ABSTRACT
In 1926, the journal Survey Graphic featured the autobiography of Kazuo Kawai, a young Japanese American who had immigrated to the United States at the age of six. Although not native-born, he was presented as an exemplar of the second-generation experience. Kawai said that life as an Americanized person of Japanese ancestry had been difficult and confusing. During his high school years, he identified with American culture and did not connect with classmates whom he viewed as overly “Japanesy.” In college, however, where he was no longer surrounded by other Japanese Americans, he grew increasingly self-conscious about his racial “otherness.” “[For] the first time,” said Kawai:
I felt myself becoming identified with Japan, and began to realize that I was Japanese … What would I be able to do in Japan? … I couldn’t speak the language except for a silly baby-talk … I didn’t know any of the customs or traditions of Japan.”1 He continued, “Where did I belong? … in language, in thought, in ideals, in custom, in everything, I was American. But America wouldn’t have me … Once I was American, but America made a foreigner out of me—Not a Japanese, but a foreigner—a foreigner to any country, for I am just as much a foreigner to Japan as to America.2
