An American Historian in Japan

Michael A. Bernstein

Few experiences in my academic life have had the impact of my recent visit to Japan under the auspices of the Organization of American Historians (OAH) and the Japanese Association for American Studies (JAAH). In late November and early December of 2000 I began a two-week residency at Sophia University in Tokyo; there I was a guest of the University's Institute for American and Canadian Studies and of its wise, gracious, and urbane Director, Professor Kazuyuki Matsuo. During my stay I lectured to several undergraduate classes at Sophia University, met with students and colleagues, and also had the opportunity to offer seminars at other institutions such as Chiba University, the University of Tokyo, and Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. One of the intellectual highlights of my formal work in Japan involved the opportunity to meet with Sophia University Honors Program undergraduates, during which I learned of their fascinating research projects in United States history. I was also honored with the opportunity to present a formal lecture before the senior membership of the Japanese Association for American Studies. All of these scholarly interactions were immensely stimulating and gave dramatic testimony to the vibrancy and energy associated with American Studies in Japanese higher education today.

Particularly striking in my meeting with students (particularly honors students) and colleagues in Japan was the intense interest that Japanese scholars have in modern American cultural and social history. Insofar as the problems of racism and ethnophobia associated with immigration restriction, are a central part of contemporary political debate in Japan, I found Japanese students and colleagues quite eager to discuss American experience in this regard. Affirmative action, civil rights reform, linguistic struggles, and changing gender relations in the United States were all very much on their minds. With respect to my own research on the economic history of the Great Depression in the United States, there was also a great deal of discussion of the impacts, during the interwar period, of declining birth-rates (now very much part of the Japanese economic landscape) and increasingly restricted immigration (also part of contemporary Japanese policy practice) on the slow rate of growth in major U.S. industries at the time. Many students and colleagues were also determined to focus their research on the American occupation of Japan in the wake of World War II. Here again was a remarkable point of intellectual connection for me, as many government officials who came to serve in the General Headquarters in Tokyo that oversaw the U.S. occupation were themselves "New Dealers" drawn from the American experience of depression and war.

Scholarly exchange and intellectual stimulation were, by no means, a "one-way" street. Japanese colleagues and students, in interactions both formal and informal, offered an array of insights, suggestions, and comments on my work that will frame much of my future research and teaching in economic and political history. With respect to the history of the New Deal, they encouraged me to look at the postwar experience of Japan as a special "laboratory" within which questions concerning the "failures" of the "first" New Deal might be further addressed. The role of American economic expansion in Asia, during the first half of the twentieth century, was also a topic of great interest--and their reactions to my lecture and seminar presentations impressed upon me the need to more closely consider it as an animating force in interwar American economic performance. Finally, with respect to my more recent work on the impact of professional expertise on the formulation of American economic policy, my Japanese colleagues and hosts encouraged me to look at the experience of American social scientists in the Japanese occupation, and in the implementation of postwar foreign policy more generally, as a unique historical framework within which to understand their evolving perceptions and policy choices. Overall, the international dimension of my teaching and research was immeasurably broadened by the lessons afforded by my residency in Japan.

My two weeks in Japan were not, of course, completely occupied with work. I had the opportunity to tour within Tokyo itself and to take side-trips to Hiroshima and Kyoto. The day and one-half that I spent in Hiroshima was quite difficult but especially rewarding. Utterly exhausted emotionally by the poignant memories of that city's tragedy that were so vividly on display, I nonetheless found myself spiritually uplifted at the end--and greatly energized as an historian. The Peace Park and Peace Museum are striking examples of a living historical site at work--the exhibits are direct, disturbing, moving, and angry, but never shrill. The memorial evokes a profound sense of sadness and regret.

At Kyoto, in addition to my seminar presentation at Ritsumeikan University, I had the opportunity to visit the celebrated shrines of the area and to stay at a traditional Japanese inn. Kyoto was spared bombing in World War II, despite its brief consideration as a target for the first nuclear attack on Japan, and thus substantial parts of the city retain an old and traditional flavor that one seeks in vain in Tokyo or Osaka or other major cities in the southern part of Honshu which took the brunt of the 1940s United States Army Air Force offensive.

Food was, of course, another central part of my visit to Japan. My hosts seemed genuinely pleased and delighted to "take me up" on my expressed hope to try as assorted and varied a cuisine as possible during my stay. Needless to say, the result was a delight--not simply with respect to the sushi, which was remarkable, but also because of the opportunity to try more traditional Japanese dishes such as shabshabu (a kind of meat and vegetable fondue) and a delicious regional dish in Hiroshima--okonomiyaki (which reminded me of an open-faced quiche). I might add that Japan's cuisine--at least in major cities like Tokyo--has become increasingly cosmopolitan; I had a delightful French dinner with my colleagues at Chiba University and a superb Italian meal with my hosts in Kyoto.

I am left, in the wake of my residency in Japan, with a singular determination to return! Inspired by a fascination with Japanese culture and history, I am especially eager to sustain the intellectual stimulation that so many Japanese colleagues and students afforded me during my stay. Professor Matsuo and I hope to pursue some joint intellectual interests, and it is his hope, not to mention my own, that some of his undergraduates may be inspired to pursue graduate training in United States history and American Studies here in the U.S. In all these respects, I found my OAH-JAAH residency to be a wonderful moment in my career, one that has had and will have enduring personal, professional, and intellectual impacts. It was my privilege and honor to represent the OAH in this exchange program, and it is my sincere hope that the program will continue to flourish in the future.

Michael A. Bernstein is with the Department of History at the University of California at San Diego.