for in following years. Andrews saw in Hawai‘i a warning for Pakeha in New Zealand. She described “a note of tragedy about Hawaiian things which makes me very sad and very determined to learn something of Maori problems in New Zealand so that we can preserve them as an individual race.”100 In the end, despite her various 126  Chapter 3

experiences of the power of Maori and Native Hawaiian women in their negotiations of international women’s community, Andrews returned to New Zealand with a renewed commitment to the Maori as a people and a culture to be saved through white protection. Their future would depend on Pakeha guardianship of the continuation of their traditions and way of life. In Andrews’ mind, this prospect would continue to depend upon the enlightened awareness of white people like herself. Over the following years, Andrews would be less involved in the performance of interracial harmony. From 1931 until her untimely death in 1948, she ascended the PPWA hierarchy, first as secretary-treasurer, then as a member of the New Zealand National Committee, and, from 1937, as chairman of the International Program Committee and one of three International Committee members. A key figure in the organization’s formulation and then re-formation after World War II, she was far from the reluctant internationalist she had claimed to be. Her account of the New Zealand delegation at the 1934 PPWA conference in Honolulu provides some remarkable insights into the interpersonal and intercultural negotiations required in performing the “interracial harmony” desired by Pan-Pacific women internationalists. Her letter-book diaries, often flippant and self-effacing, document something also of the role of Victoria Bennett in making the New Zealand reputation and of the complex exchange between two women as a friendship unfolded between them during the voyage and at the ensuing conference. This friendship constituted for Andrews a lens through which to reflect upon her Pakeha identity and her wish for affirmation as a good cultural internationalist overseas and a good settler colonial at home. The two were intertwined during the PPWA conference but fell apart when she reentered the national domain. At a more fundamental level, her inclusive stance remains impressive. In racism she saw the source of a terrible fate for the whole of humankind, a message that would be forcefully reiterated at the next conference, held in 1937, when another world war seemed inevitable. Not long before her death in 1941, she spoke of these lifelong concerns to the Dominion Conference of the Women Teachers’ Association. Emphasizing the power of the individual to learn a new way of being in the world, she warned: Unless we can clearly see and accept the broad proposition that the human race is a single human family . . . unless we can reject or revolutionise our nineteenth-century mentality and subscribe to the initial axiom of interdependence, agreement must remain impossible, and we shall have to resign ourselves . . . to plunging breathlessly to our own destruction. . . . The effort to agree may almost kill us; the failure to do so most certainly will.101 Interracial Friendship  127

For Victoria Bennett, appearing at the conference in 1934 advanced her reputation as an elite Maori woman. It consolidated her connections to Pakeha women’s international organizations as well as contributed to her already high standing within her own community. Through participation in the PPWA network, she asserted her agency not only as the first among Maori members to address a women’s international network but also as a Polynesian woman of rank. In Honolulu she was an interlocutor between Polynesians and Maori, Pakeha and Maori, and Pakeha and other white women in the Pacific region. She continued to participate in PPWA conferences over the following decades, endorsing their value to the inaugural MWWL Conference held in Wellington in 1951. Advising delegates that she and Jean Hammond had been privileged to attend in 1934, she explained: “There is plenty to do at the Conferences. We lay down our problems and they tell us theirs. The problems are the same in every country.” Reiterating the conference ideal of interpersonal exchange, she asserted: “It is meeting face to face that is going to help towards gaining peace in the world.”102 One of the women in the audience was Mira Petricevich, whose involvement in the PPWA occupies chapter 5. The next chapter, however, turns to women’s peace politics and its uneasy relationship to cultural diversity and globalization in the women’s Pan-Pacific.

128  Chapter 3

Four Population, Peace, and Protection

I

n the summer of 1937, women internationalists from across the Pacific gathered in Vancouver, Canada, for the fourth Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference. Under the conference theme of “Practical Ways and Means to Promote Peace,” over the next two weeks participants discussed a range of issues concerning the promotion of world cooperation and the end of war. Projects with titles such as “Youth Movements for Peace,” “International Affairs Today,” “Development of Public Opinion,” and “Population” were considered by the conference as it grappled with the implications of increasing unrest in Europe and Asia. While delegates traveled toward the conference, Sino-Japanese hostilities in Manchuria recommenced and were destined to escalate by December into the horrors of Nanking.1 To many of those present in 1937, a second world war seemed imminent, underlining even more strongly the need for a new way forward in global affairs. The promotion of peace was integral to the PPWA’s cultural internationalist outlook. Not simply a peace organization, nor particularly interested in asserting womankind’s essential capacity for pacifism, the association saw in its cross-cultural conference praxis the makings of a peaceful world community. Through greater familiarity than men had with the domestic world, it argued, women shared an acute awareness of the essential interconnection between people. They were better able therefore to see links between individual physical and psychological wellbeing and the formation of healthy, cooperative, internationally minded world communities. The value of women’s inherent capacity to understand the importance of community was highlighted in 1930 by the chair of the US Mainland delegation, Alice Parsons (National League of Women Voters). Parsons pointed to the imperative for all women, not just those who were active pacifists in peace societies, to join in opposing the isolationism or aggressive nationalism emanating from the masculine origins of citizenship, and to promote in its place a feminine model of global citizenry based on cooperation and interrelationship.2 If pacifism was a core element of women’s internationalism more generally, the recent experience of a world war had confronted many among 129

its membership. Pacifism continued to be a divisive issue into the interwar era and would again divide individuals as the 1930s witnessed once more a rise in militarism around the world. In 1932 the association’s first honorary president, North American feminist Jane Addams, had written to British activist Kathleen Courtney about the problem of pacifism for the women’s movement. As the vice president of the Peace and Disarmament Committee of Women’s International Organisations based in Geneva, Courtney lobbied the League of Nations on behalf of women’s organizations supporting peace. In her letter to Courtney, Addams reflected on the traumatic split that had occurred during World War I when, in 1915, protesting the inclusion of a Germany delegate, the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies of Great Britain had refused to send its own representative to the International Women’s Peace Congress at the Hague. A breakaway group that included Courtney responded by forming the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). The league had gone on to campaign internationally against not only war but also all forms of bigotry and oppression, including the violence of racism, which it considered to be among war’s central causes.3 As we saw in the previous chapter, Elsie Andrews of the New Zealand delegation had found her own absolute pacifism at odds with the views of other delegation leaders who expressed their willingness to support war in order to protect world peace. Cognizant of these differences in the pacifist community—absolutist versus relativist—Addams acknowledged the enormous difficulties in carrying out a resolutely pacifist agenda at the international level, adding that maintaining meaningful relations across national and cultural diversity was difficult even in times of peace. Given that international conferences, if in microcosm, were to provide a prophylactic to world war, then internal divisions met there only emphasized the necessity to work more assiduously on creating positive cultural relations. Thinking back over the years, Addams continued: “Perhaps it takes more moral energy than any of us possess. . . . Like the bulk of our generation we may be finding international community too difficult, even upon the very small scale in which we are trying it.”4 The PPWA would offer an opportunity for leading women activists like Addams and Courtney to rearticulate a women’s agenda for peace in the interwar context by making cultural diversity and nationalism the method of their cooperative work. Moreover, a cultural internationalist approach was particularly pertinent following the war as empires of old were reconfigured and new anticolonial nationalisms emerged across the world. If World War I had shown that conflict over economics, population, and territory was the primary cause of war, racism was considered its underlying source. In her lecture to the PPWA conference in Vancouver in 1937, Courtney would speak movingly of the worsening situation facing the world. Yet 130  Chapter 4

again, the mobilization of race antagonisms was proving a destructive force in world affairs. The world was being drawn into another war through misunderstanding, bigotry, and fear—while “man seeks peace, yet everywhere prepares for war.” More than ever, the Pacific figured as a site in which the future of the world was to be decided: “Peace today means international cooperation, and the real problem [facing us in the present] is to bring about such cooperation among the peoples of the Pacific.”5 In 1928 Jane Addams had requested that motherhood be the focus of the first conference, fearing that division over pacifism as had been the Euro-American women’s experience would be repeated amid the nascent Pan-Pacific community. At the end of the conference in 1934, however, the Japan delegation formally requested that peace be added to the next conference program.6 Peace and suffrage had been cemented in Japanese feminist politics, not least through the visit of Addams herself in the early 1920s.7 As their country—like others in the region, such as the United States—became increasingly militaristic, joining with other women to talk about peace took on a powerful significance for these delegates. They suggested Japan be considered as the location for the 1937 conference, but the military government in Japan and worsening relations with China led to the next conference being convened in Canada. Peace politics would become a hotly debated topic in Vancouver. Given the worsening world situation, the PPWA was rightly proud of its achievement in successfully organizing an international conference in 1937. At this, its first fully independent conference (entirely without PPU funding), the PPWA’s “East meets West” agenda continued to influence proceedings. Given the substantial populations of Chinese and Japanese Canadians, it was an agenda well received by locals and warmly reported in the press. The correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia’s Isabel Randall Colyer, extolled, for example, the “spirit of goodwill and friendly cooperation” that existed when the “women of the East meet women of the West” at the conference. She found in their cooperation an example for exchange and goodwill between their two civilizations. Engaged in sharing views “freely, without fear of misunderstanding” on vital questions of hygiene, health, population, education, public opinion, and standards of living, she wrote, delegates had been able to establish dialogue also on the “most important [issue] of all, ways and means for promoting world peace. . . . No easy task this, with the tragic background of war clouds to right and left.”8 Although world organization had advanced in many ways, imminent world war indicated failure in the urgent task of developing a workable global civilization. The fear of cultural and racial difference still seemed to provide a context for aggressive individualism and nationalism. Nor would democracy itself ensure world peace, as was apparent in the recent ascendancy of fascism Population, Peace, and Protection  131

and national socialism in Italy and Germany. Japan’s invasion of Chinese territory had illustrated the potential for militarism among rising nations also, as it reiterated the territorial ambitions of European empire. Now, more than ever, the world community needed to learn from women the cross-cultural skills necessary to for a peaceful future. According to Bessie Rischbieth, despite current setbacks in world affairs, women internationalists routinely disseminated these skills via their work in international networks around the globe: By earnestly studying the needs and aims of other nations, analysing carefully the reasons of past wars and international disputes, exchanging views and learning more of the ideals, habits and customs of other countries, with the hand of true love and fellowship extended, the women who organise and attend the Pan-Pacific Conferences hope to thus spread and diffuse these interests to women throughout the world, creating new friendships, cementing old ties and breaking down all prejudices, in the hope that war in time will become an utter impossibility.9

Sasha Davidson, a public lecturer from Toronto and guest of the Canada delegation, reiterated these hopes. She advised PPWA delegates: “We must become equipped with new principles and in so doing cultivate a will for change. We must evoke ways of combining order and stability with liberty and chance. The essence of democracy is not politics, but a way of life.”10 US delegate Mary Woolley argued further that, despite their lesser experience in public life, “the women of the East as well as of the West” had “greater freedom and wider training” than men and were better equipped to formulate the new way of life for a world civilization. They were less bound by the aggressive individualism of modern society, under which men had increasingly become disconnected from their humanity. Women, she asserted, understood that “way of life” was measured in how one lived ethically within the culturally diverse world community, and not by personal acquisition or power. Seeking to illustrate her view that women shared a perspective on the world that transcended cultural difference, Woolley pointed to the example of Mei Huan-Chuen (president of the Chinese [Shanghai] Young Women’s Christian Association). When complimented for her capacity to participate in the PPWA, the China delegation leader had replied: “For generations, Chinese women in the house have been learning how to meet and deal with human relationships.”11 Above all else, friendly relations between the Japan and China delegations during this period in history seemed to confirm the capacity for women’s cultural internationalism. Despite their “very deep racial and na132  Chapter 4

tional pride,” one commentator declared, Japanese and Chinese women in their respective delegations met each other with “determined goodwill” and with the very kind of “new heart” the world needed.12 Others commended the Japan delegates for expressing opposition to the kind of aggressive nationalism practiced by their government toward China. The Japan delegation leader, Tsune Gauntlett, told the conference: “What is needed today is an entire change in the mentality of all nations.”13 Gauntlett had been one of a group of Japanese women internationalists who, six years earlier at the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom international conference, had apologized on behalf of their government for the first invasion of Manchuria.14 The delegation from China brought its own hopes for cross-cultural understanding. Emphasizing its interest in the peaceful resolution of national conflict through international agreement, the delegates offered gifts of tiny scissors to each of their co-delegates. Their leader, Mei Huan-Chuen, explained that the scissors symbolized a desire “to cut away all the causes of international misunderstanding.”15 In 1928, Dr. Mei Ting of the China delegation had expressed doubts concerning the readiness of Chinese women to participate in the PPWA. Nearly ten years later, Mei Huan-Chuen would conclude that the 1937 conference experience had been a valuable one. In the closing session, she stated that having been instructed by her government “to come and give the Conference the once over,” she had been convinced of its worth by “the patience, tolerance, zeal and great capacity for work shown by all the delegates,” and that “China should never in future doubt she has a part to play in the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference.”16 These examples of cooperative relations and enthusiasm for international dialogue were of particular significance to the PPWA, with its system of national delegations. Rather than increasing hostilities between women divided by national policies, it seemed to have provided a way to rearticulate nationalism itself. Arguably, the anti-nationalism of women pacifists in earlier decades had proven too stringent for the women’s community, and in the end the majority had chosen to support their own nations in the world war. As it had from the very first conference, the use of ethical nationalism exercised the thoughts of Pan-Pacific women delegates in Vancouver. In preparation for the conference, the International Relations Section of the PPWA considered the question “National Policy as it affects International Relations: What limitations on Nationalism were desirable?” While the section would answer (predictably) that ultimately the League of Nations would provide the necessary limitations, the worsening global situation confirmed for many PPWA internationalists the need for a new kind of cooperative, outward-looking nationalism. In her opening address to the conference Population, Peace, and Protection  133

in 1934, president Georgina Sweet called for a reconceptualization of the nation toward a “new era in civilization.” She quoted the work of Alfred Zimmern, who was the author of Problems of Peace, published in 1932, and a founding member of UNESCO. Like many other Western commentators, Zimmern had been deeply affected by the defeat of Russia by Japan. According to historian Frank Furedi, he was one among his generation who warned of the victory of the nonwhite races unless the West strengthened its racial bonds.17 Sweet found in his publication a more benign emphasis on the value of public service and world citizenship, although, given the racialized context of talk about a future world civilization, undoubtedly the two sides of Zimmern’s thesis were interconnected. Sweet advised her audience that Zimmern had asserted that the formation of “true communities” was only possible through intimacy and interpersonal trust, as well as through “thinking for others in terms of public service.” Even though most nations were “predominantly nationalistic in thought” in the older sense, Sweet saw about her the beginnings of a worldwide movement seeking to renounce aggressive nationalism and to replace it with “internationally minded” individuals and nations. While some women worked toward these ends in public life, others achieved parallel outcomes in the domestic domain. Therefore, she concluded, “no one surely will deny the very powerful influence exerted by women, whether directly as individuals or indirectly through the family as the unit of society.”18 But nationalism was more than affect; it was also tied to territory. Absent from Sweet’s analysis was attention to the imperial and colonial interests by which the European nations had established themselves as world powers. After all, it had been the asserted threat to this ascendancy by Japan’s defeat of Russia that had inspired Zimmern. Continuing to dominate world history, although increasingly joined by such new competitors for world power, the imperial nations had involved millions of colonized peoples in World War I, while their promises concerning decolonization following the war had not been kept. At the same time, the worldwide Depression in the late 1920s had precipitated an era of unprecedented economic protectionism intended to bolster weakened Western economies in an increasingly global economic marketplace. Although not a member of the League of Nations, the United States was an important force in the ILO and, through the Monroe Doctrine, had established the right of nations to defend economic interests, both directly and through tariffs. Meanwhile, the colonies—including some more recently acquired—continued to supply the resources necessary for economic recovery in the West.19 These powerful changes in global relations were not without implications for cultural internationalism. In its editorial on the conference, the 134  Chapter 4

Vancouver Daily Times called for a “worldwide women’s strike against war.” Its editor asserted that “a saner conduct of international affairs” was essential, for “do we, or do we not, want to save civilization?”20 But what would a world civilization look like when shared in cross-cultural context, and how would the interests of women across the world be articulated within its reformulation? These questions confronted the 1937 conference as it contemplated the intertwined questions of how to promote peace, whether women needed protection or were equal to men, and how the two elements of their agenda (the one pacifist and anti-racist, and the other social reformist) might combine to produce world progress. While women might exhibit special qualities in relation to cooperative internationalism, the PPWA had already shown itself divided over the question of a women-only forum. As discussed earlier, its membership had expressed differing opinions concerning the necessity or otherwise of establishing a women’s network in the Pacific region. Many considered this a retrograde step, condemning women and women’s issues to greater rather than less marginalization. This period also saw conflicting approaches by women’s organizations lobbying the League of Nations. Some groups argued that self-determination for women would be best achieved through the establishment of protective legislation, while others promoted an equal rights agenda based on nondiscrimination between the sexes. The latter would gain ascendancy in the UN after the war.21 The question of “difference versus equality” feminism underlying these opposing strategies had its parallel in the cultural internationalism of the PPWA, but with an additional questioning of the Eurocentric model assumed by both sides of the equity argument. Many non-Western delegates at the PPWA, particularly those from Japan and Southeast Asia, challenged assumptions about the trajectory of development in the Pacific and the meaning of progress assumed by the Western teleological model. Although Western and non-Western delegates were not monolithic blocs uniformly adopting opposing positions on this issue, and although individual delegates responded differently to the equityor-protection debate,22 behind a growing awareness of these variety of positions remained the larger question of Westernization and feminism’s role in the Pacific. It was a question never fully resolved. Non-Western delegates would variously appropriate and/or reject elements of the pro-protectionist and pacifist version of Christian and social-reform international feminism on which the PPWA was founded. Some would express doubts about the overtly protectionist approach adopted by the PPWA and resent its representation of Pacific women as only likely to achieve modernity through adopting Western notions of a sexual double standard and of women’s vulnerability to exploitation by men, as well as female endangerment in the Population, Peace, and Protection  135

industrialized workplace. Despite these expressed doubts, the very foundations of the PPWA were protectionist, as it proposed the need to provide a protective space in which non-Western women practiced internationalism and Western women learned about cultural relativism (or, indeed, the world learned to cooperate). More specifically, according to the Pan-Pacific agenda for social reform in the region, non-Western women would need the support of legislative protection if they were to negotiate the gendered impacts of modernization. Thus, the majority of PPWA members, especially those from the ostensibly modernized Western countries, advocated “universal” reforms, such as restriction from night factory work, the regulation of prostitution against the sexual double standard, and the medicalization of reproduction. Establishing protective standards for women was among reforms in the settler nations of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Hawai‘i, and the US Mainland, where anxiety about population quantity and quality overarched ideals about health, fitness, and national vitality, all of which were fundamental to white nationhood. From this perspective, population was inherently a peace issue. If the virility of the white population was central to settler colonial nation formation, the modern management of the rising global population was equally pressing. By the early twentieth century, birth control was one strategy (if still controversial) by which some commentators advocated controlling overpopulation’s substantial threat to world peace. In her study of the biopolitics of world health and population in the interwar years, Alison Bashford argues that the League of Nations situated its work on population within economic rather than health concerns, thereby segregating matters of reproduction, birth control, and family planning from the population management and demographic interests of its World Health Organization. Despite the involvement of US birth control campaigner Margaret Sanger, the World Population Conference held in Geneva in 1927 was avowedly “scientific” rather than “applied” in its approach. Instead of the modalities of sexual conduct and reproduction, the Economics Section at the League concerned itself with “space, density, movement, and land.”23 Distinctions between scientific and applied could not be maintained at the national level, however. Issues of reproduction and “fitness” were of primary importance to national policy in the settler colonies of the Pacific Rim, where racial matters were at the forefront. A New Zealand study on birth control had only recently advised that, if “intelligently applied,” birth control could control population growth without adversely affecting the white population.24 Birth control raised other specters, including the application of eugenics to improving white populations. When the US Mainland Committee had originally considered the idea of a Pan-Pacific conference in 1925, it 136  Chapter 4

had included eugenics, the management of population to enhance quality, in its suggestions for the forthcoming program. Although eugenics did not become central to the PPWA’s agenda, more concerned as it was with development and cultural diversity than with racial enhancement, Hawai‘i resident Dr. Vivia Appleton supported its use in improving the quality of offspring in less advanced countries like China.25 At the same time that contraception remained a controversial subject for many of its delegates, the supposedly high birth rates in Asian countries were often claimed to pose a direct threat to nations with smaller, white populations, such as Australia, where early twentieth-century fears about declining birth rates among white and middle-class women were sufficiently strong to instigate a national inquiry.26 And, as we have seen, the idea for the PPWA in 1924 had been inspired by the asserted negative impact of modernization on the birth rate of Pacific island peoples. The political implications of these three levels of debate—the new science of global population demographics, concerns about national fitness and whiteness, and assertions of the degenerative impact of Westernization on “native” reproduction rates—and their connection with world peace would come to the fore in a roundtable on population led by delegates from China, Japan, the United States, Canada, and Australia. To these issues was added a world context in which global immigration patterns and the territorial ambitions of imperial nations were then being challenged by world politics. As the second half of this chapter illustrates, during the roundtable the issue of birth control was considered alongside these larger questions of demography, national territory, and immigration. In effect, the PPWA combined World Health Organization approaches with a cross-cultural debate about women’s birth control and reproductive rights. Despite the PPWA’s asserted commitment to cultural internationalism and its opposition to racial discrimination, in this its first conference held outside of Hawai‘i, settler women among its membership would defend racially discriminatory restrictive immigration policies that characterized the white settler nations of the Pacific Rim, and they did so against the strident criticisms of their Japanese and Chinese colleagues. Vancouver, Conference City In her promotion of the conference in Vancouver, Elizabeth Bailey Price, Canada delegate and honorary president of the Canadian Women’s Press Club, advised delegates that they would find in their host city a modern port with magnificent views and a “pulsating” downtown.27 Following the rapid increase of British migration at the turn of the century, Vancouver was home to nearly one-third of all white Canadians in British Columbia, while JapaPopulation, Peace, and Protection  137

nese and Chinese immigrant populations and a burgeoning tourist industry linked the city to the Pacific.28 Commentators welcoming the international conference anticipated an affirmation of their city’s emerging cosmopolitanism, the Victoria Daily Times predicting that the international gathering would “have a special publicity value from the tourist viewpoint.”29 Not evident in these enthusiastic accounts were the histories of colonization and race that shaped Vancouver, as they had other settler colonial cities in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Hawai‘i. While Indigenous Canadians were excluded from the city precinct, anxieties about Asian populations reemerged during the interwar period, as historian Kay Anderson has shown, with white violence erupting periodically in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Indeed, only a few months after the PPWA conference in Vancouver, for example, Anglo-Canadian women working in Chinese establishments in the city would be forced to leave their jobs due to public campaigns questioning their safety among Asian men.30 Racial tensions in Vancouver would not be discussed during the conference, nor was Canadian immigration restriction critically assessed. Indeed, it made only a fleeting appearance during the Population Pressures Roundtable debate. Despite this, the gendered impacts of restrictive immigration policies in shaping the makeup of the local Chinese community would have been apparent to anyone asking why only a handful of local Chinese women attended conference lectures and events that were open to the public. When donating one hundred dollars to the Pan-Pacific organization, the spokesperson for the Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver made a point of apologizing “for not having more Chinese women in the audience to welcome the delegates,” explaining that “in Canada . . . there is only one Chinese woman to every 300 Chinese men due to the exclusion act of 1923.”31 In another oblique reference to White Canada, Canada delegate Mrs. Jamieson “expressed the hope that the part played by Chinese and Japanese delegates at the conference would help extend goodwill for the nationals of those countries living in Canada.”32 Otherwise, local racial issues were marginalized by a focus on world peace. Commending the overwhelmingly warm reception received by conference delegates in Vancouver, international president and Australia delegate Georgina Sweet emphasized the significant numbers of the predominantly white local population who had embraced the conference. “Certainly one of the best” conferences, it had aroused tremendous interest that showed “beyond doubt,” she asserted, the “special value” of internationalism to the local population.33 One explanation for this popularity was that at this time the Canadian government was promoting peace. Along with other British Commonwealth nations, Canada proclaimed itself ideally placed to broker 138  Chapter 4

a lasting world peace following World War I. In his welcome address to the conference, Canadian prime minister MacKenzie King told assembled delegates of his recent visit to England, where he had affirmed Canada’s role in contributing to goodwill and tolerance to a world environment marked by growing tensions.34 Canadian historian Thomas Socknat has shown that significant numbers of urban British Canadian women and men in these years actively supported international peace politics.35 Thus, given the pacifist tenor within Canadian public life at this time, the PPWA conference was welcomed by the press and patronized by large and appreciative audiences. Reflecting this positive response, the cartoonist for the Vancouver Sun featured leaders from the PPWA as a community of “Goodwill.” Spanning China to the United States, New Zealand and Australia to Canada, Japan to the Philippines, this community comprised Mrs. Huan-Chuen (dean of women, National Central University, Nanking, and representative of the Women’s Federation of the Educational Association of China), Mrs. J. Courtezan (social worker, Philippines), Mrs. A. Beveridge (vice president of the Country Women’s Association, New South Wales, Australia), and Miss E. Andrews (Women Teachers’ Association, New Plymouth, New Zealand). Visiting Korean missionary and lecturer Mrs. Induk Pak represented Korea (as a guest of the Canadians, she was not a voting delegate). The exception among these middle-aged faces was “Miss Vancouver,” Canada’s representative pictured as a youthful modern type. As the Vancouver Daily Province reminded condescendingly, this community of women was gathered to talk not about clothes or cooking but about more serious things.36 The conference hosts, the Canada delegation (the second largest, after the United States) comprised nearly thirty members and hosted another twenty nonvoting delegates, as well as Mrs. Pak. Among them was Alexandra (Sasha) Davidson, a lecturer in international relations from Toronto. The delegation brought together representatives of leading women’s clubs and associations in Canada (including the Vancouver University Women’s Club, Women’s Clubs from various Canadian cities, the Women’s Canadian Club, Women’s Institutes, the League of Nations Union, WILPF, the National Council of Women, and the YWCA), networks mirrored in other delegations at PPWA conferences. Women from these networks had been among those promoting world peace on the international stage since the 1870s.37 Like other delegations, this was a loosely knit group representing some of the leading women’s organizations and expertise in Canada. They included activist Helen MacGill, representative of the National Council of Women,38 and Violet McNaughton, a representative of WILPF who had participated in its Prague conference in 1929 before joining the PPWA in 1937. Not all had personal experience of international activism, however. The well-known Population, Peace, and Protection  139

radio personality and author Nellie McClung, who attended as a representative of the Canadian Radio Commission, was a campaigner for women in public life and became a Liberal member of the Alberta legislature from 1921 to 1926. According to historian Veronica Strong-Boag, McClung was, however, “intensely aware of feminism’s international character” through such organizations as the National Council of Women of Canada and WILPF.39 All were interested in strengthening the relationship between Canada and the Pacific and in combining social reform with world peace. Their leader, Mary Bollert, was the most experienced internationalist among the Canada delegates. Bollert had gained a master of arts degree from the University of Toronto in the late 1910s before lecturing on education and English at Columbia University, New York, and later at the University of British Columbia. During these years, she had joined a number of women’s organizations, including the National Council of Women and the University Women’s Club, becoming national secretary of the former and then national president of the latter from 1926 to 1929. A founder of the Parent-Teacher Association of Canada, she was appointed dean of women at the University of British Columbia in 1922. Committed to promoting women’s education, Bollert worked to raise the status of women students in the eyes of the university.40 Her concern for equity in educational experience extended to questions of diversity within the student population. Bollert was also interested in the experiences of mixed-descent Japanese-Canadian students studying in Vancouver, a sympathy more remarkable when considered in the context of the detention of Japanese living in Canada during the next war.41 By 1937 Mary Bollert was already an experienced member of numerous international organizations. She had attended the World Federation of Educational Institutions at San Francisco in 1924 and in Geneva in 1929. And she had participated at conferences convened by the IPR at Honolulu in 1925 and at Banff in 1933. In the following year, reflecting her interest in the experiences of Japanese students living in Canada, she toured Japan as a guest of the Japanese YWCA.42 A regular of PPWA conferences by 1937, as the Canada delegation’s leader she became the association’s president. According to international president Georgina Sweet, Bollert “carried the responsibility [for organizing the Vancouver conference] almost alone.”43 Her efforts were well rewarded when the Vancouver conference attracted more members to the association, with 126 delegates now representing nine countries. At the same time, the delegations of Australia, New Zealand, the US Mainland, and Hawai‘i continued to form the nucleus of the association. The engagement with cultural diversity was again an important element of the conference program. Building on the streamlining of the agenda and program begun at the 1934 conference, further efforts were made in 140  Chapter 4

Mary Bollert (right) with Canada delegates. Pan-Pacific, April–June 1937, 54. Courtesy of the Mitchell Library, Sydney.

1937 to simplify the association’s aims and objectives. Hoping to focus its energies on the new self-awareness of the cultural internationalist, the conference finally abandoned the idea of resolutions. Where earlier conferences had passed resolutions from each section, only four fundamental resolutions were produced in 1934, and in 1937 none at all. Concerned that resolutions implied an interest only in statistics and data or in voting to resolve divisive issues, the organizers preferred that their association be known as “a body seeking understanding and cooperation.”44 Alongside this concern for public opinion was the association’s interest in greater control of the press. A Public Opinion Section was initiated together with an international program chair, and members were advised that, in future, all interactions with the press were to be monitored and coordinated.45 Central press releases were to be instigated forthwith. Conference organizers embraced new technologies, agreeing to have a newsreel made of the conference and to secure greater international publicity for their association. Over the next years, the association would continue to use the media effectively, attracting extensive and positive press reports wherever it held its conferences. In these troubled times, continuing into the postwar years, the association attempted to distance itself from negative publicity, seeking to emphasize intellectual and social unity rather than any overtly political agenda. But, as we have seen, the social and cultural were the highly political domains in which interracial harmony and cross-cultural exchange were to be practiced. Nor could intellectual disagreement be attributed merely to cultural difference, as the Population Pressures Roundtable would soon illustrate. One of the first social outings organized by the Canadian hosts was a trip to the Peace Arch between Surrey, British Columbia, and Blaine, in Washington State. Constructed in 1924, the arch marked one hundred years of peace between the United States and Canada. Standing in its shadows, the delegates, ironically, sang the British and US national anthems before launching into an international anthem written especially for the conference. The hymn extolled the virtue of friendly relations between the United States and Canada as “symbolic” of the peace that delegates sought for the whole world.46 The decidedly Anglo-centric flavor of the proceedings surely jarred with the cultural internationalist aims of the Pan-Pacific and perhaps seemed thus to China delegate Miss My-U Chen. She later assured a representative of the Vancouver press nonetheless that she had been delighted by the unforgettable experience of “meeting with you—my friends” under “an arch of peace.”47 At evening events, delegates appeared in fashionable gowns or dramatic national dress. As glamorous women, they enjoyed the pleasures of international conference-going. Peace politics combined with fashion as “the Four Pax Sisters”—Bollert, Ann Satterthwaite, Tsune Gauntlett, 142  Chapter 4

and another—demonstrated one night. They arrived for dinner in evening dresses made from fabric specially printed with “Pax, the association’s motto for peace, in conventional designs of circles, triangles and the four points of the compass.” As they paraded in front of gathered delegates, Satterthwaite joked: “It’s no use getting too envious . . . you can’t copy us . . . they aren’t making any more of this material.”48 As at previous conferences, the China delegation comprised mostly women working for the Shanghai YWCA. Many of them had taken advantage of educational fellowships in the United States and were fluent English speakers. One of the international presidents for the PPWA in Vancouver, China delegation leader Mei Huan-Chuen had been among those who attended the 1928 conference. A resident of Shanghai, but educated in Hawai‘i and then Columbia University, she now taught at a girls’ school in her home city. As had Dr. Ting in 1928, she and the China delegates spoke proudly of women’s rights under the revolutionary regime of New China, where women and men enjoyed equal access to education. Indeed, coeducation in China meant not only sharing classes with men but also wearing the same dress and adopting men’s names. “Miss” Mei Yu Chen, dean of women at Nanking College, remarked, “It is considered very old fashioned to have a woman’s name,” adding that not since her university days had she been called “Miss.” Yu Chen impressed upon her audience that employment and wages in China were the same for both sexes and that their national aim was to graduate over a million young women and men every year.49 The opportunity to speak internationally was considered by the PPWA leadership to be especially important for Japan delegates. By 1924, legislation in Japan had been passed to punish those harboring “dangerous thoughts.”50 Worsening conditions for pacifism and women’s rights since the mid-1930s had severely hampered the Japanese women’s movement.51 At the previous conference in 1934, concern about hostility toward internationalism in Japan had led PPWA organizers to reject Tokyo and choose Vancouver as its next conference venue. In light of the very real threat faced by Japanese women activists, the PPWA undoubtedly provided a significant opportunity for dialogue with other internationalists in the region. The leader of the Japan delegation was an experienced international campaigner. Although described rather dismissively by the Vancouver Daily Province as a “Japanese doll” bravely speaking while cannons exchanged fire in Beijing,52 Tsune Gauntlett was one of the most significant international activists of her day. Formerly Tsune Yamada, she had been educated in a girls’ missionary high school and had taught English in Tokyo. With the support of her British husband, a professor at Tokyo’s University of Commerce, Gauntlett continued her activist career after marriage.53 As had been the case Population, Peace, and Protection  143

Tsune Gauntlett. PanPacific, April–June 1937, 54. Courtesy of the Mitchell Library, Sydney.

for women activists in many other countries, World War I persuaded her of the urgent need for world peace, and she helped found the Japanese women’s peace movement. Through membership in Japan’s YWCA, Gauntlett became a Japanese adviser to its World Association. She then joined the Peace Committee of the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship and represented Japanese women at the World Convention of the YWCA at Geneva in 1920. Ten years later, on their behalf, she attended the Washington Conference on the Cause and Cure of War. Under the leadership of renowned US feminist Carrie Chapman Catt, the Committee on the Cause and Cure of War aimed to direct women’s energies toward identifying the causes of war and their resolution. This organization, along with WILPF, greatly influenced the peace agenda articulated by the PPWA in Vancouver. Far from a bystander of the Western women’s peace movement, Gauntlett had presented an important peace petition signed by 180,000 Japanese 144  Chapter 4

women and men to the Washington Conference on Disarmament in 1930.54 Already well versed in Western feminist pacifist politics and its international network by the time she joined the PPWA in 1928, she would remain a stalwart supporter of the association until her death shortly after World War II. Ambivalence toward Japan delegates like Gauntlett reflected a continuing Orientalism among contemporaries. In 1937, for example, the Vancouver Sun reported approvingly of “the simple green of the kimono” worn by Gauntlett, admiring the contrast of the “costume of her native land” with “the brilliant crimson gown of the Filipino spokesman [sic], who sat next to her on the platform, and the striking blue dress of the Chinese delegation.”55 Yet Gauntlett was an extremely important figure within the PPWA whose presence facilitated its “East meets West” claims in relation to Japan. At the same time, as Rumi Yasutake has noted, Gauntlett cannot be claimed as representative of women in Japan. Indeed, most of the Japanese women activists attending the PPWA were extraordinarily independent in comparison to the majority of women in their country. If much the same could be said of PPWA delegates more generally, then Gauntlett enjoyed a particularly privileged status by virtue of her marriage to a Westerner. Given her British citizenship and her fluency in English, she occupied a hybrid cultural and racial position that no doubt helped secure her popularity within the association. Arguably she embodied the dualism desired by cultural internationalism, and she used it to great effect. Working to retain international dialogue with Chinese women throughout this period, under the auspices of the YWCA she traveled to China early in 1937 to promote the Vancouver conference.56 Earlier she had hosted a visit by Chinese women to Tokyo, noting: “The desire to promote peace is growing among women. Mrs. Lui of China spent a few days in Tokyo and there was much discussion as to how to build a bridge of goodwill and peace between the two countries.”57 Gauntlett was voted the president of the Pan-Pacific association in 1937. Her British citizenship would protect her from the worst impacts of Japan’s wartime defeat, and she continued to work in the PPWA until her death in early 1954. Talking of Peace When the conference opened on the evening of Tuesday, July 13, 1937, several hundreds of the Vancouver public arrived to attend the session. Public interest had far exceeded expectation, and only half those hoping to attend the keynote addresses could be accommodated in the large conference hall of the Hotel Vancouver. In the end, more than a thousand crowded into the Oak Room to see outgoing president Tsune Gauntlett hand over the reins to Population, Peace, and Protection  145

Mary Bollert and to hear the guest speaker from London (as we have seen, a correspondent of Jane Addams), the peace activist Kathleen Courtney. To the loud applause of the capacity audience, Bollert opened the proceedings with an assertion that, despite impending war, international peace remained possible: “History . . . has shown that great ideas do, in the long run, come to fruition. Our great idea is that the reign of reason will sometime replace the reign of force. To that end we are looking, helping ourselves with study and a growth of international understanding.”58 Gauntlett then spoke of the importance of friendship and cooperation. Although those who, like herself, supported peace had a clear objective—the end of war—still “we have not acquired the technique,” she advised, “nor, in many cases, the necessary goodwill to reach it.” Emphasizing that the cultural internationalist ideal supplied a necessary element in its development, she observed, however, that “merely talking about peace [cannot] change the world unless accompanied by a deeper, spiritual commitment to tolerance.”59 The education of the self in the skills of cross-cultural collaboration was essential, and this was the central task of the conference and the association. Last to speak, Kathleen Courtney was one of the founders of WILPF, an official observer at League of Nations Disarmament Conferences, and a speaker at the 1930 and 1936 Conferences on the Cause and Cure of War held in Washington. Her participation as a guest of the PPWA followed a six-month lecture tour in Canada at the invitation of that country’s League of Nations Union and would lead to a similarly exhausting tour in Australia and New Zealand. Courtney was an expert on the League of Nations and an avid supporter of its potential; despite its evident failure to protect the world from warfare and discord, she considered the League a viable vehicle for the coming world order.60 Thus, she advised the Vancouver audience, “it was not the League covenant, but the failure to apply it through lack of confidence of the member nations which had brought the League into disrepute.”61 A few days later, US delegate Josephine Schain expanded on these opening remarks. A graduate of the University of Minnesota who practiced legal aid, Schain had from early in her activist career worked assiduously for the National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War, which, like WILPF, was resolutely antiwar.62 Schain had chaired the Peace Committee of the International Alliance of Women conference held in Istanbul in the mid1930s and attended peace conferences in Brussels (attracting five thousand delegates from forty countries) and South America. She was well known to Addams, Courtney, and others and, as discussed in chapter 5, would become an important figure to the PPWA in the 1950s. In her analysis of the causes of war, Schain blamed the armaments race, as well as national animosities, trade barriers, and economic inequality 146  Chapter 4

between nations, for leading the world toward global disaster. Emphasizing the significance of both individual and global change, she concluded her hard-edged argument for the end of the arms industry with a plea for those “spiritual impulses” nurturing goodwill and cooperation between individuals and nations. Above all, she asserted, tolerance must be encouraged as an essential “civic consciousness.” Cooperation in the global context required acknowledging the fundamental benefit of moderation—between nations and governments as well as individuals. Peacetime sacrifices (through sharing power and wealth) would have to be made by the more advanced nations if they were to save their people from the far more terrible sacrifices of world war.63 Securing world peace would require teaching individuals and groups to reject the excesses of individualism, militarism, and totalitarianism and to embrace personal, cultural, and national restraint and tolerance. Among the dangers facing the world, the rise of fascism in countries such as Italy and Germany had illustrated the power of propaganda to influence young people. According to Schain and other speakers, the lessons of World War I seemed to have been forgotten. Through the pernicious effects of propaganda, asserted Canada delegate Sasha Davidson, the competitive individualism of capitalism and the passive individualism of totalitarianism had fatally combined in communist and fascist countries to endanger the world.64 A global community would need to replace the false gods of material success and fanatical nationalism if the truer happiness of responsible communalism were to be achieved. Such a shift in global outlook would result in a new pattern of living in which spiritual fulfillment would be ascribed the same status as socioeconomic success.65 Henceforth, young people would not be deluded by propagandist mass politics but would understand themselves as individuals intimately interlinked to all other human beings.66 Youth movements for peace would wean young people away from the influence of the fanaticism that led to world war. Special attention was given to the shaping of public opinion at a Technique of Public Opinion Roundtable, led by Canadian journalist Violet McNaughton.67 Reemphasizing the importance of “way of life” to reforming global politics, the conference would conclude that greater emphasis needed to be given to educating young people in “how to live” ethically in an era of rapid change.68 Recognizing women and children’s rights was integral to the peaceful society of the future, to be characterized by justice for all. Protecting Pacific Women Along with a reformulation of citizenship and a revolution in education, the ethical way of life would provide for the protection of Pan-Pacific women Population, Peace, and Protection  147

from the increasing sexual exploitation wrought by unregulated modernization. In the Pacific of the 1930s, militarization, modernization, and sexualization went hand in hand. Writing to Princess Radziwill at the League of Nations in 1936, Bessie Rischbieth noted that Honolulu had become a virtual military zone with the buildup of US troops in the Pacific. Women living in the region were subjected to forced medical examination for venereal disease by military authorities, she reported, as women of late nineteenth-century England had been after passage of the Contagious Diseases Act; women activists then had fought against the act, seeking to establish an “equal moral standard” between women and men.69 Seemingly, the same basic rights had not yet arrived for women in the Pacific. For Rischbieth, militarization in the Pacific and its local impact on women graphically illustrated the importance of the practical application of cultural internationalism. She wrote: This journey has again brought home to me the importance and necessity of organizing women in the Pacific area—to popularise and socialise the findings of more scientific groups such as the Institute of Pacific Relations and the Pan-Pacific Union. Women organised can do much to bring about a better understanding between the women of the orient and the occident. Such an understanding is a strong factor in the problem of world peace. Then again, all that Western women have struggled for in the social, economic, political field is challenged in this area where the exploitation of eastern women for cheap labour and other purposes is likely.70

New Zealand delegate Mildred Staley (a retired physician living in Honolulu) warned Rischbieth that “conditions are very peculiar [in Hawai‘i], owing to the vast numbers . . . of service men to be ‘provided for’ and of the illegalities connected with the traffic here.”71 These peculiar conditions were interpreted by both women as indicative of the negative effects of unmediated Westernization upon women of the Pacific, and as ensuing conference debate on the subject of prostitution in the Pacific confirmed, they considered that it required a rather different political response than that of Western feminist campaigns pursuing an end to the “traffic in women” on moral grounds. During the first conference in 1928, Jane Addams had led a special session on prostitution at which she too spoke about “a new conscience to an ancient evil.” Addams was for eradication through international legislation complemented by finding alternative employment for women involved. Rather than emotionalism or moralizing, she advised, a viable future for such women would bring about the end of prostitution. Reflecting on the transnational nature of the supply of women on her return to the United States, Addams advised the San Francisco Chronicle, “As long as one country in the 148  Chapter 4

