Holy Prayers in a Horse's Ear: A Japanese American Memoir (Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the Americas (MELA))

Originally published in 1932, Kathleen Tamagawa's pioneering Asian American memoir is a sensitive and thoughtful look at the personal and social complexities of growing up racially mixed during the early twentieth century. Born in 1893 to an Irish American mother and a Japanese father and raised in Chicago and Japan, Tamagawa reflects on the difficulty she experienced fitting into either parent's native culture. She describes how, in America, her every personal quirk and quality was seen as quintessentially Japanese and how she was met unpredictably with admiration or fear—perceived as a “Japanese doll” or “the yellow menace.” When her family later moved to Japan, she was viewed there as a “Yankee,” and remained an outsider in that country as well. As an adult she came back to the United States as an American diplomat's wife, but had trouble feeling at home in any place. This edition, which also includes Tamagawa's recently rediscovered short story, “A Fit in Japan,” and a critical introduction, will challenge readers to reconsider how complex ethnic identities are negotiated and how feelings of alienation limit human identification in any society. In Holy Prayers in a Horse's Ear , Kathleen Tamagawa, born in 1893 in Chicago to an Irish-American mother and a Japanese father, reflects on race as "belonging" or fitting in to a culture and chronicles her inability to ever feel 'at home' in any place as a result of her mixed heritage. She deals very directly and fiercely with her Chicago childhood being classified as "the Japanese doll" who never in fact was culturally Japanesea "Jap who talked with a Chicago brogue" as her brother-in-law puts it. In America, her ever personal quirk and quality is seen as quintessentially Japanese, and nonexistent Japanese qualities are imposed on her, and despite being tall, she is seen as "the little Japanese lady". She was a young adult in a period when she never knew whether she would meet admiration or fear of the Japanese, whether she herself would be perceived as "the Japanese doll" or "the yellow menace". Later in life, as a diplomat's wife, she became enough of an unknown quantity that people would frankly express their racial prejudices in front of her, not realizing she was half Japanese. This edition, which also includes Tamagawa's recently rediscovered short story, "A Fit in Japan," and a critical introduction, will challenge readers to reconsider how complex ethnic identities are negotiated and how feelings of alienation limit human identification in any society. Holy Prayers In A Horse's Ear -- A Fit In Japan. Kathleen Tamagawa ; Edited And With Introduction By Greg Robinson And Elena Tajima Creef ; With Shirley Geok-lin Lim And Floyd Cheung. Includes Bibliographical References (p. Xxxii-xxxiv). Contents......Page 5 Acknowledgments......Page 7 Chronology......Page 9 Introduction......Page 11 Holy Prayers in a Horse’s Ear......Page 35 A Fit in Japan......Page 197 Explanatory Notes......Page 207 About the Editors......Page 217