The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 11 (2000)

Editor’s Introduction

The major theme of this issue originated in a symposium entitled“Will the twenty-ﬁrst century become another American century?”,
held at our annual meeting in June of 1998 at Chiba University. In theﬁnal phase of the conference, I as the coordinator asked each panelist
if he or she thought that the twenty-ﬁrst century would belong toAmerica. Jun Sasaki of the Institute for International Trade and Investment talked about NAFTA, showing some skepticism regarding
the full blooming of US free trade in the near future. Misako Koike ofTohoku University said that she wanted to watch carefully to see if in
future the American theatrical world would be able to respond to themuch-discussed loss of civic consciousness. Taizo Yakushiji of Keio
University predicted that since China has the capacity to utilize her“soft” power, the twenty-ﬁrst century may belong to her. ToshihikoHayashi of Osaka University spoke of his appreciation of the effort
involved in building the new European Union system out of past
hatred and struggles, and speculated that European countries may risein the future to a hegemonic position thanks to their abilities stemmingfrom past experiences of colonial management. Hideki Kan of Kyushu
University predicted that American liberalism would become a global
standard, although not without substantial expression of domestic
opposition. No one prophesied the unconditional continuance ofAmerican hegemony in the coming century. I am not sure if these panelists would answer in the same way if I asked the same question now,
because the U.S. economic performance is currently superb, at least at
the macro-economic level. At the same time, I feel almost certain thatmost of the panelists, as well as readers of the Journal, would agree
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that the United States will maintain her hegemonic status in world politics and the world economy at least during the ﬁrst quarter of thecoming century.
There are many different opinions in Japan regarding the present
military, political and economic status of the United States in theworld. Some Japanese intellectuals are worried about another round ofcultural Americanization if globalization continues at its current tremendous speed under the leadership of transnational corporations andbig ﬁnance capital rooted in America. Some would even argue that theproliferation of a pure market economy may jeopardize the distribution of income and may lead to the dissolution of the middle class inAmerica. For nations outside the United States, cultural Americanization may be the least desirable trend, except for the penetration of“market fundamentalism.”
In this issue, ﬁve articles are dedicated to the main theme of theAmerican century. In his “Reexamining the ‘American Century,’”
Hideyo Naganuma carefully investigates the relative economic
strength of the US, examining GNP, foreign trade, industrial production, etc., as well as military strength, and concludes that the end ofWorld War II was the real start of American hegemony and theAmerican century, or, more appropriately, “America’s half-century.”
Hiroshi Matsushita takes up recent regional integration efforts, especially MERCOSUR (Mercado Comun del Sur, or the Common Marketof the South) and NAFTA (the North American Free TradeAgreement) in “The First Integrated Wave of Regionalism andDemocratization in the Americas: A Comparison of NAFTA andMERCOSUR.” Undoubtedly, the enlargement of regional integration
has been one of the stabilizing forces of American political economy.
There is a difference between the two organizations, as NAFTA is afree trade agreement and MERCOSUR a kind of customs union,
Matsushita argues, and while the former promoted the procedural
aspects of democracy in Mexico, the latter played the role of buffer
against the revival of some military regimes in participating countries.
In “Cold War Perspectives on U.S. Commitment in Vietnam,”
Hiroshi Matsuoka deals with the preparatory phase of the Vietnam
war, including the early Kennedy period. Behind each intensiﬁcationof political and military intervention in South Vietnam, he ﬁnds theCold War-induced motive of preventing the worldwide Communist
intrusion. This must have been one of the most important driving

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3forces of U.S. diplomacy in Asia. Naoko Sugiyama delves into thescholarship of motherhood in “Postmodern Motherhood and Ethnicity:
Maternal Discourse in Late Twentieth Century American Literature.”
She analyzes the discourse of motherhood in ethnic minority writers
such as Toni Morrison, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Maxine HongKingston, showing how they illuminate postmodern reality and how it
is possible to view the future in alternative ways. Misako Koike
explores ﬁrst how the presence of corporate culture affected New Yorktheaters, and then ﬁnds some positive responses to that culture in
recent plays by several playwrights, in “Challenges and Hopes for
American Theatre in the Twenty-ﬁrst Century.” She expects that
American theater will overcome political hazards and acquire deeper
and broader dimensions in the coming century.
Writing outside the special theme of this issue, Yujin Yaguchi
investigates a photograph taken on the island of Hokkaido during theinitial Japanese colonization period of the nineteenth century in “Remembering a More Layered Past in Hokkaido: Americans, Japanese,and the Ainu.” He suggests the need for a reconceptualization of thehistory of U.S.-Japan relations, integrating cultural encounters among
Americans, Japanese, and the Ainu. Gayle K. Sato compares two classic literary works, Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg Ohio and Toshio
Mori’s Yokohama, California in “(Self) Indulgent Listening: Reading
Cultural Difference in Yokohama, California.” She is particularly
concerned with the discourse and practice of amae, or self-indulgent
dependency, in Japanese nisei communities before World War II.
Chitose Sato investigates the experiences of female workers in the aircraft industry in southern California during World War II, as well as
employers’ attitudes towards those workers. She points out that although most of the women workers who were added to the workforce
during the war left their jobs after the war years, the wartime reorganization of work processes and the creation of new labor-management
policies for women survived thereafter. Masami Usui’s “Creating aFeminist Transnational Drama: Oyako-Shinju (Parent-Child Suicide)in Velina Hasu Houston’s Kokoro (True Heart)” attempts to illustrate
the cultural transmission of this sad practice, which originated inJapan, into the context of the Japanese family in America, and to evaluate the true spirit and loneliness of Japanese female immigrants
through her reading of the drama. Finally, Atsushi Kusano contributes“The Political Inﬂuence of Homosexuals in the United States: Their4AKIMOTO

Pattern of Action and Sources of Power,” in which he analyzes thesocial and political aspects of homosexual Americans and the gayrights movements in America, focusing on their achievements in federal and local government as well as in corporations. He stresses theorganizational strengths of the movement.
The publication of the Journal is supported in part by a grant-in-aid
for the Publication of Scientiﬁc Research Results from the Japan
Society for the Promotion of Science, for which we are deeply grateful. We welcome active responses from our readers and hope they will
be encouraged to submit their work to future issues, so that the publication will continue to be an important medium for American Studies
across both disciplinary and national boundaries.
Eiichi Akimoto
Editor

For those who wish to submit a manuscript to the Japanese
Journal of American Studies:
1. Contributors must be dues-paying members of the JAAS.
2. Contributors are expected to observe our time schedule.
They must ﬁrst submit the title and abstract (about 300words) by mid-January. We are unable to accept the manuscript without this procedure.
3. The ﬁnal manuscript (maximum 7000 words includingnotes) is due early May. The editorial committee will inform each contributor of the result of the selection processby the end of June. If accepted, the paper will be publishedin June the following year.
4. The fall issue of the JAAS Newsletter will carry “call forpapers” announcement with exact deadlines and special
theme for the forthcoming issue.
5. The JAAS will accept inquiries through email:jaas-exe@ ab.inbox.ne.jp