The contact that immigrants maintained with their homeland is one of the important determinants of the immigrant culture. However, this factor has been rarely emphasized in the studies on immigrant cultures as well as on Japanese Americans. The studies on immigrant cultures tended to focus on the interplay of cultural elements originating from the host society and those the immigrants bring from their home, while the studies on Japanese Americans tended to emphasize a process of Japanese American's Americanization, acculturation, and their upward movement toward the America's middle class through the successive generations. This study attempts to focus on the element undervalued in these past studies —a tie between immigrants and their home culture —to gain new insights into the Japanese American musical culture in pre-World War II southern California.
The Japanese immigrants in pre-World War II southern California maintained close contact with their home culture through the successive waves of touring Japanese artists from Japan who performed and/or taught their musical arts in the United States. This study views these Japanese performance artists as “cultural ambassadors, ” and examines their roles and influences in the immigrant community.
There were two major forces that attracted a large number of touring Japanese artists to the United States. One was the Japanese artists' own ambitions to achieve some success outside Japan. The other was the Japanese immigrants' strong attachment and longing for their home country. Coming from nationalist Japan of the Meiji period (1868-1912) and encountering racism and cultural conflict in the foreign country, the Japanese immigrants reinforced their Japanese identity and looked toward Japan as their authentic cultural model.
In this pro-Japan immigrant community, the touring Japanese artists played the following three major roles to affect the immigrant musical culture:
1) The role as a provider of contemporary Japanese musical arts and entertainment.
Through the overseas performances by the Japanese artists, Japanese immigrants were able to enjoy the musical arts and entertainment that were popular in Japan at that time, and thus, they could maintain an intimate cultural tie with “contemporary” Japan.
2) The role as a teacher and promoter of Japanese performance arts.
Some of the Japanese artists not only performed, but also taught their arts to the Japanese immigrants, and sometimes even organized the local performance groups within the immigrant community. There were artists who were invited from Japan as instructors for the immigrant-based performance groups. The Japanese artists, thus, greatly contributed to the development of Japanese performance arts among the immigrants, and enhanced Japanese culture within the immigrant community.
3) The role as a catalyst for the immigrants' acceptance of western musical culture.
Although the majority of the Japanese immigrants were yet unfamiliar with western art music, they paid a great deal of attention to the Japanese professionals of western art music who performed in the United States, because the immigrants highly regarded those artists as the Japanese elites successfully assimilated into western culture. Through these Japanese professionals, the immigrants gained access to western musical culture in the United States, and also raised their self-confidence and pride as Japanese.