Pacific area allows segregated vice districts to operate legally the traffic in women will go on. . . . As soon as these districts are abolished this traffic will automatically stop.”72 This was the same argument made by Dame Rachel Crowdy when she spoke on the traffic in women to the association in 1930, leading then to a resolution in support of the League of Nations’ opposition. Crowdy noted that on the last day of the Roundtable on Social Reform, a discussion of the methods of control of prostitution and the benefits or otherwise of its regulation in licensed house systems in the region particularly interested Japan delegates.73 By 1937, however, disagreement over the universal application of antiprostitution policies revealed divisions between Pan-Pacific women. In Rischbieth’s account of a militarizing Pacific and its impact on local women, the prostitution of non-Western women is recognized as an effect of Westernization. Prostitution appears in her analysis to be more than simply the outcome of inequitable sexual relations between women and (by implications, local) men. How to deal with colonial masculinity, rather than simply ascribe the sexual exploitation of women to the negative effects of local double standards, also particularly concerned delegates from colonized countries in the region where “national” governments were under external, often US, control. On behalf of the Philippines delegation, for example, the first woman graduate from the University of the Philippines, Maria Paz Mendoza-Guazon, was undoubtedly cognizant of this slippage in PPWA thinking as she argued in favor of licensing rather than eradication. In 1931 Mendoza-Guazon had presented a paper at the IPR on the status of Filipino women, emphasizing their modernity but also their pride in tradition.74 The presence of US military bases in her country no doubt inspired MendozaGuazon’s support for the national regulation of prostitution and for police supervision as a safeguard against the spread of venereal disease. In this sense, local forms of prostitution regulation marked the Philippines’ capacity to manage its own affairs.75 Similarly at the 1937 roundtable on prostitution, members of the Japan delegation expressed doubt that an antiprostitution campaign against the sexual double standard would prove effective in their country. They offered a cultural explanation, asserting that Japanese prostitutes considered it their responsibility to protect clients by taking responsibility for their sexual needs. Tsune Gauntlett described the difficulties faced by her campaign to end the tradition of “Yoshiwara,” the selling of women in Japan into prostitution from an early age.76 As historian Sarah Paddle has shown, a parallel campaign against the practice of Mui Tsai, or child slavery, had been the subject of an international campaign coordinated by the China YWCA in Shanghai.77 Other delegates also spoke in doubt of the universal application of the sexual double standard. Instead of focusing on Population, Peace, and Protection  149

sexual exploitation, they argued for culturally relevant social reform to promote the regulation of what we would now call sex work. But the diversity of response is more complicated than simply cultural difference. As historian Sheldon Garon has shown of the complex history of prostitution reform in Japan, from the beginning of the twentieth century heated domestic debate ranged from abolition on moral grounds to the medical regulation of licensed brothels, each expressing Japanese women’s organizations’ efforts to assert their role within the state. Those supporting abolition—many of them leading progressives, including women suffragists in the WCTU—contributed thereby to the strict regulation of morality endorsed by an increasingly authoritarian regime in Japan. Moral reformers on both sides of politics saw unregulated Westernization as endangering Japanese womanhood. Those supporting regulation saw prostitution as a modern industry in urban Japan, while abolitionists hoped to modernize sexual morality in Japan along the lines of Euro-American feminist campaigns.78 Doubts concerning the universal application of social reform across the region were also raised in relation to the night employment of factory women. In 1919 the ILO had adopted a Night Work Convention designed to safeguard women’s role in domestic and family life.79 Nearly twenty years later, China delegates refuted the proposition that night work necessarily endangered women. They argued that banning shift work seriously reduced women’s earning capacity in a rapidly industrializing China, where factories might offer the only opportunity for women to earn money and a degree of independence.80 From the earliest PPWA conference, differing accounts of the relationship of women to modernization had brought into question the universal application of social reform to culturally diverse nations. Critical of the Eurocentric, universalizing perspective on which such assumptions were based, as early as 1928 Mendoza-Guazon had asked her co-delegates: “Why should we standardize the whole world? Why should one people say, this is the line of conduct, this is morality?”81 These were important questions going to the heart of the Pan-Pacific project. In her study of gender and modernity, Rita Felski has pointed out that late nineteenth-century feminism expressed women’s desire to participate in making history.82 This fervent desire continued into the interwar era. For Western women internationalists in the interwar Pacific, the world appeared to be at a great crossroads, either awakening to a glorious future or descending into another world war. Georgina Sweet argued in her presidential address in 1934 that the world faced a momentous opportunity to experience enlightening changes previously witnessed only during the Renaissance.83 White, middle-class women like Sweet were ready to acknowledge cultural difference, but within the context of Westernization and modernization. They envisaged a universal 150  Chapter 4

model of advancement in which cultural diversity played an important but subordinated role. The failure of cultural internationalism to engage more deeply with universalism was perhaps most apparent during the Population Pressures Roundtable in 1937. During its discussions, delegates from the settler colonies sought to defend those racialist immigration restrictions being practiced by their own governments in the name of the peaceful management of population. Their argument exposed the universalist assumptions underlying PPWA transculturalism. Australia and Canada delegates were determined that population and its threat to world peace should be laid at the feet of new nations in Asia, not their own. They rejected the counterargument made by their Japanese colleagues that the culprit was discriminatory immigration policies designed to protect the whiteness of the settler nations. Population Pressure At the Population Pressures Roundtable, chaired by Davidson, delegates from the United States, Japan, China, and Australia presented research on population and immigration in their own countries. Anthropologist Marie Keesing (Hawai‘i) was the international topic director, supported by two deputies, Mrs. J. L. Criswell (League of Women Voters, US Mainland) and Sasha Davidson (Canada). Roundtable leaders were Mary Jeanette Hutton (YWCA, University Women’s Clubs, Canada) and Ida B. Wise Smith (WCTU, League of Women Voters, US Mainland), and reporters for key delegations involved were Sizue Komai (WCTU, YWCA, Japan), Florence Rothwell (English Speaking Union, Australia), and Evangeline E. Philbin (US Civil Service Commission, Professional Women’s Clubs, US Mainland). Various recorders and audience members completed the scene. Given the significance of the “White Australia” policy to relations between Australia and Japan, representatives of these two delegations quickly came to dominate the discussion. In a study guide circulated months earlier, Marie Keesing and her coauthors identified four focus areas. The first was the uneven distribution of population and resources across the region, with some areas of the Pacific overpopulated and others underpopulated. The second was the possibilities of redistributing people and land through opening up migration schemes. The third was that economic reorganization might solve population unevenness by regulating the spread of industrialization. And the final was the use of birth control in areas of overpopulation and the prevention of falling birth rates elsewhere.84 In the 1930s, population pressure was widely considered to be a cause of hostility between nations and peoples. Following the early practices of Population, Peace, and Protection  151

European empires, newer nation-states resorted to territorial expansion rather than deal with overpopulation through internal management. Eliminating excess population through emigration offered another option, at the same time providing much-needed numbers in sparsely populated world zones. Keesing directed delegates to consider the positive role that less restricted emigration might play in relieving the global problem of uneven population spread: How far are immigration restrictions preventing a more even distribution [of population]? What immigration restrictions exist in your own country, against what racial, national, and economic groups? How far is immigration into areas not so restricted proving an outlet for population pressure? What justification may there be for a small population holding an extensive territory that could be more fully used by larger numbers? Under what circumstances does it become perilous to world order?85

Pressing further, Keesing asked delegates to consider the example of the White Australia policy, Australia’s restrictive immigration provisions: “On what does it depend for success? What other countries of the Pacific have comparable policies? What can be said in justification of them? Do they constitute a menace to world peace?”86 Constance Cooke had made a brief reference to White Australia in her report titled “The Status of Alien Women in Australia,” presented at the 1930 conference. With approval, she noted in passing that “Asiatic and other colored immigrants are, with few exceptions, not permitted to enter Australia for the purpose of settling there permanently.”87 Mostly, however, as another Australian noted of PPWA conferences, the rubric of friendly exchange espoused by cultural internationalism required that “the thorny question of immigration was not raised— etiquette forbade [it].”88 Once the question was raised at the 1937 conference roundtable, however, politeness gave way to more pointed exchanges on the topic and to some hard questions. In her keynote on the cause of war, presented earlier in the conference, Sasha Davidson had drawn attention to rapid rates of population increase in non-Western countries, condemning overpopulated nations for seeking an “outlet” for their excess populations in other territories. Davidson stated categorically that nations like Canada would not provide land for this purpose, despite being sparsely populated. Denying that xenophobic fear of Asian immigration was at the heart of her argument, she claimed to be advocating a rational response to a pressing issue. “The solution of this problem will rest on the adoption of an adequate population policy by individual nations,” she stated. “Population pressures should be faced unemotionally. . . . No slogans 152  Chapter 4

such as ‘Yellow Peril,’ ‘Oriental exclusion’, or ‘All-white policy’ should influence the course.”89 Admitting that immigration restriction was designed to protect national unity as well as sovereignty, it was only through the limitation of cultural diversity (and migration from Asian countries), she insisted, that non-Asian nations and their inhabitants could prosper. In this way, she gave racial imperative a cultural spin. Such views echoed papers presented by Canada delegates to the IPR conference held in 1925. Presenters there also defended Canada’s immigration restrictions, expressing their concern that non-British immigrants’ inevitable “failure to assimilate” would “endanger the national type.” As a consequence, they defended Canada’s recent tightening of restrictions on immigration from Asia, the head tax for Chinese allowed into the country increasing from $50 to $500. And they noted with approbation that Japanese immigration into Canada was still regulated by a “gentleman’s agreement” between their two governments.90 Australia delegates at the same conference argued similarly that the use of a (supposedly) nondiscriminatory dictation test in their country—that is, one given in any language chosen by the immigration officer—clearly refuted any accusation of explicitly racial discrimination in their immigration system.91 In her paper titled “The Status of Alien Women in Australia,” delivered at the 1930 conference, Cooke also glossed over the use of the dictation test, emphasizing instead the contributions of those immigrants considered culturally equipped to assimilate effectively into Australia’s culture and the “practically” equal social standing of “alien” (non-British but European) women to the British Australian woman of the same class.92 For her lecture to the 1937 conference, Sasha Davidson joined this support for restrictive immigration policies by stating that their intention was not to discriminate but to protect Anglo-Saxon national and cultural identity. Furthermore, she asserted the limited “possibility of assimilation” for immigrants where the host culture was foreign to them, and where the “nature of the land” and the “standard of living” contrasted with their own. Such policies were far from racist, because they expressed a humane concern to protect especially Japanese and Chinese immigrants from the inevitable discrimination they would face at the hands of their proudly Anglo-Saxon neighbors.93 As Alison Bashford has noted, concerns in Australia about a low (middleclass, white) birth rate and its threat to the future of the white nation were articulated alongside, rather than in isolation of, contemporary world debates about global overpopulation. Land was a key element in both discussions, overpopulation in crowded nations being seen as the cause of starvation and pandemics. Unlike these women internationalists, some contemporary demographers and commentators saw underused tracts of Population, Peace, and Protection  153

land in countries such as Australia as a ready solution to world population problems.94 As the roundtable itself commenced, Australia delegate Jean Daley (Australian Trade Unions) opened the discussion with a map of Australia. Using its unpopulated expanses to illustrate her point that lack of water not antipathy toward Eastern peoples or cultures prohibited any rapid increase of immigration from Japan or China to her country, her mapping of the southern continent was characteristic of contemporary characterizations of Australia as the “dry continent.” In a circular to her delegation colleagues sent several months before the conference, Daley worried that: “a great deal of misconception regarding the ‘Open Spaces’ of Australia had arisen in other countries.”95 Following the cultural internationalist ideal of exchange leading toward mutual understanding, she clearly hoped her map would dispel such misapprehensions and enlighten her Eastern colleagues. As the contemporary controversy over immigration restriction suggests, Daley’s efforts reflected also a degree of defensiveness. Anglo Australian women like Daley were well aware of counterpoints to their argument. Like many of their peers, they were self-conscious in their assertions of the cultural argument for restriction. As Elsie Andrews’ account of the 1934 conference discussed in the previous chapter illustrates, anxiety about the superiority complex of the white race abounded in this period, not least in regards the woman internationalist herself. In her account of the PPWA conference in 1937, for example, Ada Beveridge, a JP and member of the Australia delegation, was careful to note that she enjoyed her stopover in multiracial Hawai‘i on the way to the conference.96 Similarly representing herself as a person who enjoyed the pleasures of cosmopolitan society, another woman from Australia, Eleanor Moore (a WILPF delegate to the 1928 conference), acknowledged the cultural insularity produced by immigration restriction while refuting its racially discriminatory intent. In her book The Quest for Peace, Moore confessed that “whatever the ‘White Australia’ policy had conserved” it had brought an impoverishment in the “cultural and artistic graces” of Australia’s people. Through her travel to the conference, she found that in the “art of living we [Australians] had something to learn from the attractive, beautifully mannered, highly cultured island folk and the Orientals” in Hawai‘i. One of the lessons she claimed from the first conference was that intellectual cooperation might overcome xenophobia, recording her surprise and delight when a Japan delegate told her: “Your mind and mine work alike.” Of her experiences in a lecture tour on “Peoples of the Pacific” for the Country Women’s Association nearly ten years later, Moore recorded that she was well received despite Australia’s renowned anti-Asian sentiment. But this time her surprise came from observing her own, locals in country New South 154  Chapter 4

Wales “unexpectedly ready to respond to suggestions for closer co-operation with these other races.”97 In their presentation to the roundtable, the Japan delegates countered with a lengthy report detailing the case against restrictive immigration. They argued that although Japan might be condemned for invading China, it was not the first nation to take such an action. The twenty-seven-page report, written by the Women’s Peace Association in Tokyo, argued that it was largely through similar colonial expansion that European nations had managed their own excess populations. In the past, countries such as Great Britain had secured their future as world powers by colonizing lands and transferring population overseas. Without alternative options, Japan was now engaged in the same process. Exclusionary practices applied by settler nations against Asian immigration had ultimately created the “establishment . . . of the present regime” in Manchuria, they declared. If Asian immigrants were not welcomed by the Western nations, then Manchuria (presumably, like Korea) was a reasonable and peaceable solution, facilitating an “important outlet” for settlement that would diminish the need for further territorial aggression.98 Not surprisingly, the China delegates strongly objected to the assertion that European immigration policies, however restrictive, justified the recent invasion of their territory. Their delegation had prepared a report on economic reconstruction in China for the conference that asserted two essentials for the future of their young nation: the unification of their people, and the “non-aggression and the friendly attitude of foreign powers, especially her immediate neighbours.”99 At the same time, they joined with their Japanese colleagues in rejecting the commonly made argument that ultimately it was economic development that would ensure the reduction of birth rate in Asia. Refuting that overpopulation reflected the backwardness of their nations, they pointed instead to the negative impact on their economies caused by US tariffs designed to protect US economic interests while dampening economic development in Asian countries. The behavior of the West was putting world peace at risk. The final topic of population pressure and birth control proved equally controversial. US delegate Nadine Kavinoky (a medical doctor from Washington, D.C.) argued in her presentation to the roundtable that birth control was preferable to “the menace of ‘septic abortions,’” but she drew consternation from other delegates when she claimed that Christian churches widely endorsed its use.100 The predominantly Catholic and Protestant women of the PPWA remained deeply divided on the question of religious morality and contraception. We have seen that attitudes toward prostitution and the sexual double standard varied among Population, Peace, and Protection  155

delegates. Reproduction and birth control were other matters of national and colonial politics that, along with the management of population and the regulation of prostitution, concerned national and protonational governments, as well as personal moralities. In 1930 Jean Begg (chair of the Social Service Project for New Zealand) noted that birth control was “relegated” to a roundtable because it raised so many opposing views and no agreement could be expected on the issue.101 Recommended readings in preparation for the 1937 conference included Margaret Sanger’s “International Aspects of Birth Control,” a paper she had presented recently at the Sixth International Birth Control Conference. The choice reflects the PPWA’s determined approach to global issues. Whereas birth control had been excluded from the brief of the League’s World Health Organization, to which Sanger also contributed,102 both demographic and reproductive aspects of the subject were considered by the PPWA. The inclusion of material by Sanger also highlights the varied responses of the governments in Asian countries to contemporary contraception debate. Several years earlier, Sanger had made a highly popular visit to Japan. Denied permission to speak on contraception and accused by the government of “dangerous thoughts,” her subject had been hotly debated nonetheless among middleclass and urban Japanese.103 In her account of the involvement of Sanger in birth control debates in India during this period, Sanjam Ahluwalia makes the cogent point that Western birth control advocates turned to countries like India and Japan in an effort to promote their interests internationally and thus to increase their influence and leverage in their home countries. Conversely, local supporters of birth control selectively appropriated Western ideas and technologies into their domestic campaigns and in relation to their own political agendas.104 In the roundtable, disagreement over population management led to increasing unease. Following a long silence, the issue of racial discrimination was finally brought into the discussion. According to Australia delegate Frances Penington, “rather quietly came the question, ‘Why do you exclude our people? Are we inferior?’” Penington continued: “There followed a discussion on the right of a country to determine the constitution of its population. The question of the standard of living[, and] the fact that most countries are unable to find work for their number of unassimilated groups, were explained. The latter factor aroused much controversy.”105 In response, the US delegation reiterated its stance more baldly, asserting its strong disapproval of immigrants who retained their own nationality while “accepting the benefits of American rule.” Given that the “Oriental delegates were a little surprised at this viewpoint,” the Japan delegates no doubt referred the roundtable again to their substantial report, in which they 156  Chapter 4

had argued that racial intolerance was the problem of the host nation, not of immigrants themselves, pointing out that Brazil accepted Japanese migrants, including their intermarriage with locals, without apparent problem. The contrast highlighted the fear of racial intermixing that underlay immigration restrictions in countries like the United States and Australia. In her account for the conference proceedings, roundtable chair Sasha Davidson sought to camouflage this significant disagreement by asserting that the complexity of the problem of population precluded any easy resolution. At the same time, she reiterated that the restriction of immigration was justified in order to protect cultural unity. Here Davidson revealed the underbelly of the cultural internationalist project: that culture might be mobilized to justify nationalist isolationism and racialist segregation as much as the ideals of world cooperation and cross-cultural exchange. While statistical study was a useful adjunct to debate and should continue, she added, it was “the likeness and unlikeness of people [that] must be borne in mind; their consciousness of differences; assimilation difficulties; the ideas, ideals and aspirations of peoples . . . and above all the right of a nation to harmonious living.”106 Applying the internationalist paradigm of cross-cultural exchange to the needs of the nation (where unity must reign above all else), Davidson concluded that only similar peoples and cultures might live in proximity. Davidson reported that the roundtable had agreed that immigrants should be willing to declare an allegiance to their adopted country, if they wished to receive in return a “new self respect and a finer citizenship” through their enjoyment of “equal privileges” and respect for their cultural difference.107 The assertion of such prescriptive tolerance of cultural difference within the nation-state would become familiar to multicultural politics in following decades. Reporting to the Australian branch of the PPWA following her return from the conference, Penington was equally obtuse, if rather more blunt. She simply recollected: “Discussions on Population Pressures had thrown light on some of the points of conflict between East and West.”108 The Vancouver roundtable on population reveals that peace activism, like cultural internationalism more generally, was inextricably enmeshed within histories of race as well as of gender, nation, and culture. In the discussion on population and peace, Japan’s delegates pointed to the racialist premise on which white nation-states sought to protect their claim to world power and, as the responses of the Australia and Canada delegates indicate, which they would be ready to defend in the name of cultural unity. Contention over the parameters and meaning of protection also opened up the problem of universalism within Western feminism, threatening to disrupt the association’s ideals of interracial friendship and cross-cultural exchange. Population, Peace, and Protection  157

Furthermore, by endorsing immigration restriction, settler colonial participants revealed that although recognition of cultural difference might enable internationalists to understand each other’s viewpoint, back home difference among migrants (beyond costume or cuisine) was to be assimilated, while indigenous women, as we have seen, were called upon to share in the national project. Nor did culture as an explanation of difference circumvent the problem of national aggression in the twentieth century. Japan provided a clear example of this. Whereas European empires had been established on the basis of the asserted distinction between colonizer and colonized, between civilized and savage, Japan’s colonization of Korea in 1910 had been made on the grounds of relative cultural advancement. The Japanese could not represent Koreans as entirely distinct from themselves but claimed instead that a common history and heritage made “annexation” a natural outcome. Thus Japan’s invasion of Korea was justified on the grounds of cultural proximity rather than racial distinctiveness, an emerging characteristic of twentieth-century imperialism facilitated by the rapidly expanding global reach of Americanization.109 Indeed, Koreans, colonized by Japan in 1910, had been included in population statistics for Japan as tabled by the Japan delegation in the 1937 Population Roundtable. For a generation of women living in the postwar Pacific, the nationalist limits of cultural internationalism would have renewed significance (discussed in the next two chapters). But first the association had to survive the upheaval of world war. Even though war engulfed the region, PPWA organizers continued to plan for a 1940 conference in New Zealand, only finally abandoning the conference after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. In April 1940, members of the Hawai‘i PPWA expressed shock and horror as they watched the United States enter the hostilities. In a circular to members, they wrote: “The so-called civilized world is in confusion. Millions of men, equipped with the most effective mechanisms science can devise are seeking to annihilate one another. Even women and children are not spared.” At the world’s peril, science was ignoring the “laws that operate in the spiritual universe.”110 Among these perils, exclusionary measures against Asians in the Pacific were given new implication in the wartime internment of Japanese living in Australia, Canada, and the United States. Those living on the West Coast of the United States and Canada were evacuated, while immigration restrictions now in place in Brazil and Peru from the late 1930s facilitated the deportation of Japanese from across South America to internment in the United States.111 Outgoing president, Mary Bollert, advised the PPWA membership to remain hopeful nonetheless: 158  Chapter 4

In the meantime we have work to do. War must not lessen the warmth of our friendship nor deter us from pursuing our objectives. Let us rather strengthen the bonds which bind us as women and as members of the human race, and if we cannot at this time put an end to war, then let us at least be ready to take our part in the world reconstruction that must some day come.112

For all her encouragement, the association did not reconvene until 1948, three years after the end of the war. One reason for this slowness was that several key figures in the organization, Bollert included, died prematurely following the war. Others who died were Georgina Sweet (international president) and Elsie Andrews (New Zealand delegation leader and international program secretary). The key Japan delegate, Tsune Gauntlett, who did not attend the 1949 conference, passed away before the next conference was convened in 1952. Soon after the war ended, the association’s international secretary, Ann Satterthwaite, reestablished contact with branches in the United States, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, but their combined loss was difficult to overcome, both in the organizational hierarchy and at the national level. According to Ruby Rich, for example, PPWA Australia survived only through the efforts of Winifred Kiek, an ordained minister in the Congregational Church in South Australia.113 Without Bollert’s determination, activist women in Canada failed to send a formal delegation to postwar conferences. The effective departure of Canada from the association is a reminder of the importance of individuals to the history of political organization. Moreover, the Pacific imagined by the interwar association would be gone forever. With considerable foresight, in 1930 Australia delegate Jamieson Williams had worried that contemporary international agreement failed to protect the Pacific from becoming the stage of future world war between European powers.114 True to her observation, the impact of the war on the Pacific was devastating. “Twelve eventful years of tragedy, discouragement, changes, hope, determination” would pass between the 1937 conference and the next, held in Hawai‘i in 1949.115 In the interim, the lives of various key members were disrupted and endangered. Working as the superintendent of the Peiyang Women’s Hospital, Dr. Mei Ting was arrested by Japanese forces in 1939, although international protest led by the PPWA eventually secured her release.116 After the war, conditions in many parts of the Pan-Pacific region remained chaotic. Although a conference was planned for 1948, only by the beginning of 1949 were governments willing to provide permission for Pacific Rim delegates to travel into the region. Japanese women were living under even greater constraint. In 1947 Tsune Population, Peace, and Protection  159

Gauntlett had written to Ann Satterthwaite that while it was impossible to contemplate international work under the present occupation, she was lecturing on peace through the Women’s Peace Association, which had been forcibly disbanded during the war.117 In 1949, Japanese women still required authorization from Washington to travel to the PPWA conference. Permission was withheld until the last moment, with the result that Japan delegate Dr. Shina Kan (professor of philosophy, Japan Women’s University) arrived only in time to participate in the final day of the conference. She made full use of her opportunity to speak of the conditions of women in Japan, however. According to one eyewitness: “We gave the evening to her, and she told us of the changes in her country. Her words poured forth until her voice failed after about two hours.”118 That the network went on to new heights in the postwar period reflected the ongoing commitment of a stalwart few, including Satterthwaite and some of the New Zealand delegates. But it also signaled the association’s capacity to adapt to new conditions. Even the most enthusiastic of commentators had admitted at the 1937 conference that several changes would need to be made if the association were to continue into the future. They accepted that economic issues were more important than they had previously realized and that peace was a more complex issue than at first thought. With a view toward their survival as a dynamic organization attracting younger women, they sought a new generation of members in the new region of Southeast Asia. Their success in achieving these aims is the subject of chapter 5. Speaking for the countries of the British Commonwealth of Nations after World War II, Rischbieth expressed her confidence in the crucial role they would play “in the rebuilding of a disordered world” without resorting to the domination of one nation over another. Such an example would “help liberate the awakening East to a free partnership of nations by freedom of growth.”119 As such longtime members turned their minds back toward the idea of international cooperation in their region, they were to be joined by a new generation of women from decolonized nations. The combination provided for the renewal of the network and ensured its continuation as an energetic association into the present. Through their endeavors, a new generation was found to reflect the needs and interests of a dramatically changed Pacific.

160  Chapter 4

Five Culture and Identity

T

his chapter continues an investigation of indigenous involvements in the PPWA. We turn again toward Maori participation, but this time from the perspective of handcraft as a site of cross-cultural exchange in the 1950s. The handcraft traditions of women were ascribed cultural significance in the association as it sought to affirm the central role of local women in the negotiation of globalization. Moreover, the continuation of women’s handcraft in the West was considered to provide the context for women to unite across diverse cultural traditions and levels of development. In previous decades, as we have seen, indigenous traditional cultures had been considered under serious threat, and their preservation a matter for urgent action. Native Hawaiians were among those indigenous cultures widely considered at risk, their cultural traditions seemingly safeguarded in museums against the contaminating influence of tourism and the degenerative impacts of modernization.1 Conversely, from early in the century, missionaries had aimed to erase dominant features of indigenous cultures across the Pacific, including the hula in Hawai‘i.2 And by the early twentieth century, tourism had given modern expression to Europe’s long-standing eroticization of the Pacific and Pacific women, popularizing Hollywood versions of Hawaiian music and dance among a largely North American leisure class.3 But for cultural internationalists in the PPWA, cultural life appeared to offer a way to negotiate globalization while protecting social cohesion. It was to stand as a buffer zone against unmediated forces of change, allowing fragile local cultures, less advanced and hence less able to manage modernity, to hold together against the coming tidal wave, and at the same time allowing new nations to resist political extremism. More recent analyses have rightly questioned this narrative of local survival as a matter of resisting globalizing forces. As Nicholas Thomas has pointed out, neither colonization nor tourism should be seen as univalent in its impact. Furthermore, nor were the “traditional” cultural objects or identities circulated therein rendered inert by the process. Rather than being fixed “outside of time,” they too were mobile and dynamic; through historical, 161

social, and cultural “entanglements,” such objects and identities accrued vibrancy and meaning.4 Nor, as Simon During has argued of Maori agency in the global marketplace, has globalization been simply destructive of the local and indigenous. Burgeoning tourist economies exploiting indigenous cultures contributed to a politicization of cultural identity among indigenous people seeking to use the global market for their own advantage.5 In many settler colonies, both cultural preservation and tourism contributed to the reemergence of indigenous political identity. In New Zealand, for example, global tourism and local reindigenization each played a role in the emergence of Maori political and cultural movements in the interwar period.6 Fascination for “primitive” art and cultural products continued into the 1950s, shaping ideas about modernity among progressives in the United States and elsewhere.7 “Handcraft,” the focus of the PPWA in the 1950s, represents one thread within this larger, global circulation of indigenous objects through which indigenous people variously participated in a global economy. In its discourse on the universal interests of women in craft, the PPWA sought to provide a cultural internationalist venue in which the historical and political dynamism of culture was to be articulated between indigenous and nonindigenous women. The postwar generation of Maori delegates built upon the initiatives taken by their predecessors in the interwar PPWA. From these early articulations of a cultural internationalist outlook among Maori women, this next generation set about asserting the power of cultural identity as a foundation of separatism. In so doing, they voiced a particularly indigenous version of the larger culturalist trend in world politics. Demands for self-representation increasingly characterized the participation of non-Western women in the association as global decolonization, and concomitant accusations of cultural imperialism, shifted the ground of international cooperation in the region.8 In the 1950s the Pan-Pacific association’s continuing focus on cultural and interracial matters attracted delegates from newly decolonized or trusteeship nations who arrived to express their own versions of its liberal and Christian, yet potentially anticolonial, agenda. Led by newcomer Mira Petricevich, the postwar Maori contingent would seek to turn the problem of an unmediated, universalizing process of Westernization, as identified by the PPWA, into a call for a more cross-cultural women’s politics in their own country. Rather than asserting a universal community of women transcending cultural and racial differences, they insisted on bringing national politics into a more critical dialogue with the international. It was their intention that settler delegates should give practical expression to their asserted cultural internationalism by campaigning in alliance with indigenous women for the improvement of domestic status and conditions. Such improvements would 162  Chapter 5

necessarily require a greater degree of autonomy for indigenous minorities within national delegations. These indigenous interventions would coincide with a period of upheaval in the association. Doubts about the practice of cultural internationalism, already present in the interwar debates, returned with renewed strength. In the process a new language about cultural diversity emerging in world politics would provide the means to better identify and discuss the issues of representation that had beset the PPWA from its inception. At the first postwar conference, in Hawai‘i in 1949, concerns were again raised by numbers of Western delegates that cultural internationalism was yet to provide the intellectual grounds for genuine cross-cultural exchange. Those who sought to break more fully with what they saw as Eurocentrism expressed this desire through their awareness of a growing criticism of the “cultural imperialism” of the United States and more generally the West in the Pacific. This accusation of imperialism was also experienced in the PPWA. The sole Australia delegate at the first conference held after World War II, Dr. Phyllis Cilento pointed out that the association now faced a very changed Pacific region. Probably sharing the geopolitical interests of her husband, who was a racial hygiene expert in Australia and the Pacific, Cilento argued that it was no longer possible to imagine the Pacific region “as a vast expanse of ocean with only Hawaii standing between East and West.” Such a mapping of the Pan-Pacific had characterized cultural internationalist thinking in previous decades. Now that world war had arrived on the beaches of thousands of islands within its ocean, those “once isolated in their own native cultures” needed urgent help if they were to negotiate the worst impacts of modernization and its partner, militarization. The new Pacific was in urgent need of the cultural internationalist project of uplift and development. For although “the thousands of island dots” had been almost entirely ignored in previous years, she argued, along with the ensuing end of isolation came new opportunities for good work. The task (once again) confirmed a role for supposedly more advanced women of the region. Revitalizing the original role of the PPWA, first articulated by Mark Cohen at the Outrigger Canoe Club in 1925, Cilento concluded, “Pacific problems in the future may well see progressive East and Western cultures joining together to help the less progressive become members of the world’s family with a minimum of friction and conflict.”9 The best of modernity might finally arrive in the Pacific islands themselves, if under rather different circumstances than first imagined in the interwar years. Given the ascribed protective role of cultural internationalism in the new world order, decolonization and modernization enhanced the part to be played by Western women; only the methods needed to change. Having Culture and Identity  163

lost the former authority of imperial and colonial history, Western women would find a new place as leaders among the world of Pacific women, on the grounds of sharing social research. Thus, when the Australia delegation leader in 1952, Ruby Rich (Feminist Club, Racial Hygiene Association, Australia) affirmed the commitment of white women to the new civilization emerging in the Pan-Pacific, she made the point that a degree of humility would be necessary if the project of cross-cultural world citizenship were to progress: The Pacific is really the cradle for a new civilization, and with the present upsurge of education and improvement in the status of women, the women of the Pacific are to wield a tremendous influence. . . . We [Westerners] must be prepared to get rid of a number of preconceived prejudices, and to look more at the humanitarian side of these peoples, and place less stress on racial superiority. We . . . were humbled on many occasions by the wisdom expressed and the advances made by delegates from those countries we are pleased to call the “under developed.”10

Rich’s background in racial hygiene, like that of Cilento and others, points to the ways in which interwar ideas about “race” were increasingly rearticulated under the rubric of cultural politics and social reform. Similarly, the shift in white women’s thinking, described in the PPWA as the achievement of a cultural internationalist outlook, came to be understood after the world war as a questioning of the path of advancement itself. At the 1955 conference in Manila, Australia delegate Thelma Kirkby (Business and Professional Women) concurred that real progress in the region required that Western women overcome their superiority complex. Reflecting on the experience, she asserted “Those of us who had come in a spirit—not of arrogance but perhaps of slight smugness, because we were members of the socalled ‘advanced’ countries—very soon developed a humble admiration [for our non-Western colleagues].”11 This humbling did not entail the jettisoning of the idea of progress altogether, however. Nor, evidently, did it diminish hope for its joint promotion by women of East and West. The project of the PPWA remained the facilitation of a syncretic (but effectively Westerndominated) world civilization, one drawing on the non-West for its renewal. But the postwar articulation of cultural internationalism began to accept that modernization might take multiple forms. Following the horrors of World War II, the final years of the 1940s and the early 1950s saw renewed optimism for world peace among many commentators, particularly, they hoped, between the United States and Asia. One outcome was a renewal of East-West internationalism in the Pacific. This 164  Chapter 5

sense of renewed purpose pervaded the first PPWA conference after the war and, for many participants, overrode or at least counterbalanced concerns about cultural imperialism or the difficulties the association faced in trying to work cross-culturally in the new Pacific. In her dedication presented to all members at the 1949 conference in Honolulu, the chair of the US Committee, Alice Parsons, welcomed the return of the association: “It is heartwarming to know that the dark curtain of war is lifted; that once more we can communicate . . . and so do our part to establish peace with justice in this ‘one world’ of ours.”12 The international president of the 1949 conference, US delegate Josephine Schain, echoed these views in her opening speech. An outspoken peace advocate at the 1937 conference, Schain had continued her international activism through the war. The only US woman to participate in the International Conference on Food and Agriculture convened in 1943, she had been present also at the formation of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945 and continued as one of its observers and public liaison officers. Schain’s opening remarks in 1949 advised PPWA delegates of the ever more historic task faced by their association. The world war had focused international interest once again in the region and had reminded the world of the importance of the Pacific as a site of dialogue between East and West. Schain welcomed confirmation of this view of the Pan-Pacific by an EastWest Philosophers’ Conference recently convened by Yale University. She noted that the PPWA could confirm its hope for positive exchange between distinct civilizations, pointing out the association’s leadership in this field, its previous work illustrating that such dialogue was not only desirable but possible. The members of the women’s association knew from experience that both East and West hoped for “the ideal of a world society.”13 Behind her words was perhaps a sense of exasperation also that the PPWA was not sufficiently recognized for being at the forefront of this area in world affairs, having already established local networks among women in the region. Such optimism for the future of peaceful dialogue in the new Pacific was soon to become more tentative, however. By the early 1950s a rising “communist threat” in Asia seemed once again to obstruct the possibility of world cooperation, and at the basis of this perceived threat was opposition to a world dominated by Western powers. Meanwhile, fears gathered strength that newly decolonized peoples would turn against their former rulers. Once again, internationalism offered encouragement to those opposed to both aggressive nationalism and isolationism. For those looking forward with optimism, such as Schain when speaking at the PPWA conference in Christchurch in 1952, the UN signaled not the failure of world cooperation but the revitalization of global “moral authority.” The theme of the conference that year was “Pacific Women Unite for a United Nations.” Hard work Culture and Identity  165

lay ahead: those wishing for world peace would need first to overthrow the anachronistic inequalities between the “races” and “cultures” that had dominated the old world order and to imagine a way forward in which cultural life offered the foundations for mutual respect. The ensuing conference underlined the ways in which national forms of population management and social reform could now be viewed through a more global lens. Drawing on her recent tour of the region, Schain reported that advancements were being made in women’s status and conditions across the Pacific, citing “the blossoming of women in Asiatic countries” and the progress of women in the Pacific nations. The UN and other international bodies increasingly globalized issues of world health and educational reform, building on the work of thousands of nongovernmental agencies (such as the PPWA itself ). She sketched the application of Western models of protection of women and abolition of prostitution (although these, as we have noted, had been previously questioned by non-Western delegates at the 1937 conference). Such different applications under the same model, she asserted, reflected the different stages of women in the region, not merely in terms of their cultural development but in terms of varying impacts of modernity upon them. Japanese women, now facing effects of globalization similar to those experienced in earlier decades by women in the Philippines,14 were beginning to acknowledge the “problem of prostitution” exacerbated by US occupation. Already widely involved in public affairs, women in the Philippines were now calling for greater political representation in their own country. (And, reflecting the importance of this women’s movement, Manila would be chosen as the next PPWA conference city.) In India, women had recently “come out of purdah” and were now involved in public life. (Here, Schain failed to add that Indian women had long been engaged in the cause of self-rule and were active in nationalist politics.)15 In Ceylon she had found that women were increasingly able to access educational opportunities16 (but in this case she failed to comment on their evident lack of opportunities under previous colonial rule). And yet, in each example, negative Western influence was claimed by local women to have been washed away by indigenous cultural continuity. Thus women in Thailand informed her with pride that their country had never been colonized, and women in Burma that for more than five hundred years Burmese culture had provided them with equal rights. In this latter account of women’s progress, Schain, and perhaps her Burmese contacts as well, omitted the negative impact on women’s rights under British imperial rule, decades marked by open hostility to their equitable status with men in marriage and public life.17 From the perspective of the PPWA project of advancement, Schain’s overview of improved access to education and involvement in public life 166  Chapter 5

Josephine Schain (third from left) with a group of delegates in 1955—a rare informal moment. Courtesy of PPSEAWA Hawai‘i.

