布拉德福德·史密斯：一個美國人到日本（和返回）
布拉德福德·史密斯：
一個美國人到日本（和返回）——第 1 部分
布拉德福德史密斯（Toge Fujihira 莊園提供）
二戰期間日裔美國人的外部捍衛者，尤其是那些掌握權力的人，很少見。然而，日裔一代和日裔二代確實從一群「日本老手」那裡得到了各種形式的幫助，這些人是戰前在日本生活並熟悉日本文化的美國白人。其中包括新教傳教士蓋倫·費舍爾、天主教牧師利奧波德·蒂貝薩爾、海軍特工肯尼思·林格爾、外交官威廉·卡斯爾以及（在他從日本的監禁中獲釋後）前美國大使約瑟夫·格魯等形形色色的人物。
儘管他們對戰前日本的外交政策和中國戰爭的態度截然不同，但他們對日本和在那裡結交的朋友的感情激勵他們在珍珠港事件後幫助日裔美國人。費雪在北加州領導了一個公平競爭委員會，發起反對大規模搬遷的運動。1942 年 1 月，林格爾向海軍情報局提交了一份報告，支持日裔美國人的忠誠，並反對排斥。1942 年春，蒂貝薩神父公開作證支持日裔二代的忠誠，並參觀了難民營並主持了聖禮。在大規模搬遷後，卡斯爾敦促大學向日裔二代學生提供援助。
「日本老手」中特別重要的成員是布拉德福德·史密斯。他是新英格蘭人，1930年代在日本生活了五年，並以撰寫有關日本人的文學作品而聞名。身為戰情局「日本科」的負責人，他是負責招募日本人援助抗日的工作人員。
戰時的服役使他公開支持日裔美國人的權利，戰後，在古根漢基金會兩年獎學金的幫助下，他致力於撰寫一部日裔美國人的通俗歷史。他努力的成果是 1948 年出版的《來自日本的美國人》一書，也是最早認真研究日裔美國人歷史的書之一。
威廉·布拉德福德·史密斯(William Bradford Smith) 1909 年5 月13 日出生於馬薩諸塞州北亞當斯，是威廉·沃利斯(William Wallis) 和約瑟芬(卡迪)·史密斯(Josephine (Cady) Smith) 的兒子。他是清教徒父親威廉·布拉德福德的後裔。在麻省理工學院就讀本科生後，他轉學到哥倫比亞大學，並於 1930 年獲得學士學位並擔任演講者。畢業後他留在哥倫比亞大學，並於次年獲得碩士學位。
由於無法在美國找到工作，他於 1931 年在日本基督教大學立教大學（又稱聖保羅大學）找到了一份工作。就在前往日本之前，他與哥倫比亞大學的研究生瑪麗安·柯林斯結婚。
儘管史密斯後來承認，當他到達日本時，他實際上對日本一無所知，但他還是全心投入探索日本社會。史密斯和他的妻子在東京的頭幾個月住在日本人的家裡，他後來聲稱已經學會了足夠的日語「可以四處走動」。此後，他們在池袋買了一棟房子，並成為東京外國殖民地的一部分。他們在家中舉辦舞會並參加文學俱樂部。他們的兒子艾倫森史密斯 (Alanson Smith) 1933 年出生於東京。
作為立教大學的英語教授，史密斯透過修改課程以更好地吸引學生的興趣來與學生建立聯繫。同時，他為日本主流讀者製作了一本新的英美文學手冊。該書於 1935 年在東京出版。1934 年，史密斯受邀擔任帝大（東京帝國大學）英語作文講師，這標誌著他的新聲譽。
即使在與日本人交往時，史密斯也向西方人展示了自己是日本社會專家，並為《Esquire》、 《Scribner’s》、《週六晚報 》和《Coronet》等出版物撰寫了有關日本的文章。他為《紐約先驅論壇報》評論了大量有關日本的書籍。
1932年6月，他在《先驅論壇報》週日版上發表了一篇關於日本文學的長文（由日裔一代藝術家田茂忠三繪製）。史密斯在文章中讚揚了說英語、閱讀美國文學並對現代文化感興趣的一代日本年輕人的崛起。
史密斯對日本人的深切同情反映在他的第一本書、1936 年的小說《到山上》。這部小說由出版商 Bobbs-Merrill 出版，講述了 Kimi-Chan 的故事，Kimi-Chan 是一名無辜的 15 歲女孩，為了避免挨餓，被農民家庭賣淫。在吉原的一家妓院安頓下來後，她遇到了山野先生，一位粗俗的暴發戶商人，靠著賣石油發了大財。他們發生了性關係，她對他產生了依戀。然而，在他買下她作為情婦之前，她被一名基督教軍官救了出來，並釋放了她並帶她在他的房子裡體面地生活。在那裡，Kimi-Chan 遇見並愛上了西化的大學生 Shigeo，而他原來是富商的兒子。兩個有情人無法結婚，陷入困境，他們的愛情也以悲傷告終。 《上山》描繪了當代日本的生活場景，包括學生暴動、年輕士兵前往日本佔領的滿洲國，以及跨越階級界線的社會關係。
