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For obvious reasons, California looms large in early Japanese accounts of trans-Pacific migration and engagement with the West.
What, then, did Japanese migrants from the "green archipelago" (with a rich forestry tradition all their own) make of California's redwoods? 1/
What, then, did Japanese migrants from the "green archipelago" (with a rich forestry tradition all their own) make of California's redwoods? 1/
An early impression comes from Kume Kunitake, chronicler of the Iwakura Mission, the envoy that toured the US in 1872: "There are many gigantic trees around Yosemite, and on the stump of one such tree a hall with a dance floor large enough for thirty people could be built." 2/
A much more detailed account comes from Akamine Seichirō, who in 1886 published Beikoku Ima Fushigi (米国今不審議), essentially a guidebook for prospective immigrants. A scan is available via the National Diet Library of Japan here: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/767343 3/
The text is noteworthy on many levels. Akamine provides a fascinating snapshot of San Francisco in the 1880s. He disparages not only the Chinese community in SF but also lower class Japanese migrants and laborers. He provides a crash course in California history. 4/
The latter portion of the text is devoted to a discussion of California's landscape and its natural wonders. He pays particular attention to Yosemite. Here's an illustration of Bridal Veil Falls, the sublime sight of which he compares to Paris or (closer to home) Nikko. 5/
Here's Vernal Falls. 6/
Particularly arresting to Akamine are the behemoth redwoods of Warwona, "the monarchs" of the forest. 7/
It's worth noting that Akamine mistakenly describes these redwoods as a type of 大杉, or giant cedar. This is hardly surprising when you recognize that cedar has been a fixture of silviculture in Japan for centuries. It was a familiar touchstone for Japanese observers. 8/
I'd be remiss not point out that Akamine also uses the seemingly primordial landscape of Yosemite to denigrate its Native American inhabitants, who he casts as trapped in a primitive way of life, but for the civilizing mission of white settlers. 9/
As Sidney Xu Lu points out in his excellent book on Japanese settler colonialism, Akamine marks these indigenous communities as dojin 土人 -- the same term applied to the Ainu of Hokkaido. He goes so far as to call California's tribes "the Red Ainu." 10/ https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/making-of-japanese-settler-colonialism/644DFDA740495E1C2D49B20CCF914418
Akamine was but one of the first Japanese migrants to gravitate to Yosemite or to fall under the spell of its redwoods. A few decades later, the gifted painter Obata Chiura seasoned in the Sierras, producing some stunning portraits of the park and its majestic giants. 11/
Obata's work is collected in a Smithsonian gallery here: https://americanart.si.edu/artist/chiura-obata-27393
For those interested, I elaborate on these trans-Pacific forestry ties in my new book, Seeds of Control: https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295747453/seeds-of-control/
For those interested, I elaborate on these trans-Pacific forestry ties in my new book, Seeds of Control: https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295747453/seeds-of-control/