for women in the newer nations contained within it another contradictory aspect. On the one hand, women were advancing toward the international outlook anticipated by the PPWA. On the other, many who were applying their skills and capacities toward the aims of decolonization and national independence were doing so in collaboration with men and in the name of anticolonial nationalism rather than in the name of self-actualization through international women’s community. Non-Western women involved in the PPWA routinely negotiated such tensions as they sought to combine international participation with their own nationalist agendas. Many were able to attend the conferences through the provision of UNESCO travel funds. In 1951, when UNESCO’s Executive Committee considered a subvention, it commended the PPWA for its aim to “bring together women of the Pacific area for better understanding and for co-operation toward the interests of the family, including its adjustments to modern industrial and social conditions.” In support of its achievements to this end, the Executive Board forwarded an amount of US$5,000 to the association.18 Development was a crucial aspect of this growing international commitment to women in the region. The programs of the UN aiming for “development” and democratization through the reform of education, health, and the rights of women effectively paralleled those of the PPWA, while directing them toward a more clearly defined democratic agenda that would be promoted by its membership throughout the decade. Reflecting this synergy, Mrs. S. Musikabhumma, for example, a chief nurse in maternal health in Thailand who attended the 1952 PPWA conference, emphasized the importance Culture and Identity  167

of the World Health Organization in modernizing the health system in her country. At the same time, she expressed national pride that her country had never been colonized, explaining to her fellow delegates that “Thailand” meant “freedom.”19 The PPWA was soon to rename itself the Pan-Pacific and South East Asian Women’s Association (PPSEAWA), in recognition of the significance of Southeast Asia to global politics and to its ambitions. Among them, women in the Philippines would prove particularly eager to contribute to women’s internationalism, while not (at least openly) expressing hostility toward the United States, despite the recent history of violent occupation. Paul A. Kramer reminds us that Filipino elites, like many other indigenous collaborators in history, became involved in “the making of the PhilippineAmerican colonial state.” The rather benign role of internationally minded indigenous collaborators imagined by the PPWA elided this more complex and (in the Philippines case) overtly racially hierarchized process of becoming a new nation under Western guidance.20 While the Pan-Pacific women’s network readily incorporated development into its cultural internationalist project, it remained aloof from the other progressive narrative of this era, that of anticommunism, which was to emerge as a significant factor in the 1955 conference, given the heightened context of US influence in the Philippines. This relatively neutral position, as we will see, was important for the PPWA in maintaining its reputation as a nonpolitical, Christian, and liberal social-reform network. The PPWA would enthusiastically endorse UNESCO’s agenda of education for international understanding, along with human and social relations, health, welfare, race relations, minority rights, and land tenure.21 These themes echoed many of the aims and interests central to the PanPacific women’s network from its inception—broadly speaking, social reform, the end of racial prejudice, education toward international understanding and cross-cultural exchange, and the friendly exchange of information between peoples and across cultures. In preparation for the 1949 conference, study groups were to research measures by which their own countries set out to “combat ignorance and prejudice,” including through museum exhibits or artistic expression.22 Study groups included the role of education in postwar reconstruction, human relationships and social tensions, recent developments in political science and the social sciences, and the “humanistic aspects of culture.”23 No doubt of particular encouragement to PPWA membership, a UNESCO pamphlet entitled The Race Question exhorted the struggle against “racial prejudice,” and the replacement of ignorant and racist assumptions about race in order to reduce hatred and “vicious” notions of racial superiority.24 It must have seemed that the PPWA’s cultural internationalist vision was coming to fruition. But over the next years, the goal 168  Chapter 5

of ending racism was also to be conscripted into the larger (and ultimately US-dominated) push for economic development in the now Asia-Pacific, linking international programs run by the UN and its agencies with global capitalist and anticommunist interests. Arguably, the interface between cultural imperialism and cultural internationalism had been evident from the beginnings of the PPWA, as well as within the Pan-Pacific Union and the other internationalist organizations headquartered in Honolulu from which the PPWA had emerged. Certainly, these legacies were to be played out in following conferences. Given this larger context, ensuing discussions about the meaning of “cultural imperialism” within the PPWA offer us an insight into how global politics and history shaped relations between women in the 1950s. Their deliberations seem at times extraordinarily contemporary and still pertinent, even depressingly so. Following the war, the still Western-dominated PPWA was engaged again in a self-critique of its claims to practice cross-cultural and interracial friendship and exchange. At the 1949 conference, for example, a roundtable discussed the “mutual exchange of culture.” In line with progressive attitudes of the day and with UNESCO’s aims for educational reform, delegates agreed that it was important for textbooks to be revised in order that “prejudice, misunderstanding or silence” about other nations and peoples be remedied. Reiterating the PPWA’s long-held views about the affective and interpersonal foundations for meaningful cross-cultural exchange, they asserted the need to engage in the “true, sincere and mutual exchange of culture,” adding the proviso that a self-critique of white privilege was also essential. Without such a genuine effort on the part of the West, the roundtable concluded, it would not be possible to achieve “a two-way process of learning and teaching as opposed to the type which leads to a charge of ‘cultural imperialism.’”25 They envisaged in renewed form the PPWA tradition of self-transformation. Alongside these musings, exchange about social reform continued to emphasize the practical aspects of cultural internationalism. With development foremost in mind, the study program for the 1952 conference asked members of the PPWA to consider “What the United Nations has done for your country,” including aid received. But while social reform and progress were familiar to interwar membership, the focus and perspective had now shifted. For the first time, questions focused explicitly on non-Western countries and were formulated with non-Western delegates in mind. These women were to be the primary source for responses to problems of rapid urbanization in developing countries. For example, the same questionnaire asked what was being done to educate women farmers in infant care and teaching and to empower them to participate in village affairs. Of women Culture and Identity  169

in the countryside, where globalization would be more moderately felt and political change would (supposedly) be less violent, it asked how native people were becoming more economically secure, including through being trained in the development of their own traditions into marketable “handicraft and cottage industries.”26 As gathering information about and examples of “homecraft,” or handcraft, across the region became part of the cultural work of conferences, Western delegates were provided another opportunity to explore the importance of cultural diversity to international praxis. By the 1950s the idea of handcraft combined notions of folk and national culture in Western romantic traditions with the diversity of non-Western cultural life. The idealization of craftsmanship in the Arts and Crafts movement had informed the settlement movement led by Addams in Chicago and was also integral to theosophy. Each sought to enhance Western modernity through the revitalization of craft traditions in which individuals were reinstated as the creators of meaningful objects rather than faceless units involved in mass production.27 The PPWA found inspiration in similar assumptions about the place of art and craft in all cultures. But handcraft also became a locus point in the shifting power relations between women and expressed a new politics of culture as itself the medium of modernity. Indeed, the role of women’s handcraft became a central theme in the development discourse of the postwar PPWA. While creative practice might exemplify an interconnected way of life still enjoyed by less advanced peoples, its translation into modern forms of production were to provide economic independence to communities, enabling their cultural survival in the global marketplace. It was in these dual occupations (the one about an aesthetics of cross-cultural exchange and the other about global markets) that “handcraft” came to be the focus of PPWA claims that it had reached a new era in its own development. Handcraft also stood for the association’s increasingly explicit concerns about a global politics of cultural production and consumption. A Conference in New Zealand The positive response to the 1952 conference in Christchurch marked the PPWA as a substantial network in the postwar as well as prewar Pacific. Attracting 110 representatives from eighteen countries, it met in the south island city, renowned for its English village atmosphere. On the first day of the January conference, the Civic Theatre filled with members of the public and delegates, many in “national dress,” who had gathered there to hear the mayor’s welcome to the conference. The international gathering in Christchurch further consolidated the substantial presence of New Zea170  Chapter 5

land women in the association. Numbers of Pakeha women were already longtime internationalists with extensive experience. Amy Kane, a former president of the National Council of Women of New Zealand, led the New Zealand branch of the PPWA and had been a member of its International Council from 1949. Elected a life member of PPWA in the 1960s, Kane continued to participate in annual meetings into the 1970s. Mary McLean, also a longtime member, asserted that her interest in the UN “enabled her to give members an insight into the problems faced by the developing countries.”28 Also claiming knowledge of the UN was Mary Seaton, another leading figure who had attended PPWA conferences since 1928. The president of the New Zealand Women Writers’ and Painters’ Society and an executive member of the United Nations Association, she served as international program chair from 1949 until 1952, contributing directly to the reemergence of a refocused PPWA following World War II.29 Seaton would visit the UN in 1954, an experience she described later as “thrilling” and “fascinating.”30 Like that of Rischbieth in Australia in previous decades, Seaton’s archive of the PPWA in this period is considerable. Ellen Lea (National Council of Women, Country Women’s Association, Women Teachers’ Association, and Business and Professional Women’s Association) was international secretary of the PPWA in the 1950s. And Fanny B. Taylor (Women Teachers’ Association), who became another life member of the PPWA, was a specialist in educational reform. PPWA connections with the UN and UNESCO had flourished in previous years. As the president of the Liaison Committee of Women’s International Organizations, Josephine Schain represented the association’s interests directly to the UN, while Australia delegate E. Blyth, one among many enthusiasts of this connection, was well aware of its significance to the association’s interests in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. Speaking at the 1952 conference, Blyth stated that achieving direct representation at the UN meant that “we have power and we only have to organise it and use it to get the best possible results for all.” She recommended UN pamphlets on topics remarkably familiar to the PPWA, such as the role of women in public life, noting as well that the UNESCO conference held in 1952 had focused on the education of women—just as did their association. That the ILO had not yet passed equal pay legislation, however, caused her to exclaim, “Oh dear, dear!”31 Fair pay and educational and employment opportunities for women had been part of the women’s international movement since the late 1800s, a position the PPWA had inherited. If such official bodies as the UN lagged well behind in this important regard, nonetheless their research and reform campaigns were highly regarded. In an interview about the then PPWA with radio station 2ZB in Honolulu in 1948, Mary Seaton asserted Culture and Identity  171

that improving women’s status relied on the future success of UN programs concerning human and social relations, health, and welfare.32 Where the Pacific Rim and Pacific Basin had dominated the PanPacific of the interwar years, the new region of Southeast Asia emerged to dominate the postwar Asia-Pacific of the PPWA. A generation of women from this region would seek to convey their own account of women’s internationalism. Delegates from newly decolonized nations and trusteeships also represented diverse visions of political rights for women. Some continued to refute the relevance of Westernization to their story. As Josephine Schain had reported several years earlier, so Mrs. Kyan Myint (whose husband was the commissioner of police in Rangoon) repeated in 1952 that the advancement of Burmese women had long preceded gains won by Western women; for five hundred years women’s equal rights had been enshrined under Burmese law. And Mrs. Cooray (one of Ceylon’s two women senators and president of the Institute of Country Women) advised that because Buddhism had long held women in esteem, female suffrage had been relatively easily achieved, and that there were now women members of parliament and in all government departments.33 Most delegates from newer nations or those still territories, however, ascribed new opportunities enjoyed by women to the impact of Western democracy. Thus, Miss Soesolawate expressed the hope that women’s rights of the sort achieved in Western countries would result in more women being elected to the Indonesian parliament. Miss S. Malietoa attributed the relatively high status of women in Western Samoa to their access to a New Zealand–style education system. And Mrs. N. Helu reported that Tongan women would vote for the first time in forthcoming elections.34 At the same time, the decades of suffrage had not seen the expected revolution in women’s place in Western countries. Doubts remained concerning the Western model of advancement, just as they did regarding Westernization more generally. Something of Western women’s ambivalent responses to these delegates and their views of the West can be gleaned from comments made by New Zealand delegate Mary Seaton. Her account of the race politics at work in exchanges between white and nonwhite women at the 1952 conference is worth quoting at some length. Harking back to Jane Addams’ exhortation in 1928 that meeting together in the Pan-Pacific would provide women in the region with a unique opportunity to learn from each other, Seaton wrote: At first the delegates from Asia were shy and when they heard of how much some countries had and of the status of women in those countries, they were diffident about seeming “like beggars.” Then as the shyness wore off in the genial atmosphere [of the conference] they were ready to speak, and we 172  Chapter 5

heard of unhappiness with [the status of women in their countries]. . . . This meeting together also meant much to the delegates of the South Pacific Islands. When the first shyness wore off it was noticed that they had much to say to each other, and from various hints gathered, it was the set up of their own societies that was discussed.

In this story of regional dialogue, white women appear almost as bystanders. Rather than relying on the leadership of Western women, it seems, the growing confidence of Asian and Pacific island women had led to discussions between themselves: There were delegates from Asian countries with long centuries of high civilization behind them. How easy it seems for them to add a Western culture on to their Eastern one, and how difficult for a Western man or woman to add an Eastern culture to their own. Their richness of culture made some of us feel poorly equipped.

Cultures once considered less advanced were now revealed to be far more dynamic than had been realized. Those within them had been forced by necessity to achieve the PPWA ideal already, by living across two or more cultures in order to negotiate the impacts of globalization and Westernization. Nor were these women destined to follow in the footsteps of Western women, because nationalist movements often involved them in anticolonial modernization projects with their men: It does seem that a great change is taking place in these old countries, and that the women from those countries that have lately come to independence feel a great responsibility for their share in working out new ways for their people, and they feel that the men of their countries are glad of their cooperation in the task.

Seaton indicated also that a more explicit set of criticisms was emerging out of these new conditions, bringing with them “accusations of apathy” against white women in countries “where the living is easy,” such as the United States, Hawai‘i, Australia, and New Zealand. “Is this true?” she asked rhetorically, “Does easy living make us selfish?”35 The question of “white privilege” continues to test Western feminism into the present.36 In the 1950s it was a particularly pertinent question to ask at a conference held in New Zealand, the country that before the war had been hailed by the PPWA as home to interracial harmony. These new themes within cultural internationalism—the accusation of cultural imperiCulture and Identity  173

alism, and the separate forms of development, decolonization, and nationalism of newer or trustee nations—also problematized the future of settler colonialism. In the settler colonies the responsibility of whites to work in collaboration with indigenous women was perhaps most acutely in question. In the 1950s, Maori women—including Victoria Bennett, one of the first Maori women to attend a PPWA conference—continued to contribute to the New Zealand delegation. As before, they routinely combined cultural performance (song, dance, and chanting) with conference papers and conference debate.37 For example, in 1952 Mrs. U. R. Zister (Ngeungeu Te Irirangi) offered the conference a traditional welcome from Maori women; although Mrs. Zister was not an official delegate, she was representing Princess Te Puea Herangi, a sponsor of the recently formed Maori Women’s Welfare League (MWWL).38 But a more strident voice was also heard in 1952. Mira Petricevich was an important figure in the Maori contingent that year. She would lead Maori representation at the PPWA onto a more explicitly critical path, one that suggests the importance of international participation from the mid-twentieth century to the historical emergence of cultural identity as a site of resistance within the nation. The claim of “identity” would come to shape culture politics in following decades. Miraka Raharuhi (Mira) Petricevich (later Szaszy) was born on the North Island of New Zealand in 1921. Her mother was connected to several important iwi (clans), while her father was Yugoslav-born.39 Like Bennett, she had been educated at one of the several elite schools for Maori girls in New Zealand and became a finalist in the biracial Miss New Zealand contest of 1947. Maori women had participated in the contest since before World War II as the winners of a separate Pacific Queen competition. From the early twentieth century, Pakeha contestants had been judged for their attractiveness as the future mothers of the white race;40 by the 1950s racial integration dominated public policy, resulting in greater opportunities for Maori women to compete directly in the New Zealand title. Writing of 1961 Maori beauty queen Maureen Kingi, historian Megan Woods argues that despite the oscillation between “traditional” and “modern” she was required to perform, the contest provided her with an opportunity to promote Maori culture and the role of Maori women in its preservation.41 A similarly contradictory outcome would take place at the PPWA. As a woman of mixed descent, Petricevich occupied a particularly hybrid space, her celebrated grace and glamour expressing not least an appreciation of the relative paleness of her skin and the European-influenced features she had inherited from her Yugoslavian father.42 Soon afterward, she left to study social work in Honolulu at the University of Hawai‘i, the first Maori woman to win a fellowship there.43 While in Honolulu, she joined the audience at 174  Chapter 5

the first PPWA conference convened after the war, and became known to the association’s hierarchy. On her return to New Zealand, Petricevich joined the Department of Maori Affairs as a welfare officer. She became a founding member of the MWWL, formed in 1951, and would remain one of its most important executives until 1977.44 Petricevich would become a favorite of the PPWA. At times wearing “traditional” costume and at others a fitted white suit, she was a sophisticated performer on the international stage. Like her predecessors, Petricevich attracted attention as much for her appearance as for her evident capacities as a delegate. She was particularly admired for her conference appearances in a “modernized version of her native Maori costume.”45 “Beauteous” but also an excellent public speaker, she was voted the “glamour girl” of the 1952 conference held in Christchurch, New Zealand, before going on to similarly impress delegates in 1955 at the Manila conference in the Philippines.46 Sophistication and style were important to Petricevich’s success as a PPWA delegate. The association appreciated her directness of gaze, graceful posture, and fashionably modern suit, finding in their combination the signs of an international woman. In 1934 the president of the New Zealand delegation, Elsie Andrews, had described several of the conference attendees as “goddesses.” These tall, graceful women embodied the classical attributes of the modern international feminist ideal. The adoption of elements of Western style won approval, marking non-Western women’s interest in becoming modern. Arguably, Petricevich represented the Pacific ideal of the PPWA— outspoken yet poised, colorful yet smart, traditional but also sufficiently

Mira Petricevich in traditional dress for a conference dinner. R. M. Spoor Collection. Courtesy of Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. Culture and Identity  175

Mira Petricevich in her white suit. Courtesy of PPSEAWA Hawai‘i.

Western in her white suit. Like her “modernized” traditional outfit, she was welcomed as an indigenous woman who combined elements of modernity and difference and who spoke for the PPWA vision of world cooperation. Confident in her dealings with Western delegates yet celebrating her cultural identity, the beautiful Petricevich seemed to promise an exciting future for world cooperation. Women like Petricevich might guide their Western colleagues toward a greater understanding of non-Western cultural and social life, her capacity to appear one day in traditional dress and the next in fashionable suits securing her pivotal role as bicultural translator. According to the PPWA’s cross-cultural politics, the communal and creative elements of non-Western cultures would rehumanize an overly individualistic Western civilization. It would thereby be possible to return human values since lost to the West through industrialization and, more recently, through the madness of two world wars and a world financial depression. Among Western commentators, handcrafted outfits worn by indigenous women like Petricevich were interpreted as expressions of connection to cultural life that industrialization considered long since denied to women in the West. In their fascination with these cultural objects and the subjects who produced and wore them, Western delegates expressed a nostalgic desire for a return to this supposedly prior relationship. For their part, nonWestern delegates mobilized a complex politics through traditional dress. Not least, they were interested in educating their Western colleagues on the importance of culture, tradition, and family life and on the central status of indigenous women to them. Membership in the PPWA also offered 176  Chapter 5

opportunities to exchange views with women from other Pacific island nations. While PPWA cultural internationalism was important to an emerging international voice for Maori women, the experiences of colonialism shared by other delegates led Petricevich to question the place of Maori women within the New Zealand delegation. Furthermore, it caused her to argue for the separate representation of indigenous women within PPWA hierarchy. On these matters, she spoke as a representative of Maori women’s own organization, that is, on behalf of her own constituency, rather than an international one. The Voice of Maori Women Writing of the important place of the MWWL in the history of Maori rights in New Zealand, Barbara Brookes describes the association as the “one national organisation giving voice to Maori concerns in the 1950s.” The league combined an emphasis on integration with Pakeha society with retaining cultural identity in order to do so. (Cultural autonomy would provide the capacity to integrate.) Such views were promoted by Maori leaders more generally in the postwar generation during decades witnessing enormous demographic and social change, not least precipitated through the 1945 Act “to make Provision for the Social and Economic Advancement and the Promotion and Maintenance of the Health and Social Well-Being of the Maori Community.” Petricevich was herself a Department of Maori Affairs officer, well used to advocating what Brookes has termed the “necessarily contradictory position” of integration with cultural difference.47 Petricevich would later recall her appointment to the MWWL as a profoundly life-changing moment. At first, she felt rejected by peers who found her overly Westernized. Soon, however, she became the MWWL’s secretary and worked closely with Princess Te Puea Herangi, one of the most important and highly revered Maori women of her generation.48 The revitalization of Maori as a spoken language was an important issue to the Maori in the 1950s, and traveling around New Zealand and visiting Maori communities provided Petricevich with valuable opportunities to develop oratory skills in her own language.49 Arguably, Petricevich drew inspiration from the Young Maori Party in New Zealand, which then represented a generation of Maori women and men adept at working within the contradictions of integration. According to historian James Belich, their pragmatic approach established a “brilliantly subversive co-operation” between Maori cultural identity and Pakeha-dominated society.50 Beyond the party itself, in these years of extraordinarily rapid urbanization large numbers of single Maori women traveled to towns and cities to find work, often in the area of Culture and Identity  177

health.51 Women like Petricevich became a formidable force in New Zealand at the forefront of the reform of health and educational policies. Initially reluctant to attend the PPWA on behalf of the MWWL, she brought to the Pan-Pacific women’s conferences the early articulation of an indigenous identity politics. Dialogue between the two associations had been established early. Pakeha women’s organizations sent observers to the first MWWL conference held in 1951, which attracted more than ninety Maori women. Indeed, one of the first questions the conference discussed was its relationship with the association. Maori women activists in the 1950s shared PPWA interest in social reform, education, and health. As we learned in chapter 3, Maori delegates had been included in New Zealand delegations from the 1930s. Connections were established, but should the two organizations affiliate? Pakeha spokeswomen for the PPWA promoted affiliation in what seems to our ears unabashedly maternalist terms. President Amy Kane introduced herself as someone who already had “something to do with Maori groups” through her involvement with Women’s Institutes, where “we have always worked with Maori members amongst us.” Kane gave her support to the formation of the MWWL, stating, “I think you can do a very great deal for your people.” New Zealand PPWA secretary Mary McLean endorsed affiliation because she believed it would signal a return to the halcyon days of early colonization when “we were friendly . . . particularly the Maori and Pakeha women.” Consolidating this friendship would enhance the PPWA’s reach into the region: “In this Pan-Pacific work you people will have to help us; you will have to show us how to be one Pacific community, and I know I can rely on you during the coming year to advise us and guide us.”52 MWWL delegates were divided on this question along generational lines. Now a member of the New Zealand PPWA Dominion Executive and a PPWA Maori delegate since the 1930s, Victoria Bennett spoke for affiliation. She argued that direct representation in each other’s associations would facilitate greater exchange between Maori women and other women in the Pacific (rather than merely support Pakeha colleagues). MWWL women could meet “face to face” with women whose “problems [were] the same” as their own. At the same time, the league could consolidate its place at this important moment in the world community of women. Now was the time to “help towards gaining peace in the world,” and they should “take [the opportunity] with both hands.”53 The majority of MWWL delegates were not persuaded by Bennett’s argument, however. Although they conceded that Maori women had successfully established their influence within “European Women’s Organisations,” so far this had involved only “women of the [Maori] race who were in constant touch with European life and society and 178  Chapter 5

to those who felt that they could be comfortable and could hold their own among European women.”54 The MWWL aimed to provide a forum for all Maori women, particularly those less comfortable in the white world. A voice for Maori women should be engendered separately, these delegates asserted. Therefore the MWWL voted against affiliation but in favor of sending delegates to PPWA conferences, concluding that the “time was not yet come for the Maori women to join up with other organisations direct [as] the women felt that they must learn to run their own organisation first.”55 For their part, Pakeha women in the PPWA sought the greater inclusion of Maori women on New Zealand delegations. Not surprisingly, they considered that this involvement provided a bridge between themselves and other indigenous women in the region. Longtime member of the New Zealand PPWA and the organization’s international vice president, Ellen Lea, stated that “to learn from Maori women . . . would be of great use to her [own] international work [and that] she could pass on the views of what was being done [for and by Maori women] to women of other countries.”56 Following the 1955 conference, Beryl Jackson (Adult Education, New Zealand) confirmed that “the most important point of all” had been learning to work with Maori women, an experience that had led to greater respect and admiration for how they were “grappling with their social problems,” and also learning to recognize their “challenge to us to understand and assist.”57 More explicitly benevolent views persisted, nonetheless. In their reports of the same conference to the MWWL Dominion Executive, Pakeha PPWA women described a happy and united New Zealand team, commenting that they were proud of “our Maori friends,” who gave successful public addresses.58 Increasingly at PPWA conferences the focus on cementing friendly relations between indigenous and settler women would drift from center stage. In its place, similarities between the conditions of Maori women and other non-Western women living under trusteeship proved equally, if not more, instructive. One of five roundtables at the 1952 conference discussed different methods for bringing more educated women from the Pacific islands into the public work of community building in their nations. In the process, it noted that the difficulty experienced by social workers hoping to reach women in less settled areas was shared even in some Western countries, particularly regarding outreach to indigenous women in settler colonies. The two of the three organizations the roundtable commended for achievements in this regard under difficult circumstances were located in Ceylon and Pakistan, but the third was the MWWL in New Zealand.59 Settler colonial conditions appeared thus to align the interests of Maori women delegates with other non-Western women in the Pacific, rather than with Pakeha women in Culture and Identity  179

New Zealand, and pointed to the continuing, even third world, inequalities between settler and indigenous women in the more “advanced” nations. At the 1955 conference in the Philippines, Maori women embraced every opportunity to talk about the urgent needs of the Maori community. Interviewed by local press, Mrs. J. Emery, MWWL member of the New Zealand delegation, described the devastating impact of settler colonialism on her people, stating that “after the first contact between Maoris and Europeans there had been a period of transition for 100 years and transition is often a painful process.” Repercussions extended into the recent past, when “10 times more Maoris were dying of tuberculosis than Europeans in New Zealand, and inter-race relations were no-where near perfect.” Loss of cultural identity as much as conflict, disease, and racism had endangered the Maori. But they had survived through determination, despite the price they had been forced to pay by integrating into mainstream society: “There was a danger of the native language dying out, but the Maori people had decided that they must meet the problems before them or perish.” Where Pakeha PPWA women claimed Maori heritage as part of New Zealand’s own, Emery reversed this order to political effect: “The Maori has a priceless heritage and with the high ideals of the two peoples in New Zealand the Maori race would reach out and go forward.”60 Reflecting this new sense of cultural and political identity, following the 1952 conference the Maori delegates advised that in future they alone would present the Maori welcome, and that it should be staged “separate from the Pakeha.”61 The bicultural presentation by Bennett and Andrews in 1937 was a thing of the past. The reversal of cultural leadership—from Western and universal to non-Western and local or indigenous—held considerable implications for PPWA internationalism. Mrs. Whitelaw, president of the Women’s Committee, National Council of Churches in Wellington, was one Pakeha member of the New Zealand delegation ready to engage with the new Maori women’s voice. She explained her reasoning to fellow Pakeha members of the New Zealand PPWA. At a roundtable discussion concerning the reform of the regulation of alcohol, she reported, one of the (unnamed) Maori delegates present rejected recent changes to the Liquor Act in New Zealand. These changes allowed Maori women to drink in hotels alongside Maori men. The delegate argued that this legislation resulted, not in the equal rights of Maori and Pakeha, but in the diminishment of Maori women’s status. Non-Maori participants in the roundtable had rejected this nonuniversalist viewpoint. They insisted that differentiating between men and women was discriminatory, while distinguishing between white and Maori women was regressive. Resorting to a racialist discourse in which the advancement of women was measured against cultural difference, they concluded that reinstating the re180  Chapter 5

striction would “be a step backward preventing the adult Maori making free choice” and that it would “retard the growing up process, bringing a basic loss in development of personality.”62 Concerned by this exchange, Whitelaw concluded that members of the PPWA should contact the MWWL in order to learn about Maori women’s perspectives on social reform issues. In this way, it would be possible “to promote better understanding of the difficulties that may still arise in adjusting the relationships between Maori and Pakeha in New Zealand.” Once the MWWL educated Pakeha women, it would become possible to “cooperate with them and give them support in their undertakings.” Finally, however, she sought to diminish the problem that rethinking the politics of cultural difference posed to the cultural internationalist outlook by concluding on a national note: “It is time we thought of ourselves not as Maori and Pakeha but in terms of New Zealanders.”63 Culturally specific responses to (universal) social reform remained problematic for the PPWA. This disjuncture was nowhere more apparent than in the significance of home and handcraft to women and development in the region. Cultural Nationalism or National Culture? Whereas national culture was the proclaimed basis for national delegations at the PPWA, within settler colonial or other minority contexts culture politics operated in more complex ways. At some point, culture offered a degree of separatism to indigenous groups aiming to negotiate their place in modernity, a version of culturally based nationalism. As the New Zealand case illustrated, through affirming a separate cultural identity, minorities negotiated integrationist educational and health reforms, while maintaining a sense of community. Constance Cooke had articulated this version of the culturalist argument years earlier in her account of the ways in which the immigrant might be encouraged to join with the dominant society in her new homeland. In 1939, when Marie Keesing had asked the PPWA’s membership to consider some important questions about the role of culture in the contemporary Pacific, she had suggested that each delegation bring to conferences examples of craft, including examples of “foreign” art they had collected on their travels in other countries. Study groups might contribute cultural products such as batik or “Oriental embroidery” as a way of increasing mutual understanding of the region.64 Modern and traditional women might thereby transcend national, racial, and cultural divides through a shared appreciation of women’s creativity.65 She also asked them to reflect on the role of cultural production in traditional cultures, comparing communal involvement with the ways in which art was reduced in Western lives to an Culture and Identity  181

hour a week for schoolchildren. Lastly, and most significantly, she asked, should we “aim towards greater cultural uniformity in the interest of world integration or should cultural differences be nurtured?” She added that the answer to this question had implications for the future: “How are we to interpret the present trend towards cultural nationalism—temporary reaction, or forecast of the future?”66 More broadly, cultural production was considered intimately related to society and women’s place within it and to the national and international significance of the domestic realm. The survival of handcraft would also depend on the preservation of women’s ascendancy in home and community life. As early as her 1930s League of Nations report, Rachel Crowdy had been pleased to note that the PPWA theme of “women in political life” had included the study of home and community. Jean Begg, New Zealand chair of the Social Service Project and international project director in 1930, had asserted that a healthy home life produced happy citizens and thus greatly improved the possibilities for world peace. While domestic education was useful, housewives should be recognized as holding the future of world peace in their hands. The nurturing values of home and family had to be brought more fully into the public sphere. Much could be learned, or even reclaimed, from the non-Western example. Just as Western women had seen the dissolution of their moral authority as they had increasingly entered the public domain, Begg argued, non-Western women were on the cusp of undergoing the same potential loss of status. The hope was that in the latter case, domestic and public authority would coexist and remain interconnected. At the same time, the value of handcraft in trustee or recently decolonized nations gave an overtly anticolonial focus to these cultural aims. As history had shown, culture could be used to instigate resistance. A similar argument about culture had been used in India against British rule. Indian speaker Mrs. Tara Ali Baig advised the conference in 1955 that “in colonial areas” such as India, small farming communities had depended upon handcraft for their survival. Local craft had been central to the self-sufficiency promoted by Mahatma Gandhi in his campaign against colonization.67 In the name of channeling decolonizing countries toward democratic governments sympathetic to the West, the PPWA hoped that the politics of cultural production would provide a dual effect. First, it would figure in the foundations of modern identity. Western nations still had some elements of their own cultural traditions to draw from, and these were enjoying renewed popularity in the contemporary interest in folk art, music, and craft. Delegates to the 1937 conference enjoyed Canada’s “pioneer” culture by visiting Vancouver’s annual Folk Festival. In her report on the conference for the Pan-Pacific Magazine, festival director Mrs. J. T. McCay described the event as an 182  Chapter 5

example of “practical internationalism” in its celebration of handcraft, clothing, dance, and the songs of the ancestors of the “English-speaking peoples” of Canada.68 When the New Zealand PPWA returned from the 1952 conference, its members asserted that examples of white as well as Maori culture should be taken to future conferences in order to be “representative of New Zealand as a whole.”69 As the Indian example had illustrated, however, cultural identity might be important to anticolonial struggle as well. While the Christian social reform promoted by the PPWA was designed on the one hand to help combat illiteracy, disease, and so on, it was on the other hand aimed to direct non-Western populations toward democratic relations with their Western allies. These populations were considered to be still coming into modernity and thus highly susceptible to negative political influence. Harriet Andrews, honorary president at the 1952 conference and leader of the Hawai‘i delegation, spoke of the importance of education “for peoples in underdeveloped areas” to inoculate them against dictators such as those who had risen to power in Europe prior to World War II. It was hoped that culturally sensitive democratic transition would prevent political uprising among the nonwhite masses of the world. Without careful handling, mass involvement in urban political life might lead to the excesses of populism. In this context, conference guest speaker Charlotte Mahon, US consultant for the Alliance of Women at the Economic and Social Council of the UN, emphasized the importance of cross-cultural education in developing a citizen’s capacity to see the world from another’s point of view, that is, negotiating problems without “strikes, growth of racial, class, or religious antagonisms, revolt by force, or mounting hysteria.”70 Here the cultural internationalist aim of defusing disagreement barely disguised fears of anti-Western uprisings among recently decolonized people. Notably, similar assertions of immaturity and irrationality had long legitimated colonial rule. The Philippines, host nation of the next conference, was a case in point. The “liberation” of the Philippines from Spanish rule by the United States in 1898 had led to US occupation, justified on the grounds of Filipinos’ asserted incapacity for selfrule. Although the Philippines enjoyed a degree of self-government in 1903 and then independence after the war, the United States continued to act as the quasi-colonial power in a Philippines seen as a “nation in the making,” with local men and women, through the “degenerative” impacts of their cultural traditions, regarded as yet to achieve modern citizenship status.71 Gender was a central element in discussions about nationhood and modernity, while, as Vicente Rafael points out, women played a key role in their formation. Although symbolic of a nation in need of rescue, women were also “interlocutors in the debate over the future disposition of their body Culture and Identity  183

politic.”72 This double positioning applied to women also participating in the Pan-Pacific association. In addition to culture’s significance to nation formation and a democratic Pacific, second was its importance to debates about the future of indigenous minorities within settler nations. Interwar anthropological accounts of the dangers of unmediated culture clash had emphasized the critical role of culture in the survival of native peoples.73 By the time of the 1930 PPWA conference a resolution had already been passed: “That the creative and expressive arts be fostered and that the achievement of native peoples be recognised in order that distinctive national or racial contributions may be perpetuated and new values realized.”74 Educational and employment success were linked directly to cultural identity (as well as racial survival), as was emphasized by Felix Keesing in The Changing Maori, an account of ‘the rising generation” of the “Maori race” written in discussion with his wife, Marie.75 The Keesings’ work, among that of other anthropologists, was influential in shaping UNESCO’s postwar agenda to facilitate development among those “underdeveloped” countries recently gaining independence or occupying the intermediate status of trust territory. In 1954, Australian anthropologist C. D. Rowley (later to write a trilogy of books on the impacts of misadministration, injustice, and colonial violence against Aboriginal people in Australia) was employed by UNESCO’s Education Section to travel through Southeast Asia and to report on the application of educational programs in facilitating modernization. Rowley emphasized the necessity of recognizing cultural difference—in his words, “to bear in mind the clash of western materialism with ancient status cultures”—and to carefully avoid the appearance of “cultural superiority,” which was likely to bring about hostility and resistance among people otherwise interested in Western-style education. Mira Petricevich would no doubt have agreed. Echoing the PPWA’s concern to establish a cross-cultural synthesis on global matters while recognizing a degree of variation, Rowley concluded in civilizationalist terms that “good medicine” for the “ailments of the East” would not be found in the simplistic application of Western models—models that had, in any case, served “indifferently” for the West.76 In the same year, a seminar on arts and crafts in community life was held in Tokyo under the auspices of UNESCO’s Cultural Activities Section. Involving representatives sent from Afghanistan, Australia, Burma, Cambodia, Ceylon, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, the seminar emphasized the importance of protecting cultural expression among “traditional” cultures facing rapid industrialization. While cultural production through “traditionally skilful techniques” could ensure a degree of cultural meaning for its pro184  Chapter 5

ducers, it would also secure a better global market where a substantial section of world customers were interested in owning “authentic” products. Decline in craft skills in the non-West had led to mass “bewilderment” among individuals cut loose from communal and cultural affiliations, and as a result they had fallen prey to mass political movements, intergenerational breakdown, and social malaise. The director general of UNESCO, Dr. Luther H. Evans, expressed his commitment to cultural expression for its positive impact on individual growth, community stability, and “collective living.” In a working paper on indigenous art, his organization stated that “underprivileged groups in industrial countries” should be helped to “develop what is best in their own culture,” in order to promote self-employment of intrinsic and emotional worth, as well as economic value.77 Promoting handcraft was as much about seeking to ensure stability in the region as it was about the importance of cultural identity in negotiating global economies. (PPWA responses to fears of communist-inspired instability and anti-Western sentiment in the Pacific are considered more fully in the next chapter.) During the conference in Manila, the PPWA sought to contribute to this developmental discourse on handcraft by displaying examples of crafts brought by Asia and Pacific island delegates. The conference exhibition included woven cloth, shell work, printed fabric, embroidery, and pottery. Craft produced for tourism and owned by Western delegates might also be included, it asserted, and a collection of dolls in national costume was featured. According to Pakeha delegate Beryl Jackson, interest in the display was intense, attracting radio and press interviews and even a television broadcast during which Mira Petricevich was interviewed.78 This mixing of tourist souvenirs with traditional craft signaled a slippage within PPWA thinking, however. Desiring to emphasize the role of culture in indigenous communities and contemporary politics, Maori delegates were keen to rectify any misapprehension that culture was simply an entertaining means of cross-cultural exchange. Petricevich and Bennett asserted that the recent revival in cultural life and handcraft production had been central to the survival of the Maori as a people. Their words confirmed themes discussed in the UNESCO seminar on cultural production. Delivering a speech titled “Traditional Maori Craftsmanship,” Bennett stated that “the arts and crafts of a people can develop only when there is a measure of security and prosperity, when life is not merely a struggle for survival, but has a purpose and a sense of freedom.” Occupation by Europeans had brought about a “confusion” that threatened to engulf the Maori people. Through the “clash of cultures,” arts and crafts had all but disappeared, and the population had decreased alarmingly. A “spirit of fatalism” had infected their communities until, in recent years, the Young Maori Party had Culture and Identity  185

restored “confidence” and the “regeneration” of identity had gained momentum.79 According to the MWWL, improvement in the conditions of the Maori people combined social reform with an enthusiasm for cultural expression. As central figures in home and community life, women were pivotal to both.80 Moreover, international participation was conducive to women’s national influence. In her 1955 PPWA conference address about the MWWL, titled “The Sympathy of Today Is the Justice of Tomorrow,” Petricevich echoed Bennett by advising: In order to understand the real purpose for the existence of [the MWWL] it is necessary to know the present-day setting of the Maori race within New Zealand—its stage of progress in modern civilization. . . . The bewilderment and disillusionment created by the clash both in culture and in aims resulted in the breaking up of Maori society and with it the mind and character of the people. An overwhelming sense of hopelessness and fatalistic resignation set in and the race literally began to die.81

Petricevich added the growing international participation of Maori women to this account of survival. Speaking of the need to “reach the most backward members of the [Maori] race” while at the same time to “cater to the more advanced by providing them with cultural outlets,” she asserted that women were capable as leaders, being the most influential in the resolution of community problems. In her appearance on the international stage, Petricevich seemed to embody the capacity of Maori women to negotiate both “tradition” and modernity not only in New Zealand but internationally. Indeed, the complex interweaving of the two was literally encoded in the traditional clothing and the objects she often wore and carried. The cloak (kakahu), bodice (pari), and green stone (pounamu) pendant she wore at these times may have been somewhat dismissively described by local press as “a modernized version of her native Maori costume,”82 but the MWWL attached great importance to its authenticity nonetheless. Codes of dress constituted one domain of Maori authority over its own representation to the world.83 To this end, Maori delegates sought to educate PPWA delegates in the significance of Maori attire. In 1952 Maori cultural representative Zister described her ceremonial cloak to reporters as “a magnificent ancient Maori cloak of woven kiwi feathers edged with tui feathers” and her headdress as “composed of huia feathers.”84 But in any case, cultural meaning accrued to objects, no matter the conditions of their circulation in the world at large, and in new ways when worn for international audiences. Petricevich would later recall the 186  Chapter 5

words of Tara Ali Baig (guest delegate from India), who had told the conference that “handcrafts are a potent form of freedom.”85 These international experiences confirmed for Petricevich the value of contributing to an indigenous women’s voice in the Pacific. International self-representation, enabled by the MWWL (notably in her account, not attributable to the PPWA), gave “evidence of the need and desire of Maori women for separate identity as a people,” no matter the degree of “goodwill, understanding and friendship” they received from Pakeha members of the PPWA. The desire of Maori women was to “identify themselves as selfdetermining individuals, with the right to choose what was best for themselves in this ever-changing world.” As a result, Petricevich stated that the women of the MWWL should no longer be “prepared to sink their identity as a people within the larger [PPWA] group of New Zealanders.” Indigenous, not Pakeha, women should give the Maori welcome on behalf of the New Zealand delegation. Nor would any longer the homilies of cultural internationalism suffice. For Petricevich, international organization offered an opportunity to assert the resilience of indigenous cultures while insisting upon white women’s responsibility to help improve indigenous status and conditions in settler colonies. She considered it valuable for Maori women to look beyond their own circumstances and to learn about indigenous campaigns in other parts of the world. Describing her experience of the Manila conference in 1955, Petricevich advised the MWWL that the opportunity had marked “a momentous occasion in the history of our people,” signaling “a forward step in our thinking, in the broadening of our horizons and the awakening to a consciousness of the need to participate in world concerns.” Petricevich saw in Manila a particularly propitious awakening for Maori women, linking their own experience to that of other women living with colonization, particularly in the Philippines, where “awaited a people whose history has been one of subjugation for over 500 years.” Rather than the friendship and cooperation promised by cultural internationalism—“meaningless words [designed] to touch the gullible”—Maori women needed “tangible evidence” of commitment from their Pakeha colleagues. Pakeha women should work directly to “overcome the discrimination which exists” at home as well as promote that ideal internationally.86 Such international attention should also be directed toward New Zealand’s own colonial responsibilities. Living under New Zealand mandate, in 1955 the Western Samoa delegate Mrs. Phineas (village leader and secretary, Central Women’s Committee) joined with Maori women to call for separate indigenous representation at conferences. These women argued that where the leaders of national delegations met to form the international committee for each conference, indigenous women should be provided their own decision-making forum within the Culture and Identity  187

hierarchy. According to Victoria Bennett, appropriate recognition of indigenous women would extend to the Aborigines of Australia—yet to make an appearance at conferences. Sidestepping the Australia delegation altogether, she suggested Maori women should travel to Australia in order to encourage their inclusion within the international community of women.87 Such transnational alliances highlighted the porosity of cultural politics in PPSEAWA. They also suggested that the ideals of international interracial exchange and cross-cultural relationship should be applied to majority and minority cultures differently and in individual domestic contexts. An editorial appearing in the Press, a Christchurch newspaper, in response to the 1952 conference, summed up the point succinctly. Through the conference, “European” women, including New Zealand Pakeha women, had developed a clearer understanding of the needs of “under-privileged” countries and the responsibilities born by “the relatively few cultured women” within them for promoting literacy, health, and other public programs in these countries. But a larger lesson had been learned, one pertaining to all the members of the association, that “efforts for a happier world must begin at home, because no nation can exert its potential influence for good until it has reduced its domestic tensions.”88 Home represented here not only the familial space of the individual household or community but that of the larger national family. Among the settler colonies, the US delegation had remained, so far, remarkably immune to scrutiny; yet, as the next chapter argues, doubts concerning its authority in the Pacific due to its own record on race and rights, would become subject to discussion at the 1955 conference. The emergence of these concerns could be traced back to the end of the prewar era, when the unexpected arrival of an African American woman at the 1937 conference first raised the issue of America’s racial history. Nearly twenty years later, another African American woman would participate as a member of the US delegation. The next chapter considers the very different interests of these women, and the part that the politics of US black women played in the women’s Pan-Pacific cultural internationalist project.