這本書得到了廣泛的宣傳，並登上了《洛杉磯時報》暢銷書排行榜。批評反應很強烈，而且大多是正面的。年輕的阿爾弗雷德·卡津（Alfred Kazin）在《紐約時報》上評論這本書時，詼諧地將其稱為「禮儀悲劇」。雖然不確定這個愛情故事本身的質量，但卡津稱讚作者至少讓它看起來似乎可信，並讚賞地指出“關於這個故事，他安排了一些當代日本生活的精明畫面。”
約翰·藤井在《羅風新報》上撰文反駁說，這本書也許除了作為日本地理指南的有用性之外，沒有什麼值得推薦的：“情節乏味，人物描繪得太粗略，風格有點緩慢”為現代讀者。”
1936年，史密斯回到美國，並在哥倫比亞大學任教英語。1940年，他轉到佛蒙特州的本寧頓學院。即使在教課的同時，他也繼續從事文學活動（他聲稱這些活動佔了他收入的近一半）。
他的第二部小說《This Solid Flesh》於 1937 年出版，主要講述了西化的日本男人正雄和美國白人婦女瑪格麗特之間的婚姻。評論家們尊重地談論了它對日本社會和異族婚姻問題的描繪，儘管有些人認為它的人物是一維的。（美國國會圖書館的著名學者/行政人員坂西鹽雄在《華盛頓郵報》上對日本女性的形象尖酸刻薄地評論道：「對於那些對東方稍有了解的人來說，她們只是典型的人，而不是個人。」）
《日報》稱讚作者試圖戲劇化這對夫婦去美國留學的哈帕孩子露絲所面臨的衝突。羅伊·武野（Roy Takeno）在《Kashu Mainichi》上撰文表示，他對露絲「在危機中無法明顯認同美國人或日本人」感到好奇。《 Nichi Bei》的評論家「UP」稱這部小說「是一個深刻且非常人性化的故事，講述了文化和經濟動盪時代的苦難生活」。
史密斯的第三部小說《美國探索》 （American Quest ，1938）是一部普雷斯頓·斯特奇斯式的小說，講述了一位名叫奎斯特（明白嗎？）的不滿的高管決定在高速公路上閒逛，看看美國，與他的日本故事相比，它引起的關注要少得多。
1941 年底珍珠港事件和太平洋戰爭爆發後，史密斯受邀擔任日本問題專家的公開角色。他以一系列有關「我們的敵人——日本」的演講以及一系列雜誌文章作為回應。他的《致日本人民的信》於 1942 年 2 月發表在《Kiwanis》雜誌上，隨後摘錄在《讀者文摘》中，表達了他的理解，即普通日本人並不想要戰爭，但指出戰爭已經到來，並預言戰爭將會發生。這是日本歷史上最具破壞性的衝突，因為強大的美國人民將尋求徹底的勝利。「我們有一些值得奮鬥的東西；你什麼都沒有。
史密斯隨後在 1942 年初發表在《Amerasia》雜誌上的兩篇文章。雖然它們聲稱是客觀研究，但實際上是宣傳活動。1942 年 3 月出版的《日本思想》“The Mind of Japan,”聲稱，日本的性格可以簡化為“神道、鼓道和武士道”，即崇拜天皇和高於個人權利的武士忠誠準則。
「日本賴以生存的象徵是一種從個人靈魂、思想和命運角度思考的文化的象徵。人作為人的尊嚴，我們曾經為之奮鬥並再次奮鬥的個人自由，在日本並不存在。”
史密斯的文章得到了廣泛的公眾曝光，並被加州共和黨眾議員卡爾欣肖（大規模排斥日裔美國人的直言不諱的支持者）在《國會記錄》中全文轉載。
不久之後，史密斯發表了第二篇文章《日本：美女與野獸》“Japan: Beauty and Beast.” 。在其中，他試圖解釋看似熱愛美麗的普通日本人如何做出「南京大強姦」等野蠻行徑。他用構成日本人「國民性」的不同價值觀來解決這個明顯的矛盾。他堅持認為，這些價值包括不受控制的性行為、對人類生命的漠視以及缺乏基於崇高道德和精神原則的宗教。
Smith followed this with a pair of articles that appeared in Amerasia magazine during early 1942. While they purported to be objective studies, they were in fact exercises in propaganda. “The Mind of Japan,” which appeared in March 1942, claimed that the Japanese character was reducible to “Shinto, Kodo, and Bushido,” that is, to Emperor worship and a samurai code of loyalty that outweighed the rights of the individual.
