Claiming the oriental gateway: prewar Seattle and Japanese America

Ina"Claiming the Oriental Gateway," Shelley Sang-Hee Lee explores the various intersections of urbanization, ethnic identity, and internationalism in the experience of Japanese Americans in early twentieth-century Seattle. She examines the development and self-image of the city by documenting how U.S. expansion, Asian trans-Pacific migration, and internationalism were manifested locallyOCoand how these forces affected residentsOCO relationships with one another and their surroundings.
Lee details the significant role Japanese AmericansOCoboth immigrants and U.S. born citizensOCoplayed in the social and civic life of the city as a means of becoming American. Seattle embraced the idea of cosmopolitanism and boosted its role as a cultural and commercial Gateway to the Orient at the same time as it limited the ways in which Asian Americans could participate in the public schools, local art production, civic celebrations, and sports. She also looks at how Japan encouraged the notion of the gateway in its participation in the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition and International Potlach.
"Claiming the Oriental Gatewaya"thus offers an illuminating study of the Pacific Era and trans-Pacific relations in the first four decades of the twentieth century.