Transpacific rehabilitations: Yamaguchi Yoshiko’s 1950 Sacramento concert and post-incarceration Japanese American cultural memory

Abstract

Focusing on a recently discovered collection of private recordings of Japanese singers in concert in Sacramento, California, in 1950, this article examines the audio record of the performance by Yamaguchi Yoshiko, previously known as Ri Kōran (Li Xianglan), as an instance of the emergence of new maritime routes of circulation for popular music in the early Cold War period. In the light of the supposed need for both Yamaguchi and her audience of Japanese Americans to seek ‘rehabilitation’ for their wartime activities, including incarceration of the latter in internment camps, the article traces a complex process of negotiation between performer and audience as each seeks to manage the tensions and contradictions of their shifting historical positions. The article also explores other recordings from the same collection, including those by Misora Hibari, Hattori Ryōichi, Watanabe Hamako, Kouta Katsutarō and the Akireta Boys, and provides an account of who made the recordings and how they were unearthed in 2008.