“The symbols by which Japan lives are the symbols of a culture which has ever thought in terms of the individual soul and mind and destiny. The dignity of man as man, the personal freedoms for which we have fought and are fighting again have no existence in Japan.”
Smith’s article received widespread public exposure, and was reprinted in full in the Congressional Record by California Republican Rep. Carl Hinshaw (an outspoken proponent of mass exclusion of Japanese Americans).
Shortly after, Smith published a second article, “Japan: Beauty and Beast.” In it, he sought to explain how ordinary Japanese people, who seemed to love beauty, could commit barbarous acts such as the “Rape of Nanking.” He resolved this apparent contradiction in terms of the different values that made up the “national character” of the Japanese. Among these values, he insisted, were uncontrolled sexuality, disregard for human life, and the absence of a religion based upon high ethical and spiritual principles.
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布拉德福德·史密斯：一個美國人到日本（和返回）——第 2 部分
1942 年 2 月，布拉德福德·史密斯被未來的美國參議員艾倫·克蘭斯頓招募到戰爭資訊辦公室（當時稱為事實與數位辦公室）工作。同年 4 月，他辭去了在本寧頓的教學職位，搬到華盛頓特區，在克蘭斯頓領導的 OWI 外語部任職。史密斯被指派領導 OWI 的“日本部門”，以符合他自己在日本問題上的專業知識。在那裡，他致力於確保移民和外語群體的忠誠。
正如他倖存的 OWI 信件所示，史密斯的大部分任務涉及日裔美國人。這對他來說是新鮮事。第二次世界大戰之前，他幾乎沒有見過任何日裔美國人。然而，正如史密斯十年前就發現了日本社會一樣，他現在也致力於了解美國的日經歷史和文化。1942 年 2 月，當他還在本寧頓時，他在《羅夫新報》上貼了一張佈告，宣布他打算寫一篇關於日裔二代的文章，並詢問有關他們的待遇的信息。
OWI 的工作使史密斯能夠與日本社區的個人和成員定期接觸。他曾與日裔一代和日裔二代作家合作過，如佐佐木宗慶庵、柳永千俊、大神木直直和約翰·M·槙。1944 年，編年史家瑪麗·奧山·米特維爾 (Mary Oyama Mittwer) 向《心山哨兵報》報道稱，OWI 工作人員柳永千俊(Chitoshi Yanaga) 安排她與史密斯見面，她發現史密斯“年輕、聰明、英俊」。
