Airborne Dreams : “Nisei” Stewardesses and Pan American World Airways

An account of Pan Ams Nisei stewardess program (1955–1972), through which the airline hired Japanese American (and later other Asian and Asian American) stewardesses, ostensibly for their Asian-language skills. In 1955 Pan American World Airways began recruiting Japanese American women to work as stewardesses on its Tokyo-bound flights and eventually its round-the-world flights as well. Based in Honolulu, these women were informally known as Pan Am's "Nisei"osecond-generation Japanese Americansoeven though not all of them were Japanese American or second-generation. They were ostensibly hired for their Japanese-language skills, but few spoke Japanese fluently. This absorbing account of Pan Am's "Nisei" stewardess program suggests that the Japanese American (and later other Asian and Asian American) stewardesses were meant to enhance the airline's image of exotic cosmopolitanism and worldliness. As its corporate archives demonstrate, Pan Am marketed itself as an iconic American company pioneering new frontiers of race, language, and culture. Christine R. Yano juxtaposes the airline's strategies and practices with the recollections of former "Nisei" flight attendants. In interviews with the author, these women proudly recall their experiences as young women who left home to travel the globe with Pan American World Airways, forging their own cosmopolitan identities in the process. Airborne Dreams is the story of an unusual personnel programme implemented by an American corporation intent on expanding and dominating the nascent market for international air travel. That program reflected the Jet Age dreams of global mobility that excited post-war Americans, as well as the inequalities of gender, class, race, and ethnicity that constrained many of them Introduction: The Pan Am Skies As Frontier Of Jet-age Mobility -- 1955: Postwar America, Things Japanese, And One-world Tourism -- The World's Most Experienced Airline: Pan Am As Global, National, And Personal Icon -- Nisei Stewardesses: Dreams Of Pan American's Girl-next-door Frontier -- Airborne Class Act: Service And Prestige As Racialized Spectacle -- Becoming Pan Am: Bodies, Emotions, Subjectivity -- Frontier Dreams: Race, Gender, Class, Cosmopolitan Mobilities. Christine Yano. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [205]-219) And Index. An account of Pan Am s Nisei stewardess program (1955-1972), through which the airline hired Japanese American (and later other Asian and Asian American) stewardesses, ostensibly for their Asian-language skills