Oharazeki - Japanese Prostitutes in the North American West, 1887-1920

EMIL AND KATHLEEN SICK SERIES IN WESTERN HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY

With support from the Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest at the University of Washington, the Sick Series in Western History and Biography features scholarly books on the peoples and issues that have defined and shaped the American West. Through intellectually challenging and engaging books of general interest, the series seeks to deepen and expand our understanding of the American West as a region and its role in the making of the United States and the modern world.

Japanese Prostitutes in the North American West, 18871920

Kazuhiro Oharazeki

Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest in association with

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESSSeattle and London

2016 by the University of Washington Press

Printed and bound in the United States of America

201918171654321

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest
http://cspn.uw.edu

University of Washington Press
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Cataloging information is on file with the Library of Congress

ISBN 978-0-295-99833-6

The paper used in this publication is acid-free and meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.481984.

To the memories of Jiichan and Mii

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have incurred many debts over the years. My biggest debt is to Professor Tom Dublin, who has guided my study since I began graduate study in history. He has devoted a great deal of time to reading my writings and has helped me overcome various challenges. This book would not have been published without his unfailing support. I am grateful to Professor Kitty Sklar and Professor Herbert Bix for introducing me to the fields of U.S. womens history and modern Japan and teaching me the importance of good questions and good writing skills.

In the course of research, I have profited from the help of many people and institutions. I thank David Takahashi and Mike Hidalgo, King County Superior Court, Seattle; Blair Galston, United Church of Canada British Columbia Conference Archives; E. Brooks Andrews, Hideo Hoshide, and Yosh Nakagawa, Japanese Baptist Church of Seattle; Barbara Nagaoka and Pearl Yamamoto, Blaine Memorial United Methodist Church, Seattle; Trevor Livelton, City of Victoria Archives; Pat Johnson and the staff at the Center for Sacramento History (formerly Sacramento Archives and Museum Collection Center); the staff at Special Collections, University of Washington Libraries, at British Columbia Archives, at the Diplomatic Record Office, Tokyo, and at the National Diet Library, Tokyo; John M. Hendricks, Charles L. Miller, and the staff in the National Archives at San Francisco and the National Archives at Seattle; Helen Insinger, Laurie Kolosky, and the staff at Binghamton Universitys Bartle Library. Special thanks go to Professor Sakaguchi Mitsuhiro at Kyoto Womens University, who responded to my questions and helped locate key Japanese-language sources. Binghamton Universitys History Department generously provided financial support, including semester fellowships and a Dubofsky Grant, which helped me complete my research in Japan and the Pacific Northwest.

Parts of was originally published as Anti-prostitution Campaigns in Japan and the American West, 18901920: A Transpacific Comparison, Pacific Historical Review 82:2 (May 2013); 175214; 2013 University of California Press. I would like to thank the publishers for permission to reprint them in revised form and the editors of the journals, John J. Bukowczyk, David A. Johnson, Carl Abbott, Susan Wladaver-Morgan, and seven anonymous reviewers for suggestions and constructive criticisms. I am grateful to the staff at the University of Washington Press, especially Ranjit Arab, senior acquisitions editor, for finding potential in my book project and guiding me through all the stages with care and encouragement, and Thomas Eykemans, designer, for the beautiful book jacket. I thank Laura Iwasaki, for her meticulous copyediting; Tim Roberts at Field Editorial, for overseeing the process of copyediting and the creation of final files; and PJ Heim, for preparing the excellent index for my book with great care. I am greatly indebted to three anonymous reviewers for the University of Washington Press who offered truly useful criticism and advice that helped improve the quality of my analysis.

I would like to thank the descendants of the Asaba family (the natal family of Yamada Waka, a prominent social reformer in Taish and Shwa Japan), including Asaba Kiyoshi (grandson of Yamadas eldest brother) for sharing the family tree of the Asaba family and explaining the history of the family in Kurihama. It was my great good fortune to have been able to meet Yamada Yaheiji (Yamadas grandson) at his home, and I would like to thank him for sharing wonderful stories about his social work and helping me understand the legacy of Yamada Waka. I very much appreciate Professor Imai Konomi at Kwansei Gakuin University, Yokota Hajime, and Kishimoto Takami for making these meetings possible.

I would also like to thank the professors who have offered encouragement: the late Shigeno Akira, Mark Willis, Rebecca Calman, Kohiyama Rui, Yasutake Rumi, Ishii Noriko, Kat Yko, Fa-ti Fan, David Stahl, and Arleen de Vera. Thanks to Shimauchi Taiken and Daisy, Kawakubo Fuminori, and Sat Hiroki for their friendship over the years. My coworkers in a warehouse where I had worked for half a dozen years before and after receiving my Ph.D. deserve special recognition for teaching me that there is something important to learn outside academia.

Finally, let me thank my parents, maternal grandmother, aunts, and little brother for their continuous support. This book is dedicated to the memories of my late grandfather, Oharazeki Shigetada (19272013), a good storyteller and a friend with whom I had lots of enjoyable times, and my late cat, Mii, who was with me for five years.

NOTE ON INDIVIDUAL NAMES

In writing Japanese names, this book follows East Asian practice: surnames precede first names. Names that appear according to Western practice in archival records, published writings, and English-language sources have been left as published, with first names preceding surnames and without macrons. I use pseudonyms for the women who engaged in prostitution and the men related to them, except those whose real names have already been published widely in books, articles, and newspapers. Pseudonyms are also used for prostitutes and the men related to them who appear in the titles of primary sources, including the records of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, United States federal courts, civil and criminal courts in Pacific Coast cities, and newspaper articles; therefore, readers who wish to locate the documents and articles should rely on such information as case numbers and dates, not titles.

Japanese Prostitutes in the North American West, 18871920

Introduction

Yamada Waka, a pioneering feminist writer in Taisho and Showa Japan, was born in a small farming-fishing village near Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, in 1879. Her parents produced sugar beets and other products to feed their eight children. As the fourth daughter of a struggling farmer, higher education was beyond her reach. After graduation from elementary school, she started working with her parents in the fields while caring for other children, and at the age of sixteen, she married Araki Hichijir (also pronounced Shichijiro), a commodity broker in Yokosuka, who was ten years her senior. At the time of her marriage, her eldest brother, Fukutar, was struggling to keep the lands he had inherited from their father. Yamada often implored Hichijir to give financial assistance to her brother, but he ignored her pleas.