史密斯在 OWI 的首要任務是媒體關係。史密斯對一誠和尼塞伊的一系列敵對故事很敏感，他聯繫了 WRA 領導人，並提議建立一個資訊計劃來反擊反尼塞伊的宣傳。1942 年11 月，他對他的上司、前WRA 主任米爾頓·艾森豪威爾(Milton Eisenhower) 說：「美國人民顯然對日本撤離的意義非常模糊。」「他們將拘留營與安置中心混為一談，將日本血統的美國人與‘日本人。’”
1942 年 9 月，史密斯聯繫了《紐約客》的編輯約翰·班布里奇，詢問他的雜誌是否有興趣就WRA 營地之一做一篇報道，他說：「[除非]美國公眾意識到大多數日本人在這些難民營都是美國公民，一旦戰爭結束，我們將很難解決該組織的計劃。”
其間，他也與《太平洋公民》雜誌編輯拉里·田尻交流了有關在夏威夷宣傳日清良好公民的信息。他與克蘭斯頓一起討論了以煽動叛亂罪為由關閉總部位於丹佛的日語報紙《Rockii Nippon 》 ，並將競爭對手《科羅拉多時報》轉變為政府控制的親民主機構，以便與難民營中說日語的人士進行溝通。最終，報紙的控制權仍掌握在私人手中，但其內容受到嚴密監視。
史密斯也透過公開聲明幫助日裔美國人。1942年12月，他參加了日裔美國民主委員會在紐約組織的勝利集會。在那裡，他駁斥了日裔美國人破壞珍珠港的謠言，並讚揚日裔美國人在襲擊期間在夏威夷的行為。
史密斯表示，他們用槍射擊日本飛機，將卡車改裝成救護車，將傷者送往醫院，並且是第一個為日裔美國醫生為傷者進行手術的傷者獻血的人。“與流行觀點和一些公開聲明相反，西海岸的日裔美國人為當局揭露日本間諜活動提供了寶貴的幫助。”
史密斯的演講被《太平洋公民》連載，標題為「自由團契」。史密斯預見到小阿瑟·施萊辛格將在六年後的冷戰自由主義宣言《生命中心》中提出論點，他堅持認為自由是一種戰鬥信念，比公民或種族的紐帶更強大。
1943 年秋，布拉德福德·史密斯 (Bradford Smith) 搬到了舊金山，擔任 OWI 日語和韓語部門的代理負責人。在那裡，他指導製作和分發反東京宣傳品，例如嘲笑日本領導人的廣播劇本。1943 年末，史密斯與蘭登·華納(Langdon Warner) 一起提出了一項計劃，從集中營招募日裔二代接受強化訓練，以便戰後在日本和遠東服役（該計劃因國務院的反對而失敗——國務院聲稱白人軍官不會與 日裔二代（二世）平等合作）。
後來史密斯被派往夏威夷檀香山，在那裡他建立並領導了 OWI 太平洋行動中心。作為負責人，他指導了抗日戰爭印刷和廣播材料的製作和發行，其中包括每日六小時的短波廣播。
就在史密斯為 OWI 工作時，他的第四部小說，即 1943 年的作品《武器是公平的》（The Arms are Fair）已經出版。該劇講述了日本大學生秋山忠雄被強徵入伍並被送往中國後，因與中國人的接觸而受到鼓舞，加入到自由一邊的故事。儘管一些評論家稱讚史密斯努力展現日本佔領者中的好人，但這部小說並沒有獲得太多的關注或成功。
《公平的武器》問世後，史密斯不再寫有關日本的文章。相反，在經歷了戰時經歷之後，史密斯決定致力於報道日裔美國人。
1945 年，當他還在檀香山的 OWI 工作時，他受委託為編輯 Louis Adamic 的美國移民通俗史系列撰寫一本關於日裔美國人的書（最初的標題是《他們來自日本》）。在夏威夷大學教授 Yukuo Uyehara 擔任評審的情況下，他舉辦了一場競賽，最高獎金為 100 美元，參賽者可以在他提議的研究中轉載有關日裔美國人在這些島嶼上的經歷的論文。
戰爭結束後，史密斯離開了 OWI。在兩年的古根漢獎學金的幫助下，他走遍了大陸和夏威夷，並訪問了日本社區。
他的第一篇關於日裔美國人的文章《種族集中實驗》發表在 1946 年 7 月 17 日的《遠東調查》（太平洋關係研究所期刊）上。史密斯在文中以世界軍人協會的最終解散為契機，回顧了戰時禁閉的歷史。他擺脫了以前因自己在政府工作而受到的限制，他直率地譴責大規模搬遷是“不必要和站不住腳的”，並將這項政策的嚴重責任歸咎於“職業種族主義者”和加州的農業利益集團，他們從剝奪土地中獲得了巨額利潤。他們的日本鄰居。
值得注意的是，史密斯指出，海軍情報官員長期以來一直培養社區線人，向他們通報日本間諜的行動，他們反對大規模遷移，但遭到了陸軍的否決。儘管史密斯對官方監禁對日本社區的影響表示遺憾，但他還是對加入公平競爭委員會或以其他方式幫助日裔美國人作為打擊不公正現象的決定性行動者的白人公民表示歡迎：