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Six Race Politics in the Cold War

I

n 1955 a Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference was held for the first time in Southeast Asia. Reflecting on the forthcoming conference, US conference organizer and published author on native cultures in the Pacific, Japan, and India, Willowdean Handy predicted in 1954 that “Asians and Oceanicas” would approve of a conference held in Manila, the Philippines.1 She would be proven right. Twenty-one countries, including Australia, Hawai‘i, Japan, New Zealand, Burma, Tonga, Ceylon, Hong Kong, Pakistan, and the Philippines itself sent delegates to discuss the conference theme, “Social and Economic Inter-dependence.” Among them were several first-time delegations from Pacific islands who had benefited from UN travel funds. A large contingent of Southeast Asian delegates attended, and more than six hundred Filipino women and men purchased tickets for the opportunity to join the conference audience.2 They also received a colorful official souvenir program, mass-produced with support from the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs.3 The conference was headline news in Manila. As in previous years, organizers sought to encourage that the viewpoints of non-Western women be heard. Concerns expressed in this regard saw women ascribed in what we would today consider broadly ethnic commonalities, given that the Pacific region was, in the postwar era, increasingly conceived as a series of subregions home to separate cultural/racial types and to concomitant degrees of advancement.4 Responding to these massive changes, by the end of the two-week conference the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association had taken the momentous step of changing its name. Henceforth, it was the Pan-Pacific and South East Asia Women’s Association (PPSEAWA). The constitution was duly amended to expand the criteria for the accreditation of voting delegations, previously limited to those with established participation in the association, and thereby “enable the countries of South-East Asia to feel that they could become future members.”5 These changes reflected the growing influence of women in the Southeast Asian region. Mary Seaton, New Zealand delegate and international organizer, recalled that the new name and constitution were adopted at the specific 189

request of Southeast Asian delegates.6 Given the impact of the politics of decolonization and nationalism on the lives of such women, a new generation joined the association in relatively large numbers. They were seeking an international network amenable to their involvements in nation-building projects.7 The revamped Pan-Pacific women’s community claimed to meet those interests and, ready to embrace these new conditions, aimed to show itself able to adapt to the times. As a member of the Organizing Committee, Handy was careful to ensure that from the first day, where possible, the “Filipino point of view” was presented on every subject and that a representative of a “less developed and a more advanced industrial country” should debate each issue.8 Over the several business meetings held during the conference, members of the organizational hierarchy came to the conclusion that more “Asians,” particularly Southeast Asians, should be given leadership responsibility and that “Asians and Occidentals should alternate as presidents.”9 But while the PPWA’s advocacy of “East meets West” internationalism was rearticulated in this way, older accounts of “the Orient” (and the subordinate place of Polynesian cultures) would remain integral to the association’s civilizational approach to world cooperation. For many women, not just those in Southeast Asia, opportunities for international involvement had considerably improved. For one thing, getting to conferences was made faster and easier by air travel: This technological miracle of transportation which removes barriers of space and time may be looked upon as a symbol of what our Conference is doing in the realm of human relations, in the social, cultural, spiritual sphere— trying to remove the barriers which divide us, alienate us from one another— barriers of nationalism, prejudice, or inequality of opportunity, of lack of understanding[—in order to achieve] unity enriched by diversity.10

Once at the conference, however, the processes of exchange and friendship prescribed by the association still required time to take hold. The world might be speeding up, but for the next two weeks delegates lived in proximity to one another in order to practice cooperation across cultural divides. Nothing, it seemed, should diminish this experience, and that was especially true for women from the white nations. As in previous decades, Western delegates expressed their delight at the cosmopolitan glamour of the PanPacific conference experience. On their arrival in Manila, they reveled in the sounds and sights of delegates “speaking many tongues, clothed in distinct and charming gowns, all shapes and sizes—but all imbued with one desire to learn as much as possible about the others and their countries.”11 Along with the beautiful surroundings, the wonderful “traditional” dresses of Filipina 190  Chapter 6

women, their grace and yet modernity were admired just as those traits had been admired in Japanese and Chinese women during the interwar years, and later in Polynesian women too. Also remaining curious to the Western women’s eye was that women of color were in many cases powerful figures who occupied positions of influence in political elites. Fascinating delegates in Manila included Mrs. Chirawat Panyarachun, daughter of the prime minister of Thailand. This Bangkok “housewife,” who was “smart-looking in a slim-cut Western-style rose-colored dress,” had studied in the United States and held a post in the Ministry of Culture. For the first time numbers of Indonesian women participated as observers. Herawati Dlah, the wife of a member of the Indonesian parliament, accompanied a woman lawyer and an official from the Indonesian Foreign Office.12 Inspired by these exceptional women, PPSEAWA continued its promotion of womankind as central to the peaceful formation of Western-style democracies in the region. On the question of development, it supported the commonly held view that “no nation rises higher than the standards of its women.”13 But while a new awareness of decolonization and development had infiltrated the association’s cultural internationalist notions of advancement and civilization, the “East meets West” formulation that had founded the women’s network was in the process of gaining renewed purchase in culturalist accounts of the Pacific and Southeast Asia, just as civilizational hierarchies still held purchase within the women’s organization. When, for example, a program of dance that combined Spanish, French, English, and Malayan forms was organized for the 1955 conference, it was commended to participants, for “it is truly said that in Philippine folk dances, the student of civilizations finds a unique field of study from the most primitive, through the various stages, to the present culture which bears the unmistakeable input of the West” and “it is a blend of the Orient and the Occident.”14 The idea of intercivilizational dialogue returned also via analyses of hostilities between East and West in Europe as well as the Pacific. Western anxieties about the threat of Russia and Communist China heralded the cold war era. As we have seen, in 1949 an East-West Philosophers group convened its first conference, calling for dialogue between world powers and pointing to the internationalist idealism that existed on both sides as its basis. Meeting through the 1950s, the group, like PPSEAWA, sought to investigate “the underlying causes of universal social unrest” particularly, in its case, in the rise of communism in China due to “over population, intercultural contact, poverty, war etc.,” themes and concerns familiar to the interwar PPWA and integral to its program for world change in preceding years.15 But unlike the group, the women’s association did not place a particular focus on communism. When speaking to the 1952 PPWA conference in New Race Politics in the Cold War  191

Zealand, Charlotte Mahon, the US consultant to the UN, went so far as to argue that it was unrealistic to blame the Soviet Union or Chinese communists for “all our social unrest and all our political tensions.” Rather, she observed, “no nation’s record is completely clean.”16 This moderate position was also PPSEAWA’s. From the outset, the Pan-Pacific world of women had been cognizant of the need to carefully manage the involvement of communists within its ranks. Jane Addams had advised as early as the 1930s that women internationalists must “keep in touch with the Left and Communists.” Along with social reform and world peace, this achievement could stand as one of the most important contributions made by women internationalists to world cooperation in the twentieth century.17 Communist women who became internationalists in these years did so mostly through networks separate from those organized by liberal women. And yet for numbers of PPSEAWA women, radicalism was not an alien concept: the aim of social reform meant not merely improving living conditions but changing the very nature of society. This was the radical if liberal potential of pacifism and cultural internationalism: to build the very foundations of a viable world civilization. Socialism, while tainted by contemporary fears of communism, remained important to some among the association’s membership. One of these became its president in 1955. A leading pacifist and advocate of public reform along socialist lines, Josephine Schain sought to carry out Addams’ call for cross-political dialogue. Despite the heightened conditions of the cold war, she held fast to the cultural internationalist line that political antagonisms, like those based on religious grounds, were but one more obstacle to interracial harmony and cooperation. Attention to diversity began with respect. Aware that not all conference delegates were Christians (some being Buddhists or Baha’is, for example), she made sure that services held during the 1955 conference were nondenominational, but that they all emphasized the spiritual and moral aims of international work.18 In so doing, she was arguably also questioning the growing anticommunist sentiment within Western religion. Furthermore, Schain was genuinely interested in decolonization and was prepared to express public criticism of her own government’s behavior in the Pacific. According to historian Yukiko Koshiro, the US administration in occupied Japan had been founded on overt assumptions of racial superiority.19 Against such assumptions, in 1949 Schain informed Ann Satterthwaite, the association’s secretary in Hawai‘i, that she had flouted US authority by contacting directly and without official permission several Japanese women to invite them to attend the first postwar conference, complaining that General Macarthur “is so touchy about his authority.” At the same time, she wrote in positive terms of her meeting with women in Indonesia (her 192  Chapter 6

connections there had brought several new delegates to PPSEAWA) while noting they “seemed pretty radical” (as we will see, this was the beginnings of the nonalignment movement in Asia).20 The risk in making such invitations, although they were seemingly benign, should not be underestimated in the era of McCarthyism, increasingly felt in this period by nongovernmental groups in the United States (and beyond) that were seeking to influence world politics.21 Among them, the American Council of the IPR was accused of pro-communist sympathies.22 Merely meeting in international collaboration with delegates from communist countries had become a dangerous activity. If the association was to remain a legitimate body for women in the region, then PPSEAWA would have to ensure its continuing reputation as a liberal, social reform network interested in peace and democracy but not “politics.” To this end, PPSEAWA maintained its careful handling of the media and strictly distinguished between closed sessions and those open to the public. And, in any case, it claimed a moderate position on world affairs because of its very internationalist ethos. Cultural internationalism required the capacity to listen to each person’s point of view and to identify and ultimately displace one’s own assumptions; moderation and convergence were the desired outcomes. Harriet Andrews, longtime Hawai‘i delegate and honorary president and a member of the Honolulu YWCA Board of Directors, wrote to Schain in July 1954 that the association should stand, above all, for “democracy against authoritarianism be it right or left.”23 While no doubt referring here to the extremes of fascism and communism, Andrews might also have been describing the destructive effects of authoritarianism within liberal democracy, as exampled by the anticommunism then informing domestic politics in the United States and elsewhere. Nonetheless, the association continued to invite delegates from China. As early as 1949, while organizing the first conference following World War II, Schain had forewarned honorary secretary Ann Satterthwaite that inviting delegates from communist countries such as China would become increasingly controversial for the association: “This comes to the question I raised before about inviting communists. We had a rule . . . that we would invite communists if the government of the country was communist, otherwise not. Since then the cold war has developed in such as way that I think serious thought should be given to the matter.”24 The distinction between individual women and the policies or actions of their governments had been important to the PPWA and was important now to PPSEAWA’s international politics. Its intention was to provide a space in which women could articulate their criticisms of a range of national politics without condemnation or media sensation. It hoped that women could draw strength from the international community in order to speak Race Politics in the Cold War  193

with immunity in closed sessions. At the same time, the PPSEAWA was not prepared to entirely sidestep world events. Such radical political movements as the People’s Revolution in China illustrated women’s collective bravery, for example. Schain expressed her sympathies for Chinese women on the Long March because they were women facing enormous hardship together, while she gave no direct comment on their political purpose. However oblique, such sympathies would contribute to her ensuing and very public censorship, and she would face public pressure from US authorities during the 1955 conference, when the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) initiated a file on the PPSEAWA. Other than the Australian government’s efforts to intercede on the matter of Aboriginal policy at the 1930 conference, surveillance by the United States appears to have constituted the only other attempt by a national government to influence the association by bringing overt pressure to bear on its leadership. Once again, women from the United States were a powerful force at the 1955 conference. Among delegations from Australia, Hawai‘i, Japan, and New Zealand, the delegation led by Schain was the second-largest contingent (sixteen women), next to the Philippines’ host delegation, which dominated the proceedings with the maximum number of twenty-five members. Their combination with the large numbers of local women in the audience meant that finally the Anglocentric profile of the conference had shifted. The US delegation (having dropped “Mainland” from its name) brought a variety of expertise in government work and nongovernmental women’s organizations. Apart from UN consultant Schain, other delegates with international experience included Mrs. Henry Fowler, member of the Educational Exchange Service of the US Department of State and delegate to the 1954 World Congress of Child Health; Dorothy Leet, president of the International Federation of University Women; and Ella P. Stewart, the first African American member of the delegation. Stewart had attended the International Congress of the National Council of Women in Athens in 1952. Others represented the League of Women Voters, the Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, or the YWCA or were anthropologists or specialists in health, international relations, or education. Like the US delegation but with less international experience, the delegation from the Philippines drew from a cross section of women in public life and involved in women’s activism. Fernanda Balboa, vice president of the PPWA, was president of the League of Women Voters in the Philippines and a member of the bar. University women, government employees in the areas of nursing and mental health, representatives of women’s clubs and the YWCA, and writers joined her. In a paper written for the Pan-Pacific in 1938, Paz Mendez, Philippine Association of University Women vice presi194  Chapter 6

dent (but not a member of the PPWA), explained that in 1937, under the new conditions of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, women—nearly 600,000 of them—had become voters in the first elections in the country. Their involvement in such large numbers had resulted from more than a decade of agitation for suffrage (and was not simply sparked by the arrival of Carrie Chapman Catt and Aletta Jacob, suffrage campaigners from America and Holland in 1912, as commonly thought). Prior to US occupation in 1898, she asserted, an anti-Spanish nationalism had recognized the role of women, and more recent agitation by women’s organizations in the Philippines had secured the vote. As the achievement of suffrage took effect, she predicted, women would gain greater participation in public life.25 That public life was still dominated by the United States remained an unspoken fact. Hosting an international conference in 1955 contributed some glamour to a compromised national agenda, providing an opportunity for Filipina women like Mendez to express pride in their role in “the nation” as much as in the international community of women. From late January to early February, in the modern surroundings of the University of the Philippines, conference discussion was dominated by the work of UN, UNESCO, the World Health Organization, the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund in the Pacific, and the Colombo Plan. Since the late 1920s the “Pan-Pacific” had been recognized by the larger international community as crucial to world progress, and now it was closely aligned to a range of programs and projects designed to facilitate democratic development. In 1951 Parimal Das, who was employed by UNESCO’s Education Clearinghouse on a women’s education project in Burma, wrote to the acting director of UNESCO’s Education Department in support of the PPWA’s application for a subvention toward increasing the involvement of women in the region, especially from the Trust Territories. She pointed out that “UNESCO is now undertaking special activities concerning Trust and Non-Self-Governing Territories, and most of the little islands where the Association has its membership come under either the one or the other.”26 But in a subsequent communication between members of UNESCO’s Relations with Nongovernmental Organizations Section on the matter of Das’ advocacy of the association, the PPWA was represented as yet to prove its relationship with UNESCO. Revealing an ignorance of the PPWA’s track record of interest in education in the region, a memorandum addressed to the head of the section, Vladimir Hercik, advised: I suggested to them that one of the purposes of the conference might be to forward the investigation into the opportunities of women for Education throughout the region. I don’t know how far they have really grasped this Race Politics in the Cold War  195

situation. . . . They are a good experienced group of women, but they have had probably little experience in this particular field.27

Another woman sympathetic to the PPWA, Lorna McPhee, who worked within UNESCO’s External Relations Service and was a New Zealand member of the Federation of University Women, added her voice in favor of providing the association with funds. Apparently she was able to persuade Hercik that these “ladies” deserved support. In addition, the Executive Board of UNESCO would be impressed when the PPWA refunded more than three hundred dollars of its original 1951 subvention, especially given that its annual income was only two hundred.28 In 1954 Schain secured a second subvention on behalf of the association, again committed on the proviso that the funds were to be used toward the costs of participants “selected from underdeveloped countries” by the PPWA and the International Federation of University Women. By 1956 the association had achieved consultative status (level B) with the Economic and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC). The treasurer of PPSEAWA US, Dana Backus, was also a member of the US National Commission for UNESCO, and the association’s relationship with the UN was cemented by Helen Fowler, vice president of PPSEAWA and ECOSOC delegate to the International Council of Women in 1954.29 Sharpened by these subventions and shared members, UNESCO’s support for PPSEAWA was most clearly apparent at the 1955 conference. Through the support of its funds delegations were welcomed not only from Burma, Ceylon, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia (five delegates), Korea, Pakistan, Sarawak, Vietnam (three delegates), Taiwan, and Thailand but also from Tonga, the Trust Territories of the Pacific (Palau and Ponape), and Western Samoa. One of the Vietnam delegates, Miss Nguyen Thi Chau, was the secretary-general of the National Commission of UNESCO in Vietnam. Both Tonga delegates were teachers at the Queen Salote College, Tonga, and represented the indigenous Tongan Women’s Association. This mix of delegates strengthened the association’s focus on urgent matters of local development in an unstable world situation. For many, by 1955 the early postwar days of hope for international cooperation seemed a distant memory. In her opening speech, US delegate and program chair Willowdean Handy (Hawai‘i), explained the genesis of the conference theme, “Social and Economic Inter-dependence.” With hindsight, she wondered whether she and other delegates, meeting in Christchurch in 1952 to talk about “the Pacific in Today’s World,” had “not yet gotten used to the cold war.” But perhaps it was this “sense of imminent catastrophe” surrounding the deterioration in world relations that had led to their emphasis 196  Chapter 6

at that conference on “the inner stronghold of friendly relations based on common human needs.” Mobilizing the renewed valency of civilizations in world affairs, she announced proudly that the Manila conference was the first at which “Eastern and Western women” held equal numbers of official positions and were represented by equal numbers of voting members. The PPSEAWA had finally achieved equity in terms of numbers and representation, even if it had returned to the language of “East and West,” which was in any case finding renewed favor in the cold war era. As we have seen, some indigenous delegates called for different measurements of equity, including settler colonial women’s collaboration on domestic campaigns, or for separate representation by indigenous women on the Executive Committee. But these complications were not part of Handy’s agenda at the opening of the conference. Rather, in the renewed language of “East meets West,” she saw world affairs as dominated by two distinct realms, developed and underdeveloped. Economics was the cause of global antagonisms, not political views, and social reform remained the answer. Applying the language of the UN, she declared the “cleavage between the developed and under developed nations . . . unbearable and unnecessary.” Until all nations had achieved a level of advancement, the world would be drawn back into global conflict. Only by squarely facing this fact, and rationally exchanging peaceful ideas toward its resolution, could the world progress. Thus, global interdependence was chosen to be the focus for their discussions in Manila: Never in the history of mankind have we been so aware that social and economic affairs are inextricably laced together. . . . [L]et us remember. . . [w]e are not here to settle the affairs of nations [but to] demonstrate friendship . . . and the objective search for truth. Let us proceed to write . . . of social and economic affairs in the Pacific as seen through the eyes of women who are trying to be as objective as scientists, as receptive as artists, and as impartial as mothers.30

Communist Sympathies Despite Handy’s best hopes for objectivity combined with womanly friendship and creative expression, the specter of communist sympathy would bring discord and public controversy to the conference. As we saw in chapter 1, the Pan-Pacific association had a long-standing, if sometimes difficult, relationship with “the women of China.” A commentator on the association, writing in the 1950s, observed that the Chinese women had long fascinated other delegates, remembering the early contributions of Dr. Mei Ting, with her “beautiful clear English” and her strong personality, while approving of Race Politics in the Cold War  197

her important work as a medical doctor and “pioneer” helping China to overcome its “many difficulties.”31 Certainly, national pride had been integral to the Chinese women’s interest in participation in the PPWA. In 1927 a nationalist uprising had swept across China, including the International Zone of Shanghai. During the 1928 conference in Hawai‘i, at which the China delegates spoke against an Australian woman’s proposal that the next conference be held in their country, Dr. Ting and her colleague had presented the Nationalist flag of China to the PPU.32 Given the significance of their presence to Hawai‘i-based cultural internationalism, perhaps the appropriateness of this flag waving at an international gathering was left politely unquestioned. By the late 1930s the representative of the Kuomintang government, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, had become the darling of the West, even speaking to the US Congress in her quest for increased American aid.33 Madame Chiang was also greatly admired by the PPWA. Her account of China, stressing the need for radical modernization through the “systematic instruction” of the population, was read to the 1937 conference and had been well received by the assembled delegates.34 Fifteen years later, another revolution in China had ousted Chiang Kai-shek, who established Nationalist, or Formosan, China in Taiwan. In 1955 the PPSEAWA welcomed a delegation of Chinese Nationalists from Taiwan (the Formosans) just as Communist China was poised to join the Assembly of the United Nations. The imminent shift in global relations would affect the conference as well. In her opening address, Schain had referred in passing to her recent visit to Formosa, noting with disapproval that the country was then under martial law.35 Within a few days of their arrival at the conference, the Formosans publicly accused her of pro-communist sympathies, declaring that she was overenthusiastic toward China’s recognition by the international community. In response to these allegations, the US ambassador to the Philippines advised that if the Formosans were correct, Schain would be sent home. Summoned to the US Embassy in a show of explaining her behavior, Schain told reporters that she felt a “deep distress” at the incident (perhaps referring to her regret that the story had become public). Denying the assertion that she supported Communist China, she repeated nonetheless her enthusiasm for China’s forthcoming inclusion at the UN.36 Partiality was a serious accusation against a conference president, but worse still was involving the press in contradiction of the Pan-Pacific internationalist ideal of trust built through informal exchange. Moving quickly to defuse a deteriorating situation, the association provided a photograph to the papers, showing Schain being warmly greeted by her Filipino hosts at an official PPSEAWA dinner.37 Consequences were forthcoming, however. For their break with PPSEAWA etiquette by involving the press without the 198  Chapter 6

approval of the association, on the following Monday the Formosa delegates were refused entry to the conference, although protest from the Philippines delegation led to their reinstatement two days later.38 Perhaps this support of the Formosans was also an expression of compliance with US authorities, or at least recognition of its powerful place in Philippine society. As Paul A. Kramer and Vicente Rafael point out, although the Philippines had gained formal independence, they remained subject to US influence in most avenues of life.39 Not surprisingly then, the conference hosts represented themselves as strongly anticommunist. Mrs. Luz Magsaysay, wife of the president of the Philippines, asserted in her conference welcome that “the peoples of the free world need to band together against Communism and present a solid front if . . . democracy [is to be] sustained.”40 On the day following its interview with Schain, the then US Department of Foreign Affairs reported that “it was satisfied with Miss Schain’s public apology and now consider[ed] the matter closed.”41 Yet surveillance of the association would continue over the next years, this time concerning the Soviet sympathies of a delegate who was its representative at the UN and a recent member of the Australian PPWA. When the status of women in Pacific countries was discussed at the 1952 PPWA conference, many delegates from recently decolonized countries had attributed their advanced status and conditions to their own cultural traditions. For them, decolonization signaled not the simple adoption of Western-style women’s rights but a modernized rearticulation of traditional forms interrupted by colonization. In a similar vein, Mrs. Harry Kluegel of the Hawai‘i Committee for the Government Project presented for the second PPWA conference her paper titled “Status of Hawaiian Women Prior to the Twentieth Century.” She advised with a sense of irony that women in preannexation Hawaiian society had enjoyed equal property rights with men of the sort yet to be won by North American women.42 The message was clear: the West did not necessarily lead, nor did the road to Western enfranchisement necessarily apply to the conditions of non-Western women. Already greatly influenced by the UN and UNESCO, PPSEAWA aimed to bring greater emphasis within these organizations to the status and conditions of the women of the Pacific and Southeast Asia. An Australia PPSEAWA delegate in the 1950s and a trade unionist, Jessie Street was a vice chairman of the Status of Women Commission, the UN’s major postwar study of women.43 With international connections in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Street had already come under Australian government surveillance in 1937. Ten years later, her involvement in the Status of Women Commission drew Australian and then US government opposition. As a result, her Australian passport was withdrawn, and she had to travel on a British passport instead. In spite of these obstacles, she would go on to help Race Politics in the Cold War  199

draft amendments to the International Bill of Human Rights and to include in them the historic phrase “without discrimination based on sex, colour, race, language, or religion.”44 Street considered the PPSEAWA well placed to provide information concerning Pacific women, a group largely overlooked by the UN Commission. In a letter to Ann Satterthwaite in 1949, she described talking with Japanese women internationalists about the Status of Women survey, after being given permission by US authorities to visit Japan. She was highly critical of the rights of women in the region, however, and her criticisms extended to the conditions of women under trusteeships: Personally I should like to see the [next] Pan-Pacific conference do some work in collecting information about the discriminations existing against women, and the status of women generally in the trustee-ship and nonself-governing areas. A large number of these countries that fall within this category are situated in the Pacific area. Under the [UN] Charter, the Nations responsible for these areas have pledged themselves, amongst other things, to eliminate sex discrimination, and to develop these countries with a view to giving the people self-government and thus enabling them to become independent. The women in these countries probably have fewer rights and are held in greater subjection than in any other part of the world. In this way, the conference could make a very valuable contribution to the work of the Status of Women and the United Nations.45

By the mid-1950s, the matter of women’s status in the context of cold war politics would once again threaten the reputation of the association. One year after the 1955 Manila conference, a member of the PPSEAWA headquarters in Honolulu brought a letter concerning the ongoing work of the Status of Women Commission to the Honolulu Office of the FBI. In the letter a delegate of the association had advised the PPSEAWA executive of an invitation for a representative to attend a women’s conference in Moscow to discuss the (assertedly liberated) status of Russian women. The conference would discuss the equal parts that women and men played in the Soviet Union. Concerned about the prospect that a member of her association might attend a meeting in Russia, the informant wanted information from the FBI regarding which other women’s organizations were likely to be represented at the conference. After she was “advised that this would not be possible in view of the fact that the records of the FBI are confidential,” her concerns drew the bureau’s attention to the PPSEAWA itself. In a memo to the FBI director in Honolulu, the informant was recorded as explaining: 200  Chapter 6

The purpose of the organisation . . . is to promote friendship between women of various nations in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. She [the informant] said that there is no specific objective of the organization to fight Communism, but she was definitely against becoming embroiled in any conference or seminar wherein Communist organizations might dominate the meeting or attempt to use the organization to its purposes.46

This inquiry was forwarded to the FBI’s New York office. Likely as a result, Jessie Street was then barred from attending the conference in Russia. On advice from US authorities, Australian officials confiscated her passport, and thus her career as a woman internationalist was temporarily curtailed. Although Street did not attend another PPSEAWA conference, despite the risk to their careers other members of the association did participate in the Russian conference on women. International vice president and New Zealand delegate Ellen Lea (New Zealand Women Teachers’ Association) and, extraordinarily, her colleague Fernanda Balboa (Philippines delegate and international president) strangely enough both took part on their way back from the 1956 UNESCO meeting on culture held in New Delhi. Apparently without any compunction to disclose their actions to authorities, Lea advised PPSEAWA New Zealand that the two had been there as the guests of the Soviet Union.47 Race Politics in the United States Whereas the early postwar years had been filled with possibility, the increasing bifurcation of world politics in the cold war and decolonization eras camouflaged the growth of US imperialism in the region, as Amy Kaplan and Donald E. Pease have noted.48 Although equally veiled, this growth had been apparent also in the growing economic focus within the operations of the PPWA in previous years. For example, Viola Smith worked in Shanghai to promote markets for American goods and was the collaborator of early China delegate Eleanor Hinder during the interwar years.49 When Dr. Persia Campbell (president of the New York Consumers’ League) looked over the 1955 program, she advised Willowdean Handy that if home industries and homecraft were to be discussed by the PPWA, then so must the “sweated labor” of women working from home in Western countries.50 Cultural historian Christina Klein argues that the cold war has been wrongly represented as an era of US isolationism. Rather, she asserts that key commentators promoted the virtue of engagement by advocating knowledge of other peoples and cultures. With decolonization a critical feature of the postwar context, State Department officials advised that the new task for Middle Race Politics in the Cold War  201

America was to provide leadership around the world. To do so, it would be necessary to engage with the newly decolonized nations.51 While such engagement might promote the claim that the United States upheld the right of other “races” and cultures to autonomy, both at home and abroad, these claims were increasingly subjected to critical scrutiny. In particular, ideological battles with the Soviet Union heightened international debate on racial discrimination and violence in the United States.52 By the 1950s the question of race politics was again fundamental to world affairs. In his analysis of this focus continuing in cold war discourse, Nikhil Pal Singh has noted the prevalence of “wide-ranging conversations about . . . the rights of racial minorities, and the colonized,” but that lacking in these global conversations was a questioning of “the worldly—indeed universal—projections of American national power.” By denouncing the brutalities of Stalinism, the West veiled a fundamental contradiction between the legacies of colonialism and the “global narrative of democratic promise” articulated and propounded by the United States in the 1950s.53 It was a criticism that could also be applied to the PPSEAWA. In the postwar era the emergence of Southeast Asia encouraged fears among many Western internationalists that decolonization might lead the region away from pro-Western democracy. In 1955 Clorinda Lucas, the first Native Hawaiian delegate to join the postwar PPSEAWA Hawaii delegation, asserted that the greatest challenge facing the Pacific was “the lack of funds with which to provide the rights and privileges of democracy to . . . women.” She noted that, as a result, an “emphasis on self help throughout the Pacific . . . appears the salvation of the area.”54 The threat of a nonaligned, or even anti-West, Pacific encouraged efforts to support internationalist women in democratic countries. When Vivia Appleton of the Hawai‘i delegation learned that PPWA Canada was disbanding, she expressed her dismay at the timing, “now when the danger of a Pan Asiatic block threatens peace and cooperation everywhere in the world.”55 International program director Mary Seaton reported concerns about allegiance among Asian countries expressed by members of the US branch of the PPWA whom she had met in 1953 during a trip to New York. Returning to the problem of decolonization within their organization, they considered that the “European lines” along which the association had been formed would not appeal sufficiently to Asian women and that “there might be a tendency for them to have their own meetings and so drift towards an Asian block.”56 The Korean War of 1950–1953 and the emergence of a nonalignment movement confirmed these concerns. If promoting democracy underwrote the PPSEAWA vision for a cooperative Pacific and Southeast Asia, at best its formation signaled a productive breeding ground for new kinds of de202  Chapter 6

mocracies. At worst, it could become the staging ground, once again, for violent struggle between competing world systems. At the same time, as Australian Thelma Kirby pointed out, although “many Eastern countries had recently gained their independence . . . they could [not] live independently of other countries” and might form a regional alliance of their own.57 The first meeting of nonaligned nations would be held in Bandung, Indonesia, within months of the Manila conference. Writing of the importance of the “age of Bandung” to world history, Antoinette Burton, Augusto Espiritu, and Fanon Che Wilkins point to a series of political and cultural “pressure points” during the 1950s and the ensuing multiple contestations over “American fitness for leadership in the postwar, Cold War, and decolonizing world.”58 Not least, social reform was implicated in these larger global agendas. Under these volatile conditions, international cultural and educational exchange programs increasingly targeted Southeast Asia. At the same time, US race relations were coming under greater scrutiny. Indeed, the two were directly interconnected in the establishment in the 1950s of a series of goodwill tours by the US government, involving carefully selected African American musicians, popular figures, and reformers. Their presence was designed to support the US government’s asserted claim of promoting democracy while protecting human rights. Similarly, the Colombo Plan offered Southeast Asian women and men opportunities for education in the United States, Australia, and other Western countries, given that, on their return home, these women and men were expected to act as interlocutors for the West. In 1952, Richard Casey, the minister for external affairs in the overtly anticommunist Australian government, confirmed the urgent need to “understand and be understood by the countries of South and South East Asia.” Through its sponsorship of overseas students, he continued, the Colombo Plan for Cooperative Economic and Social Development encouraged “social responsibility” and a philosophy of development, while promoting internationalism and the virtues of cultural exchange among Western hosts.59 During the remapping of the region after the war, British influence in the Pacific had further diminished. No longer a British imperial outpost, Australia, for example, was now a white nation in the Asia-Pacific. When Australia delegate Thelma Kirby (Country Women’s Association and Australian Broadcasting Commission) spoke at the 1955 conference on trade in the region, she described herself as a delegate from Down Under, an Anglo nation in the Pacific. Australia was still struggling to reconcile this recognition of a rearticulated national geography with its colonial past, she stated. Although historically belonging to Europe, geographically Australia “is a large Pacific Island,” Kirby pointed out. Since World War II, Australians were coming to a greater realization that their prosperity lay in their Race Politics in the Cold War  203

country’s developing relationships with its Pacific neighbours, as well as becoming a colonial power in the region in its own right.60 US ascendancy over these new global conditions was given literal representation in 1955 when the first African American woman joined the US delegation. Ella Stewart’s involvement in PPSEAWA internationalism seemed to embody the comparative advancement of the rights of African Americans at home and of US influence in Asia and the Pacific. Domestic race relations were deeply interpolated with US cultural imperialism in this period, arguably nowhere more so than in the Philippines. In his study of race and US policy in the twentieth century, Mark Gallicchio has shown that many of those African Americans who had enlisted to fight for the “liberation” of the Philippines from Spanish imperialism in the late nineteenth century were dismayed to find the United States establishing its own regime on the islands.61 Leading Pan-Africanists of the interwar period would declare the occupation of the Philippines to be evidence of US attitudes toward the “less advanced” races around the world, paralleled in the treatment of African Americans at home.62 As historian Penny Von Eschen has shown, the international view on race relations taken by leading Pan-African activists called for the end of imperialism and inequality between the races, and for political solidarity between the black and Asian peoples of the world.63 This critical politics extended into Southeast Asia and found support in the nonalignment movement. Within the Philippines itself, reports in the Manila Times during the 1950s were highly critical of racism faced by African Americans and of the negative impact of discriminatory legislation on the lives of Filipinos living in the United States.64 Race politics, as much as anticommunism, constituted the landscape of the cold war. Race politics were also intimately interlaced with the cultural internationalism of the PPSEAWA. While race had been decried as an obstacle of bigotry and ignorance to be transcended, somatic readings of nonwhite women remained powerfully integral to the glamour and frisson of the conference experience. And, although the modern language of difference had come to assert culture over definitions of biological race, discrimination on the grounds of color remained a vibrant element in the lives of women around the world. Furthermore, “race” now returned as a political category by which minority ethnic groups claimed their rights as integrated members of society. Indigenous groups in settler societies would soon make such an argument, influenced in the 1960s by the Civil Rights movement in the United States, but also by earlier Pan-African politics from the 1920s.65 African American politics were arguably considerably influential in shaping larger questions of race relations throughout the Pacific, yet only two African American women spoke at Pan-Pacific women’s conferences during the first three decades of 204  Chapter 6

the association. The final section in this chapter turns to their numerically small but nonetheless significant presence. To ascertain the influence of US race history on the PPWA and then the PPSEAWA, we need to return to the interwar period. The first African American women appeared unannounced at the Vancouver conference in 1937. They were led by a Black Nationalist whose organization was then under government surveillance. The second joined in 1955 as the first African American member of the US delegation. She was a founder of the black women’s club movement, which promoted respectability and integration. The political distance between these two women was considerable, but not perhaps as much as first seems. In his study of middle-class black politics, historian Kevin Gaines points out that being pro-assimilation crossed the political divide between nationalist and respectability politics. Socioeconomic advancement into the middle class relied on the promotion of self-help and interdependence that was central to both sets of politics.66 As we will see, in terms of the value of international engagement, both women found in PPSEAWA a useful way to meet with other women in the region who were interested in cross-cultural and interracial exchange. Each possessed a determination to turn the attention of this community toward the status and conditions of African Americans in the United States. Despite its previous lack of interest in black America, they considered the association to provide a valuable platform from which to promote internationally the African American woman’s cause. African Americans had been among those internationalists in the early twentieth century who sought new forms of global organization based on race equity. The repression of Pan-African internationalism by the US government during the 1920s and 1930s, however, caused African American politics to bifurcate at the national level. The respectability politics of women’s clubs promoted integration as the way in which to improve conditions and change society, while black nationalism saw the involvement of African American women in a separatist movement. Nationalists too envisaged the upward mobility of women as well as men in the empowerment of African America; in the 1920s, for example, Amy Jacques Garvey worked for the agency of women in her husband’s nationalist organization.67 Given the close interconnection between integration, middle-class values, and gender politics, by the cold war era African American women’s clubs had become an influential lobby in the United States, while nationalists attracted FBI surveillance and the threat of expulsion and imprisonment. The clubs would contribute to the goodwill tours devised to enhance the advancement of US race relations into the Asia-Pacific region. Given that the resurgence of the international influence of African American politics is more usually ascribed Race Politics in the Cold War  205

to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, it is important to note here that both nationalist and club women sought to access international connections throughout this period. In this interim, they became involved in the PanPacific women’s network. Mrs. Takahashi and the Nation of Islam In 1937, Vancouver newspapers reported daily on the exciting Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference held in their city. One of their lead stories was the unexpected contribution of a Mrs. Takahashi. Although arriving unannounced, she was offered a place on the main program of the second day of the conference. In front of more than 120 delegates from nine countries, she spoke to the conference theme of “Practical Ways and Means to Promote Peace.” At a time when a world war seemed all too possible, her impassioned assertion that world peace could be secured only through racial harmony was greeted with enthusiasm. But Mrs. Takahashi was not one of the highly admired women from Japan who played such an important role in the “East meets West” focus of the association. Rather, as the opening lines of her speech made clear, she affirmed for those present her pride in being an African American woman. In the early 1930s Pearl Sherrod had taken her place in the pages of African American history by becoming the second wife of Satokata Takahashi. Although little detail is known of his background and work, Mr. Takahashi emerged in the 1920s as the founder and leader of Development of Our Own, a group he formed in Detroit and one of a number of such organizations proliferating during the interwar years in urban North America. Historian Ernest Allen Jr. notes that the “Little Major,” as Takahashi was known, had previously been married to a white Englishwoman and now claimed to be a military officer working on a clandestine mission to develop links between the Japanese government and African Americans, Filipinos, and West and East Indians living in the United States. Like many Islamic nationalist groups emerging in these years, Development of Our Own attracted a considerable African American membership who anticipated that a victory for Japan in a world war would bring an end to white supremacy in the United States. Within little more than a decade, Takahashi’s expressions of support for Japan would lead to his arrest and deportation on the grounds of sedition.68 Mr. Takahashi’s pro-Japanese politics built upon Japan’s asserted opposition to Western colonialism. (In 1919, Japan delegates at the Versailles Conference had attempted to insert a racial equality clause into the League of Nations Covenant.) Similarly pro-Japanese views would continue to contribute to some African Americans’ responses to world war in fol206  Chapter 6

lowing years. Of African Americans responding to an Office of War survey taken in 1942, approximately 20 percent still supported Japanese victory.69 By the mid-1930s Pearl Takahashi had replaced her husband as leader of the movement. Befitting her newly acquired status, she and her entourage arrived at the PPWA conference in 1937 in a chauffeur-driven car and wearing expensive clothes. The stir caused by their dramatic entrance was recorded with excitement in the conference diary of Elsie Andrews, the PPWA international program chair in the 1930s and a key figure in the New Zealand delegation. Looking across the crowded conference hall, Andrews exclaimed that she “saw several negresses . . . the first I have ever seen in real life and I am dying to have a talk with them.”70 With the circulation of Hollywood movies (even to the far reaches of her home town of New Plymouth, New Zealand) and the globalization of American culture through which African American performers had become stars in Europe,71 the well-dressed African American women added a new level of glamour to the cross-cultural and interracial PPWA project. This group of visitors sought to bring the conditions of African American women within the scope of the Pan-Pacific network as a social justice issue it must face. At their meeting later in the day, Mrs. Takahashi’s group informed Andrews that they had driven all the way from Detroit “at their own expense” because they were “anxious that the position of the colored folk shall not be lost sight of ” by women at the conference.72 Such fears of invisibility were well founded. Only in 1955 would an African American woman finally join the US delegation. Nor, in the interim, did its members include the status and conditions of African American women in its conference reports. The members of Takahashi’s group had brought with them evidence of an urgent issue that they wanted particularly to convey to Pan-Pacific women, placing before Andrews a number of press clippings documenting the incidence of lynching in the US South. Their testimony on this subject contributes to a substantial history of the involvement of African American women in sharpening the race awareness of feminist internationalists. Most well known among these was Ida B. Wells, who in the 1890s had toured the United States and Britain to speak out against lynching. Along the way, she had confronted white women with the pivotal part they played in the sexualized politics of racial violence.73 By the first decades of the twentieth century, the Senate had passed numerous anti-lynching bills with some support from women’s organizations in the United States. Shockingly, however, lynching had increased in the post–World War I era, part of a broader backlash against the claims of race equality promoted by the US government in justification for entering World War II. It was this rise in the incidence of lynching that inspired Pearl Takahashi’s intervention at the PPWA. Race Politics in the Cold War  207

That such direct forms of racial violence continued to mark race relations in the United States provided graphic evidence of the resilience of racism. Andrews recorded her dismay at seeing these newspaper stories. While she knew lynching took place in the South, she remarked in her diary, “it makes it much more poignant when one hears it at first hand.” But the idea that her own country, with its reputation for interracial harmony, should be read alongside these examples was not in her comprehension. She continued in a surprised tone: “Imagine my feelings when quite seriously one of them said to me ‘Don’t you ever have lynching in your country?’ The question just about made my blood run cold.”74 Her visceral response indicated dismay at the idea of this kind of violence being compared with New Zealand’s treatment of the Maori, situating lynchers alongside white settler colonials like herself. Andrews had worked hard to secure her status as a good colonizer through her enactment of interracial harmony with Maori delegates at the PPWA conference held in Honolulu only three years previously. How then might the PPWA membership have heard the words of this woman Black Nationalist and Islamist? Reflecting perhaps the amorphous nature of the cultural internationalist project, Pearl Takahashi’s speech was warmly received. In her presentation to the gathered delegates, she no doubt sounded much like any other liberal and Christian woman seeking crosscultural and social reform aims from an international stage. Moreover, she was a black woman concurring with these aims, seemingly yet another indication of the value of the PPWA to diverse women. Furthermore, the slippage between nationalist and liberal perspectives was facilitated by the fact that she did not name Development of Our Own or explain its larger mission to establish a separate Islamic nation. Instead, Takahashi advised her audience that she spoke on behalf of an African American organization with a membership of a quarter of a million (contemporary FBI estimates put the membership at closer to ten thousand).75 Replicating the misunderstanding this self-censorship fostered, the Vancouver News Herald described a “pro-American [who] appeals for better understanding, striving through education for universal equality without race or colour prejudice.” Mrs. Takahashi, it reported, worked “for bettering conditions and raising the standard of her people, African by descent— American by birth”: [I call upon] international women to appeal to the white race all over this world to give to the dark races their constitutional rights, that all races may live and develop without pulling others down. . . . [B]oth white and black are God’s loving children . . . and it is nature for His children to want to live 208  Chapter 6

equal with their sisters and brothers. Any person, race or nation violating nature cannot last without disaster. . . .    We are striving for universal equality for the rights of dark people in every part of the world to be considered as a free people . . . not to become members of the white race, but to stand on equal footing. . . .    You have certainly conceived already the unsatisfied tendency now prevailing throughout the darker majority of mankind to unite for a common purpose to restore their constitutional right by breaking down various barriers. . . . To beautify this world is our final goal.76

To those in the audience, the hallmarks of Pan-Pacific women’s liberalism must have been apparent in Takahashi’s speech: peace through equality between races, and the desire for advancement among non-Western peoples around the world. But the god Takahashi referred to was Islamic. And according to the principles of Development of Our Own, true believers were to work from within mainstream organizations in order to overthrow the existing world order (theirs being a millennial movement) and to thereby cleanse, or “beautify,” the world.77 Still, we can see that Development of Our Own shared in PPSEAWA’s desire to harness the progressive impetus of women. As Allen points out, black nationalism in these years was not opposed to assimilation politics, the two sharing an emphasis on advancement (and in which women were at the forefront).78 Even her husband, the now vanquished Mr. Takahashi, had promoted the role of women in Islamic public life, even if he did so in backhanded fashion. In a 1934 interview, he advised that addressing a white audience was an appropriate task for women and was undertaken within his own organization by the international supervisor (perhaps his wife). 79 While Pearl Takahashi may have been fulfilling her role in Development of Our Own by coming to the PPWA conference, it also seems likely that she was in the city to see her husband. For all his claims to be working on behalf of Japan, he was not in fact a Japanese citizen but had been born in Canada, and by 1937, after deportation for treason, he was living in Vancouver. Pearl Takahashi and her group’s appearance at the Pan-Pacific conference that year no doubt coincided with one of the regular trips they made across the border to bring him funds raised by loyal supporters. Soon after the Vancouver conference, for reasons unclear, relations between the two deteriorated, however, and he would accuse her of misusing funds to pay for her own expensive lifestyle. Two years later, he would attempt to take back control of the organization only to be arrested at the US border, where the FBI charged him again for seditious politics, and this time he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment.80 Race Politics in the Cold War  209

As a report titled “US at War,” published in Time magazine in 1942, reminds us, Development of Our Own continued to operate after the outbreak of World War II. Around the time of Takahashi’s release from jail in 1942, it offered a sensationalist account of “Takahashi’s Blacks,” condemning the “sedition, pro-Japanese activities, [and] draft dodging” practiced by these “cultist-puppets” who had been influenced by “Takahashi mumbo-jumbo.” The article ridiculed his call to African Americans to “leave the sinking ship of Western civilization . . . [for] Japan the lifeboat of racial love, made radiant by the star of the East, the Rising Sun.” While the war was waged overseas, Time warned its readership that a growing middle class of African Americans might become the “enemy within,” and, as illustrated in the accompanying photograph, some might even pass as middle-class women “lavishly and expensively appareled.”81 Perhaps Pearl Takahashi was one of the regal women in the photograph, suggesting something of the sight that so impressed Elsie Andrews in 1937. In a strange conclusion to the article—one perhaps aimed at reassuring readers that not all African-Americans were ready to follow such “claptrap”—a (fictional?) African-American informant, Mr. U. S. Falls (ironically?) proffered the supposedly reassuring advice that “America need have no fear of the Negro turning traitor if the true principles of democracy are applied to us as to every other minority group.”82 Such a reference to democracy and the treatment of minorities, however ironic, would have resonated within the PPSEAWA of the 1950s. Since the interwar years, it had sought greater representation from the peoples and cultures of the Pacific. Pacific island nations had sent delegates in increasing numbers, while Southeast Asia had come to dominate the postwar era. Among settler nations, the New Zealand delegation had led the way in the 1930s, the United States including a Native American delegate soon after, and the Hawai‘i delegation an indigenous delegate following the war. But African American women had not been included among US delegates. While Native Americans were known in the Pacific region from westerns and the “Red Indian” popularized globally in the twentieth century, the history of slavery in the United States and its legacies constituted a third form of interracial politics within a PPSEAWA previously focused on “the women of the Orient” and the women of the Pacific. In the mid-1950s critics and supporters of the United States alike were interested in the question of African American rights and conditions. In 1954 the “Second Emancipation Proclamation”—the US Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education—had begun the process of desegregation. For middle-class African Americans, by the cold war era of the 1950s international solidarity politics had diminished dramatically from that of the interwar years; like other Americans, the majority blamed com210  Chapter 6

munism, not colonialism, for the continuation of racism and apartheid in the world,83 while many saw desegregation as heralding a new era in the United States. Ella P. Stewart would also express these views but would use the international domain to promote them. Contributing to US anti-racism propaganda in the Pacific, she was appointed by the US government to tour Asian countries in the 1950s. There she spoke in support of “freedom” and “democracy” and their role in the advancement of racial equality around the globe. At the same time, the internationalist Stewart was not simply a dupe of US imperialism in the Pacific. She was engaged in a more complicated politics. In the very act of meeting with other “minorities” in Southeast Asia and of participating in the PPSEAWA, the relatively conservative language of her African American women’s club movement took on a new significance in the global domain. Ella P. Stewart, Goodwill Tourist Destined to become one of the leading African American women of the twentieth century, Ella P. Stewart had overcome profound discrimination in early life to qualify as the first African American woman pharmacist. She went on to open her own pharmacy with her then husband in 1922 and was strongly involved in community organizations for the next two decades. Elected president of the Ohio Association of Colored Women in 1944, she was president of its national body from 1948 until 1952, an involvement that linked her to an extraordinary lineage of African American women’s activism. Sparked by the exclusion of black women from the women’s advisory committee to the Chicago World’s Fair, the Colored Women’s League had been formed in 1893 by Hallie Quinn Brown, a teacher from Ohio. The National Federation of Colored Women held its first annual meeting in 1895, changing its name to National Association of Colored Women in 1896. Under the early leadership of Mary Church Terrell, the organization represented a uniquely “nationalized effort exclusively created and controlled by black women.” By the 1930s, African American women’s clubs were active in most urban centers across the North, and in the 1950s they would count more than fifty thousand women as members.84 From early in her career, Stewart extended her political involvement in the African American women’s network through participation in government and international networks. She was invited to the White House Conference for Children and Youth in 1950,85 and in 1951 the National Association of Colored Women nominated her as its delegate to the International Council of Women’s triennial convention in Greece. Stewart was also the first African American member of the League of Women Voters. Race Politics in the Cold War  211

