Cultural migrants from Japan : youth, media, and migration in New York and London

In recent years, a large number of young Japanese have been migrating to New York and London for the purpose of engaging in cultural production in areas such as dance, fashion, DJing, film, and pop arts in the hope of 'making it' as artists. In the past, this kind of cultural migration was restricted to relatively small, elite groups, such as American artists in Paris in the 1920's, but Cultural Migrants from Japan looks at the phenomenon of tens of thousands of ordinary, middle-class Japanese youths who are moving to these cities for cultural purposes, and it questions how this shift in cultural migration can be explained. Following Appadurai's theory of the relation between electronic media and mass migration, and using ethnographies of twenty-two young migrants over a five year period, Fujita examines how television, film, and the internet influence this mobility. She challenges emerging orthodoxies in the general discussion of transnationalism, demonstrating the disjunction migrants experience between the pre-existing expectations created by media exposure, and the reality of creating and living as a 'transnational' artist participating in a global community. Intersecting long-term, multi-sited ethnography with emerging transnational and globalization theory, Cultural Migrants from Japan is a timely look at the emerging shift in concepts of national identity and migration. Divided into eight chapters, Thinking History, Fighting Evil engages with timely issues such as the moral legacies of the civil rights era, identity politics movements, the representation of the Holocaust in American life, the rise of victim politics on the neoconservative right, the instrumentalization of anti-American and anti-Semitic discourses, the trans-Atlantic rift between Europe and the United States, and the war on terror. While the book focuses on the post-9/11 security environment, it also explores the history of negative exceptionalism in U.S. history and politics, tracing back Manichean conceptions of good and evil to the foundation of the early colonies This accessible study critiques the rise of a new exceptionalism: a victim-centered nationalism promoted by American conservatives since the 1980s, borrowing imagery and vocabulary from the civil rights era and political correctness movements of the left. Thinking History, Fighting Evil explores the instrumentalization of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism in the service of U.S. foreign policy, paying attention to how conservatives approach 'far enemies' (Islamism), 'near enemies' (Europe and Latin America), and the 'enemies within' (the domestic left) Introduction: Media, migration, and multi-sited ethnography -- The "imagined West" in Japan -- Encountering "race" and ethnic relations -- Gendered Japaneseness : negotiating images of "submissive" and "easy" women -- Local Japanese communities -- Transnational media, mobility, and imagining "home"--Conclusion: National identity and transnationalism -- Appendix 1: Notes on methodology -- Appendix 2: Profiles of respondents Cultural Migrants from Japan examines how television, film, and the internet influences the mobility of young, middle-class Japanese youths who migrate to New York and London in order to 'make it' as artists. Intersecting long-term, multi-sited ethnography with emerging transnational and globalization theory, this book is a timely look at the emerging shift in concepts of national identity and migration. Introduction: Media, migration, and multi-sited ethnography The "imagined West" in Japan Encountering "race" and ethnic relations Gendered Japaneseness : negotiating images of "submissive" and "easy" women Local Japanese communities Transnational media, mobility, and imagining "home" Conclusion: National identity and transnationalism Appendix 1: Notes on methodology Appendix 2: Profiles of respondents.