Hotel Owners and the Shape of Japanese Transpacific Migration Artwork

90 Second Narratives

90 Second Narratives is a podcast featuring engaging true stories told by trained historians. Each episode includes a short story interwoven with expert analysis of the story’s historical significance. The concise length and storytelling format of the episodes make history accessible, dynamic, and entertaining. The subjects of the stories are diverse—spanning the globe and ranging from the pre-historic to the modern age. While individual stories stand alone, the episodes in each season are linked thematically and combine to offer comparative perspectives that illuminate connections from across the human experience. Every episode also includes recommendations for further reading. 90 Second Narratives provides a novel way to hear historians share the wonders of the past in their own voices.

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Hotel Owners and the Shape of Japanese Transpacific Migration

August 23, 2021 • Sky Michael Johnston • Season 8 • Episode 7

“At the turn of the twentieth century, tens of thousands of Japanese migrants left their island nation, landed in Hawai’i, only to depart for Seattle, San Francisco, Vancouver, or Victoria…”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Yukari Takai.

For further reading:
Yukari Takai, “Recrafting Marriage in Meiji Hawai’i, 1885-1913,” Gender & History, 31, 3 (2019), 646-664.

90 Second Narratives
Season 8: “Journeys”
Episode 7: “Hotel Owners and Japanese Transpacific Migration”

Sky Michael Johnston:

Hello and thank you for joining me on 90 Second Narratives. I’m Sky Michael Johnston and today Season 8 continues with the theme, “Journeys.” Our storyteller is Dr. Yukari Takai, a Research Associate at the York Centre for Asian Research at York University and a Visiting Research Scholar at the International Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Japan. Listen now to Dr. Takai’s story, “Hotel Owners and the Shape of Japanese Transpacific Migration.”

Yukari Takai:

At the turn of the twentieth century, tens of thousands of Japanese migrants left their island nation, landed in Hawai’i, only to depart for Seattle, San Francisco, Vancouver, or Victoria. They went to the continental destinations after having spent days, weeks, or months in Hawai’i. Many workers, Japanese born, first-generation immigrants, chose to move to the continental United States or Canada in search of higher wages and better working conditions. The extent of transmigration of Japanese depleted the much-needed labor supply in the sugar cane fields in Hawai’i. Their departure alarmed white plantation owners, Japanese diplomats, and immigration authorities and policymakers—Japanese, American, or Canadian.

I examine the role of Japanese immigrant hotel owners and boarding house keepers in Honolulu and Vancouver who shaped the transpacific circuits of workers in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. This was the very time when Tokyo, Washington, and Ottawa sought to curb the mobility of allegedly undesirable foreigners or nationals on the basis of race, class, or gender. I suggest that at the center of the Japanese transmigration were the Japanese immigrant hotels and boarding houses which undercut, acquiesced, or collaborated with the power of the state authorities and Hawai’i’s economic powerhouse, that is sugar plantation owners on the islands. Situated between migrants and state regulators, the two more familiar parties of migration, immigrant hotel keepers at port cities illustrate an important, yet little studied, aspect of the migration process. Drawing on transpacific perspectives and through an in-depth analysis of these brokers of labor migration, I seek to complicate our understanding of the power, capital, and nation states as they relate to the movement of Japanese immigrant workers across the Pacific Ocean.

Sky Michael Johnston:

Dr. Takai has written extensively on the theme of global Asia. In the episode description, you can find a link to her award-winning article, “Recrafting Marriage in Meiji Hawai’i, 1885-1913,” published in the journal, Gender & History, in 2019.

Thanks, once again, for listening to 90 Second Narratives. Please come back next Monday for another “little story with BIG historical significance.”