Something of the individual achievement that international participation represented for Stewart can be ascertained in her own account of her life. While attending the convention, Stewart described some of the obstacles facing African American women in an interview for the Athens News. In it Stewart recalled her childhood in the South, where “color of skin is an issue, where colored people are segregated, and are not allowed to attend or partake of the same liberties in public institutions.” Through being the first African American woman pharmacist, she stated, she had become involved in the National Association of Colored Women because it supported African American women in achieving their goals at “the highest level of human endeavor.”86 In recognition of her local, national, and international leadership, in 1952 Stewart was invited to join the US delegation to the PPWA. The National Association of Colored Women had been affiliated with the PPWA’s US branch for several years and shared many of the same aims and objectives. Each emphasized the virtue of educational and socioeconomic opportunity, increasing women’s ethical influence in public life, and interracial cooperation. And each opposed the idea of violent social change or of the masses taking to the streets—change happened through educational reform and social improvement. Stewart had to postpone her participation until the 1955 conference in order to accept an appointment to the International Conference of Women of the World, a gathering convened in 1952 by President Eisenhower in Washington. The following year the Toledo Blade reported that she had been endorsed by the administration as a “consultant on international problems of minority groups.”87 In each of the next two years, she was nominated by the International Education Exchange Service to tour the “Far East” on an exchange program with the United States and the “free world.” US press releases in the region that appeared at this time in newspapers such as the Pakistan Times described Stewart, already a strongly committed antisegregationist, as “known in the U.S. for her work to promote community and national projects, particularly in the field of juvenile delinquency and interracial activities.”88 In one sense, Ella P. Stewart’s African American women’s politics was directly amenable to the openly propagandist purpose of “the Goodwill Tour.” One of six hundred carefully selected African American women and men sent to Southeast Asia to promote US educational programs, in effect Stewart was enrolled as a civilian combatant in the cold war. During her tour, she was often called upon to defend the United States against its critics. Along with goodwill ambassadors, US propaganda films were circulated in the region in an attempt to counter criticisms of “America’s treatment of the Negro.”89 In 1954 the Supreme Court had ruled against the exclusion 212  Chapter 6

of African American children from schools or universities in the United States. This ruling gave some larger substance to Stewart’s prescribed role as representative of an emerging African American womanhood, well educated and with middle-class expectations for herself, her family, and her community. And she was heading into a dynamic regional politics on race and global rights. These were extraordinary times to be traveling as an African American ambassador in Southeast Asia. Only weeks after Stewart’s visit to Indonesia of behalf of the US government, the epoch-making Bandung Conference founded a third-world alliance, rejecting the bipolar politics of the superpowers and promoting solidarity on the grounds of race and anticolonialism. (One wonders if it was to the Takahashis’ delight that Japan would send representatives to the talks.) In these potent circumstances, while on her tour and later as a participant at the 1955 PPSEAWA conference, Stewart met and spoke with women from recently decolonized countries and with indigenous women critical of settler colonialism in an era of changing race relations in the United States and in an age of nonalignment as well as cold war. She promoted not only “goodwill” but also Pan-Pacific cultural internationalism, having been provided with publications and resources from the PPSEAWA (and some from the UN) for circulation to the women’s groups she met.90 Conversely, these experiences of internationalism shaped Stewart’s aims for her contribution to PPSEAWA. At the conference, she quickly signaled her intention to speak both as an internationalist woman of the United States and as a member of a minority with political connections extending to other subordinated peoples around the world. She was in this sense transnational as well as national and international in her outlook. In her formal presentation Stewart advised assembled delegates that the topic given to her by her US colleagues—“Role of Negro Women in American Economic Life”—conveyed the “unfortunate connotation” that she could speak only for African American women. Rather than standing for one particular minority, however, she proclaimed her expertise on the conditions of both white and black women in the United States. To have cast African American women as an isolated group yet to emerge onto the public stage would have contradicted her key message to the conference that despite racism and racial legislation, “white and non-white women” jointly advanced social and economic life in the United States. In Stewart’s opinion, this potential of capitalism to provide for all was the democratic promise of the United States to the peoples of the world. While most women in the United States were involved in work outside the home (carrying considerable financial responsibilities for family and community), ironically the lower socioeconomic status of African American women meant that they had contributed most to the future of Race Politics in the Cold War  213

their country. Indeed, through work (given the history of slavery and of unpaid domestic service, not only through paid employment), all women’s lives had been “so knitted and interwoven” that it was “difficult to separate the life of one group from another.” She concluded, “Contributions have been made not alone, but by white women and negro women working together to make a better America.” African Americans’ greater involvement in the largely unpaid work of public life had been at the forefront of the “peculiar [that is, remarkable] growth and development of their race . . . by the sweat of their brows and the power of their brains.” Where conditions had long been dreadful, substantial improvements in recent times had been achieved through their own capacities. But the struggle was far from over. More than aware of the discrimination suffered by African American women in particular, Stewart reminded her audience that “there are . . . walls of [racial and gender] prejudice that must crumble,” particularly those facing “the Negro woman,” who was “a quadruple minority” being subordinated by her own people.91 Clearly determined to focus on recent prospects for a better future, Stewart chose to celebrate the Supreme Court’s May 17, 1954, ruling on desegregation rather than dwell on the exclusion and injustice that she had suffered as a child and young adult and that many African Americans continued to suffer. Under these new conditions of opportunity, she predicted that African American women would have an even larger impact on the United States, bringing with them a renewal of spiritual and moral strength in society, as well as economic growth and stability. If Stewart spoke about her tour of Asia to the PPSEAWA, then she did so informally. The information we have concerning this important experience comes largely from newspaper interviews given later in the United States. On her return, it was this aspect of her internationalism rather than her involvement in the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference that attracted the greatest attention. Not surprisingly, she reiterated her commitment to the United States, asserting its leadership in establishing equitable development around the world just as she asserted its capacity to fulfill the promise of racial equality at home. A year after her return, Stewart presented a talk called “US Negroes’ Progress Told to Asian Peoples” to the Milwaukee Baptist Women’s Club. She told the club that the most common question she had faced during her goodwill tour was, “How can you speak so well for America when your people are treated so badly there?” The question had caused her “no embarrassment,” she declared somewhat disingenuously, as African-Americans had “made more rapid progress in the last 20 years than any other segment of the population.” In Pakistan, where she had been “showered with queries about the supreme court ruling on desegregation,” she had given “‘a hopeful’ picture of race relations in the United States . . . 214  Chapter 6

because she believed it to be the true picture.” Having been refused access to education as a child, Stewart undoubtedly welcomed reform in the US education system, and she was clearly encouraged by its educational programs offering new opportunities to people in Asia. Her enthusiasm verged on racial stereotype, however, as she declared: “These Asiatics have naturally alert and keen minds and absorb almost like blotters what America is teaching.”92 Yet Stewart’s experiences reveal also that the propagandist aims of the International Education Exchange Service in organizing the goodwill tour had not been entirely successful. For one thing, the government unit had underestimated the popularity of cowboys and Indians and the western in shaping Southeast Asian views of US race relations. Many local women assumed that Stewart would be a “Red Indian,” having been introduced to them as a representative of the colored population of the United States.93 The intentions of the US government were confounded, if momentarily, by the vagaries of local interpretation. Clearly, Southeast Asian audiences were more familiar with the Wild West than with films such as Birth of a Nation, by D. W. Griffith. Stewart’s role as goodwill ambassador and her involvement in women’s cultural internationalism each radicalized the other. During her goodwill

Ella P. Stewart in Bandung, Indonesia. Stewart Papers. Courtesy of Center for Archival Collections, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH. Race Politics in the Cold War  215

tour, Stewart mixed with a variety of local and national women’s organizations and with leading statesmen, many of whom were to become important figures in the emerging nonalignment movement. She addressed a meeting of the Bandung Women’s Association only months prior to the important first conference held in that city, for example. Perhaps she built on earlier connections that had been established by Josephine Schain and that saw Indonesia delegates participate in the PPSEAWA conference that year. In India, she toured orphanages and met with women leaders, as well as Prime Minister Nehru. In ways hard to measure, Stewart brought this knowledge and experience with her to the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference in Manila. Here she met a wide range of women from nonaligned nations, as well as indigenous Pacific island women such as Mira Petricevich, the striking figure who had admonished white New Zealand women for their complacency concerning the conditions of Maori people, and Miss S. Malietoa of Western Samoa. No

Mira Petricevich, Ella P. Stewart, and Miss S. Malietoa. Stewart Papers. Courtesy of the Center for Archival Collections, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH. 216  Chapter 6

doubt they and Stewart had much to discuss, but their conversation is not recorded. We do know, however, that Stewart considered PPSEAWA a worthwhile commitment and that the association valued her involvement in return. She became an international vice president of PPSEAWA and would continue her involvement with the association over the following two decades, while the association saw in her another glamorous collaborator in the urgent work of improving race relations. The association declared her “a remarkable citizen [with] a deep conviction that the nations of the world should be united in a common relationship for purposes of fostering cultural and educational interests leading to the establishment of projects for the good of all nations.” Her “message of friendship and hope [was] part of her sincere concern about racial barriers and a deep desire to remove them.”94 This mutual engagement developed in 1963 when she was appointed “international vice president at large” of the association in recognition of her status as a commissioner to UNESCO.95 The 1955 Manila conference provides us with an insight into the complexities of Pacific women’s politics as mobilized by two African American women internationalists. Their political exchanges with the association reveal something of the multiplicity of politics possible under interwar government surveillance and even during the cold war. Their examples point to the contradictory spaces within the parameters of cultural internationalism through which various forms of social reform, as well as social justice and anticolonial politics, could be—and were—promoted internationally. For both Pearl Takahashi and Ella P. Stewart, the Pan-Pacific women’s network provided an international platform from which to promote racial equity in the United States and later in the name of development in Southeast Asia. In these two women’s politics, these aims were interconnected. By meeting internationally, such women brought their own perspectives to bear on the modernity and progress claimed by the cultural internationalist cause. Conversely, the PPWA and PPSEAWA experience shaped and influenced their activism. This process of cross-political, rather than simply cross-cultural, exchange was significant—not only for the Pan-Pacific association but also for the politics of development and assimilation of the 1950s. Harboring within these exchanges were multiple sites of resistance, ambivalence, and contradiction. Thus women’s cultural internationalism in PPSEAWA, essentially a liberal, elite, white women’s network, contributed to indigenous decolonization and to African American women’s politics. Arguably this complex international context prepared the ground for a revitalization of transnational social justice movements in ensuing decades.

Race Politics in the Cold War  217

Conclusion

O

n a warm Tokyo evening in August 1958, an outdoor supper party was organized as part of the eighth PPSEAWA conference. Congregated under trees lit by paper lanterns, delegates enjoyed Japanese food and watched traditional folk dances performed by their hosts. Each wore a kimono, the overall effect creating a “scene of great gaiety and merriment.”1 At last, the association had made its way to the country so important to its early formation. With the ubiquitous kimono, the complex dress politics integral to this study of the PPWA and its successor, PPSEAWA, were finally rendered to

Delegates in a Tokyo garden. R. M. Spoor Collection. Courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. 218

a collective act of cross-cultural impersonation. The trope of the demure if alluring Oriental woman, once signifying the capacity of Japanese women to enact the duality of East and West desired by the association, now signposted the end of an era. It represented the ascendancy of cosmopolitan and tourist pleasures that surely parodied the association’s earlier cultural internationalist vision and, while the association continues as a thriving network into the present, arguably signaled a new phase in its politics beyond the parameters of this book. Japan had been recommended as the host nation for the 1958 conference several years earlier. New Zealand stalwart Mary Seaton advised US delegate and then international president Josephine Schain in 1952 that, given Japan’s role as an advanced democracy in the Asia-Pacific, promoting the status of women in Japan would be important to the whole region. Reiterating the common assumption that US occupation had initiated the women’s rights movement there, she asserted that it would be a pity if in future the now independent country returned to the “old subjection of women” and lost the “gains that Gen[eral] MacArthur gave them.”2 Following the Tokyo conference, PPSEAWA New Zealand reported triumphantly not only the growing strength of Japanese women’s activism but also “the upsurge of feminine activity and attainment which has taken place in recent years among these comparatively unfavoured people.”3 The wounds of world war were to be healed, and progress in the region was to ensue, in part through the ascendancy of women. A few discordant voices resisted this vision, however. For these individuals, racism and bigotry had not been erased on the road to advancement but continued to shadow world affairs. As was evident in their discriminatory migration policies, for example, countries like Australia remained hostile toward Japanese. Although the delegates to PPSEAWA reported a changed outlook among the international community, many of their home constituencies continued along established paths. Nor were assertions of women’s collective advancement necessarily supported by the facts: women’s participation in public life in Australia, for example, still relied for the most part on the outstanding work of a select few. Josephine Schain, for one, was not afraid to speak her mind when passing through Sydney in 1951, pointing out: “The Australian housewife may think she has nothing in common with the women of Southeast Asia, but their futures are bound up together.” She went on to note that Australian women had failed to enter into public life in the numbers anticipated after the early days of suffrage, while their non-European counterparts in the region had done so in ever-increasing numbers. Xenophobia continued to shape public life. “What are you afraid of in Australia?” she asked rhetorically. Conclusion  219

“That these people will come down from the north and take your country from you?”4 At the micro level, however, the association continued to provide sustenance to women leaders in the region. During the Tokyo conference, a similar profile of membership participated as in previous years, with the United States, Hawai‘i, New Zealand, Australia, and the Philippines again dominating the proceedings. Southeast Asian and Pacific island women arrived also. Ceylon sent a delegation, as did Mexico (at last, a several-strong delegation), Pakistan, Taiwan, Fiji, Indonesia, Burma, Singapore, Vietnam, Western Samoa, and Thailand. Canada sent only two associate delegates. Philippines delegation leader Fernanda Balboa was the president, Manila having hosted the previous conference, and familiar figures in the association held other official positions, including New Zealand delegates Amy Kane and Ellen Lea, Australia’s Thelma Kirkby, and Hawai‘i residents Isabel Morelock and Willowdean Handy. These women, along with Harriet Andrews, Josephine Schain, Ella Stewart, Clorinda Lucas, and Pakistan delegate Begum Hussain Malik would carry the leadership responsibilities of the association into the 1960s.5 Topics discussed continued the PPWA’s earlier appetite for social reform, focusing on interdependence, health, and welfare issues. Contact with UNESCO continued to provide financial support for some delegates, and, by petitioning for direct representation of PPSEAWA as a consultant organization, New Zealand delegate Amy Kane had attended UNESCO’s important New Delhi conference in 1956. There she had requested further support for the association on the grounds that PPSEAWA delegates “discuss the cultural background, the geographical locations, the material assets and deficiencies of their member countries” while immersed in “the cultural life of the hostess country.”6 Over the previous decades, the politics of “East meets West” had returned to prominence. Once central to the interwar PPWA, the early vision of a syncretic civilization was now rearticulated for a postwar generation. Although still somewhat dismissive of the achievements of this women’s association, UNESCO could not ignore the overlap between its aims and those of PPSEAWA. The organizations’ shared interest in women and development in the region was further strengthened by a new global project on cross-cultural exchange. At UNESCO’s conference in New Delhi (the location aiming to recognize Asia’s significance in world affairs), international participants had endorsed the next major project, “East and West: Towards Mutual Understanding.” The UNESCO conference had announced: “Of all the problems implied by peaceful co-operation among nations and the interpenetration of cultures, none forces itself more clearly . . . than that of the intellectual and spiritual relations of East and West.”7 Given the prevailing 220  Conclusion

“binarism of Cold War thinking” in the Western imaginary at this time,8 the conference clearly saw itself as striking a blow for cooperation and development across the Pacific. But it was less concerned about acknowledging regional endeavors since the interwar years by nongovernmental organizations like PPSEAWA. If PPSEAWA was finally in its element, it was also no longer at the forefront of this increasingly mainstream, international agenda for intercivilizational exchange. In an expression of the UN’s determination to carry forward this cross-cultural project on a global scale, the organization sent two representatives to the 1958 PPSEAWA conference to explain the concept to the women delegates. But while the agenda of PPSEAWA was now widely endorsed, its conference methods remained unorthodox. The association claimed to break down the barriers of racial misunderstanding through the emotional, the interpersonal, and the experiential aspects of cross-cultural community. In this sense, it remained a distinctly embodied and located politics. Long before UNESCO had convened a conference in New Delhi, spatial politics had been crucial to these asserted aims of the women’s association. Moving its business into the Pacific region had been central to both its political and its affective goals. Cultural internationalism required more than ideas, it asserted. And when we reflect on the first three decades of the Pan-Pacific network, this aspect of its contribution to internationalism stands out. If the notion of the political is based on emotional as well as rational exchange, it is a hard one to quantify nonetheless, being amorphous and subjective by its very nature. From its premise, however, sprang an internationalism that was surprisingly radical and in which multiple cultural politics were articulated, both by those speaking in agreement with a liberal, hierarchical (and ultimately maternal) Pan-Pacific project and by those (sometimes the same individuals) raising a critical voice within its parameters and forging transnational alliances based on difference rather than its erasure. In 1958, from her experience of several conferences, New Zealand delegate and PPWA stalwart Mary Seaton commended the Pan-Pacific women’s model of exchange. She anticipated that, rather than a diminishment of cultural differences between European and Asian peoples, it was their near incompatibility that would continue to test and forge the PPSEAWA ideal: “It will be in such different surroundings— in fact a different civilization and culture[—that we] need to see these things and to be told something of what they mean to a culture [and a] way of living.”9 This heightening of difference within modernity, rather than its transcendence, underlined the glamour of the conference experience. While arguably the universal donning of kimonos in 1958 stands for the more superficial aspects of cultural internationalism, for Western delegates new to Conclusion  221

the association the experience still induced a sense of cultural vertigo. Merle Weaver (Tasmanian Women Graduates’ Association) found the conference in Japan “amazing”: “Two hundred delegates from twenty-three countries, talks by [UN] experts, discussions from inexperts [delegates], delightful entertainment. . . .”10 In her report to the Australian Federation of University Women on the role of English-speaking countries in promoting peace in the Pacific, she advised that the conference had impressed upon her the need to recognize the falsity of “intellectual superiority assumed by whites.” Again, the network provided a place for women to express more diverse political positions than might be at first assumed. Weaver continued by observing an aspect of geopolitics that had previously eluded her, that the role of America in the world appeared to her more “aggressively imperialistic” than that of Russia. While the world powers were wrangling over ascendancy, “perhaps the major problem hampering peace in the Pacific is the excessively unbalanced relationship between the U.S.A. and the rest of the world.” She concluded, “It is time to realise that the period of colonial imperialism, however benevolent, is past.” A new world order was needed in which “each nation [is] allowed to conduct its own affairs.”11 Similarly, conferences provided meeting places between women whose countries were hostile, as the recent outbreak of the Korean War had reminded delegates. In her opening speech in 1958, Fernanda Balboa advised her audience that “peace can never be won in a field of battle” and that it would be women who would again carry war’s burden into the next generation. Referring back to the Manila conference, she recalled that she had joined in engendering “friendship” there between the representative of the Philippine World War II Widows’ Association and members of the Japan delegation. These women were still deeply alienated, even though hostilities between their two countries had ended many years earlier, but mutual recognition of their pain and suffering had been made possible in the international context. When one of the widows from the Philippines had shaken hands with Japan delegates on a PPSEAWA conference stage, she had ended a bitterness carried with her since the war. The two women had gone on to arrange for a tour of the Widows’ Association in Japan, at the invitation of the Japanese government. Boa concluded, “Peace can only by achieved through the hearts of men.”12 If changing the world happened individual by individual, in the meantime new technologies, in particular those of the atomic age threatened the world as never before. Whereas the aggressive use of atomic power could potentially end all civilization, many hoped that its peaceful application could provide for a boundless future. To this end, the 1955 Manila conference had voted unanimously in “fervent support” of the peaceful use of nuclear 222  Conclusion

energy.13 Their position may have been inspired in part by the publication in 1954, through the Women’s International Democratic Federation in Berlin, of an impassioned anti-nuclear-weapons plea to the women of the world from the Federation of All-Japan Women’s Organizations. The Japanese women had collected twenty million signatures against any repeat of the bombing of Japan in August 1945 and in favor of banning atomic tests in the Pacific region.14 However, no mention of the previous use of nuclear weapons upon their country or of its continuing impact on the Japanese was included in the proceedings of the 1958 PPSEAWA conference, despite (or perhaps because) of its location in Japan. Such silence reminds us that any organization and any politics are at best partial and contingent and at worst complicit. Looking to “the limits of global feminism,” Caren Kaplan advises that Western women must acknowledge “the historical roles of mediation, betrayal, and alliance in the relationships between women in diverse locations.”15 Similarly, insisting on both the possibilities and the limits of PPWA/PPSEAWA feminism has been central to this study. This duality of approach has aimed to bring to the fore the dynamic and at times unexpected nature of women’s internationalism and of history more generally. To borrow the words of Rob Wilson and Arif Dirlik, I have argued that the women’s Pan-Pacific constituted a “space of cultural production” within which new kinds of exchanges and dialogues took place.16 In the early decades of the association, as we have seen, its Western initiators routinely assumed a responsibility to speak for other women. Thus at the first conferences a white Australian woman would speak on behalf of the China delegation and in the name of the women of China. “East meets West” dialogue dominated the concerns of the membership, with Japanese women as central figures in the drama. Among them, leading women such as Tsune Gauntlett actively promoted the cultural internationalist cause, their contributions essential to the viability of the association. Indigenous and Pacific island women were also crucial figures. In the 1930s, Maori women would join the PPWA under the leadership of white (Pakeha) New Zealanders with whom they performed interracial harmony for the 1934 conference, while Australian Aboriginal women would be entirely absent in this decade and beyond. By the end of the interwar years, disagreements would arise between Western delegates and those from Asian and Southeast Asian countries over the cross-cultural application of prostitution reform, the role of population management and immigration restriction in preventing world war, and the importance of culture to political identity. Whereas delegates hoped that cultural internationalism would overcome national conflict, support for restrictive immigration policies revealed settler colonial delegates’ own implication in discrimination and injustice. The rise Conclusion  223

of cultural nationalism and minority politics following the war focused discussion on the role of culture in daily life and in the formation of a new world civilization. If the practice of friendship required an acceptance of difference, negative exchanges between women sometimes broke through the cultural internationalist ideals of friendship, cooperation, and exchange to reveal the resilience of race politics and the ongoing impacts of gendered histories of empire and colonization among Pan-Pacific women. These disagreements also articulated something of the importance of women’s internationalism in the Pacific to non-Western women who saw within its parameters opportunities for their own agendas and interests. They were prepared to work with Western women, aiming to encourage them to learn more about their own assumptions as white settler colonials and then turn this self-awareness into action. Across the years, conferences continued to function as sites in which the ideal Pacific women’s community was discussed and debated. Not least, the politics of space and the body were central elements in the association’s aims to perform cross-cultural exchange and interracial harmony for the world. In its struggle with the practice of diversity, the PPWA/PPSEAWA provided a stage on which hierarchy and inequality were imagined as overcome through interpersonal interaction. Writing of the importance of studying such historical locales where “cultures and their agents come together in circumstances of asymmetrical power,” Tony Ballantyne and Antoinette Burton argue that by focusing on the gendered and embodied legacies of race and empire, historians begin to “remap historical narratives and challenge the chronologies of ‘the West’ and ‘the rest.’”17 And by undertaking the close investigation of local and interpersonal negotiations of global power relations, they begin to uncover the “material effects of geopolitical systems in . . . on-the-ground cultural encounters.”18 This book has sought to understand something of the various impacts of the chronologies of “the West” and “the rest,” both in Pan-Pacific women’s understandings of their collective project and in our present interpretations of them. These historical and cultural chronologies articulated the association’s foundational narrative, as we have seen, which was both inherently flawed and also porous—at times, productively so. Through the association, the women’s Pan-Pacific became the site of cultural production that a diversity of women considered important and that they articulated and mobilized in different ways. They engaged in a dialogue of political as well as “cultural” exchange, seeking to manage processes of Westernization—particularly in relation to the status and conditions of women and children and their effect within local, colonial, and national as well as international contexts. The “West” remained useful to this project, and no more so than for the many 224  Conclusion

non-Western delegates who contributed to the formation of the Pan-Pacific women’s movement. This readiness to use Western discourse reminds us that apparent boundaries and distinctions are always contingent and often misleading. Postcolonial historian Dipesh Chakrabarty argues that in recognizing Western and non-Western influences in the historical formation of “Europe,” we open up “the possibility of a politics and project of potential alliance between the dominant metropolitan histories and the subaltern peripheral pasts.”19 It is to this potential alliance that this book has turned. The PPWA’s first thirty years offer a unique insight into on-the-ground political, social, and intellectual encounters. In the process of those encounters, its members created an innovative, if flawed, cross-cultural network— one that provided a series of stages for some remarkable exchanges between representatives of its diverse constituency, the women of the Pacific. In these years, they created a decidedly glamorous internationalism, comprising extraordinary individuals, exotic locations, and remarkable performances of cultural difference. Not least, increasing numbers of Southeast Asian, Pacific island, and indigenous women from settler colonies emerged from these unequal meetings as central figures in the association’s model of cooperative relations between nations and races, their presence and contributions turning each conference into a vibrant multivalent space. They came to stand for all that was glamorous about the Pan-Pacific women’s project, while at the same time increasingly contesting its assumptions about development and the purpose of cultural exchange. “Culture” for these women was not merely a cosmopolitan pleasure (although it could be this also) but an expression of political voice and a celebration of resilience, sometimes expressed in nationalist terms (as in the Philippines) and often despite the reality of ongoing colonial presences having an impact locally and in regional and global affairs. The women’s Pan-Pacific contributed to a larger genealogy of international cooperation and outlook existing alongside imperial and colonial politics in modern world history. Numbers of these parallel efforts in the twentieth century have been included in this account. Perhaps the most pervasive but least acknowledged of these pertain to the international politics of color. As the transnational historiography emerging in the last two decades or more has illustrated, a diasporic perspective has long marked black histories of the United States. This is reflected in Pan-African anti-racism and anti-imperialism, in the significance of the management of “less advanced” peoples in shaping the gendered histories of imperial and colonial nation formation, and in the power of nationalism as resistance in histories of decolonization.20 Each of these elements played a role in the history of the PPWA, including the organization’s addition of an African American woman to the US delegation by the 1950s and its interactions with diverse Conclusion  225

anticolonial movements in the region. In large part, the combination of these elements accounted for the attraction the association held—despite its limitations—for “minority” women. This transnational frame also illuminates something of the possibility of the association’s social reform internationalist vision—especially in its various appropriations by non-Western women internationalists seeking to find new influence in an increasingly globalizing world order. Their transnational experience and perspective routinely exceeded, and at times contradicted, the vision of the mostly white Western feminist internationalists who made up the majority of the association’s leadership and with whom they sought to engage in a global debate about the meaning of culture and, ultimately, of identity. In so doing, they confronted the powerful resilience of the politics of whiteness. Lastly, writing thirty years ago, historian Paul Hooper commended the PPWA’s “pioneering” efforts to promote a “trans-cultural consciousness.” He expressed admiration for what he considered to be “the resultant personal growth and understanding” that flowed from participating in its conferences. Concerning the larger historical significance of the association, Hooper speculated that if “trans-culturalism” were to emerge as a major force in the future, the association might be recognized “not only as noteworthy but also as innovative and even visionary.”21 Decades later, it seems that once again the world hopes to facilitate cross-cultural exchange between “East” and “West.” At another level, the PPWA offers us an important reminder of the possibilities and limits in international thought. Not least, today we are still confounded by diversity. Reflecting on our present moment in world history, Liisa Malkki draws our attention to the ways in which we continue to be challenged by the tensions between universal claims for humanitarian intervention (placing the international seemingly above local and national interests) on the one hand, and the pluralism of diversity on the other. Looking beyond international relations between nation-states, however, Malkki finds inspiration in the myriad of social movements (to which we can add the PPWA/PPSEAWA) that collectively constitute a new kind of world society, “giving up on transcending particularities and differences, but, rather, taking them as points of departure for modes of connection and solidarity.” By decentering nation-states, she concludes, we can look toward “transnational alliances among persons who are banded together around inequalities precisely because of their specific histories.”22 Certainly, in the PPWA, and later the PPSEAWA, we see early efforts to find such a cultural basis for decentered alliance building. Time and again, delegates questioned the idea of hegemony and ascendance as a complex of superiority and an obstacle to true modernity. Arguably, such efforts 226  Conclusion

continue to have relevance today. Writing more recently of contemporary culture politics, Nikhil Singh has argued that only by determining Western identity and civilization to be unique rather than universal can we begin the process of thinking of global multiculturalism as it should be: an ideal.23 This idealistic process was one that decades ago occupied Western delegates, as well as their non-Western colleagues, in their efforts to constitute an inclusive Pan-Pacific women’s project. Non-Western women shared this sense of hope and urgency in working internationally for cooperative and humane development in their region. Though marginalized figures under the PPWA’s initial model of relative cultural advancement, they soon assumed their right to occupy its center stage and to engage in a politics that found its meaning in the act of forming “networks, communities, and identities,” often bypassing their Western colleagues.24 Polynesian and Southeast Asian women reconceived the PPWA agenda into a multiplicity of women’s PanPacifics, each concerned with formulating a culture politics for the twentieth century. The vibrancy of that interaction continues to inspire.

Conclusion  227

Notes

Introduction 1.  “Report to the Board,” MS 2004/6/305, Rischbieth Papers, Manuscripts, National Library of Australia, Canberra (NLA). 2.  Ethel E. Osborne, “Women of the Pacific,” Mid-Pacific Magazine 40, no. 3 (1930): 247. 3.  Antoinette Burton, ed., After the Imperial Turn: Thinking with and through the Nation (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003); Tony Ballantyne and Antoinette Burton, eds. Bodies in Contact: Rethinking Colonial Encounters in World History (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005); Ann Curthoys and Marilyn Lake, introduction to Curthoys and Lake, eds., Connected Worlds: History in Transnational Perspective (Canberra: E Press, Australian National University), 5–20. 4.  Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 15. 5.  Matt K. Matsuda, “The Pacific,” in “American Historical Review Forum: The Pacific,” special issue, American Historical Review 111, no. 3 (2006): 1–28; Shelley Fisher Fishkin, “Crossroads of Cultures: The Transnational Turn in American Studies—Presidential Address to the American Studies Association, November 12, 2004,” American Quarterly 57, no. 1 (2005): 17–56; Bruce Robbins, “Some Versions of US Internationalism,” Social Text 14, no. 4 (1995): 97–123; Ian Tyrrell, “Looking Eastward: Pacific Global Perspectives on American History in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” Japanese Journal of American Studies 18 (2007): 41–57; Tyrrell, Transnational Nation: United States History in Global Perspective since 1789 (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), esp. chap. 12. 6.  Akira Iriye, Cultural Internationalism and World Order (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). 7.  Pekka Korhonen, “The Pacific Age in World History,” Journal of World History 7, no. 1 (1996): 41–70; Prasenjit Duara, “The Discourse of Civilization and Pan-Asianism,” Journal of World History 12, no. 1 (2001): 99–130; Arif Dirlik, “The Asia-Pacific Idea: Reality and Representation in the Invention of a Regional Structure,” Journal of World History 3, no. 1 (1996): 55–79. 8.  Rumi Sakamoto, “Japan, Hybridity and the Creation of Colonialist Discourse,” Theory, Culture and Society 13, no. 3 (1996): 113–128; Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Re-Inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, East Gate Books, 1998). 9.  For example, Bessie Wixon, Be Proud of Women: A Biographical Sketch of Grace Morrison Poole and Nineteen of Her Lectures (Philadelphia: Dorrance and Co., n.d., ca. 1941), 99. 10.  Matthew Connelly, “Introduction: How Biology Became History,” in Fatal Mis229

conception: The Struggle to Control World Population (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 2008): 6. 11.  Alison Bashford, “Global Biopolitics and the History of World Health,” History of the Human Sciences 19, no. 1 (2006): 67–88. 12.  Kristin L. Hoganson, Consumers’ Imperium: The Global Production of American Domesticity, 1865–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007). 13.  Warwick Anderson, “Ambiguities of Race on the Reproductive Frontier,” paper presented at the Race, Nation, History Conference in Honour of Henry Reynolds, National Library of Australia, August 2008. For an account of the impact in Australia of studies of “race” and racial mixing in the Pacific, see Anderson, The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health and Racial Destiny in Australia (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002). 14.  Tony Ballantyne, Orientalism and Race: Aryanism in the British Empire (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001). 15.  Ellen Dubois, “Woman Suffrage: The View from the Pacific,” Pacific Historical Review 69, no. 4 (2000): 539–551. See also Caroline Daley and Melanie Nolan, eds., Suffrage and Beyond: International Feminist Perspectives (New York: New York University Press, 1994); Ian Fletcher, Laura E. Nym Mayall, and Philippa Levine, eds., Women’s Suffrage in the British Empire: Citizenship, Nation, and Race (London: Routledge, 2000); Liisa Malkki, “Citizens of Humanity: Internationalism and the Imagined Community of Nations,” Diaspora 3, no. 1 (1994): 41–46. 16.  Corinne A. Pernet, “Chilean Feminists, the International Women’s Movement, and Suffrage, 1915–1950,” Pacific Historical Review 69, no. 4 (2000): 663–688. 17.  Karen Kelsky, conclusion to Women on the Verge: Japanese Women, Western Dreams (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), 247. 18.  Deborah Stienstra, Women’s Movements and International Organizations (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), esp. chaps. 3 and 4; Nitza Berkovitch, From Motherhood to Citizenship: Women’s Rights and International Organizations (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), esp. chap. 3; Uma Narayan, Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions and Third-World Feminism (New York: Routledge, 1997), esp. the introduction. 19.  Mrinalini Sinha, Donna J. Guy, and Angela Woollacott, “Introduction: Why Feminisms and Internationalism?” in Mrinalini Sinha, Donna Guy, and Angela Woollacott, eds., Feminisms and Internationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 1–13, quotes 1 and 4. In 1998 the journal Gender and History hosted an important forum discussing the interconnected histories of feminisms, internationalism, imperialism, and transnationalism. See, for example, Leila Rupp, “Feminisms and Internationalism: A View from the Centre,” 535–538; Antoinette Burton, “Some Trajectories of ‘Feminism’ and ‘Imperialism,’” 558–568; Francesca Miller, “Feminisms and Transnationalism,” 569–580; and Asunción Lavrin, “International Feminisms: Latin American Alternatives,” 519–534—all in Gender and History 10, no. 3 (1998). See also Vera Mackie, “The Language of Globalization, Transnationality and Feminism,” International Feminist Journal of Politics 3, no. 2 (2001): 180–206. 20.  Rumi Yasutake, Transnational Women’s Activism: The United States, Japan, and Japanese Immigrant Communities in California, 1859–1920 (New York: New York University Press, 2004). 21.  George W. Stocking Jr., “Essays on Culture and Personality,” in George W. Stocking Jr., ed., Malinowski, Rivers, Benedict and Others: Essays on Culture and Personality (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996), 4, 5. 22.  Elizar Barkan, The Retreat from Scientific Racism: Changing Concepts of Race in Britain and the U.S. between the World Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 230  Notes to Pages 4–8

23.  Tony Ballantyne and Antoinette Burton, “Introduction: Bodies, Empires, and World Histories,” in Bodies in Contact: Rethinking Colonial Encounters in World History (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), 1–15. 24.  Patricia Grimshaw, “Gender, Citizenship and Race in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union of Australia, 1890 to the 1930s,” Australian Feminist Studies 13, no. 28 (1998): 199–214, esp. 201. 25.  Karen Garner, “Global Feminism and Postwar Reconstruction: The World YWCA Visitation to Occupied Japan, 1947,” Journal of World History 15, no. 2 (2004): 191–227. 26.  June Hannam, “International Dimensions of Women’s Suffrage: ‘At the Crossroads of Several Interlocking Identities,’” Women’s History Review 14, no. 3–4 (2005): 543–560; Florence Brewer Boeckel, “Women in International Affairs,” Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science 143 (May 1929): 230–248; Patricia Grimshaw, Katie Holmes, and Marilyn Lake, eds., Women’s Rights and Human Rights: International Historical Perspectives (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave, 2001). 27.  Chandra Talpade Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourse,” Feminist Review 30 (Autumn 1988): 61–88. 28.  Paul F. Hooper, Elusive Destiny: The Internationalist Movement in Modern Hawai‘i (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1980); Hooper, “Feminism in the Pacific: The Pan-Pacific and Southeast Asia Women’s Association,” Pacific Historian 20, no. 4 (1976): 367–378. 29.  On the role of Japan in the emergence of this environment, see Tomoko Akami, Internationalizing the Pacific: The United States, Japan and the Institute of Pacific Relations in War and Peace, 1919–1945 (London: Routledge, 2002); and Jon Davidann, “Citadels of Civilization: U.S. and Japanese Visions of World Order in the Interwar Period,” in Richard Jensen, Jon Davidann, and Yoneyuki Sugita, eds., Trans-Pacific Relations: America, Europe, and Asia in the Twentieth Century (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003): 21–44. Regarding Japan’s role in nongovernmental organizations and international cooperation, see, for example, Akira Iriye, Global Community: The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); and Lawrence T. Woods, Asia-Pacific Diplomacy: Nongovernmental Organizations and International Relations (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1993). 30.  Rumi Yasutake, “Building a Pan-Pacific Women’s Community during the Interwar Years: The Pan-Pacific Women’s Conferences and the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association, 1928–1937,” paper presented at the Transnational Feminisms Conference, University of California, Los Angeles, May 2006. 31.  Alexandra Epstein, “‘She Males,’ Internationalists, and Voters: California Women and the League of Nations,” and “California Women and Inter-war Pan-Pacific Feminism,” both in “Linking a State to the World: Female Internationalists, California, and the Pacific, 1919–1939” (PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2003), 43–91, 92–154. Also, on the limits of state suffrage, see Gayle Gullett, “Women Progressives and the Politics of Americanization in California, 1915–1920,” Pacific Historical Review 64 (1995): 71–94; and Linda Van Ingen, “The Limits of State Suffrage for California Women Candidates in the Progressive Era,” Pacific Historical Review 73, no. 1 (2004): 21–48. 32.  Angela Woollacott, “Inventing Commonwealth and Pan-Pacific Feminisms: Australian Women’s Internationalist Activism in the 1920s–30s,” in Sinha et al., Feminisms and Internationalism, 81–104. 33.  Marilyn Lake, “Colonized and Colonizing: The White Australian Feminist Subject,” Women’s History Review 2, no. 3 (1993): 377–386. Notes to Pages 8–11  231

34.  Woollacott, “Inventing Commonwealth and Pan-Pacific Feminisms,” esp. 82 and 100. 35.  Linda K. Schott, Reconstructing Women’s Thoughts: The Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom before World War II (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), 132. 36.  See Angela Woollacott, “‘All This Is the Empire, I Told Myself ’: Australian Women’s Voyages ‘Home’ and the Articulation of Colonial Whiteness,” American Historical Review 102, no. 4 (1997): 1003–1029; and Ros Pesman, Duty Free: Australian Women Abroad (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1996). 37.  See, e.g., Margaret Jacobs, Engendered Encounters: Feminism and Pueblo Cultures, 1879–1934; Intellects, Modern Lives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). 38.  Caren Kaplan, “Travelling Theorists: Cosmopolitan Diasporas,” in Questions of Travel: Postmodern Discourses of Displacement (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996), 127. 39.  Kristin Hoganson, “The Fashionable World: Imagined Communities of Dress,” in Burton, After the Imperial Turn, 275. 40.  Mari Yoshihara, Embracing the East: White Women and American Orientalism (London: Oxford University Press, 2003), esp. chaps. 1 and 3. 41.  Antoinette Burton, “Introduction: The Unfinished Business of Colonial Modernities,” in Antoinette Burton, ed., Gender, Sexuality, and Colonial Modernities (London: Routledge, 1999), 1–16. 42.  Nancy Stepan, “Race, Gender, Science and Citizenship,” Gender and History 10, no. 1 (1998): 26–52; Stuart Hall and Paul de Gay, eds., Questions of Cultural Identity (London: Sage, 1996). 43.  Paul Gordon Lauren, “Racial Equality Requested—and Rejected,” in Power and Prejudice: The Politics and Diplomacy of Racial Discrimination (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1988), 76–101. See also Akira Iriye, “The Versailles Peace,” in The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, vol. 3, The Globalising of America, 1913–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 58–72; and Noriko Kawamura, “Wilsonian Idealism and Japanese Claims at the Paris Peace Conference,” Pacific Historical Review 66, no. 4 (1997): 503–526. 44.  Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Re-Inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, East Gate Books, 1998). See also Duara, “Discourse of Civilization and PanAsianism”; Anthony Best, “Imperial Japan,” in Robert Boyce and Joseph A. Maiolo, eds., The Origins of World War Two: The Debate Continues (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 52–69, esp. 61; and Robert Eskilden, “Of Civilization and Savages: The Mimetic Imperialism of Japan’s 1874 Expedition to Taiwan,” American Historical Review 107, no. 2 (2002): 388–418. 45.  Frank Furedi, The Silent War: Imperialism and the Changing Perception of Race (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998); Erez Manela, “Imagining Woodrow Wilson in Asia: Dreams of East-West Harmony and the Revolt against Empire in 1919,” American Historical Review 3, no. 5 (2006): 1–30. 46.  Susan Pedersen, “Settler Colonialism at the Bar of the League of Nations,” in Caroline Elkins and Susan Pedersen, eds., Settler Colonialism in the Twentieth Century: Projects, Practices, Legacies (New York: Routledge, 2005), 114. 47.  J. H. Curle, “Human Material: The Coloured,” in To-Day and To-Morrow: The Testing Period of the White Race (London: Methuen, 1926/1932), 85–100. 48.  Marilyn Lake, “The White Man under Siege: New Histories of Race in the Nine232  Notes to Pages 11–15

teenth Century and the Advent of White Australia,” History Workshop Journal 58 (2004): 41–62. 49.  Christina Klein, introduction to Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945–1961 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 11. 50.  Paul A. Kramer, “Empires, Exceptions, and Anglo-Saxons: Race and Rule between the British and United States Empires, 1880–1910.” Journal of American History 88, no. 4 (2002): 1315–1353. 51.  Catherine Candy, “The Inscrutable Irish-Indian Feminist Management of AngloAmerican Hegemony, 1917–1947,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 2, no. 1 (2001): 1–28. 52.  Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), xi. 53.  Prasenjit Duara, “Imperialism and Nationalism in the Twentieth Century,” in Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003) 9–40. 54.  Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008): 4. 55.  Mrinalini Sinha, “Introduction: The Anatomy of an Event,” in Specters of Mother India: The Global Restructuring of an Empire (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2006), 16. 56.  Joan W. Scott, “Universalism and the History of Feminism,” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 7, no. 1 (1995): 1–14. 57.  Paul F. Hooper, “Our New Geneva,” in Elusive Destiny, 65–104. 58.  Mari Yoshihara, introduction to Embracing the East, 3–11. 59.  The Basic Programme, UNESCO pamphlet, MS 2818, file 84, box 1, Australian Federation of University Women Papers, Mitchell Library, Sydney. 60.  See, for example, Herman J. Hiery and John M. MacKenzie, eds., European Impact and Pacific Influence: British and German Colonial Policy in the Pacific Islands and the Indigenous Response (London: Tauris, 1997). 61.  Nancy Fix Anderson, “Bridging Cross-Cultural Feminisms: Annie Besant and Women’s Rights in England and India, 1874–1933,” Women’s History Review 3, no. 4 (1994): 563–580. 62.  Prasenjit Duara, “The Discourse of Civilization and Decolonization,” Journal of World History 15, no. 1 (2004): 1–5. 63.  Eileen Boris, Art and Labor: Ruskin, Morris and the Craftsman Ideal in America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986). 64.  Nagako Sugimori, “Jane Addams and Women of the Pacific—A Study of the Amalgamation of Feminism and Pacifism as Seen in the Pan Pacific Women’s Conference,” Annals of the Institute for Comparative Studies of Culture 56, no. 110 (1995): 45–64; Manako Ogawa, “‘Hull-House’ in Downtown Tokyo: The Transplantation of a Settlement House from the United States into Japan and the North American Missionary Women, 1919–1945,” Journal of World History 15, no. 3 (2004): 359–387. 65.  Marilyn Lake, “From Self-Determination via Protection to Equality via NonDiscrimination: Defining Women’s Rights at the League of Nations and the United Nations,” in Grimshaw et al., Women’s Rights and Human Rights, 254–271; Pedersen, “Settler Colonialism,” 113–134; Carol Miller, “‘Geneva—the Key to Equality’: Inter-war Feminists and the League of Nations,” Women’s History Review 3, no. 2 (1994): 219–245; Paula F. Notes to Pages 15–19  233

