Abstract

In December 1871, the Iwakura Mission was sent by the Meiji government to the US and Europe. One of the aims of the mission was the observation of foreign practices and technologies. If Japan wanted to suppress the Unequal Treaties and be considered a “first rank nation”, it had to adopt the “civilized” manners and rules of North America and Europe (Nish, 1998). Five Japanese girls, aged six to sixteen accompanied the Mission to be educated in the US for a ten-year period. Their presence didn’t go unnoticed by the American Press, and the articles reporting on their stay provided an opportunity to bring up broader themes on Japanese women and Japan. The five girls were the first women to officially represent Japan in the US. Identified by the American media as “Japanese Princesses”, their reception was confronted with the American image and understanding of Japan. This article analyses the representations of the five girls, and of Japanese women in general, in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune during the two months that the Iwakura Mission travelled eastward from San Francisco to Washington, via Chicago. I identify and analyse the recurring tropes: the girls’ social position, the craze they created among the Americans, their beauty, the exoticism of their kimono, the education they will receive in America. The newspapers’ representation of the girls are full of inaccuracies and mistakes, myths and exoticism. Nonetheless, the representations are overwhelmingly positive and the girls – as well as the whole of the Mission’s members – are warmly welcomed by the American press.

Highlights

  • The Iwakura Mission was sent by the Meiji government, reaching first America in December 1871 before continuing to Europe in August 1872

  • This paper presents the current results of an ongoing research that aims to examine how Japanese women in general, and the five girls of the Iwakura mission in particular, were represented in the American newspapers in the first decades of the Meiji period, with a specific focus on the period of the girls’ stay (1872-1882)

  • The two newspapers considered for this article, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune, despite ideological divergences, print and spread a similar discourse of the Embassy and the five Japanese girls

Read more

Summary

Introduction

The Iwakura Mission was sent by the Meiji government, reaching first America in December 1871 before continuing to Europe in August 1872. There was a total of 57 articles mentioning the Iwakura Mission; 37 for the San Francisco Chronicle and 20 for the Chicago Tribune.

Results
Conclusion
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call