Japanese Prostitutes in the North American West, 1887-1920

Kazuhiro Oharazeki's book recounts the previously untold story of Japanese immigrants who left Japan for the United States and Canada to work as prostitutes. It complicates the more familiar story of Japanese American history, which has long focused on Japanese men who immigrated and set up small businesses or farms, saved up money to purchase homes, later sent for their wives, had Nisei children, and eventually established Japanese American communities. By contrast, Oharazeki focuses on Japanese women who, at the turn of the century, worked apart from—and were in some cases even despised by—the Japanese immigrant community. Using a transnational approach, Oharazeki has mined newspapers, records of Protestant mission homes, police reports, marriage records, divorce court files, census records, and probate files of former prostitutes to track the elusive movements and experiences of Japanese sex workers across and between Japan and North America. Oharazeki is to be commended for his tenacity in searching for clues and unifying fragmentary information, since these workers existed on the margins of society, left few written accounts of their lives, and moved often to avoid prosecution

Census · Genealogy · Immigration · Newspaper · Political science · Population · Probate · Sociology · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Demography · Gender Studies · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

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