Japanese Americans and generational tension: a case of the ethnic press the Utah Nippoo during World War II

Abstract

Abstract The present study examines the relationship between language and generation among Japanese Americans during World War II by focusing on an example of the rarely studied ethnic press called the Utah Nippoo (“Utah Daily News”). In the difficult period of the war between the United States and Japan, Japanese Americans in Utah were generally successful in dealing with the gap between the first generation’s Japanese nationalism and the second generation’s American citizenship. The Utah Nippoo honored both a pro-Japan stance and a pro-American stance by allowing editorial freedom for each language section, yet maintaining cohesion and keeping the generations together. Data explicated in this study, which focuses on institutional talk, suggests that the linguistic gap between the Japanese-dominant first generation and the English-dominant second generation does not necessarily lead to generational tension if appropriate measures such as the use of linguistic politeness strategies are considered. This study will contribute to our understanding of the relationship between a relatively understudied language such as Japanese and acculturation among immigrants in the United States, with our focus on linguistic politeness.