Pfeffer, “‘A Whisper in the Assembly of Nations’: United States’ Participation in the International Movement for Women’s Rights from the League of Nations to the United Nations,” Women’s Studies International Forum 8, no. 5 (1985): 459–471. 66.  “Industry Papers and Forum Reports,” Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1930), 231–232. 67.  Leila J. Rupp, “The International First Wave,” in Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 135. 68.  James Tully, “Demands for Constitutional Recognition,” in Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 2. 69.  Garner, “Global Feminism”; Ian Tyrrell, Woman’s World/Woman’s Empire: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective, 1880–1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991). 70.  Louise Newman, “Introduction: Women’s Rights, Race, and Imperialism,” in White Women’s Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 1–22; Antoinette Burton, “The Politics of Recovery: Historicizing Imperial Feminism, 1865–1915,” in Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865–1915 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 1–32; Kumari Jayawardena, The White Woman’s Other Burden: Western Women and South Asia during British Rule (New York: Routledge, 1995). 71.  Akira Iriye, “The Origins of Global Community,” in Global Community, 20. 72.  Ibid., 8. 73.  Akami, Internationalizing the Pacific; Paul B. Rich, “The Commonwealth Ideal and the Problem of Racial Segregation,” in Race and Empire in British Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986/1990), 50–69. 74.  Korhonen, “Pacific Age in World History.” 75.  Akami, introduction to Internationalizing the Pacific, 11–12. 76.  Iriye, “Origins of Global Community,” 43. 77.  Rupp, Worlds of Women, 75. See also Tyrrell, Woman’s World/Woman’s Empire, esp. 81ff; Meyda Yegenoglu, Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 126ff. On feminism and Muslim women in Palestine and Egypt, see Charlotte Weber, “Unveiling Scheherazade: Feminist Orientalism in the International Alliance of Women, 1911–1950,” Feminist Studies 27, no. 1 (2001): 125–127. On women and modernity more generally, see Rita Felski, The Gender of Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 136ff. 78.  Reina Lewis, Gendering Orientalism: Race, Femininity and Representation (London: Routledge, 1996); Ali Behdad, Belated Travellers: Orientalism in the Age of Colonial Dissolution (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994). 79.  See, for example, Clare Midgley, “Anti-slavery and the Roots of Imperial Feminism,” in C. Midgley, ed., Gender and Imperialism (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1998), 173; Antoinette Burton, “‘The Purdhnashin in Her Setting’: Colonial Modernity and the Zenana in Cornelia Sorabji’s Memoirs,” Feminist Review 65 (Summer 2000): 145–158; and Jayawardena, White Woman’s Other Burden. 80.  Tyrrell, introduction to Woman’s World/Woman’s Empire, 10. 81.  Peggy Pascoe, Relations of Rescue: The Search for Female Moral Authority in the American West, 1874–1939 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), xxi. On the connection between Christianity and women’s organizations in the Pacific, see Penelope Schoeffel Meleisa, “Women and Political Leaders in the Pacific Islands,” in Daley and Nolan, Suffrage and Beyond, 107–123; and on American women in mission networks in the Pacific, see 234  Notes to Pages 19–22

Patricia Grimshaw, Paths of Duty: American Missionary Wives in Nineteenth-Century Hawaii (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1989). 82.  Ian Tyrrell, “In Dark Lands: Temperance Missionaries and Cultural Imperialism,” in Woman’s World/Woman’s Empire, 112. 83.  Nicholas Brown, “Australian Intellectuals and the Image of Asia: 1920–1960,” Australian Cultural History 9 (1990): 80–92, esp. 81. 84.  Joy Dixon, Divine Feminine: Theosophy and Feminism in England (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). 85.  David Walker, Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia 1850–1939 (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1999), 83. 86.  Akami, Internationalizing the Pacific, 101–104. 87.  Kelsky, Women on the Verge, 25. 88.  Chris Healy, From the Ruins of Colonialism: History as Social Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 89.  Burton, Burdens of History; Fiona Paisley, Loving Protection? Australian Feminism and Aboriginal Women’s Rights, 1919–1939 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000); Sarah Paddle, “The Limits of Sympathy: International Feminists and the Chinese ‘Slave Girl’ Campaigns of the 1920s and 1930s,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 4, no. 3 (2003): 1–20. 90.  Patricia Johnston, “Advertising Paradise: Hawai‘i in Art, Anthropology, and Commercial Photography,” in Eleanor M. Hight and Gary D. Sampson, eds., Colonialist Photography: Imag(in)ing Race and Place (New York: Routledge, 2002), 188–225; Michael Sturma, South Sea Maidens: Western Fantasy and Sexual Politics in the South Pacific (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 2002); Patty O’Brien, The Pacific Muse: Exotic Femininity and the Colonial Pacific (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006). 91.  On the impact of foreign missions in Japan, see, for example, Rumi Yasutake, “Men, Women, and Temperance in Meiji Japan: Engendering WCTU Activism from a Transnational Perspective,” Japanese Journal of American Studies 17 (2006): 91–111. 92.  Jayawardena, White Woman’s Other Burden. 93.  Candy, “Irish-Indian Feminist Management”; Gauri Viswanathan, “Ireland, India, and the Poetics of Internationalism,” Journal of World History 15, no. 1 (2004): 28–29. 94.  Leila Rupp, “International Ground,” in Worlds of Women, 159–179. 95.  Historian Mrinalini Sinha points out that just as the Western feminist subject is no longer considered the universal subject of feminism, so non-Western feminists should no longer be seen as flawed in their investments in decolonization or anticolonial nationalisms. Mrinalini Sinha, “Britain and the Empire: Toward a New Agenda for Imperial History,” Radical History Review 72 (Fall 1998): 163–174, esp. 166–167. 96.  Angela Woollacott, “Women and Gender in Nationalist Movements,” in Gender and Empire (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 118. 97.  Louise Edwards and Mina Roces, “Introduction: Orienting the Global Women’s Suffrage Movement,” in Louise Edwards and Mina Roces, eds., Women’s Suffrage in Asia: Gender, Nationalism and Democracy (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), 1–23. 98.  Yasutake, “Building a Pan-Pacific Women’s Community.” 99.  Antoinette Burton, “Woman in the Nation: Feminism, Race, and Empire in the ‘National Culture,’” in Burdens of History, 35. 100.  Akami, Internationalizing the Pacific, 104–107. 101.  S. N. Eisenstadt, “Multiple Modernities,” in Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, ed., Multiple Modernities (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2002), 1–29; Sinha et al., “Introduction,” 2; Notes to Pages 22–26  235

Angela Woollacott, “Women, Gender and Anti-Colonial Nationalist Movements,” in Gender and Empire, 104–121. 102.  For an account of a similarly complex subjectivity, see Antoinette Burton, “Cold War Cosmopolitanism: The Education of Santha Rama Rau in the Age of Bandung, 1945– 1954,” Radical History Review 95 (Spring 2006): 149–172. 103.  Sandra Stanley Holton, “Kinship and Friendship: Quaker Women’s Networks and the Women’s Movement,” Women’s History Review 14, no. 3–4 (2005): 365–384. 104.  Jon Thares Davidann, “‘Colossal Illusions’: U.S.-Japanese Relations in the Institute of Pacific Relations, 1919–1938,” Journal of World History 12, no. 1 (2001): 155–182. 105.  Jane Haggis, “White Women and Colonialism: Towards a Non-Recuperative History,” in Midgley, Gender and Imperialism, 64. 106.  Christina Klein, introduction to Cold War Orientalism, 6. 1: Civilization at the Crossroads 1.  Mary E. Woolley, “Co-operation among the Countries of the Pacific along Educational Lines,” box 55-10, Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) Papers, Special Collections, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. 2.  Osborne, “Women of the Pacific,” 247. 3.  Delegations and delegates throughout are referred to as of, for example, Australia rather than Australian. This strategy aims to recognize that under settler colonialism women of nonindigenous origin sometimes appeared on national delegations. Thus, in the first example, Rischbieth was not an Indigenous Australian but a delegate of Australia. And, in the second example, nonnationals (and, hence, women not ethnically representative) joined delegations where the PPWA considered that indigenous or local women were not yet fully able to participate in the name of their own national constituencies. This strategy also aims to destabilize assumptions about the particular ethnic identity of a PPWA delegate made on the grounds of name or a somatic reading of conference photographs. 4.  Hooper, Elusive Destiny; Hooper, “Feminism in the Pacific,” 367–378. 5.  Doris M. Mitchell, Sixty Years On: The Story of the Pan-Pacific South East Asia Women’s Association, 1928–1988, pamphlet, box 6, folder 34, item 153, MS4973, Pan-Pacific and South East Asia Women’s Association (PPSEAWA) Australia Papers, NLA. 6.  Jane Addams, “The Opening of a Women’s Congress,” Mid-Pacific Magazine 36, no. 4 (1928): 303. 7.  Alison Bashford, “Nation, Empire, Globe: The Spaces of Population Debate in the Interwar Years,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 49, no. 1 (2007): 170–201. 8.  Philippa Mein Smith, “Truby King in Australia: The Revisionist View of Reduced Infant Mortality,” New Zealand Journal of History 22, no. 1 (1988): 23–43; Erik Olssen, “Truby King and the Plunket Society: An Analysis of a Prescriptive Ideology,” New Zealand Journal of History 15, no. 1 (1981): 3–23. 9.  Seth Koven and Sonya Michel, eds., Mothers of a New World: Maternalist Politics and the Origins of Welfare States (New York: Routledge, 1993). For the Australian context, see Kerreen Reiger, The Disenchantment of the Home (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1985); and on similar debates in Japan, see Vera Mackie, “Mothers and Workers: The Politics of the Maternal Body in Early Twentieth Century Japan,” Australian Feminist Studies 12 (April 1997): 42–58. 10.  Jeanette Marks, The Life and Times of Mary Emma Woolley (Washington, DC: Public Affairs Press, 1955). 236  Notes to Pages 26–34

11.  C. Miller, “‘Geneva—the Key to Equality,’” 233. 12.  Bulletin of the Pan-Pacific Union (PPU Bulletin) 64 (1925): 12. 13.  “Pan Pacific Women’s Conference,” box 69, ser. B741/3, item V/5296, AttorneyGeneral’s Department, Investigation Branch, NLA. 14.  Epstein, “California Women and Inter-war Pan-Pacific Feminism.” 15.  Jill Roe, Beyond Belief: Theosophy in Australia, 1879–1939 (Sydney: New South Wales University Press, 1986). 16.  Bessie Rischbieth, “The Pan-Pacific Women’s Association,” 2, box 8, folder 57, MS 4973, PPSEAWA Australia Papers. 17.  “The Pan-Pacific Union Women’s Conference, Honolulu, 1928,” ser. A, D600/918, International Labour Organization Archives (ILOA), Geneva. 18.  As reported by Ethel E. Osborne to Mme. Mundt, International Labour Organization (ILO), “Report of 1928 Conference,” typed sheets, n.d., 14, in “Women’s Conference, Honolulu, 1930,” Pan-Pacific Union (PPU), D600/918/2, ILOA. 19.  “Report of Joint Meeting of Health and Industry Sections,” Pan-Pacific Union Women’s Conference, Honolulu, 1930, ser. A, D600/918/2, ILOA. 20.  Woollacott, “‘All This Is the Empire, I Told Myself.’” 21.  Ann Satterthwaite to Tsune Gauntlett, April 4, 1930, Pan Pacific Union (PPU) Papers, PPU Collection, Special Collections, Hamilton Library, University of Hawai‘i at Ma¯noa (UHM). 22.  “Questions for Discussion at the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” PPU Bulletin 92 (September 1927): 8–11. 23.  Julia Rapke and Frances Penington, eds., Report of the Australian Delegation (Vancouver, 1937), 6–9, Mitchell Library, Sydney. 24.  Elizabeth Green, “The Pacific Technique: New Clinical Notes on Its Evolution,” Pacific Affairs 1 (August–September 1928): 12–16. 25.  Rupp, “Constructing Internationalism.” 26.  “Conference 232,” Pan-Pacific Women’s Conferences, Honolulu, ser. A981/4, National Archives of Australia, Canberra (NAA). 27.  Elizabeth Bailey Price, “Woman’s New Geneva,” Chatelaine 7, no. 12 (1934): 22–24. 28.  Rumi Yasutake, “Feminism, Nationalism, Regionalism and Internationalism: Japanese Women and the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference, 1928–1937,” paper presented at the Crossroads Conference, Centre for Japanese Studies, UHM, August 2001; Yasutake, “Building a Pan-Pacific Women’s Community.” 29.  “Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” Union Signal, May 26, 1928, 333. My thanks to Ian Tyrrell for this reference. 30.  See, e.g., Katherine Fullerton Gerould, Hawaii: Scenes and Impressions (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1916). 31.  S. D. Porteus, “Racial Investigations in Hawaii,” box 56-1, IPR Papers. 32.  Eleanor Moore, The Quest for Peace: As I Have Known It in Australia (Melbourne: Wilke and Co., 1949), 99. 33.  Dr. Isabel Randall-Colyer, “Women of the Pacific Desire Peace,” Mid-Pacific Magazine 47, no. 5 (1934): 451. 34.  Alexander Ford, “Opening Address,” Dawn (Australia), September 26, 1928, 2. 35.  Addams, “Opening of a Woman’s Congress,” 303–306. 36.  A. H. Reeve, “Presidential Address,” Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1930), 7–8. 37.  M. I. Ting to China Preparation Committee, MS 2004/6/37, Rischbieth Papers. Notes to Pages 34–45  237

38.  Robert Ezra Park, Race and Culture (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1950), 138. 39.  Jane Addams, “Reflections on the First Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1930), ix–x. 40.  John M. MacKenzie, Orientalism: History, Theory, and the Arts (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1995), 21. 41.  Yukiko Matsukawa and Kaoru Tachi, “Women’s Suffrage and Gender Politics in Japan,” in Daley and Nolan, Suffrage and Beyond, 171–183. 42.  See Holly Ellen Newcomb, “Western Influence and the Transition of Chinese Upperclass Women 1830s–1930s” (MA thesis, University of Washington, 1967); Weikun Cheng, “A Chinese Approach to Women’s Liberation: Female Reformers in Late Qing Beijing,” paper presented at the 11th Berkshire Women’s History Conference, Rochester, NY, 1999; Louise Edwards, “Women’s Suffrage in China: Challenging Scholarly Conventions,” Pacific Historical Review 69 (November 2000): 617–638; and Louise Edwards, “From Gender Equality to Gender Difference: Feminist Campaigns for Quotas for Women in Politics, 1936–1947,” Twentieth-Century China 24 (April 1999): 69–105. See also Motoe SasakiGayle, “The ‘New Woman,’ American Imperialism, and the Conditions of Feminism: American Women in China during 1900–1938.” My thanks to Motoe for a copy of this paper. 43.  Yasutake, “Feminism, Nationalism, Regionalism and Internationalism.” 44.  Female suffrage was secured after Japan’s defeat in World War II. Often claimed as a result of American influence, suffrage activism had a long indigenous history within Japan. See Barbara Moloney, “Women’s Rights, Feminism, and Suffragism in Japan, 1870–1925,” Pacific Historical Review 69 (November 2000): 639–661; and Sharon L. Sievers, Flowers in Salt: The Beginnings of Feminist Consciousness in Modern Japan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983). For an account of socialist feminism in Japan, see Vera Mackie, Creating Socialist Women in Japan: Gender, Labour and Activism, 1900–1937 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 45.  Yasutake, Transnational Women’s Activism. 46.  Eleanor Hinder to G. A. Fitch, Honorary Secretary of the Pan-Pacific Association, Shanghai, July 23, 1928, item 5, MSS 770/2, Hinder Papers, Mitchell Library, Sydney. 47.  Mrs. M. H. Inouye, Dean, Household Administration Department, Women’s University of Japan, “Standard of Living in Japan,” Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1928), 54–57. 48.  Yasutake, “Feminism, Nationalism, Regionalism and Internationalism.” 49.  Isabel Randall-Colyer, “Women of the Pacific,” Sydney Morning Herald Women’s Supplement, September 13, 1934, 18. 50.  Jennifer Craik, The Face of Fashion (London: Routledge, 1994), 17. 51.  Joan Jensen, “Women on the Pacific Rim: Some Thoughts on Border Crossings,” Pacific Historical Review 67, no. 1 (1998): 3–38. 52.  Mari Yoshihara, “Asia as Spectacle and Commodity: Feminization of Oriental Consumption,” in Embracing the East, 43. 53.  Reina Lewis, “On Veiling, Vision, and Voyage: Cross-Cultural Dressing and Narratives of Identity,” Interventions 1, no. 4 (1999): 500–520. See also Verity Wilson, “Dressing for Leadership in China: Wives and Husbands in an Age of Revolution,” Gender and History 14, no. 3 (2002): 608–628. 54.  Manako Ogawa, “American Women’s Destiny, Asian Women’s Dignity: TransPacific Activism of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, 1886–1945” (PhD in American Studies thesis, UHM, 2004), 270–271. My thanks to Mari Yoshihara for drawing my attention to this research. 238  Notes to Pages 46–51

55.  Louise Edwards, “Policing the Modern Woman in Republican China,” Modern China 26, no. 2 (2000): 115–147. 56.  Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1930), 8 (emphasis in original). 57.  Felski, Gender of Modernity, 132; Joy Dixon, “Ancient Wisdom, Modern Motherhood: Theosophy and the Colonial Syncretic,” in Burton, Gender, Sexuality, and Colonial Modernities, 193–206. 58.  Dixon, Divine Feminine. 59.  “Second Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” PPU Bulletin 127 (September 1930): 25. 60.  James H. Cousins and Margaret E. Cousins, We Two Together (Madras: Ganesh and Co., 1950), 501. 61.  Roe, Beyond Belief, 200–201. 62.  Georgina Sweet, “Presidential Address,” Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1934), 63, 68 (emphasis in original). 63.  J. W. C. Beveridge, “Additional Report,” Report of the Australian Delegation (n.p., 1934), 10, Mitchell Library, Sydney. 64.  “World Programs,” Pacific Affairs 1, no. 2 (1928): 25. 65.  Rupp, Worlds of Women, 73. 66.  Yasutake, “Building a Pan-Pacific Women’s Community.” 67.  Four years before her death in 1931, Addams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Harriet Hyman Alonso, Peace as a Women’s Issue: A History of the U.S. Movement for World Peace and Women’s Rights (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1993), 112. See also Jacqueline Van Voris, Carrie Chapman Catt: A Public Life (New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 1987). 68.  “About the Pacific,” Dawn, January 22, 1930, 1. 69.  Georgina Sweet, “History of the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association,” Women of the Pacific (Vancouver, 1937), 7. 70.  Eleanor M. Hinder, “Pacific Women,” Pacific Affairs 1, no. 3 (1928): 9. 71.  Bessie Rischbieth, “The Australian Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference Committee, 19 March 1930,” circular, MS 2004/6/57, Rischbieth Papers. 72.  Rachel Crowdy, “Report of the Second Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” October 28, 1930, 14, item 50/7558, ser. 1353, General and Miscellaneous, ILOA. 73.  “Report to the Board,” MS 2004/6/305, Rischbieth Papers. 74.  Ann Satterthwaite, “Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” PPU Bulletin 128 (1930): 8–10. 75.  PPSEAWA US Mainland Papers, Swarthmore Peace Collection, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA. 76.  Ethel Osborne, “Women of Europe Interested in the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” Mid-Pacific Magazine 45, no. 3 (1930): 236. 77.  “Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference, Final Meeting.” 78.  Typed sheets, November 7, 1928, MS 2004/6/343, Rischbieth Papers. 79.  “Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference, Final Meeting.” 80.  “The First Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference and After,” Mid-Pacific Magazine 36, no. 6 (1928): 403. 81.  “Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference, Final Meeting.” 82.  “The Joint Committee of Shanghai Women’s Organizations: Participation of Women in Government in European and Pacific Countries,” Bulletin 5 (1928), Hinder Papers. Notes to Pages 51–59  239

83.  Paddle, “Limits of Sympathy,” esp. 10. 84.  Eleanor Hinder, “Chinese Women in Pacific Affairs: An Interpretation,” in Women in the Pacific: A Contribution to the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference (Shanghai, 1928), 10, Hamilton Library, UHM. 85.  “The YWCA in the Pacific Area,” World’s YWCA Supplement to the International Women’s News, June 1933, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. 86.  Eleanor M. Hinder to Albert Thomas, September 11, 1928, “The Pan-Pacific Union Women’s Conference, Honolulu, 1928,” ser. A, “The PPU: Women’s Conference in Honolulu, 1928,” D600/918, ILOA. See also “Joint Committee of Shanghai Women’s Organizations”; and Hinder, Women in the Pacific. 87.  Unsourced press clipping, MS 2004/6/343, Rischbieth Papers. 88.  “First Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference and After,” 402. 89.  Constance Stevens, “Oriental Women at Pacific Conference.” 90.  Ibid. 91.  Undated typed sheets, submitted by M. I. Ting, MS 2004/6/343, Rischbieth Papers. 92.  A. H. Ford, Director of the Pan-Pacific Union, Honolulu, to Eleanor M. Hinder, Sydney, December 19, 1928, MS 2004/6/84, Rischbieth Papers. 93.  Mid-Pacific Magazine 39, no. 3 (1930): 225. 94.  Bessie Rischbieth, “Australian Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference Committee,” MS 2004/6/304, Rischbieth Papers. 95.  Quoted in Georgina Sweet, “Women of the Pacific Move towards Understanding,” Austral-Asiatic Bulletin 1, no. 6 (1938): 9. 96.  Sweet, “History of the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association,” 12. 97.  Ethel E. Osborne, “The Second Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” PPU Bulletin 125 ( July 1930): 8. 98.  “A Woman’s Hour at the Pan-Pacific Forum,” Proceedings of the Women’s Conference, PPU Bulletin 132 (February 1931): 5. 2: Decolonizing the Women’s Pan-Pacific 1.  Britomarte James, “The Captain Cook Centennial: A Notable Pageant,” Report of the Australian Delegation (n.p., 1928), n.p., Mitchell Library, Sydney. 2.  “Polynesian Conference,” box 3, folder 121, PPU Papers. 3.  Quoted by a colleague in a letter to Parsons. Harriet Andrews to Edgerton Parsons, July 30, 1931, PPU Papers. 4.  Kramer, “Empires, Exceptions, and Anglo-Saxons.” 5.  Duara, “Discourse of Civilization and Decolonization”; Dipesh Chakrabarty, “The Idea of Provincializing Europe,” in Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 1–23. 6.  Addams, “Reflections on the First Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1933), x. 7.  Fusaye Ichikawa, “The Political Status of Women in Japan,” Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1928), 205–208. See also Yoko Matsuoka, Daughter of the Pacific (London: William Heinemann, 1953), 95, 161. 8.  Mrs. Harry Kluegel, “The Participation of Women in Government,” Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1930), 118. 9.  O’Brien, Pacific Muse, 211. 240  Notes to Pages 59–66

10.  “Invitations to Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference Transmitted through State Department,” March 1928, 3–4, box 98, PPU Papers, quoted in Hooper, “Feminism in the Pacific.” 11.  Epstein, “California Women and Inter-war Pan-Pacific Feminism,” 110–111. 12.  Sean Brawley, The White Peril: Foreign Relations and Asian Immigration to Australasia and North America, 1919–78 (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 1995); Marilyn Lake, “White Man’s Country: The Trans-national History of a National Project,” Australian Historical Studies 34, no. 122 (October 2003): 346–363. 13.  Antoinette Burton, Augusto Espiritu, and Fanon Che Wilkins, “Introduction: The Fate of Nationalisms in the Age of Bandung,” Radical History Review 95 (Spring 2006): 147; David Walker, “Nervous Outsiders: Australia and the 1955 Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung,” Australian Historical Studies 37, no. 125 (2005): 40–59. 14.  Eleanor Hinder to William Caldwell, September 14, 1928, 2, Pan-Pacific Union Women’s Conference, Honolulu, 1930, ser. A, D600/918/2, ILOA. 15.  “Pan Pacific Women’s Conference, Final Meeting.” 16.  Tomoko Akami, “The Rise and Fall of the ‘Pacific Sense’: Experiment of the Institute of Pacific Relations, 1925–1930,” in Paul F. Hooper, ed., Rediscovering the IPR: Proceedings of the First International Research Conference on the Institute of Pacific Relations (Honolulu: Department of American Studies, Centre for Arts and Humanities Occasional Paper 2, UHM, 1994), 10–32. 17.  Paul A. Kramer, The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006). 18.  Pernet, “Chilean Feminists.” 19.  Isabelle Morelock and Ann Y. Satterthwaite to Alice Parsons, February 7, 1941, and Alice Parsons to Ann Y. Satterthwaite, February 27, 1941, box 8, folder 301, PPU Papers, quoted in Epstein, “California Women and Inter-war Pan Pacific Feminism,” 127. 20.  Margaretta Willis Reeve to Mrs. F. M. Swanzy, March 1934, box 8, folder 300, PPU Papers, quoted in Epstein, “California Women and Inter-war Pan Pacific Feminism,” 130. 21.  Margaretta Willis Reeve to Georgina Sweet, November 23, 1931, box 8, folder 300, PPU Papers, quoted in Epstein, “California Women and Inter-war Pan Pacific Feminism,” 130. 22.  PPWA Committee, Minutes, February 8, 1933, PPSEAWA US Mainland Papers. 23.  Ethel E. Osborne, “An Analysis of the Program,” PPU Bulletin 128 (October 1930): 30. 24.  Cheryl Griffin, “A Biography of Doris McRae, 1893–1988” (PhD thesis, University of Melbourne, 2005), 121–126. 25.  Ruth L. T. Yap, “The Legal Status of Chinese Women in China and Hawaii,” Mid-Pacific Magazine 40, no. 2 (1930): 121. 26.  “History of PPSEAWA,” typed pages, 27, PPSEAWA Hawai‘i Papers, PPSEAWA Collection, PPSEAWA Hawai‘i, Honolulu. 27.  Press clippings, Christchurch Daily Times, September 15, 1938, AG39/23, Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) NZ Papers, Hocken Library, University of Otago, Dunedin. 28.  “History of PPSEAWA,” 2. 29.  Daniel Oakman, Facing Asia: A History of the Colombo Plan (Canberra: Pandanus Books, 2004). Notes to Pages 68–75  241

30.  Kelsky, introduction to Women on the Verge, 25. 31.  Annual Meeting, New Zealand PPWA, February 12, 1954, 3, MS 362, Mary Seaton Papers, Auckland War Museum, Auckland. 32.  The PPSEAWA file is dominated by funding issues. PPSEAWA 1950–1975, UNESCO Archives, UNESCO, Paris. 33.  Mrinalini Sinha, “Suffragism and Internationalism: The Enfranchisement of British and Indian Women under an Imperial State,” in Fletcher et al., Women’s Suffrage in the British Empire, 224–241. 34.  “Agenda: Committee of Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” January 20, 1925, 2, reel 42, ser. 1, Addams Papers, Swarthmore Peace Collection, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA. 35.  “Questions for Discussion at the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference.” 36.  Dixon, Divine Feminine. 37.  Catherine Candy, “Competing Transnational Representations of the 1930s Indian Franchise Question,” in Fletcher et al., Women’s Suffrage in the British Empire, 202. 38.  Mrinalini Sinha, “Refashioning Mother India: Feminism and Nationalism in Late-Colonial India,” Feminist Studies 26, no. 3 (2000): 623–650. 39.  Antoinette Burton, Dwelling in the Archive: Women Writing House, Home, and History in Late Colonial India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 40.  “Report of the First Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference, 1928,” PPU Bulletin (September 1928): 273. 41.  “Travels and Conferences,” April 1942, Seaton Papers. 42.  Rapke and Penington, Report of the Australian Delegation (1937), 23. 43.  Sinha, “Suffragism and Internationalism,” 224–239; Partha Chatterjee, “Colonialism, Nationalism, and Colonized Women: The Contest in India,” American Ethnologist 16, no. 4 (1989): 57–69. 44.  Vancouver Daily Province, July 22, 1937, 7. 45.  Bessie Rischbieth, “All-Asian Women’s Conference,” Dawn, December 17, 1930, 7. 46.  Elsie Andrews to Ann Satterthwaite, March 3, 1939, box 301, PPU Papers. 47.  “Distinguished Woman Greeted by City Organisations,” Dunedin Evening Star, February 12, 1952, Schain Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Archives, Northampton, MA. 48.  “Status of Women: India’s Problem Discussed,” news clipping, n.d., Moore Papers, Mitchell Library, Sydney. 49.  News clipping, October 30, 1951, Seaton Papers. 50.  “Status of Women in the Pacific Countries,” n.d., Seaton Papers. 51.  Sinha, “Suffragism and Internationalism,” 233. 52.  Candy, “Inscrutable Irish-Indian Feminist Management,” 20. 53.  Paisley, Loving Protection? 54.  Miss A. M. Griffin, “Social Service in Fiji,” PPU Bulletin (April 1928): 237. 55.  Olive Meek, “Important Factors in the Education of the Fijian Race,” Mid-Pacific Magazine 40, no. 3 (1930): 226. 56.  Gwen Atherton, “Fiji Celebrates Its Diamond Jubilee,” Mid-Pacific Magazine 47, no. 5 (1934): 447. 57.  Typed notes, Box 3, folder 15, PPSEAWA Australia Papers. 58.  Margaret Jolly, “‘To Save the Girls for Brighter and Better Lives’: Presbyterian Missions and Women in the South of Vanuatu 1848–1870,” Journal of Pacific History 26, 242  Notes to Pages 75–79

no. 1 (1991): 27–48; Noenoe K. Silva, “‘He Kanawai E Hoopau I Na Hula Kuolo Hawai‘i’: The Political Economy of Banning the Hula (1857–1870),” Hawaiian Journal of History 34 (2000): 29–48. 59.  Felix W. Keesing, The Changing Maori (New Plymouth, New Zealand: Thomas Avery and Sons, 1928). 60.  MLMSS 3105, Shaw Papers, Mitchell Library, Sydney. My thanks to Sarah Paddle for this reference. 61.  Jayawardena, White Woman’s Other Burden; James A. Boutilier, “European Women in the Solomon Islands, 1900–42: Accommodation and Change on the Pacific Frontier,” in Denise O’Brien and Sharon W. Tiffany, eds., Rethinking Women’s Roles: Perspectives from the Pacific (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 173–201; Bronwen Douglas, “Christian Citizens: Women and Negotiations of Modernity in Vanuatu,” Contemporary Pacific 14, no. 1 (2002): 1–38. 62.  “Thoughts on the Conference,” typed sheets, n.d., Seaton Papers. 63.  Ellen Lea to Josephine Schain, October 25, 1953, Schain Papers. 64.  Willowdean Handy to Josephine Schain, September 3, 1952, Schain Papers. 65.  “Travels and Conferences, April 1942,” Seaton Papers. 66.  “Resolutions and Recommendations of the First Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” Mid-Pacific Magazine 24, no. 4 (1928): 413. 67.  “Reports of Sections,” Report of the Australian Delegation (1934), 15. 68.  “Extracts from the Report of the Royal Commission on the Moving Picture Industry in Australia,” Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1928), 221. See Geoffrey Gray, “Looking for Neanderthal Man, Finding a Captive White Woman: The Story of a Documentary Film,” Health and History 8, no. 2 (2006): 1–19. 69.  “Second Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” PPU Bulletin 127 (September 1930): 20. 70.  P. H. Buck, “Race of the Pacific,” paper presented in 1927, IPR Papers. 71.  “Australian Pan-Pacific Women’s Committee Circular,” MS 2006/6/499, Rischbieth Papers. 72.  “Social Occasions and Entertainments,” Report of the Australian Delegation (1934), 29. 73.  Alison French, Seeing the Centre: The Art of Albert Namatjira 1902–1959 (Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2002). 74.  “Albert Namatjira,” typed sheets, n.d., Seaton Papers. 75.  Alan Trachtenberg, Shades of Hiawatha: Staging Indians, Making Americans, 1880– 1930 (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004). 76.  “American Indians of the Order of Red Men,” Mid-Pacific Magazine 39, no. 3 (1930): 252. 77.  Laura Jane Moore, “Elle Meets the President: Weaving Navajo Culture and Commerce in the Southwestern Tourist Industry,” Frontiers 22, no. 1 (2001): 21–34. 78.  Jacobs, Engendered Encounters. 79.  “Grace Luckhart at the Pan-Pacific Congress,” Vancouver Daily Province, July 15, 1937, 1. 80.  Yasutake, “Feminism, Nationalism, Regionalism,” 5. 81.  “Interview with Clorinda Lucas,” Watumull Foundation Oral History Project, Special Collections, Hamilton Library, UHM. 82.  W. Anderson, “Ambiguities of Race.” 83.  Katherine Ellinghaus, Taking Assimilation to Heart: Marriages of White Women and Notes to Pages 79–87  243

Indigenous Men in the United States and Australia, 1887–1937 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006). 84.  Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights: A Documentary History (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1999), 92; Pearl Gibbs to the President of the League of Nations, July 4, 1938, “Situation of the Australian Aborigines,” R3690, Political Section, 34895/1938, League of Nations Archives, Geneva (LNA). 85.  “Government Section Report,” Second Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference, 1930, 4, General and Miscellaneous, 50/7558/1353, LNA. 86.  Patricia Grimshaw, “Settler Anxieties: Indigenous Peoples, and Women’s Suffrage in the Colonies of Australia, New Zealand, and Hawai‘i, 1888 to 1902,” Pacific Historical Review 69, no. 4 (2000): 553–572. 87.  The Role of the Races in Our Future Civilization, League of Industrial Democracy Pamphlet Series, New York, 1942, Mitchell Library, Sydney. 88.  “Lecture,” 7KDC/D3/14-16, Courtney Papers, Women’s Library, London Metropolitan University. 89.  Paisley, Loving Protection? 90.  Russell McGregor, “The Concept of Primitivity in the Early Anthropological Writings of A. P. Elkin,” Aboriginal History 17, no. 2 (1993): 95–104. 91.  Constance Cooke to Travers Buxton, May 9, 1934, ser. 19, D2/21, Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society (ASAPS) Papers, Rhodes House, Oxford. 92.  British Commonwealth League Conference Report (London, 1927), 29. 93.  British Commonwealth League Conference Report (London, 1929), 30–32. 94.  Dawn, February 15, 1928, 12. 95.  “Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society,” A431, 48/273, NAA. 96.  Angela Woollacott, “Inventing Commonwealth and Pan-Pacific Feminisms,” 425–448; Marilyn Lake, “The Ambiguities for Feminists of National Belonging: Race and Gender in the Imagined Australian Community,” in Ida Blom, Karen Hagemann, and Catherine Hall, eds. Gendered Nations: Nationalisms and Gender Order in the Long Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Berg, 2000), 159–176. 97.  Constance M. Ternent Cooke, “The Status of Aboriginal Women in Australia,” Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1930), 127–137. 98.  Ibid. 99.  Mary Montgomery Bennett to Travers Buxton, December 6, 1930, MSS Brit. Emp. S22, G374, ASAPS Papers. 100.  E. S. Morris to C. A. S. Hawker, June 11, 1930, A1/15, 30/8749, NAA. My thanks to Julia Pitman for informing me that Morris was a South Australian active in the women’s guilds of the Congregational churches. Julia Pitman, “Prophets and Priests: Women in the Congregationalist Churches of Australia, 1919–1977” (PhD diss., University of Adelaide, 2005). 101.  Mrs. W. Thorn and Miss E. M. Griffin to Minister for Home Affairs, July 2, 1930, A1/15, 30/8749, NAA. 102.  Under Blakeley the scandalous history of the Alice Springs for “half-caste children” continued unabated. Andrew Markus, Governing Savages (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1990): 30–31. 103.  Arthur Blakeley to C. A. S. Hawker, June 19, 1930, A1/15, 30/8749, NAA. 104.  Russell McGregor, Imagined Destinies: Aboriginal Australians and the Doomed Race Theory, 1880–1939 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1997), 167, 172, 182; Markus, Governing Savages, chap. 8. 244  Notes to Pages 87–93

105.  Handwritten memo, signature illegible, addressed to Mr. Carrodus, July 3, 1930, A1/15, 30/8749, NAA. 106.  Hansard Parliamentary Debates, clipping, July 11, 1930. 107.  P. E. Deane (Sec., Minister for Home Affairs) to Miss E. M. Griffin, July 8, 1930, A1/15, 30/8749, NAA. 108.  Elizabeth Clapham to Arthur Blakeley, January 15, 1931, A1/15, 30/8749, NAA. 109.  Mary Montgomery Bennett, The Australian Aboriginal as a Human Being (London: Alston Rivers, 1930). 110.  Bennett to Buxton, December 6, 1930. 111.  Dr. Constance Davey, “Women in Government,” Report of the Australian Delegation (n.p., 1930), 16. 112.  “Minutes,” November 1, 1930, SRG 116/1/2, League of Women Voters Papers, Mitchell Library, Sydney. 113.  Constance Cooke to Travers Buxton, October 6, 1930, S22, G374, ASAPS Papers. 114.  1930 Diary, 5, Andrews Papers, Puke Ariki/Taranaki Museum, New Plymouth, New Zealand. 115.  1930 Diary, 38, Andrews Papers. 3: Interracial Friendship 1.  Ballantyne and Burton, “Introduction.” 2.  Regarding this larger project to constitute Maori as “Brown Britons,” see James Belich, “Racial Harmony (1): Merging Maori?” in Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the Year 2000 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001), 209–210; and Ballantyne, Orientalism and Race. 3.  Burton, Burdens of History. 4.  Sandra Stanley Holton, “Segregation, Racism and White Women Reformers,” Women’s History Review 10, no. 1 (2001): 5–26. 5.  Christine M. Skwiot, “Itineraries of Empire: The Uses of U.S. Tourism in Cuba and Hawai‘i, 1898–1959” (PhD thesis, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, 2002). 6.  Holton, “Kinship and Friendship.” 7.  Leila J. Rupp, “Sexuality and Politics in the Early Twentieth Century: The Case of the International Women’s Movement,” Feminist Studies 3 (Fall 1997): 577–605. 8.  Mineke Bosch, with Annemarie Kloosterman, eds., Politics and Friendship: Letters from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, 1902–1942 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1990). 9.  See Maria C. Lugones and Elizabeth V. Spelman, “Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for ‘the Woman’s Voice,’” Women’s Studies International Forum 6, no. 6 (1983): 573–581. My thanks to Eileen Boris for this reference. 10.  Gillian Whitlock, The Intimate Empire: Reading Women’s Autobiography (London: Cassell, 2000), 14. See also Ann Laura Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). 11.  Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (New York: Routledge, 1992). 12.  Whitlock, Intimate Empire, 14, 5. Notes to Pages 93–101  245

13.  Ravi de Costa, A Higher Authority: Indigenous Transnationalism and Australia (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2006). 14.  Simon During, “Postcolonialism and Globalization: Towards a Historicization of Their Inter-relation,” Cultural Studies 14, no. 3–4 (2000): 385–404. 15.  McGregor, Imagined Destinies, 106–107. 16.  Felix M. Keesing, Education in Pacific Countries (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1937), 63. Keesing acknowledges the collaboration of his wife and Sir Peter Buck in Felix M. Keesing, Social Anthropology in Polynesia: A Review of Research (London: Oxford University Press, 1953), x, 3. 17.  F. M. Keesing, Education in Pacific Countries, 48. 18.  Marie Keesing, “Cultural Contributions of Pacific Countries,” Pan-Pacific April– June 1939, 10. 19.  “National and International Relations,” Women of the Pacific (Vancouver, 1937), 45. 20.  “Notes of the Address Given by Mrs. M. Keesing,” July 1, 1939, Seaton Papers. 21.  Marie Keesing, Pacific Islands in War and Peace, American Council, Institute of Pacific Relations, Pamphlet 14, 1944, 63, Beaglehole Rare Books Collection, Victoria University, Auckland. 22.  “Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” Mid-Pacific Magazine 34, no. 4 (1928): 412. 23.  Eleanor Hinder, “Report of Visit to Samoa and Fiji,” MS 2006/6/109, Rischbieth Papers. 24.  “Second Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” 26. 25.  Bessie Rischbieth, “The East Awakens: Travels in Asia,” Dawn, March 19, 1930, 3. 26.  Paul Gordon Lauren, “From One War to Another,” in Power and Prejudice, 114. 27.  L. J. Moore, “Elle Meets the President.” 28.  Honolulu Star-Bulletin, August 20, 1934, 3. 29.  Anna Cole, Victoria Haskins, and Fiona Paisley, eds., Uncommon Ground: White Women in Aboriginal History (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2005). 30.  Unsourced, undated news clipping, Andrews Papers. 31.  James Bennett, “Maori as Honorary Members of the White Tribe,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 29, no. 3 (2001): 33–54; Belich, “Racial Harmony.” 32.  “Bennett, Frederick Augustus, 1871–1950,” Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, vol. 3, 1901–1920 (Wellington: Auckland University Press), 49–51. 33.  Matsuda, “Pacific.” 34.  Sweet, “Presidential Address,” Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1934), 61–68. 35.  History of the Pan-Pacific and South-East Asia Women’s Association of New Zealand, (Christchurch, n.d., ca. 1979). 36.  “A Woman’s Hour at the Pan-Pacific Forum,” 7–8. 37.  Whitlock, introduction to Intimate Empire, 1–7. 38.  See also Raewyn Dalziel, “Pan-Pacific and South-East Asia Women’s Association, 1931–,”in Anne Else, ed., Women Together: A History of Women’s Organisations in New Zealand: Nga Ropu Wahine o te Motu (Wellington: Daphne Brasell Associates Press, Historical Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1993), 88–90; Agnes J. Shelton, comp., “Elsie Andrews, M.B.E.,” MS 88-19-14/14, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington; Letitia Coleman, History of the New Zealand Branch of the Pan-Pacific and South-East Asia Women’s Association, 1928–1978 (Christchurch: PPSEAWA New Zealand, 1978), 33; “Notes of a Deputation