「撤離是對我們政府和人民道德基調的務實考驗……我們表現得相當好，但有趣的是，我們的正式機構未能根據自由的基本原則進行判斷和行動總的來說，民主、我們的非正式機構和我們的人民都做到了。”
除了大規模搬遷問題之外，史密斯也對日裔二代的戰後調整感興趣。他的文章“Nisei 發現美國”，並附有 日裔二代 藝術家 Vincent Tajiri 的照片，首先發表在《美國》雜誌上，後來摘錄在《讀者文摘》上。它講述了日裔美國人在芝加哥和中西部重新定居的故事。
史密斯指出了搬遷到中西部的尼塞伊人如何取得成功。他們能夠找到能夠發揮自己技能的工作，並與白人鄰居一起「拓展社交空間」。伊利諾伊州共和黨議員羅伯特·J·特威曼安排該文章在《國會記錄》中重印。
1948 年，費城老牌出版社 Lippincott 出版了史密斯的《日裔美國人通俗史》，書名為《來自日本的美國人》。雖然當時凱裡·麥克威廉斯的《偏見》和大久保美奈的《公民 13660》等關於戰時監禁的研究已經出現，但史密斯的書是第一部將日裔美國人作為移民/種族歷史的長篇通俗研究。它講述了一誠在夏威夷和西海岸定居和發展的故事，然後是日裔二代人的故事。史密斯的敘述集中在戰前時代，並將戰時監禁的故事限制在一個章節中，另一章則講述尼塞士兵的故事。
這本書受到了尊敬的評論。前 WRA 主管羅伯特·卡勒姆 (Robert Cullum) 在《共同點》 (Common Ground)上撰文宣稱：「來自日本的美國人不僅全面準確地描述了日裔美國人在夏威夷和美國的歷史；但閱讀起來也非常愉快。”
日裔美國人對這本書的問世表示歡迎。約瑟夫·北川牧師在《鹿子新報》中解釋說，這本書不是針對日裔美國人，而是針對普通公眾，作為教育他們了解日經指數的一種手段。儘管如此，他發現它“令人興奮且資訊豐富”，驚嘆於小說家竟然能夠創作出如此出色的歷史和社會學作品。在出版時，作者史密斯在剛起步的攝影雜誌《日裔二代Nisei Vue》的一篇文章中得到了介紹，其中刊登了攝影師 Toge Fujihira 為他拍攝的肖像。
布拉德福德·史密斯晚年住在佛蒙特州沙夫茨伯里，在那裡擔任自由記者、作家和教育家。1948-49 年，他擔任佛蒙特州論壇主任（他邀請 日裔二代Nisei Sam Ishikawa 作為演講者之一）。1950 年代，他在國務院的贊助下在本寧頓創辦了一所國際暑期學校。
1950 年代末，史密斯和妻子移居印度，在新德里貴格會國際中心擔任主任三年。史密斯後來在他的《印度肖像》一書中講述了他在印度的經歷。
同時，他擔任自由作家和記者。他寫了兩本關於他的新英格蘭祖先普利茅斯的布拉德福德和約翰史密斯船長的書，《他的生活與傳奇》。加上一套兒童史傳記。他創作了聯合動畫片《美國冒險》。
1954年，在麥卡錫時期，他出版了《危險的自由》，一本關於公民自由的有力著作。他也創作了一篇關於民族特徵的流行研究《為什麼我們的行為像美國人》。在這些年裡，他為新英格蘭報紙撰寫了每週專欄「小世界」。
1954 年，他回到夏威夷（二戰後期他曾在那裡服役）幾個月，之後，他寫了兩本有關夏威夷群島的有趣書籍。《天堂中的洋基》 （1956 年）描述了 19世紀新英格蘭人對夏威夷王國發展的影響。《夏威夷群島》（1958 年）是一本關於夏威夷群島的指南，其中包含許多有關其自然歷史的資料。
這些年來，史密斯的主要興趣之一是宗教。他的最後一本書《冥想：內在的藝術》（1963）研究了從佛教徒、禪宗形式到貴格會的冥想形式。這在某種程度上代表了他對亞洲文化和美國生活的興趣的融合。史密斯晚年飽受癌症困擾，他寫了許多關於患有無法治癒的疾病的文章。他於 1964 年 7 月 14 日去世。
布拉德福德·史密斯是一位罕見的集創意作家、活動家和管理者於一身的人。在 1920 世紀 30 年代出版的小說中，他試圖向美國同胞闡明現代日本社會的複雜性。雖然他在二戰前與一誠和二誠很少有接觸，但他受到與他們的戰時經歷的啟發，後來成為一名偉大的公設辯護人。
© 2022 格雷格·羅賓遜
作者
格雷格·羅賓遜
