Status Updates From In Search of Our Frontier: ...

Omg o’Dwyer shout-out in the intro

So basically, after the war Japanese colonial thought continued but this time under the guise of American domination. Hm, makes me wonder whether this had any impact on US immigration later on. But hard to tell, the text is over and the author didn't dwell on the subject.

Well, the author acknowledges the blood-will-tell mentality of both the US and Japan, no wonder Japan anticipated the Japanese internment during the war, both sides thought exactly the same.

So chinese propaganda also had this notion of Japanese spirit as the epitome of Japan's aggression and duplicity... hm, I guess it came from the war, and did this influence American propaganda? It could be, the usual "it's racism" thing looks too simple for me.

So urging Issei parents to give their nisei children a japanese style moral education, while the issei also wanted to be American citizens... yeah, I think this particular mixing would not work.

These colonial endeavors did not just feature notions of blood will tell and general japanese blood but also the fears of those overseas Japanese losing their Japanese spirit and so they have to be educated in it. Funny enough, some of this stuff sounds a lot like a martial spirit.

Seeing how much the Japanese empire incorporated Isei and Nissei into their imperial designs from 1940 onwards, and at least some Issei doing the same on their own and wanting to be imperial and US subjects, makes me wonder what influence that had on later internments as well as eternal foreigner myths. What if this had a bigger influence than usually believed?

Okai... I think I heard this name once, and I think it was in the context of the Japanese American immigrant story. It is interesting to see how the story of this simple nanny who died at 19 is used by both sides. On one side to counter the image of japanese prostitutes in the USA (even though it is based on fact) and of imperial colonialism as if she was some model colonialist.

So the Isei were incorporated into imperialism, using their American western frontier experiences for further colonialism in Manchuria and Taiwan. Granted, I wish the author wouldn't go so far into detail with the farms and all. Is that really necessary?

Referring to the natives as "bestial" aborigines and called the workers tamed lions... yeah that is pretty racist by these former hawaiians.

Considering that Japanese in Hawai'i were also caught up in all these colonial stuff, I wonder whether anything of that is acknowledged today in Hawai'i.

I would not call Nazi Germany contemporaneous when talking about Japanese colonialism in the 1920s. Nonetheless, it is interesting that the Third Reich referenced Japanese return migration from the United States in its plans to resettle German Americans in its eastern frontiers of Wartegau and Upper Siberia.