246  Notes to Pages 101–110

from N.Z. Women Teachers’ Association,” E2, 1946/27ca, part 1, Res and Remits from New Zealand Women Teachers, New Zealand Women Teachers’ Association Papers, Archives New Zealand, Wellington. 39.  Diary 1934, 94, MS 312, Andrews Papers. 40.  Elsie Andrews, “Primary School Problems in New Zealand,” Mid-Pacific Magazine 40, no. 3 (1930): 213–217. 41.  Mary E. Woolley, “Co-operation among the Countries of the Pacific along Educational Lines,” 1925, IPR Papers. 42.  “Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference Number,” Mid-Pacific Magazine 36, no. 6 (1928): 444. 43.  “Education Project Report,” August 13, 1930, Second Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference 1930, 50/7558/1353, General and Miscellaneous Section, LNA. 44.  Leila Rupp, “Getting to Know You,” in Worlds of Women, 180–204. 45.  Alison J. Laurie, “Female Friends or Lesbian Lovers—Elsie Andrews and Muriel Kirton,” http://www.vuw.ac.nz/wisc/staff/alison.html. 46.  Diary 1934, 121, Andrews Papers. 47.  Ibid., 136. 48.  Georgina Sweet to Mme. Mundt, October 6, 1930, D600/918/2, ILOA. 49.  E. Moore, Quest for Peace, 99. 50.  Diary 1930, 59, Andrews Papers. 51.  Ibid., 60. 52.  Diary 1934, 175, Andrews Papers. 53.  Ibid., 78. 54.  Elsie Andrews to Ann Satterthwaite, June 22, 1936, box 8, folder 312, PPU Papers. 55.  Diary 1930, 97, Andrews Papers. 56.  Ibid., 71. 57.  Diary 1934, 70, Andrews Papers. 58.  Diary 1930, 92, 93, Andrews Papers. 59.  Ibid., 95. 60.  Diary 1934, 51, Andrews Papers. An “ancient Maori stockade” was regularly advertised in the PPU Bulletin—e.g., no. 125 ( July 1930): 14. 61.  Unsourced, undated news clipping, Andrews Papers. 62.  “Presentation on the Pan-Pacific Conference to New Plymouth Peace Council,” typescript, December 3, 1934, Andrews Papers. 63.  Honolulu Star-Bulletin, May 19, 1934, 1. 64.  “Historical Background,” in Anna Rogers and Miria Simpson, eds., Te Timatanga Tatau Tatau: Te Ropu Wahine Maori Toko I Te Ora; Early Stories from Founding Members of the Maori Women’s Welfare League, as Told to Dame Mira Szaszy (Whanga Maori) (Auckland: Maori Women’s Welfare League / Bridget Williams Books, 1993), xii–xviii; “Minutes of the Inaugural Conference of the Maori Women’s Welfare League . . . 1951,” 10, 18, MS 1396001, Maori Women’s Welfare League (MWWL) Papers, MWWL Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. 65.  Honolulu Star-Bulletin, July 10, 1934, 4. 66.  Maori women were members of New Zealand women’s organizations with international networks such as the YWCA and the WCTU. Tania Rei, Geraldine McDonald, and Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, “Nga Ropu Wahine Maori: Maori Women’s Organisations,” in

Notes to Pages 110–117  247

Else, Women Together, 3–15; Tania Rei, Maori Women and the Vote (Wellington: Huia Press, 1993). 67.  “Victoria Women to Attend Conference,” Vancouver Daily Times, July 10, 1937, 7. 68.  Diary 1934, 42, Andrews Papers; Barbara Brookes and Margaret Tennant, “Maori and Pakeha Women: Many Histories, Divergent Pasts?” in Barbara Brookes et al., Women in History 2 (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 1992), 35. 69.  New Zealand Girl, March 1, 1936, 4. 70.  Ibid., February 1, 1936, 2. 71.  Diary 1934, 20, Andrews Papers. 72.  Ibid., 121. 73.  History of the Pan-Pacific, 38. 74.  Diary 1934, 15, Andrews Papers. 75.  Ibid., 29. 76.  Ibid., 42. 77.  Ibid., 28. A women’s haka poi features swaying movements, fierce expressions, and chants. For an example of Pakeha learning haka poi, see Alan Armstrong, Maori Games and Hakas: Instructions, Words and Actions (Wellington: A. H. and A. W. Reed, 1964), 83. 78.  Diary 1934, 42, 50, 53, Andrews Papers. 79.  Ibid., 102. 80.  Ibid., 17, 27. 81.  Ibid., 21. 82.  Ibid., 58, 60. 83.  Albert Pierce Taylor, Under Hawaiian Skies (Honolulu: Advertiser Publishing Co., 1922), 333–334. 84.  Honolulu Star-Bulletin, August 3, 1934, 7. 85.  Diary 1934, 54, Andrews Papers. 86.  Honolulu Star-Bulletin, August 3, 1934, 7. 87.  Ibid., August 20, 1934, 3. 88.  George F. Nellist, Women of Hawaii (Honolulu: E. A. Langton-Boyle, 1929), 155–156. 89.  Diary 1934, 72, 78, Andrews Papers. 90.  Ibid., 98, 99, 101. 91.  Shelton, “Elsie Andrews, M.B.E.,” 11. 92.  Diary 1934, 99, Andrews Papers. 93.  Ibid., 98. 94.  Dr. Nadine Kavinoky, “Family Health,” Journal of Pan-Pacific Research Institution 9, no. 3 (1934): 2–11. 95.  Diary 1934, 178–179. 96.  Olive Wyndette, Islands of Destiny: A History of Hawaii (Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle, 1968), 260. 97.  Diary 1934, 150. 98.  Shelton, “Elsie Andrews, M.B.E.,” 12. 99.  As recorded in a 1928 photograph reproduced in a special report on the first PanPacific Women’s Conference, Mid-Pacific Magazine 36, no. 6 (1928): 432. 100.  Diary 1934, 134. 101.  “The Search for Peace,” in Shelton, “Elsie Andrews, M.B.E.,” 14–21. 102.  “Minutes of the Inaugural Conference of the Maori Women’s Welfare League,” 18. 248  Notes to Pages 117–128

4: Population, Peace, and Protection 1.  John D. Meehan, The Dominion and the Rising Sun: Canada Encounters Japan, 1929– 41 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004), chap. 9. 2.  Alice Parsons, Women of the Pacific (Honolulu: PPU, 1930), 372, quoted in Epstein, “California Women and Inter-war Pan-Pacific Feminism.” See also Sybil Oldfield, “Jane Addams: The Chance the World Missed,” in Francine D’Amico and Peter R. Beckman, eds., Women’s World Politics: An Introduction (Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey, 1995), 159–163. 3.  Linda Schott, introduction to Reconstructing Women’s Thoughts, 13. 4.  Jane Addams to Kathleen Courtney, August 15, 1932, 7KDC/FL/454, Courtney Papers. 5.  “Pan-Pacific Roundtable Discussions,” Vancouver Daily Province, July 14, 1937, 2. See also Margaret Paton-Walsh, “Women’s Organisations, U.S. Foreign Policy, and the Far Eastern Crisis, 1937–1941,” Pacific Historical Review 70, no. 4 (2001): 601–626. 6.  “Third Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” PPU Bulletin 168 (February 1934): 6. 7.  Nagako Sugimori, “Jane Addams.” 8.  News clippings file, Seaton Papers. 9.  Dawn, June 17, 1936, 4. 10.  “New Pattern of Living Needed,” Vancouver Daily Times, July 20, 1937, 7. 11.  Woolley, “Co-operation among the Countries.” 12.  Rapke and Penington, Report of the Australian Delegation (1937), 24. 13.  “Women Seeking to Strengthen Bonds of Pacific People,” Victoria Daily Colonist, July 14, 1937, 8. 14.  Rupp, Worlds of Women, 119. 15.  Georgina Sweet, “Impressions of the Fourth Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference, Vancouver, B.C., 12–24 July, 1937,” Report of the Australian Delegation (1937), 25. 16.  “Pacific Women’s Parley ‘Takes Stock,’” Vancouver Sun, July 26, 1937, 18. 17.  Furedi, Silent War, 56. 18.  Sweet, “Presidential Address,” Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1934), 63–64. 19.  Furedi, introduction to Silent War, 1–24. 20.  Vancouver Daily Times, July 15, 1937, 4. 21.  Lake, “From Self-Determination.” 22.  Claire C. Robertson and Nupur Chaudhuri, “Revising the Experiences of Colonized Women: Beyond Binaries,” Journal of Women’s History Special Issue 41, no. 4 (2003): 6–13. 23.  Bashford, “Global Biopolitics”; Bashford, “Nation, Empire, Globe.” 24.  News clipping, Evening Post, May 27, 1937, MS 1388, folder 4, Birth Regulation Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. 25.  “Agenda: Committee of Pan-Pacific Women’s Conferences,” January 20, 1925. 26.  Seth Koven and Sonya Michel, eds., Mothers of a New World: Maternalist Politics and the Origins of Welfare States (London: Routledge, 1993). 27.  Pan-Pacific, April–June 1937, 55–56. 28.  Veronica Strong-Boag, “Society in the Twentieth Century,” in Hugh J. M. Johnston, ed., The Pacific Province: A History of British Columbia (Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 1996), 284. 29.  Vancouver Daily Times, February 16, 1937, 7. 30.  Kay Anderson, Vancouver’s Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875–1980 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991): 158–167. Notes to Pages 129–138  249

31.  “Chinese Community Gives $100 to Pan Pacific Conference,” Vancouver Sun, July 23, 1937, 10. 32.  “Delegates Sum Up Conference Work,” Vancouver News Herald, July 24, 1937, 2. 33.  Sweet, “History of Pan-Pacific Women’s Association,” 10. 34.  As reported by conference speaker, Alexander Davidson, Women of the Pacific (Vancouver, 1937), 43. 35.  Thomas P. Socknat, Witness against War: Pacifism in Canada 1900–1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), chap. 5. 36.  Vancouver Daily Province, July 13, 1937, 1, 20. 37.  Veronica Strong-Boag, “Peace-Making Women: Canada 1919–1939,” in Ruth Roach Pierson with the assistance of Joanne Thompson, Somer Brodribb, and Paula Bourne, eds., Women and Peace: Theoretical, Historical and Practical Perspectives (London: Croom Helm, 1987), 170–191; Mary Kinnear, Woman of the World: Mary McGeachy and International Cooperation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004); Mary Kinnear, Margaret McWilliams: An Interwar Feminist (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991); Barbara Roberts, “Women’s Peace Activism in Canada,” in Linda Kealey and Joan Sangster, eds., Beyond the Vote: Canadian Women and Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), 276–308. 38.  Alison Prentice, Paula Bourne, Beth Light, and Gail Cuthbert Brandt, Canadian Women: A History, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Harcourt Brace, 1996), 259; Veronica Strong-Boag, “‘Setting the Stage’: National Organization and the Women’s Movement in the Late 19th Century,” in Susan Mann Trofimenkoff and Alison Prentice, eds., The Neglected Journey: Essays in Canadian Women’s History (Toronto: McClelland Stewart, 1977), 86–103. 39.  Veronica Strong-Boag, “‘Ever a Crusader’: Nellie McClung, First-Wave Feminist,” in Veronica Strong-Boag and Anita Clair Fellman, eds., Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women’s History (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997), 278, 271–284; R. R. Warne, “Nellie McClung and Peace,” in Janice Williamson and Deborah Gorham, eds., Up and Doing: Canadian Women and Peace (Toronto: Women’s Press, 1989), 35–47. 40.  Katie Pickles, “Colonial Counterparts: The First Academic Women in AngloCanada, New Zealand and Australia,” Women’s History Review 10, no. 2 (2001): 279; my thanks to Katie for this reference. Miss Mary Bollert, “Pan-Pacific Women’s Association Fifth Triennial Conference, New Zealand, 1940,” Vancouver Clubwoman 1, no. 1 (1939): 11–12, 20; my thanks to John Gay for this reference. 41.  W. Peter Ward, White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy towards Orientals in British Columbia, 2nd ed. (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990), esp. chaps. 7 and 8. 42.  Vancouver News Herald, July 24, 1937, 3; Vancouver Daily Province, July 23, 1937, 2; Vancouver Sun, July 23, 1937, 1. 43.  Sweet, “Impressions of the Fourth Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” 10. 44.  “Notes of Pan-Pacific Conference, Transcribed from Materials Made Available by Miss Mary Seaton of Wellington, April 1956,” MS X/5161, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. 45.  “A Dress Made of Pineapple Fibre,” Vancouver Daily Province, July 15, 1937, 2. 46.  See also “International Peace Arch,” http://www.peacearchpark.org. 47.  “Women Join in Singing National Anthem,” Victoria Daily Colonist, July 20, 1937, 7. 48.  “Pacific Women’s Parley ‘Takes Stock,’” Vancouver Sun, July 26, 1937, 18. 49.  “Seems Backward to Us but China Goes Forward,” Vancouver Daily Province, July 21, 1937, 11. 250  Notes to Pages 138–143

50.  As described by Baroness Shidzue Ishimoto, Facing Two Ways: The Story of My Life (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1935), 224. 51.  Sharon H. Nolte, “Women’s Rights and Society’s Needs: Japan’s 1931 Suffrage Bill,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 28, no. 4 (1986): 690–714; Vera Mackie, “Motherhood and Pacifism in Japan 1900–1937,” Hecate 15, no. 2 (1988): 28–49; L. Edwards, “Women’s Suffrage in China”; Moloney, “Women’s Rights.” 52.  Vancouver Daily Province, July 14, 1937, 1. 53.  Elizabeth Price Bailey, Pan-Pacific, April–June 1937, 55–56. 54.  Van Voris, Carrie Chapman Catt. 55.  Vancouver Sun, July 14, 1937, 22. 56.  Yasutake, “Building a Pan-Pacific Women’s Community.” 57.  “Japan,” Jus Suffragi 28, no. 8 (1934), 59, International Alliance of Women Papers, Women’s Library, London Metropolitan University. 58.  Vancouver News Herald, July 14, 1937, 2. 59.  Ibid. 60.  “Personalities,” ser. 8, box 3, YWCA Australia Papers, YWCA Collection, Melbourne University Archives, Melbourne. 61.  “Speaker Blames Weaknesses of Member Nations for Trouble,” Vancouver News Herald, July 17, 1937, 8. 62.  Van Voris, Carrie Chapman Catt, 215. 63.  Vancouver Sun, July 14, 1937, 8. 64.  Vancouver Daily Province, July 13, 1937, 20; July 14, 1937, 2–3. 65.  Vancouver News Herald, July 20, 1937, 8. 66.  Vancouver Sun, July 12, 1937, 1–2. 67.  Violet McNaughton, “Technique of Developing Public Opinion,” Women of the Pacific (Vancouver, 1937), 61–64. 68.  “Says Women Must See World Ugliness,” Vancouver News Herald, July 20, 1937, 8. 69.  Lesley Hall, Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1880 (Houndmills: Macmillan Press, 2000), 22–33. 70.  Bessie Rischbieth to G. Radziwill, April 15, 1936, Pacific Questions—Correspondence with Pan-Pacific Women’s Association, Social Question—General, 50/17407/1535, LNA. 71.  Mildred Staley to Bessie Rischbieth, January 29, 1937, 2004/6/411, Rischbieth Papers. 72.  San Francisco Chronicle, August 22, 1928, reel 42, Addams Papers. 73.  Rachel Crowdy, “Report of the Second Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” October 28, 1930, 8, Second Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference, 1930, General and Miscellaneous, 50/7558/1353. LNA. 74.  Maria Paz Mendoza-Guazon, “The Status of the Filipino Woman,” box 57, folder 1, IPR Papers. 75.  The Pan Pacific Women’s Conference 1928: Report of the Australian Delegation (Castlereagh, New South Wales: George Jones, n.d.). See also Paul A. Kramer, “The Darkness That Enters the Home: The Politics of Prostitution during the Philippine-American War,” in Ann Laura Stoler, ed., Haunted by Empire: Geographies of Intimacy in North American History (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2006), 366–404; and Kramer, Blood of Government. 76.  PPWA Newsletter, October 21, 1940, box 2, folder 82, U.S. Mainland Committee, 1939–1941, PPU Papers. Notes to Pages 143–149  251

77.  Paddle, “Limits of Sympathy.” 78.  Sheldon Garon, “The World’s Oldest Debate? Prostitution and the State in Imperial Japan, 1900–1945,” American Historical Review 98, no. 3 (1993): 710–732. 79.  Nationality and Status of Women, League of Nations Publication, A.19, 1935, V.7. See, e.g., Alice Kessler-Harris, “The Paradox of Motherhood: Night Work Restrictions in the United States,” in Ulla Wiklander et al., eds., Protecting Women: Labor Legislation in Europe, the United States, and Australia, 1880–1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 337–357; and Rupp, Worlds of Women, 139–146, 150–155. 80.  Kyong Bae-Tsung, quoted in Melbourne Herald, September 14, 1928, n.p., news clipping file, MS 2004/6/343, Rischbieth Papers. 81.  Ibid. 82.  Felski, Gender of Modernity, 11–34. 83.  Sweet, “Presidential Address,” Women of the Pacific (1934), 62. 84.  Women of the Pacific (Vancouver, 1937), 70–72; Bruno Lasker, Elizabeth Field, and Marie M. Keesing, Tradition and Progress: A Study Course on Cultural Contact and Conflict in the Pacific Area (Washington, D.C.: International Relations Office, American Association of University Women, 1935). 85.  Women of the Pacific (Vancouver, 1937), 71–72. 86.  Ibid., 70–75. Similar questions occupied protagonists described in Lake and Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line. 87.  Constance Ternent M. Cooke, “The Status of Alien Women in Australia,” MidPacific 40, no. 3 (1930): 241–245. 88.  E. Moore, Quest for Peace, 97. 89.  “Canada Firm on Immigration,” Vancouver Daily Province, July 17, 1937, 10. 90.  “Outline of the Canadian Viewpoint,” B-1/3, no. 3, IPR Papers. 91.  Rev. Dr. Andrew Harper, “The White Australia Policy,” in Meredith Atkinson, ed., Australia: Economic and Political (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1920), 443–472. 92.  Cooke, “Status of Alien Women in Australia.” 93.  Vancouver Daily Province, July 17, 1937, 10. 94.  Alison Bashford, “World Population and Australian Land: Demography and Sovereignty in the Twentieth Century,” Australian Historical Studies 38, no. 130 (2007): 211–227. 95.  Jean Daley, “Work for the Forthcoming Conference,” circular prepared for the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association, MS 9106, box 1163/4c, Heagney Papers, State Library of Victoria, Australia. 96.  Ada Beveridge, “General Report of Conference,” Report of the Australian Delegation (n.p., 1937), 14–15. 97.  E. Moore, Quest for Peace, 97–98, 101 (emphasis in original). 98.  “Women’s Association, 1937–1940,” box 2, folder 87, PPU Papers. 99.  Mrs. Wei-Djen Djang Lo, “Economic Reconstruction in China since 1927,” MidPacific Magazine 47, no. 5 (1934): 407. 100.  “Birth Control Topic,” Vancouver Daily Province, July 17, 1937, 10. 101.  Jean Begg, “Social Service Project Report,” August 11, 1930, 21, General and Miscellaneous, 50/7558/1353, LNA. 102.  Bashford, “Global Biopolitics.” 103.  Ishimoto, Facing Two Ways, 225–226. 104.  Sanjam Ahluwalia, “Rethinking Boundaries: Feminism and (Inter)Nationalism in Early-Twentieth-Century India,” Journal of Women’s History 14, no. 4 (2003): 191. 252  Notes to Pages 149–156

105.  Frances Penington, “Trends of Discussion on the Various Topics”, Report of the Australian Delegation (1937), 31–32. 106.  Women of the Pacific (Vancouver, 1937), 74. 107.  Penington, “Trends of Discussion”, 32. 108.  “Outline of Report by Miss Frances Penington,” circular, MS 2004/6/408, Rischbieth Papers. For an account of the continuation of similar debates into the postwar era, see Kevin Blackburn, “Disguised Anti-colonialism: Protest against the White Australia Policy in Malaya and Singapore, 1947–1962,” Australian Journal of International Affairs 55, no. 1 (2001): 101–117. 109.  Ayako Kano, Acting Like a Woman in Modern Japan: Theater, Gender and Nationalism (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 111. 110.  Memorandum, Hawaii Pan-Pacific Women’s Association, April 23, 1940, box 8, folder 324. PPU Papers. 111.  Erika Lee, “The ‘Yellow Peril’ and Asian Exclusion in the Americas,” Pacific Historical Review 76, no. 4 (2007): 537–562. 112.  Mary Bollert to PPWA membership, February 29, 1940, box 2, folder 76, Canadian PPWA, 1939, PPU Papers. 113.  Jean M. Randall to Australian Federation of Women Council, February 25, 1951, MS 7493, Rich Papers, National Library of Australia, Canberra. 114.  Jamieson Williams, “Let Us Turn to the Pacific for Peace,” MS 2006/6/398, Rischbieth Papers. 115.  Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1949), 14. 116.  Ann Satterthwaite to Tsune Gauntlett, February 14, 1939, box 2, folder 69, PPU Papers. 117.  Tsune Gauntlett to Anna Satterthwaite, October 28, 1947, PPSEAWA Hawai‘i Papers. 118.  “The Status of Women in Japan,” typed sheets, n.d., 5. Seaton Papers. 119.  Bessie Rischbieth, “Pan-Pacific and South-East Asian Women’s Association, Honolulu,” 1, box 6, folder 35, MS 4973, Rischbieth Papers. 5: Culture and Identity 1.  Charmian London, The New Hawaii (London: Mills and Boon, 1923), frontispiece. 2.  Silva, “‘He Kanawai E Hoopau I Na Hula Hawai‘i.’” 3.  O’Brien, Pacific Muse; Felix M. Keesing, Native Peoples of the Pacific World (New York: Macmillan, 1945). 4.  Nicholas Thomas, conclusion to Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture, and Colonialism in the Pacific (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 206–207. 5.  During, “Postcolonialism and Globalization.” 6.  Belich, “Racial Harmony,” 205. 7.  Marianna Torgovnick, Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1990). 8.  Stewart Firth, “The War in the Pacific,” in Donald Denoon, with Stewart Firth, Jocelyn Linnekin, Malama Meleisie, and Karen Nero, eds., The Cambridge History of Pacific Islanders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 291–323. 9.  Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1949), 65. 10.  Summary of 1952 conference, typed notes, MS 7493, box 37, file 242, Rich Papers. Notes to Pages 156–164  253

11.  News clipping, n.d., Rich Papers. 12.  New Zealand PPWA Committee newsletter, 1947, Seaton Papers. 13.  Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1949), 23. 14.  Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (London: Pandora, 1989). 15.  Burton, Dwelling in the Archive. 16.  News clipping, n.d., Rich Papers. 17.  Penny Edwards, “On Home Ground: Settling Land and Domesticating Difference in the ‘Non-Settler’ Colonies of Burma and Cambodia,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 4, no. 3 (2003): 1–31. 18.  Executive Board, “Consideration of One Proposed Additional Subvention for 1951 to an International Non-Government Organization,” October 17, 1951, 28  Ex/16, PPSEAWA 1950–1975, UNESCO Archives, Paris. 19.  “Social Unrest: Causes and Cures Discussed; Findings of Pacific Conference,” n.d., news clippings file, Moore Papers. 20.  Kramer, Blood of Government, 29. 21.  Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1949). 22.  “Program,” 1949 Conference, Honolulu, 11, Rich Papers. 23.  Typed sheets, PPSEAWA Hawai‘i Papers. 24.  The Race Question, UNESCO Pamphlet, 1951–1952, MS 2818, Australian Federation of Women Voters, NLA. 25.  Women of the Pacific (Honolulu, 1949), 75. 26.  Study Guide, n.d., 1, 2, Seaton Papers. 27.  Ian McKay, “Mary Black and the Invention of Handicrafts,” in The Quest of Folk: Antimodernism and Cultural Selection in Twentieth-Century Nova Scotia (Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1994). 28.  History of the Pan-Pacific, 35. 29.  Women of the Pacific (Manila, 1955), 12. 30.  Mary Seaton, “Letter to Members,” February 1954, 1–2, Seaton Papers. 31.  Typed sheets, January 16, 1952, 70, 73, Seaton Papers. 32.  Radio interview transcript, December 1948, Seaton Papers. A series of talks were telecast during the conference. See DCDR95 and DCDR96, PPWA NZ, Sound Archives/ Nga Taonga Korero, Auckland. 33.  News clipping, n.d., Moore Papers. 34.  “PPSEAWA Honolulu 1949, Christchurch 1952,” news clipping, n.d., Rich Papers. 35.  “Thoughts on the Conference,” typed sheets, n.d., Seaton Papers. 36.  Ruth Frankenberg, White Woman, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness (Hoboken, NJ: Routledge, 1993). 37.  News clippings file, Seaton Papers. 38.  Ibid. 39.  Belich, “Racial Harmony,” 225–226. 40.  Caroline Daley, Leisure and Pleasure: Reshaping and Revealing the New Zealand Body 1900–1960 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003), 113. See also C. Daley, “The Body Builder and Beauty Contests,” Journal of Australian Studies 71 (2001): 33–44. Sander L. Gilman makes the link between eugenics and beauty in “The Ugly and the Beautiful,” in Gilman, Health and Illness: Images of Difference (London: Reaktion Books, 1995), 51–66. 41.  Megan Woods, “Embodied Integration: Modern Maori Maidens and Representa254  Notes to Pages 164–174

tions of Post-war New Zealand Race Relations,” paper presented at the Women’s History Network Conference, Guildhall University, London, September 2001. See also Sturma, South Sea Maidens; and Pan-Pacific, January–March 1940, 25. 42.  My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for encouraging me to make this point. 43.  Mira Szaszy, interviewed by Anne Else, “Recording the History of the Maori Women’s Welfare League,” New Zealand Women’s Studies Journal 6, no. 2 (1990): 17–21. 44.  Ibid., 21. 45.  Manila Times, January 24, 1955, 6, news clippings file, Seaton Papers. 46.  Mary Seaton, “Report on the 1955 Manila Conference,” 5, Seaton Papers New Zealand Herald, January 28, 1952, Seaton Papers. 47.  Barbara Brookes, “‘Assimilation’ and ‘Integration’: The Maori Women’s Welfare League in the 1950s,” Turnbull Library Record 36 (2003): n.p. 48.  Belich, Paradise Reforged, 196. 49.  Anna Rogers and Miria Simpson, “Interview with Mira Szaszy,” in Rogers and Simpson, eds., Te Timatanga Tatau Tatau: Te Ropu Wahine Maori Toko I Te Ora; Early Stories from Founding Members of the Maori Women’s Welfare League, as told to Dame Mira Szaszy (Whanga Maori) (Auckland: Maori Women’s Welfare League / Bridget Williams Books, 1993), 216–231. See also Mira Szaszy interviewed by Anne Else, “Recording the History of the Maori Women’s Welfare League,” New Zealand Women’s Studies Journal 6, no. 2 (1990): 17–21; “Mira Szaszy: Maori Leader, Feminist,” in Virginia Myers, ed., Head and Shoulders (Auckland: Penguin, 1986), 232–249. 50.  Belich, “Racial Harmony,” 200–206. 51.  M. Woods, “Embodied Integration.” 52.  Mary McLean, “Conference Address,” Report of the First Dominion Conference, Dominion Council Maori Women’s Welfare League, 1952, 111, MWWL Papers. 53.  “Minutes of the Inaugural Conference of the Maori Women’s Welfare League,” 1951, 18, MWWL Papers. 54.  “Minutes of the Inaugural,” 20, MWWL Papers. 55.  Dominion Executive Minutes, September 1951, 5, MS 36, box 3, National Council of Women New Zealand Collection, Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury, Christchurch. 56.  “Minutes of Third Annual Conference of the Dominion Council,” 1954, 12, MWWL Papers. 57.  Wellington PPSEAWA Annual Report, 1956, 2, Nina Barrer Papers, 1371/572, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. 58.  “President’s Report,” in ibid. 59.  Thelma Kirby, Report on the 1952 Conference, Seaton Papers. 60.  Christchurch Chronicle, January 22, 1952, 2. 61.  Annual Meeting, PPSEAWA Minute Books, 86-030/1, PPWA NZ Papers, Hocken Library. 62.  Christchurch Chronicle, January 25, 1952, 2. 63.  Ibid. 64.  “Study Guide: Economic Interdependence of Countries of the Pacific,” 1940 PPWA Conference, 4, MS 7493, box 37, file 242, Rich Papers. 65.  “Notes of the Address Given by Mrs. M. Keesing, July 31, 1939,” Seaton Papers. 66.  Ibid., 4–5 67.  Quoted in Women of the Pacific (Manila, 1955), 85. 68.  J. T. McCay, “Practical Internationalism,” Pan-Pacific, October–December 1937, 56. Notes to Pages 174–183  255

69.  Executive Meeting, November 26, 1953, PPSEAWA Minute Books, PPWA NZ Papers, Hocken Library. 70.  “Relieving World Tension: Importance of Women’s Role,” news clipping, n.d., Moore Papers. 71.  Kristin Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998); Vicente L. Rafael, White Love and Other Events in Filipino History (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000); Kramer, Blood of Government; Felix M. Keesing, The Philippines: A Nation in the Making (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1937). 72.  Vicente L. Rafael, “Surveillance and Nationalist Resistance in the U.S. Colonization of the Philippines,” in Amy Kaplan and Donald E. Pease, eds., Cultures of United States Imperialism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), 213. See also Susan Blackburn, “Gender Interests and Indonesian Democracy,” Australian Journal of Political Studies 29 (1994): 556–574; and Mina Roces, “Is the Suffragist an American Colonial Construct? Defining ‘the Filipino Woman’ in Colonial Philippines,” in Edwards and Roces, Women’s Suffrage in Asia, 24–58. 73.  Julia Clancy-Smith, “A Woman without Her Distaff: Gender, Work, and Handicraft Production in Colonial North Africa,” in Margaret L. Meriwether and Judith E. Tucker, eds., Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1999), 25–62. 74.  Anne Satterthwaite, “Pan-Pacific Women’s Conferences,” PPU Bulletin 128 (October 1930): 8. 75.  F. M. Keesing, Changing Maori. See also F. M. Keesing, Education in Pacific Countries. 76.  C. D. Rowley to Lionel Evin, Director, Department of Education, UNESCO, July 21, 1954, “Expert Mission on Workers’ Education to Far East,” 371.965A 571 (9), 54, Education Section, UNESCO Archives, Paris. 77.  “Seminar on Arts and Crafts in General Education and Community Life, Tokyo, 1954,” 7.37A 074 (520), 54, Cultural Activities Section, UNESCO Archives, Paris. 78.  Report, Annual Meeting, New Zealand PPSEAWA, Christchurch, 1955, typed notes, 8–9, 182, folder 3, Barrer Papers. 79.  Women of the Pacific (Manila, 1955), 84. 80.  Concerning these goals in the 1960s, see Barbara Brookes, “Nostalgia for ‘Innocent Homely Pleasures’: The 1964 New Zealand Controversy over Washday at the Pa,” Gender and History 9, no. 2 (1997): 242–261. 81.  Women of the Pacific (Manila, 1955), 34–35. 82.  News clippings file, Seaton Papers. 83.  Pari have only recently been recognized as important to Maori cultural history, for they were adopted because of missionary influence and the tourist trade. As a result, the meaning woven into their patterns has largely been lost. My thanks to Jo Diamond for advice on Maori women and weaving in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Australia. See also Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, Mana Wahine Maori: Selected Writings on Maori Women’s Art, Culture and Politics (Auckland: New Women’s Press, 1991). 84.  News clipping file, Seaton Papers. 85.  Annual Report 1955, 66, 1396/002, MWWL Papers. 86.  Ibid. 87.  Ibid., 69. 88.  “Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference,” Christchurch Press, January 26, 1952, 6. 256  Notes to Pages 183–188

6: Race Politics in the Cold War 1.  Willowdean Handy to Josephine Schain, May 11, 1954, Schain Papers. See also Willowdean C. Handy, Handcrafts of the Society Islands, Special Issue: Bishop Museum Bulletin 42 (1927). 2.  News clippings file, Seaton Papers. 3.  Official Souvenir, Seventh International Conference, Manila, Philippines, 1955, PPSEAWA Hawai‘i Papers. 4.  Ballantyne, Orientalism and Race. 5.  Bulletin 10, PPSEAWA US, June 1955, 2, Schain Papers. 6.  Mary Seaton, “Notes of Pan Pacific Conference,” MS transcribed from materials made available by Mary Seaton of Wellington, April 1956, MS X-5161, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. 7.  L. Edwards and Roces, “Introduction.” 8.  Handwritten notes, PPSEAWA Hawai‘i Papers. 9.  “First General Business Meeting,” January 25, 1955, 2, Schain Papers. 10.  “Evaluation of the Conference,” typed sheets, Seaton Papers. 11.  Jessie Robertson, conference report, Manila Conference, 1955, MS 7206/8/1, Booker Papers. Mitchell Library, Sydney. 12.  Manila Bulletin, January 24, 1955, 6, PPSEAWA Hawai‘i Papers. 13.  News clipping, n.d., Rich Papers. 14.  PPWA Philippine Charter: A Gala Program of Philippine Dances and Songs, pamphlet, PPSEAWA Hawai‘i Papers. 15.  “Extracts from Miss Catton’s letter, 20 November 1959,” Seaton Papers. 16.  “Relieving World Tension”; and Mrs. Mahon, “Social Unrest and Political Tensions,” paper presented to the 1952 conference, MS 295, PPWA NZ Papers, Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury, Christchurch. See also Helen Laville, Cold War Women: The International Activities of American Women’s Organizations (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2002). 17.  Jane Addams to Edith Pye, August 17, 1932, box 454, KDC/D1/1-11, Courtney Papers. 18.  Josephine Schain to Willowdean Handy, January 3, 1954, Schain Papers. 19.  Yukiko Koshiro, Trans-Pacific Racisms and the US Occupation of Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). 20.  Josephine Schain to Ann Satterthwaite, March 24, 1949, PPSEAWA Hawai‘i Papers. 21.  Alonso notes that the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom was under postwar FBI surveillance. Alonso, Peace as a Women’s Issue, 185. 22.  Hooper, Elusive Destiny, 132–133. 23.  Harriet Andrews to Josephine Schain, July 14, 1954, Schain Papers (emphasis in original). 24.  Schain to Satterthwaite, March 24, 1949. 25.  Paz P. Mendez, “So This Is Suffrage,” Pan-Pacific, January–March 1938, 54–59. 26.  Miss Das to Mr. Guiton, September 13, 1951, PPSEAWA 1950–1975. 27.  J. H. Chaton to Mr. Hercik, memorandum, n.d., PPSEAWA 1950–1975. 28.  Executive Board, “Proposed Subventions for 1954,” PPSEAWA 1950–1975. 29.  Helen Fowler to Naseem Beg, Division of Relations with International Organizations, May 3, 1956, PPSEAWA 1950–1975. Notes to Pages 189–196  257

30.  Willowdean Handy, “Our Guide to Program Making,” Women of the Pacific (Manila, 1955), 21–22. 31.  “The Pan Pacific Women’s Conference,” handwritten notes, 5, Seaton Papers. 32.  News clipping file, Seaton Papers. 33.  “A Broadcast over Two Hemispheres,” New Zealand Girl, July 10, 1938, 9. 34.  “Madame Chiang’s Messages in War and Peace,” n.d., Seaton Papers. 35.  News clipping file, Schain Papers. 36.  “President Charged at Manila Conference,” New Zealand Herald, January 28, 1955, 11. 37.  News clipping file, Seaton Papers. 38.  “President Charged at Manila Conference,” 11. 39.  Kramer, Blood of Government; Rafael, White Love. 40.  (Mrs.) Luz B. Magsaysay, “Message,” Official Souvenir, Seventh International Conference, Manila, Philippines, 1955, PPSEAWA Hawai‘i Papers. 41.  News clipping file, Seaton Papers. 42.  Mrs. Kluegel, “The Status of Hawaiian Women Prior to the Twentieth Century,” PPSEAWA Hawai‘i Papers. 43.  Karen Offen, “Women’s Rights or Human Rights? International Feminism between the Wars,” in Grimshaw et al., Women’s Rights and Human Rights, 243–253. 44.  “Proposed Amendments to the International Bill of Human Rights,” submitted by Mrs. Jessie Street, Vice Chairman, Status of Women Commission, box Y792, MS 2160, United Association of Women Papers, Mitchell Library, Sydney. See also Lenore Coltheart, ed., Jessie Street: A Revised Autobiography (Sydney: Federation Press, 2004); Heather Radi, Jessie Street: Documents and Essay (Sydney: Women’s Redress Press, 1990; and “Jessie Street,” Uncommon Lives Online Project, National Archives of Australia, http://uncommonlives .naa.gov.au. 45.  Jessie Street to Ann Satterthwaite, March 23, 1949, PPSEAWA Hawai‘i Papers. 46.  “Pan-Pacific and South East Asia Women’s Association,” memorandum from SAC Honolulu to Director, FBI, August 20, 1956, FIOPA 1073489, US Department of Justice, Washington, DC. 47.  Minutes, Annual Dominion Meeting, February 14, 1957, 166, 86-030/1, YWCA NZ Papers. 48.  Amy Kaplan, “‘Left Alone in America’: The Absence of Empire in the Study of American Culture,” in Amy Kaplan and Donald E. Pease, eds., Cultures of United States Imperialism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press), 12. 49.  Alexandra Epstein, “‘Living Internationally’ between the Wars: Viola Smith in Shanghai,” in “Linking a State to the World,” 154–217. 50.  Willowdean Handy to Josephine Schain, February 8, 1954, Schain Papers. 51.  Klein, Cold War Orientalism, 21–22. 52.  Justin Hart, “Making Democracy Safe for the World: Race, Propaganda, and the Transformation of U.S. Foreign Policy during World War II,” Pacific Historical Studies 73, no. 1 (2004): 49–84. 53.  Singh, “Culture/Wars,” 489. 54.  “Executive Committee Meeting, April 13, 1955, PPWA Hawaii,” PPSEAWA Hawai‘i Papers. 55.  Letter to Miss Keenleyside, February 8, 1949, PPSEAWA Hawai‘i Papers. 56.  Letter to members, February 3, 1954, Seaton Papers. 57.  News clipping, n.d., Schain Papers. 258  Notes to Pages 197–203

58.  Burton et al., “Introduction,” 145–148. 59.  Daniel Oakman, “‘Young Asians in Our Homes’: Colombo Plan Students and White Australia,” Journal of Australian Studies 72 (2002): 89. 60.  News clipping, January 31, 1955, Seaton Papers; Daniel Oakman, “The Seed of Freedom: Regional Security and the Colombo Plan,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 46, no. 1 (2000): 67–85. 61.  Marc Gallicchio, The African Encounter with Japan and China: Black Internationalism in Asia, 1895–1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 11. See also Rafael, White Love. 62.  Penny M. Von Eschen, Race against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937–1957 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997). 63.  Ibid. See also Brenda Gayle Plummer, Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935–1960 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996). 64.  Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 33–34; Lauren, Power and Prejudice, 210. 65.  See, for example, John Maynard, Fight for Liberty and Freedom: The Origins of Australian Aboriginal Activism (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2007). 66.  Kevin Gaines, introduction to Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 1–17. 67.  Ula Yvette Taylor, The Veiled Garvey: The Life and Times of Amy Jacques Garvey (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 88. My thanks to Alison Holland for this example. 68.  Ernest Allen Jr., “Satokata Takahashi and the Flowering of Black Messianic Nationalism,” Black Scholar 24, no. 1 (1994): 7. See also Daniel Widener, “‘Perhaps the Japanese Are to Be Thanked?’ Asia, Asian Americans, and the Construction of Black California,” Positions 11, no. 1 (2003): 135–182; Victoria W. Wolcott, Remaking Respectability: African American Women in Interwar Detroit (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 188; and Richard Brent Turner, Islam in the African-American Experience (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997/2003). For the postwar period, see Melani McAlister, “‘One Black Allah’: The Middle-East in the Cultural Politics of African American Liberation, 1955–1970,” in Ballantyne and Burton, Bodies in Contact, 383–404. 69.  Allen, “Satokata Takahashi,” 13. 70.  Diary 1937, 87, Andrews Papers. 71.  Carole Sweeney, From Fetish to Subject: Race, Modernism, and Primitivism, 1919– 1935 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004). 72.  Diary 1937, 87, 94, Andrews Papers. 73.  Gerda Lerner, “Early Community Work of Black Club Women,” Journal of Negro History 59, no. 2 (1974): 158–167; Kevin Gaines, “The Woman and Labor Questions in Racial Uplift Ideology: Anna Julia Cooper’s Voices from the South,” in Gaines, Uplifting the Race, 128–151, esp. 143–145. 74.  Diary 1937, 94, Andrews Papers. 75.  Allen, “Satokata Takahashi,” 7. 76.  Vancouver News Herald, July 23, 1937, 3. 77.  Allen, “Satokata Takahashi.” 78.  Ibid.; Wolcott, Remaking Respectability, 187. 79.  Allen, “Satokata Takahashi,” 8. 80.  Marc S. Gallicchio, The Cold War Begins in Asia: American East Asian Policy and the Fall of the Japanese Empire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 100; George Notes to Pages 203–209  259

Lipsitz, “‘Frantic to Join . . . the Japanese Army’: The Asia Pacific War in the Lives of African American Soldiers and Civilians,” in Lisa Lowe and David Lloyd, eds., The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Capital (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), 330. 81.  Time, October 5, 1942, 25–26. 82.  Ibid. 83.  Penny M. Von Eschen, “No Exit: From Bandung to Ghana,” in Von Eschen, Race against Empire, 167. 84.  Beverly W. Jones, “Mary Church Terrell and the National Association of Colored Women, 1896 to 1901,” Journal of Negro History 67, no. 1 (1982): 20–33; Erlene Stetson, “Black Feminism in Indiana, 1893–1933,” Phylon 44, no. 4 (4th Quarter, 1983): 292–298. Terrell would break from the NACW, forming the more outspoken National Association of Negro Women. Opposing McCarthyism, she was branded a communist by a local public school board in 1952. See Elaine M. Smith, “Mary McLeod Bethune’s ‘Last Will and Testament’: A Legacy for Race Vindication,” Journal of Negro History 18, no. 1–4 (1996): 105–122. 85.  News clipping, Toledo Blade, May 21, 1953, MS 203, microfilm, roll 2, Stewart Papers, Center for Archival Collections, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH. 86.  Interview reproduced in National Notes 40, no. 5 (1951), Stewart Papers. 87.  News clipping, Toledo Blade, May 21, 1953. 88.  News clipping, Pakistan Times, n.d., Stewart Papers. 89.  Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights, 33ff; Charles V. Hawley, “You’re a Better Filipino than I Am, John Wayne: World War II, Hollywood, and U.S.-Philippines Relations,” Pacific Historical Review 712, no. 3 (2002): 389–414. 90.  Willowdean Handy to Josephine Schain, September 17, 1954, Schain Papers. 91.  Ella P. Stewart, “Participation of Women in the Social and Economic Life of the United States,” Women of the Pacific (Manila, 1955): 66–67. Note that the published version ends with her statement of quadruple minority. The full version of her paper was circulated during the conference: “Speech of Ella Phillips Stewart, Vice-Chairman of the American Committee . . . ,” typed sheets, 4–5, Seaton Papers. 92.  News clipping, Milwaukee Journal, February 16, 1956, 2, Stewart Papers. 93.  News clipping, Toledo Blade, March 13, 1955, n.p., Stewart Papers. 94.  Typed sheet, n.d., Stewart Papers. 95.  “Ella Stewart: Biographical Sketch,” Guide to the Stewart Papers. Conclusion 1.  Women of the Pacific (Tokyo, 1958), 47. 2.  Mary Seaton to Josephine Schain, August 25, 1952, Schain Papers. 3.  Minute Book 1958–1964, April 14, 1959, PPSEAWA New Zealand, 86-030/2, YWCA NZ Papers. 4.  “Women’s Conference not Waste of Time,” Sydney Sunday Herald, December 23, 1951, Schain Papers. 5.  Women of the Pacific and Southeast Asia (Canberra, 1961). 6.  “Reply to UNESCO Questionnaire,” October 31, 1957, UNESCO Archives, Paris. 7.  George Tradier, “East and West: Towards Mutual Understanding,” typed sheets, 38, UNESCO Archives, Paris. 8.  Christopher L. Connery, “Pacific Rim Discourse: The U.S. Global Imaginary in the Late Cold War Years,” Boundary 2, vol. 21, no. 1 (1994): 38. 260  Notes to Pages 210–221

9.  “Suggestions for Round Table Procedure,” n.d., 2–3, Seaton Papers. 10.  Merle Weaver to Mrs. Warren, September 26, 1958, “PPWA,” Australian Federation of University Women Papers. 11.  Merle Weaver, “Report on the Role of English-Speaking Countries in Promoting Peace in the Pacific,” Tasmanian PPSEAWA, 10, “PPWA,” Australian Federation of University Women Papers. 12.  Fernanda Boa, “Presidential Speech,” typed notes, PPSEAWA Hawai‘i Papers. 13.  Bulletin 10, PPSEAWA US, June 1955, 2, Schain Papers. 14.  Appeal of the Japanese Women to the Women of the Whole World Concerning the Hydrogen Bomb Experiments, for the Banning of the Manufacture and Use of the H-Bomb, October 1954, pamphlet, Schain Papers. 15.  C. Kaplan, “Postmodern Geographies.” See also Singh, “Culture/Wars.” 16.  Rob Wilson and Arif Dirlik, “Introduction: Asia/Pacific as Space of Cultural Production,” Boundary 2, vol. 21, no. 1 (1994): 1–14. 17.  Tony Ballantyne and Antoinette Burton, “Postscript: Bodies, Genders, Empires; Reimagining World Histories,” in Ballantyne and Burton, eds., Bodies in Contact, 406, 413. 18.  Ballantyne and Burton, “Introduction,” 6. 19.  Dipesh Chakrabarty, “The Idea of Provincializing Europe,” 42. 20.  Anne Curthoys and Marilyn Lake, “Introduction,” in Connected Worlds. 21.  Paul F. Hooper, “Feminism in the Pacific,” 376. 22.  Liisa Malkki, “National Geographic: The Rooting of Peoples and Territorialization of National Identity among Scholars and Refugees,” in Geoff Ely and Ronald Grigor Suny, eds., Becoming National: A Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 434–455, esp. 431, 440. 23.  Singh, “Culture/Wars,” 513. 24.  C. Kaplan, “Postmodern Geographies,” 157.

