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Top > Vol.13 -Ramona Bajema

Name: Ramona Bajema		Nationality: United Sates of America

Affiliated research center/ school in Waseda	Graduate department of Political Science and Economics
Affiliated research institution at home country	PhD Candidate in modern Japanese history, East Asian Languages and Cultures Department Columbia University, New York
Period of stay at Waseda	September, 2008 to June 2009

Subject of research
Japanese painters and photographers active in the United States prior to World War II

My interest in Japanese visual culture was formed during early childhood. My mother, an artist and art dealer, decorated our family home with art from all over the world: Mexico, West Africa, France, Native American tribal communities, and Japan. It was the woodblock prints by Yoshitoshi that hung on our walls that captured my childhood imagination. My bed had a comforter made out of antique kimono fabric. Japanese fans were pinned to my bedroom wall. For my fifth birthday, my mother wrapped me in a bright pink kimono and took me to a sushi bar on Pacific Coast Highway in southern California. The Japanese sushi chefs played with me and made me delicious foods. Later, my family took me to see Kurosawa Akira films at the Kokusai Movie Theater (no longer there) in Japantown in San Francisco. We ate udon noodles beforehand and visited the Kinokuniya bookstore, where I looked at all of the Japanese imported books and magazines. My family took me to see Sakamoto Ryûichi perform for my birthday. My mother fed my desire for Japanese art with lacquer boxes, photographs of Kyoto, and beautiful brocade textiles. Japan consumed my imagination.

When I entered high school in San Francisco, California, I was privileged to attend a school that offered Japanese language courses. Because of my exposure to Japanese film, I was interested in studying Japanese history and literature. Although my English literature class read Akutagawa Ryûnosuke's "Hell Screen" in translation, it was the only exposure to Japanese literature that I had at school. My history classes never covered any of the East Asian national histories. I was forced to pursue my interests independently, seeking out history books and novels in libraries.

As an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley, I was finally able to pursue my interest in Japanese history within academia. I studied early and modern history, modern Japanese literature, as well as Japanese art history. I wrote my graduating thesis on the history of Japanese financial markets. Upon graduation, I moved to Fukui Prefecture as an assistant language teacher in the Ministry of Education's JET Programme. I loved every minute of my two years in Oi-cho, a small town near Obama in the Wakasa area of Fukui. I was also able to visit Kyoto and Nara temples regularly and explore the rest of Honshû to my delight.

After returning from Fukui in 2001, I entered Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington D.C. While studying international relations and economics, I focused my research on the Japanese economy. I also contributed to the SAIS Edwin O. Reischauer Center's annual briefing book on U.S.-Japan relations. Although I entered an investment bank in Tokyo after graduating from SAIS, I realized that my interests were still with history. I resolved to quit my position at the bank and enter academia to pursue the study of Japanese history full time.

I have been very honored to be advised by Prof. Carol Gluck at Columbia University in New York. Prof. Gluck has challenged my ideas of history and Japan's in particular, while demanding rigorous research efforts as well as a grasp of social and critical theory. Prof. Harry Harootunian has also had tremendous influence on my conceiving of history and theory and has been a staunch supporter of my research efforts. It is because of Prof. Harootunian's recommendation that I have had the great privilege to be advised by Waseda University's Prof. Umemori Naoyuki while a guest researcher here. Prof. Umemori was also a student of Prof. Harootunian's while they were at the University of Chicago. I am so grateful that Prof. Harootunian made the introduction on my behalf, because my current research has benefited from Prof. Umemori's influence.

Although I was interested in pursuing Pan-Asian ideology and Pan Asianist thinkers such as Kita Ikki when I first entered Columbia four years ago, my research topic shifted dramatically. My current project's engagement of Japanese modernist artists and the pre-World War II art world suits my early exposure to the arts. After spending my first summer exploring the archives at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, I became interested in the experiences and works of Japanese artists who sojourned in the United States prior to the war. I realized that this rich story that incorporates not only artists and their works, but also contained social, cultural, and national implications had yet to receive the attention it deserves.

Whereas those Japanese artists like Foujita Tsuguharu who pursued art in Paris have received much scholarly and curatorial attention, the lively community of artists active in the United States has received little attention by U.S. scholars. These artists formed a diverse group; they were from all over Japan and were not only Tokyo elite. Their works reflected their diverse backgrounds. For example, painters such as Ishigaki Eitarô who was active in California as well as New York became involved with socialist groups after making the acquaintance of Katayama Sen in San Francisco. Ishigaki eventually served to establish the socialist John Reed Club in New York, whose members included Mexican muralists Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco. Painter Shimizu Toshi moved to the United States after failing the Japanese military academy's entrance exam. He became a painter known for his depictions of daily life and the city. When he returned to Japan in the 1930s, he joined the military's war effort as an illustrator traveling throughout China and Southeast Asia.

Photographers also figure prominently in my research. Miyatake Tôyô was originally from Shikoku, but moved to Los Angeles where he had a successful photographic studio. After receiving instruction from the well-known American photographer, Edward Weston, he became known for his modernist photographs. Nakayama Iwata, one of the founders of the influential Japanese modernist photography magazine from the early 1930s, Kôga, also spent seven formative years working in New York. Fukuhara Shinzô, founder of Shiseido Cosmetics and an influential pictorialist photographer in Japan, also lived in New York and attended Columbia University, where he was most likely exposed to American artist, Alfred Stieglitz's influential art gallery, 291.

My research hopes to unveil what strategies these artists engaged in order to participate in the American art scene. At the time they lived in the United States, anti-immigration fervor and racism posed significant social problems for Japanese living there. I hope to explore how this might have influenced their work and how those experiences might have informed the Japanese art community after their return. Most of these artists hoped to participate in "cosmopolitan" artist environments, where a spirit of internationalism subsumed national identity. In many cases, my research has revealed that national identity was in fact reinforced within these so-called cosmopolitan communities.

My primary research and quest for materials to support my project at Waseda started in September, 2008. Columbia colleagues who had also conducted research at Waseda informed me that Waseda's library facilities were the best in Tokyo – and I have not been disappointed. I am often pleasantly surprised to find almost all the materials I have needed in the Waseda library. Since being in Tokyo, I have also been able to visit archival sources such as the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, where I have found many different sources on photography from the period that I am studying. Although my research process has just begun in Tokyo, I have already discovered many treasures that support my project. .

I am also attending Prof. Umemori's weekly graduate seminars in the Political Science and Economics department. It has been fascinating to hear what my Waseda colleagues are working on in their own research. Prof. Umemori has provided invaluable commentary on my own project and I benefit from hearing his guidance of theirs. He also provides a social and political context for the period, giving me a deeper understanding of the broader scope of my topic. He has also facilitated my participation in a presentation for the Media and Communications department in November, where I received very helpful feedback and suggestions. My stay at Waseda has been a crucial stage in my project's completion. It has been such a privilege to work here!

With Prof.Umemori　　　　　　　　　