Notes to Pages 221–227  261

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Index

abolitionism, 98 Aborigines: absence from PPWA, 223; culture, 83–85, 116; destruction of race, 91; doomed race theory, 89; policy on, 5, 24, 89–96; removal of children, 90; reserves, 90–91; right to self-governance, 92, 105; women, 89–96, 188 Addams, Jane, 2, 18, 31–32, 38, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 54, 56, 57, 64, 69, 76, 112, 130, 131, 146, 148, 170, 172, 192 African American: activism, 211; delegates, 20, 28, 55, 102, 124, 188, 204, 205, 206, 224; women, 207, 217; women’s clubs, 205, 211. See also lynchings Ahluwalia, Sanjam, 156 Akami, Tomoko, 21, 23, 25 alcohol reform: racialism and, 180 Aldag, Consuelo, 52 All-Asia Women’s Conference, 78 All-India: Conference, 77; Women’s Association, 77 American Association of University Women, 57 American Samoa, 104 American Women’s Club of Shanghai, 57, 73 American Women’s Trade Union League, 34 Anderson, Mary, 19, 40 Anderson, Warwick, 6 Andrews, Elsie, 32, 76, 95, 106, 107, 108, 111, 123, 130, 154, 159, 175, 207; attitude to indigenous people, 115; bilingual speech at 1934 conference, 116–125; friendship with Victoria Bennett, 98, 99, 100, 125; homosexual gaze, 101; leadership of PPWA, 109,

127; promotion of Maori delegates, 99; relationship with Maori delegates, 97–128; views on Oriental culture, 113; views on race, 98, 101; views on settler colonialism, 97–98 Andrews, Harriet Cousens, 33, 58, 193, 220 Anglo-American cooperation, 64 Anglocentrism, 70 anthropology, 102 anti-Asianism, 4, 22, 28; in Australia, 154 anticolonialism, 3, 15, 36–37, 62; modernization and, 173; rhetoric of, 15 anti-imperialism, 121 antimodern movements, 18 anti-racism, 15, 19, 27. See also racism Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society, 90, 93, 94, 95 Appleton, Dr. Vivia, 33, 73, 137, 202 Arts and Crafts movement, 18, 170. See also handcrafts Asia. See Southeast Asia Atherton, Gwen, 79 Australian Aborigines. See Aborigines Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), 203 Australian delegates: dominance of, 33 Australian Trade Unions, 154 Australian Trades Hall Council, 34 Backus, Dana, 196 Baig, Tara Ali, 182, 187 Balboa, Fernanda, 194, 201, 220, 221 Ballantyne, Tony, 6, 224 Bandung: Conference, 203, 213; Women’s Association, 216 Bashford, Alison, 153 281

Begg, Jean, 32, 73, 74, 77, 108, 109, 157, 182 Belich, James, 177 Bennett, Mary Montgomery, 94 Bennett, Victoria Te Amohau, 97, 98, 99, 106–107, 109, 127, 128, 174, 178, 185, 186, 188; bilingual speech at 1934 conference, 116–125 Beveridge, Ada, 139, 154 biculturalism, 101 birth control, 136, 137, 151, 155, 156; International Birth Control Conference, 156 black: nationalism, 12, 208, 209; rights movement, 99 Blakeley, A., 93 Bleakley, J. W., 92, 93 Blyth, E., 171 Bollert, Mary, 140, 141, 142, 146, 158, 159 Bosch, Mineke, 100 British Commonwealth League, 35, 89, 90, 94 British Women’s Association, 57 Brookes, Barbara, 177 Brown, Hallie Quinn, 211 Buck, Pearl S., 88 Buck, Sir Peter. See Te Rangi Hiroa Burma delegates, 24, 73; equal rights for, 166 Burton, Antoinette, 76, 98, 203, 224 Business and Professional Women’s Association, 171 Campbell, Dr. Persia, 201 Campbell, Roberta, 86 Canada: Asian population, 131, 137–138, 140; immigration restrictions, 152; indigenous right to self-rule, 105; native culture, 83; postwar departure from PPWA, 159, 202 Candy, Catherine, 76 Carrodus, J. A., 93, 94 Casey, Richard, 203 Catt, Carrie Chapman, 54, 144, 195 censorship, 81. See also film censorship Ceylon women, 172; education, 166 Chakrabarty, Dipesh, 64, 224 Chau, Nguyen Thi, 196 282  Index

Chen, My-U, 142 child: endowment, 32; slavery, 149; welfare, 37 China: communism in, 191; inclusion in UN, 197; Long March, 194; May Fourth Movement, 47; modernization, 107; nationalist uprising, 198; New Culture Movement, 47; New Woman, 47, 60; People’s Revolution, 194; reconstruction period, 60; woman question, 47 China Christian Education Commission, 34 China delegates, 2, 62; Chinese Nationalist delegates, 197; first conference, 3, 30, 57–62; fourth conference, 133, 143; objection to Manchurian invasion, 155; protests by, 30, 34, 54–55, 56, 57–62; relations with Japanese delegates, 132–133; second conference, 72–73 China Preparation Committee, 57 Chinese American women, 73 Chinese women: modeng (modern), 51; revolutionary dress, 51. See also women of China Christian: ethics, 24; internationalism, 20; progressivism, 4; values, 22. See also missionaries Christianization, 79. See also missionaries Cilento, Dr. Phyllis, 163 Civil Rights movement, 204, 206 civilising mission of white woman, 22 civilization: common, 102; “blended,” 102 Clapham, Elizabeth, 94 Cohen, Mark, 31, 163 cold war, 1, 22, 24, 197–201, 203, 204, 210, 221 Colombo Plan, 195, 203 colonial modernity, 3 colonialism, 78 colonization, 3, 13; genocidal impacts of, 8; histories of, 20. See also decolonization Colored Women’s League, 211 Colwill, Haria Te Mauharanui, 116 Colyer, Randall, 131 Committee on the Cause and Cure of War, 144 communism, 12, 24, 192, 197–201, 211; Chinese, 12, 191; sympathy, 197; threat

in Asia, 165; Western anxiety about, 191 Congress of Latin-American Women, 69 Connelly, Matthew, 4 contraception. See birth control Cooke, Constance Ternent, 87, 88, 115, 152, 181; government opposition to paper, 92–95; views on Aborigines, 89–95 Cooray, Mrs., 172 cosmopolitanism, 3, 5, 13, 14, 38, 224 Country Women’s Association (CWA), 139, 154, 171, 203 Courtezan, Mrs. J., 139 Courtney, Kathleen, 88, 130, 146 Cousins, James, 52 Cousins, Margaret, 52, 76 Criswell, Mrs. J. L., 151 cross-cultural: community, 221; education, 183; exchange, 26, 37, 61–62, 163, 224; friendship, 113; harmony, 29; impersonation, 219; politics, 2, 162, 176; understanding, 20, 27, 30 cross-political exchange, 217 Crowdy, Dame Rachel, 18, 36, 55, 112, 149, 182 Crown Colonies, 74 cultural: authority, 13; difference, 30; diversity, 11; exchange, 22, 103, 203; feminism, 20; heritage rights, 16; identity, 27; imperialism, 22, 169, 173–74; nationalism, 224; production, 182; relativism, 136; synthesis, 103 cultural internationalism, 1, 4, 13, 14, 17, 20, 29, 55–56, 193, 221, 223; doubts about, 163; nationalist limits of, 158; protective role of, 163 culture: as basis for world order, 16, 25; clash theory, 102; role in contemporary Pacific, 181; traditional, 161, 184 Daley, Jean, 154 Das, Parimal, 195 Daughters of Hawai‘i, 52, 83, 122, 126 Davey, Dr. Constance, 94 Davidann, Jon, 26 Davidson, Alexandra (Sasha), 132, 139, 147, 151, 152, 153, 157 Dawn, The, 35

decolonization, 3, 7, 15, 17, 28, 64, 66, 121, 163, 167, 174, 191, 192, 199, 201, 202; in Asia, 17; global, 162; in India, 17; of PPWA practices, 64. See also colonization democracy: promotion of, 183 dependencies: Pacific Islands as, 17 Depression, 1, 108, 134 development, 4, 15, 191 Development of Our Own, 206, 208, 209, 210 Dirlik, Arif, 223 diversity: politics of, 8, 19 Dlah, Herawati, 191 Duara, Prasenjit, 17, 64 During, Simon, 101, 162 East meets West internationalism, 2, 17, 28, 30, 34, 131, 145, 191, 197, 206, 219, 220, 223 Eastman, Charles, 88 East-West: cooperation, 10; cultural exchange, 22, 113, 115; internationalism, 21, 164; Philosophers’ group, 165, 191 education, 4, 32, 195; cross-cultural, 111; girls’ access in Japan, 40; “new education” (NZ), 110; reform, 167 educational exchange, 203 Edwards, Louise, 51 Emery, Mrs. J., 180 Emma, Queen, 120, 126 empire, 3, 5; histories of, 20 English language as official conference language, 65, 72 Epstein, Alexandra, 10, 68 Equal Rights Amendment (US), 19 eroticization. See sexualization of women Esperanto, 72 Esperitu, Augusto, 203 eugenics, 4, 32, 137 Eurocentrism, 7, 163; in accounts of women’s leadership, 43; language and, 65 Evans, Dr. Luther H., 185 extranational citizenship, 65 famine: impact of, 4 Farrington, Wallace R., 44, 68 fascism, 147 Index  283

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 24, 194, 200, 201 Federation of All-Japan Women’s Organizations, 223 Federation of University Women (NZ), 9, 112 Felski, Rita, 150 feminism: international, 5, 135; narratives of cultural progress, 25; narratives of history, 25; role in Pacific, 135. See also internationalism, feminist Feminist Club, 164 Fiji: British involvement in, 17 Fijian delegates, 79, 104 film censorship, 37, 40, 82 financial: constraints on attendance, 74–75; equity, 74 Fitch, Geraldine, 73 Ford, Alexander Hume, 31, 42–43, 57, 58, 62, 63 Formosa, 197, 198 Fowler, Helen, 194, 196 Fraser, Annie Isobel, 108 Free Kindergarten and Children’s Aid Association of Hawai‘i, 31 friendship: feminism and, 99; politics of, 99. See also same-sex partnerships and international women’s networks Gaines, Kevin, 205 Gallicchio, Mark, 204 Gandhi, Mahatma, 182 Garon, Sheldon, 150 Garry, Alice, 85, 86 Garvey, Amy Jacques, 205 Gauntlett, Tsune, 40, 51, 133, 142, 143–145, 149, 159–160, 223 gender, 183; equity, 40; issues, 5; politics, 64; unity, 53, 64 Geneva Disarmament Conference, 34 Gibbs, Pearl, 87 Gilroy, Paul, 3 glamour: of internationalism, 224; role in PPWA, 12, 112 global: decentralization, 11; family, 4; interdependence, 197 globalization, 1, 5, 13, 19, 20, 32, 101, 170; 284  Index

involvement of indigenous cultures, 104, 161 Goodykoontz, Bessie, 109 Graham, Stephen Victor, 105 Great Depression. See Depression Greater Asia, 15 Griffin, A. M., 77, 79 Griffin, E. M., 93 Griffith, D. W., 215 Grimshaw, Patricia, 9, 88 Guam: US involvement in, 17, 69 guardianship, 17 Guazon, Maria Paz Mendoz, 40 Guy, Donna J., 7 Haggis, Jane, 27 Hammond, Jean, 116, 118, 119, 128 handcrafts: cultural identity and, 28, 83, 161, 170, 181, 182, 185; in decolonized nations, 182; idealization of, 170; as PPWA focus, 162. See also Arts and Crafts movement; primitivism Hands-Around-the-Pacific Club, 31 Handy, Willowdean, 73–74, 81, 189, 190, 196, 197, 201, 220 Hawai‘i: as base for PPWA, 16; as Geneva in the Pacific, 16, 39–46; images of, 23–24; indigenous population, 99, 161; reception of indigenous Pacific delegates, 99; royalty, 99, 120, 121–122; US occupation of, 17, 45, 69 Hawaiian delegates, 86 Hawker, C., 92 Heagney, Muriel, 34, 58 health: reform, 167; world, 5, 32 Helu, Mrs. N., 172 Herangi, Princess Te Puea, 116, 174, 177 Hercik, Vladimir, 195 Hinder, Eleanor, 34, 35, 48, 55, 56, 57, 59, 61, 68, 105, 201 history: transnational, 5; world, 5 Hoganson, Kristin, 14 Holton, Sandra Stanley, 98, 99 Hooper, Paul, 10, 31, 226 Hoover, Herbert, 72 Hu Shih, 47 Huan-Chuen, Mei, 132, 133, 138, 142 Hussain, Begum, 78

Hutton, Mary Jeanette, 151 Ichikawa, Fusae, 40 Ide, Kikue, 48 identity politics, 9 immigration, 4, 15, 16; discriminatory policy, 25, 28, 137, 157; restriction, 157, 223. See also “White Australia” policy imperialism, 3 indentured labour, 16–17 India: cultural identity, 182, 183; role of Britain in, 78, 182 Indian delegates, 52; dialogue with Pacific delegates, 78 Indian women, 25, 75; British feminist concerns for, 98; as international figures, 76; removal of purdah, 166; role in country’s independence, 75 indigenous: decolonisation, 217; separatism, 181 indigenous cultures: contribution to PPWA, 23; degeneration of, 102; politicisation of, 162 indigenous delegates, 3, 23, 27, 161; from settler colonies, 82–88; sharing of politics, 102, 173; welcome by PPWA, 100 Indonesian delegates, 24, 102, 192 industrialization, 20, 176, 184 Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR), 23, 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 54, 193 International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship, 144; Peace Committee, 146 International Association of Women, 54 International Bill of Human Rights, 200 International Conference of Women of the World, 212 International Conference on Food and Agriculture, 165 International Council of Women, 43–45, 196, 211 International Education Exchange Service, 212 International Federation of Home and School, 61 International Labour Organization (ILO), 4, 9, 34, 35, 36, 40, 59, 68, 94, 112, 134, 171; Night Work Convention, 150

International Women’s Suffrage Alliance, 100; Berlin Congress, 2 internationalism, 53; complementary to nationalism, 24; cooperative, 135; European, 36; feminist, 5, 6, 7; Pan-Pacific, 5, 23. See also cultural internationalism internationalist modernity, 75, 221 interracial: cooperation, 20, 61–62; friendship, 20; harmony, 20, 124, 127, 224; politics, 2 Iriye, Akira, 21 Jackson, Beryl, 179, 185 Jacob, Aletta, 195 Jacobs, Margaret, 85 James, Britomarte, 63 Jamieson, Mrs., 138 Japan: invasion of Chinese territory, 132; militarism in, 131; potential location for fourth conference, 131 Japanese delegates, 2, 47, 62, 222; at fifth conference, 192; at first conference, 30; at fourth conference, 143; international significance of, 10; relations with Chinese delegates, 132–133 Japanese women: activism, 219; Constitutional rights of, 46; education of, 47; immigrant, 8; suffrage, 47 Japanese Women’s Suffrage Association, 47 Jayawardena, Kumari, 24, 80 Jensen, Joan, 49 Joint Committee of Shanghai Women’s Organizations, 34, 57 Jolly, Margaret, 79 Kan, Dr. Shina, 160 Kane, Amy, 171, 178, 220 Kaplan, Amy, 201 Kaplan, Caren, 14, 223 Kavinoky, Dr. Nadine, 124, 155 Kawananakoa, Princess Abigail Wahiikaahuula Campbell, 121–122, 126 Kawasaki, Shizuko, 111 Keesing, Felix, 6, 102, 104, 184 Keesing, Marie, 6, 84, 102, 103, 104, 105, 151, 152, 181, 184 Kelsky, Karen, 23, 75 Kiek, Winifred, 159 Index  285

kindergarten movement, 32 King, MacKenzie, 138 King, Sir Truby, 32 Kingi, Maureen, 174 Kirkby, Thelma, 164, 203, 220 Kirton, Muriel, 112, 119 Klein, Christina, 27, 201 Kluegel, Mrs. Harry, 64, 199 Kneeland, Dr. Hildegarde, 114 Komai, Sizue, 151 Kong Bae-Tsung, 50, 56, 57, 58, 60 Korea: Japanese annexation of, 158; representative of, 139 Korean War, 202, 222 Koshiro, Yukiko, 192 Kramer, Paul A., 168, 199 Lake, Marilyn, 16 land rights, 16 Latin American delegates, 88 Latin American women, 7, 69, 70 Laurie, Alison, 112 Lea, Ellen B., 80, 81, 108, 109, 171, 179, 201, 220 League for Industrial Democracy, 88 League of Nations, 4, 9, 10, 11, 19, 33, 35, 36, 40, 55, 87, 88, 89, 133, 134, 135, 146, 148, 149, 182; Convenant, 206; decision on Manchuria, 47; Disarmament Conferences, 146; Japan’s call for anti-racism clause, 14; mandates system, 15; Minority Commission, 105; Permanent Mandates Commission, 15; Slavery Section, 18; Union, 139 League of Women Voters, 9, 33, 151, 194, 211 Leavitt, Mary, 47 Leet, Dorothy, 194 Lewis, Reina, 50 liberal Christianity, 9 Lucas, Clorinda, 86, 202, 220 Lui, Mrs., 145 lynchings, 207, 208 MacGill, Helen, 139 MacKenzie, John, 46 Magsaysay, Luz, 199 Mahon, Charlotte, 183, 192 286  Index

Malietoa, Miss S., 216 Malik, Begum Hussain, 220 Malkki, Liisa, 226 Manchuria, 47, 129, 155 Mandated Territories, 89 Manela, Erez, 15 Maori: agency in global marketplace, 162; confusion, 185; cultural leadership, 180; culture, 83, 162, 180, 185, 187; political identity, 180; right to self-rule, 105; separatism, 162; women, 26, 86, 174 Maori delegates, 33, 66, 87, 95, 96, 97, 106–108, 161; concern for domestic social reform, 99; debut at PPWA conference, 106–107; inclusion of, 114, 116, 179 Maori Women’s Welfare League (MWWL), 174, 175, 178, 179, 186, 187; affiliation with PPWA, 178 maternalism, 32 Matsukawa, Yukiko, 47 McCarthyism, 193 McCay, Mrs. J. T., 182 McClung, Nellie, 140 McLean, Mary, 171, 178 McNaughton, Violet, 139, 147 McPhee, Lorna, 196 McRae, Doris, 72 Meek, Olive, 79 Melanesian: delegates, 62; women, 79 Mendez, Paz, 194, 195 Mendoza-Guazon, Maria Paz, 149, 150 Meredith, Moana, 105 Mid-Pacific Magazine, 39, 42, 44, 58, 60, 66, 71, 85, 110 militarism: rise of, 130 militarization in Pacific, 148, 149 Mill, John Stuart, 46 minority women, 226 missionaries, 24, 43, 79 Mitchell, Janet, 34, 35 modernity, 5; diversity of, 49; feminist, 113 modernization, 15, 20, 163; cultural difference and, 150; modernized “other,” 49; negative effects of, 147–151; in Pacific Islands, 80, 147–151; paths to, 21 Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, 9

Monroe Doctrine, 134 Moore, Eleanor, 42, 154 Moore, Lara Jane, 85 Morelock, Isabel, 69, 220 Morgan, Rosamond, 33 Morris, Mrs. C. R., 92 motherhood: as conference focus, 31–32, 131 Mui Tsai, 149 Mundt, Martha, 35, 36 Muscio, Mildred, 32 Musikabhumma, Mrs. S., 167 Myint, Kyan, 172 Namatjira, Albert, 84–85 Nanking: rape of, 129 natalism, 32 nation: as representational category, 26; role in PPWA, 37 Nation of Islam, 206–211 national: culture, 25; identity, 25, 55; independence, 167; type, 25, 45 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 88 National Association of Colored Women, 72, 211, 212 National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War, 54, 146 National Council of Women (NZ), 9, 40, 108, 110, 112, 139, 170 National Council of Women of Canada, 140 National Federation of Colored Women, 211 National League of Women Voters, 129 National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies of Great Britain, 130 nationalism, 24, 64; competing Japanese and US, 21; as complementary to internationalism, 24; Japanese militant, 14, 21; links to territory, 133; as obstacle to world peace, 36; postwar, 37, 174 Nationalist China, 197 nation-states: postwar proliferation, 21 Native American women, 85 native crafts, 83. See also Arts and Crafts movement; handcrafts native cultures. See indigenous cultures

Nehru, Jawaharlal, 216 New Guinea, 103. See also Papua New Guinea New Woman, 47 New York Consumers’ League, 201 New Zealand delegates: biracial nature of, 87, 88, 97, 107; cultural presentation, 116–125; dominance of, 33. See also Maori delegates New Zealand Girl, 118 New Zealand tourism and cultural identity. See Maori, culture New Zealand Women Writers’ and Painters’ Society, 171 Ngeungeu Te Irirangi, 174 nonalignment movement, 202 non-Western delegates, 2; interaction with Western colleagues, 11, 12. See also indigenous delegates; Western delegates non-Western women: role in internationalism, 7; role in modernity, 7 O’Brien, Patty, 66 Occidentalism, 23, 63, 66 Ohio Association of Colored Women, 211 Order of Isis, 52 Order of the Daughters of Hawai‘i. See Daughters of Hawai‘i Orient: awakening of, 22; concept, 63; fascination with, 14 Oriental exclusion, 153 Oriental women: ambiguous position of, 28; cultivation by PPWA, 46–53; dual identity, 50; liberation of, 22; role in PPWA, 64, 65 Orientalism, 22, 23, 38, 56, 66; as representation of “other,” 46 Osborne, Ethel E., 29, 35, 36, 69 Pacific Affairs, 53, 55 Pacific Age: dawn of, 4 Pacific Island delegates, 2, 3, 22, 23, 62. See also Polynesian delegates Pacific Island women, 78–82; increasing numbers, 81 Pacific Islands: impact of Western popular culture, 81–82 Index  287

pacifism, 19, 129, 130 Paddle, Sarah, 59, 149 Paiki, Miss, 116 Pak, Induk, 139 Pan-African: anti-imperialism, 224; antiracism, 224; internationalism, 205; nonalignment movement, 15, 204 Pan-American Congress of Women, 69 Pan-American nonalignment movement, 15 Pan-Pacific, 39, 71, 141, 182, 194 Pan-Pacific and South East Asian Women’s Association (PPSEAWA), 13, 28, 167, 168, 176, 188, 189, 191, 192, 193. See also Pan-Pacific Women’s Association (PPWA); Pan-Pacific Women’s Conferences Pan-Pacific Conference on Education, 54 Pan-Pacific ideal: significance to Asia, 21; significance to Australian women, 11 Pan-Pacific Union (PPU), 31, 33, 52, 54, 57, 62, 169 Pan-Pacific Women’s Association (PPWA): calls for separate indigenous representation, 187; change of name, 28, 168, 189; charter countries, 67; Constitution Committee, 56; correspondents, 56; Cultural Contributions of Pacific Countries Project, 103; cultural nature of, 38; Cultural Relations Project, 84; ECOSOC consultative status, 196; Executive Committee, 56; formation, 2; International Relations Section, 103, 133; new generation of members, 160; Population Pressures Roundtable, 138, 151, 157; postwar reestablishment of, 159; origins of, 2, 31–39; Program Committee, 29, 56; Prostitution Roundtable, 149; roundtable debates, 37; Social Service Project, 32; Standards of Living and Wages Project, 19. See also Pan-Pacific and South East Asian Women’s Association; PanPacific Women’s Conferences Pan-Pacific Women’s Conferences: Eighth (1958—PPSEAWA), 2, 79, 218; First (1928), 2, 30, 39–62; Fifth (1949), 2, 28, 168; Fourth (1937), 2, 28, 129–160; Maori welcome, 120, 180, 187; na288  Index

tional delegations, 39, 56, 67; publicity for, 39; Second (1930), 2, 28, 56, 63, 64; Seventh (1955—PPSEAWA), 2, 28, 164, 167, 180, 183, 185, 189, 197, 213, 217, 222; Sixth (1952), 2, 28, 115, 165, 169, 170, 183, 191–192; Third (1934), 2, 28, 106, 115, 116, 154; voting rights, 67. See also Pan-Pacific Women’s Association; Pan-Pacific and South East Asian Women’s Association (PPSEAWA) Panyarachun, Chirawat, 191 Papua New Guinea: Australian involvement in, 17, 89 Papuan: delegates, 80; women, 79 Park, Robert Ezra, 46 Parks, Frances, 40 Parsons, Alice, 63, 64, 69, 70, 71, 87, 88, 129, 165 paternalism, 102 peace: activism, 6, 157; as conference focus, 131; international politics of, 139; prewar promotion of, 129; talks, 145–147; youth movements for, 147 Peace and Disarmament Committee of Women’s International Organizations, 130 Pearl Harbor, 158 Pease, Donald E., 201 Pedersen, Susan, 15 Penington, Frances, 156, 157 Pepe, Grave, 105 Petricevich, Mira, 128, 162, 174–177, 178, 183, 185, 186, 216 Philbin, Evangeline E., 151 Philippine Association of University Women, 194 Philippines: delegates, 10, 102, 190; discrimination against African Americans, 204; host for sixth conference, 183, 190; political involvement of women, 166, 195; US involvement in, 17, 149, 168; World War II Widows’ Association, 222 Phineas, Mrs., 187 Plunket Society, 32 Polynesia: as category, 63, 66; Polynesian Conference in the Pacific, 63; role in

shaping PPWA perspective, 64; sexualization of women, 66 Polynesian delegates, 62, 65, 227 population: engineering, 4; increase, 152; management, 4, 16, 32, 136, 137, 166, 223; pressure, 151–157; studies, 5; uneven distribution, 151 populism, 183 Porteus, S. D., 41, 102 Portuguese Women’s Association, 57 postcolonial studies, 5 Price, Elizabeth Bailey, 39, 137 primitivism, 27, 101 progress, 7, 25; Eurocentric notions of, 12. See also development prostitution, 148, 149, 156, 166; in Japan, 150, 166; in Philippines, 166; reform, 223. See also traffic in women protection of women, 166; campaigns for, 10 race: histories of, 8, 20; models of, 8; politics, 201–206; theory of, 9 race relations: reproductive ordering of, 16 racial: degeneration, 4; discrimination, 156, 223; hygiene, 32, 163, 164; intermixing, 6; intolerance, 157; prejudice, 168; superiority, 168; violence, 208. See also lynchings Racial Hygiene Association, 164 racism: against African Americans reported in Philippines press, 204; negative influence of, 3 Radziwill, Princess, 35, 148 Rafael, Vicente, 183, 199 Randall-Colyer, Isabel, 42, 49 Reeve, A. H., 45 Reeve, Margaretta Willis, 61, 66, 67, 70 reproduction, 16 Reynolds, Henry, 16 Rich, Ruby, 89, 159, 164 Rischbieth, Bessie, 35, 52, 55, 56, 61, 71, 77, 89, 90, 105, 132, 148, 160, 171 Rothwell, Florence, 151 Royal Commission on Child Endowment (NZ), 32 Rupp, Leila, 22, 25, 38, 100, 112 Russia: communist threat, 191 Russian Revolution, 36

same-sex partnerships and international women’s networks, 112 Samoa: New Zealand involvement in, 6, 7, 17; US involvement in, 17, 104. See also Western Samoa Sanger, Margaret, 47, 156 Saran, Raksha, 77–78 Sarawak: women of, 74 Satterthwaite, Ann, 33, 36, 43, 67, 69, 71, 114, 142, 143, 159, 160, 192, 193, 200 Schain, Josephine, 77, 146–147, 165, 166, 167, 171, 172, 192, 193, 194, 196, 198, 199, 216, 219, 220 scientific cooperation, 3 Seaton, Mary, 80, 171, 172–173, 189, 219, 221 Second Emancipation Proclamation, 210 separatism. See indigenous, separatism Seton, Mrs. Thompson, 76 settler colonialism, 11; impact of, 83; postwar threats to, 174; reform of race relations, 97; settler colonial delegates, 26. See also Western delegates sexual exploitation, 40, 147–151. See also traffic in women sexualization of women, 148, 161 Shaw, Sister Gwen, 80 Sherrod, Pearl. See Takahashi, Pearl Sims, Mary Eleanor, 112 Singh, Nikhil Pal, 202, 227 Sinha, Mrinalini, 7, 16, 78 slavery, 214. See also child, slavery Smith, Ida B. Wise, 151 Smith, Viola, 34, 56, 57, 59, 201 social: exchange program, 41; hygiene, 4, 32; reform, 12; welfare reform, 4, 32 socialism, 192 Socknat, Thomas, 139 Soesolawate, Miss, 172 Southeast Asia: domination of postwar Asia-Pacific, 172, 202; nonalignment movement, 15 Southeast Asian delegates: emergence of, 2; impact of, 227 sponsorship, 74. See also travel grants Staley, Mildred, 148 Stanley, Dr. Louise, 71 Steiner, Rudolf, 52 Index  289

Stepan, Nancy, 14 Stevens, Constance, 59 Stewart, Ella P., 72, 194, 211–217, 220; role as goodwill ambassador, 215 Stocking, George W. Jr., 8 Street, Jessie, 199–200, 201 Strong-Boag, Veronica, 140 suffrage, 6, 19, 64; in Australia and New Zealand, 11; in Japan, 47; politics of, 64 Swanzy, Julia Judd, 31, 33, 52, 67, 70, 83 Sweet, Georgina, 52, 55, 56, 70, 77, 93, 94, 108, 112, 118, 134, 138, 140, 150, 159 Szazy, Mira. See Petricevich, Mira

United Nations Association, 171 United States: ascendancy in Pacific, 63; cultural imperialism, 163; global leadership, 202; imperialism, 201, 222; isolationism, 201; race politics, 201–206; race relations in Asia-Pacific, 205; role in 1955 conference, 194 universalism, 151 urbanization, 169 US delegates, 10, 33, 65, 68; prevalence of, 67, 69 US Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference, 75 US Women’s Bureau, 19

Tachi, Kaoru, 47 Takahashi, Pearl, 206–211, 213, 217 Takahashi, Satokata, 206, 209, 210, 213 Taylor, Fanny B., 171 Te Rangi Hiroa, 84, 102 Terrell, Mary Church, 211 theosophy, 52, 76 Thomas, Albert, 36, 59 Thomas, Nicholas, 161 Ting, Dr. Mei Iung, 40, 45, 50, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 67, 73, 79, 133, 143, 197–198; wartime arrest, 159 Tokyo: host of eighth conference, 218 Tongan: delegates, 196; women, 172 traffic in women, 36, 40, 148 trans-culturalism, 226 travel: glamour of, 13; time involved in, 36 travel grants, 65–66, 75 trusteeship, 17 Tyrrell, Ian, 22

Vancouver: colonial history, 138; host of fourth PPWA conference, 129, 131, 137–138. See also Canada Vaughan, Millicent Preston-Stanley, 72 Versailles Peace Conference, 206 Vietnam delegates, 196 Von Eschen, Penny, 204

UNESCO, 18, 184, 220, 221; Cultural Activities Section, 183; development agenda, 183; education agenda, 168, 169, 183; External Relations Service, 196; support for PPWA, 196; travel grants, 65–66, 75, 167, 171, 195, 199, 201 United Nations (UN), 17, 21, 36, 165, 169, 171, 195, 199, 221; Economic and Social Council, 196; International Children’s Emergency Fund in the Pacific, 195; Status of Women Commission, 199, 200 290  Index

Waqairawai, Lolohea Akosita, 79 Washington Conference on Disarmament, 145 Weaver, Merle, 222 Wedega, Alice, 80, 81 Wells, Ida B., 207 Western delegates, 65; engagement with non-Western delegates, 11; perceived duty to non-Western delegates, 55; representing Pacific Island constituencies, 74. See also non-Western delegates Western popular culture: impact on Pacific Islands, 81–82 Western power: decentralization of, 37; relativization of, 64 Western Samoan: delegates, 187; women, 172 Westernization, 15, 22, 162, 172, 224; in China, 46, 47; cultural difference and, 150; different experiences of, 26; exploitation and, 20, 148, 149; impact on indigenous peoples, 102, 149; impact on Pacific, 1, 102, 148; in Japan, 46, 47; role in Pacific, 135 White, Walter, 88

“White Australia” policy, 25, 151, 154; dictation test, 153 White House Conference for Children and Youth, 211 white nationhood: geopolitical alliances based on, 16 white panic, 14 Whitelaw, Mrs., 180, 181 whiteness, 3, 15; impact of, 83; politics of, 15; privileges of, 173; protection of, 25 Whitlock, Gillian, 101 Wilkins, Fanon Che, 203 Williams, Jamieson, 159 Wilson, Helen, 105 Wilson, Rob, 223 women of China, 30 Women of the Pacific, The, 39 Women Teachers’ Association (NZ), 9, 108, 110, 139, 171, 201; Dominion Conference, 127 Women’s Canadian Club, 139 Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), 9, 12, 33, 40, 43, 150, 151; influence on China and Japan, 47; Japanese, 8, 18, 47, 48, 57; World, 40 Women’s Federation of the Educational Association of China, 139 Women’s Institutes, 9 Women’s International Democratic Federation, 223 Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), 7, 9, 12, 54, 130, 133, 139, 140, 144, 146, 154 women’s internationalism, 31–39; geographical relocation of, 18–19 women’s liberation, 20. See also feminism Women’s Peace Association, 47, 155, 160 women’s rights, 167

Woods, Megan, 174 Woollacott, Angela, 7, 11 Woolley, Mary Emma, 29, 33–34, 35, 72, 132 work: dangers to health, 41, 136; fair pay, 171; night employment, 150; women and, 32, 35, 37, 171; workplace regulation, 4 World Federation of Educational Institutions, 140 World Health Organization (WHO), 137, 156, 168, 195 World War I, 134, 144, 147 World War II, 1, 4; disillusionment following, 7; exclusion of Asians, 158; impact on PPWA, 13, 73, 158; internment of Japanese, 158; postwar reconstruction, 168 Yamada, Tsune. See Gauntlett, Tsune Yap, Ruth “Babe,” 73 Yasutake, Rumi, 8, 10, 145 Yellow Peril, 153 Yoshihara, Mari, 13, 49 Yoshioka, Yoyoi, 40 “Yoshiwara,” 149; reform in Japan, 150 Young Maori Party, 177, 185 Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), 9, 33, 34, 97, 108, 139, 151, 194; Australia, 93; Honolulu, 33; influence on China and Japan, 47; Japanese, 140, 144; Mexico, 70; New Zealand, 32, 107, 118; Shanghai, 34, 59, 73, 132, 143, 149; World, 12, 52, 59, 73 Yu Chen, Mei, 143 Zimmern, Alfred, 134 Zister, Mrs. U. R., 174, 186

Index  291

About the Author

F iona Paisley is a cultural historian at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. She has published widely in the areas of gender, colonialism, and race politics, with a particular focus on humanitarianism and social justice campaigns among settler women in the early twentieth century. Her first book was Loving Protection? Australian Feminism and Aboriginal Women’s Rights, 1919–1939 (2000), and she has also published a co-edited volume Uncommon Ground: White Women in Aboriginal History (2005). She is currently working on two new projects: a biographical account of Aboriginal activism in Europe in the early twentieth century and a study of early filmmaking in the Pacific and Africa.

Production Notes for Paisley | Glamour in the Pacific Jacket design by Julie Matsuo-Chun, based on the series design    by April Leidig-Higgins Text design by Elsa Carl of Clarence Lee Design, in Adobe Caslon    with display type in Tiepolo Text composition by Santos Barbasa Jr. Printing and binding by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group Printed on 60 lb. Text White Opaque, 426 ppi.

(Continued from front flap)

—Antoinette Burton Bastian Professor of Transnational and Global Studies University of Illinois

“In this deeply researched and elegantly analyzed book, Fiona Paisley extends our understanding of the history of transnational feminism by shifting our focus from the transatlantic to the transpacific. And more. With a nuanced deftness, she shows the complex results when the desire of white Euro-American women to overcome racism and imperialism through cultural internationalism met the articulated interests of women from Asia and the Pacific islands. No one committed to global social justice today can afford to ignore this history.”

Glamour in the Pacific

“This book places at center stage an organization that embodies many of the crises of colonial modernity that scholars have been grappling with and refracts it through a set of actors and geographical locations that deserve to be better understood and taught widely. Paisley lays out her story in accessible yet analytically sophisticated ways that in turn make manifest the complex unfolding of cultural politics in the Pan-Pacific. The scholarship is extraordinarily impressive and represents the best kind of transnational research there is.”

Paisley

war geopolitics on the ideal of international cooperation in the era of decolonization were also considered. The work concludes with a discussion of the revival of “East meets West” as a basis for world cooperation endorsed by the United Nations in 1958 and the overall contributions of the PPWA to world culture politics. The internationalist vision of the early twentieth century imagined a world in which race and empire had been relegated to the past. Significant numbers of women from around the Pacific brought this shared vision—together with their concerns for peace, social progress, and cooperation—to the lively, even glamorous, political experiment of the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association. Fiona Paisley tells the stories of this extraordinary group of women and illuminates the challenges and rewards of their politics of antiracism— one that still resonates today.

women’s studies/gender studies/pacific studies

—Leila J. Rupp Professor of Feminist Studies University of California, Santa Barbara

Glamour in the Pacific Fiona Paisley is a cultural historian at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. Jacket photo: “Where East Meets West.” The Vancouver Daily Province, July 13, 1937, 1. Courtesy of The Vancouver Daily Province.

University of Hawai‘i Press

Jacket design: April Leidig-Higgins

Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822-1888

Cultural Internationalism and Race Politics in the Women’s Pan-Pacific ISBN 978-0-8248-3342-8

90000

9 780824 833428 www.uhpress.hawaii.edu

Since its inception in 1928, the PanPacific Women’s Association (PPWA) has witnessed and contributed to enormous changes in world and Pacific history. Operating out of Honolulu, this women’s network established a series of conferences that promoted social reform and an internationalist outlook through cultural exchange. For the many women attracted to the project— from China, Japan, the Pacific Islands, and the major settler colonies of the region—the association’s vision was enormously attractive, despite the fact that as individuals and national representatives they remained deeply divided by colonial histories. Glamour in the Pacific tells this multifaceted story by bringing together critical scholarship from across a wide range of fields, including cultural history, international relations and globalization, gender and empire, postcolonial studies, population and world health studies, world history, and transnational history. Early chapters consider the first PPWA conferences and the decolonizing process undergone by the association. Following World War II, a new generation of nonwhite women from decolonized and settler colonial nations began to claim leadership roles in the Association, challenging the often Eurocentric assumptions of women’s internationalism. In 1955 the first African American delegate brought to the fore questions about the relationship of U.S. race relations with the Pan-Pacific cultural internationalist project. The effects of cold

fiona paisley (Continued on back flap)