格雷格格雷格‧羅賓遜 (Greg Robinson) 是土生土長的紐約人，是加拿大蒙特婁魁北克大學蒙特婁分校的歷史學教授。他是《總統令：羅斯福與日裔美國人的拘禁》（哈佛大學出版社，2001 年）、《民主的悲劇》等書的作者。《日本人在北美的監禁》（哥倫比亞大學出版社，2009 年）、《集中營之後：戰後日本生活和政治的肖像》（加州大學出版社，2012 年）、《太平洋公民：拉里和蓋約·田尻與二戰時期的日裔美國新聞業》（伊利諾大學出版社，2012 年）和《偉大的未知：日裔美國人素描》（科羅拉多大學出版社，2016 年），以及選集Miné Okubo：跟隨她自己的道路（華盛頓大學出版社，2008 年）的共同編輯。羅賓遜也是《John Okada - The Life & Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy》 （華盛頓大學出版社，2018 年）一書的共同編輯。
他的歷史專欄《不為人知的偉大與不為人知的偉人》是《日北周刊》的著名專題。羅賓遜的最新著作是其日經 專欄和故事的選集，發表在《發現日經》《 無名偉人：傑出日裔美國人的肖像》（華盛頓大學出版社，2020 年）上。該書榮獲 2022 年亞裔美國研究協會圖書獎傑出歷史成就榮譽獎。可以透過robinson.greg@uqam.ca聯繫他。
2022 年 3 月更新
EN
Bradford Smith: An American to Japan (and Back) — Part 1
Bradford Smith (Courtesy of Toge Fujihira estate)
Outside defenders of Japanese Americans during World War II, especially those in positions of power, were rare. Issei and Nisei did, however, receive various forms of assistance from a circle of “old Japan hands,” white Americans who had lived in Japan before the war and had become familiar with Japanese culture. These included such diverse figures as Protestant missionary Galen Fisher, Catholic priest Leopold Tibesar, naval agent Kenneth Ringle, diplomat William Castle, and (once he was freed from confinement in Japan) former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Grew.
While they differed strongly in their attitude toward Tokyo’s foreign policy and the war in China during the prewar years, their affection for Japan and the friends that they had made there inspired them to help Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. Fisher led a Fair Play committee in Northern California to campaign against mass removal. Ringle submitted a report to Naval Intelligence in January 1942 that endorsed the loyalty of Japanese Americans, and argued against exclusion. Father Tibesar testified publicly in favor of Nikkei loyalty in Spring 1942, and visited the camps to administer the sacraments. Castle pushed universities to offer aid to Nisei students after mass removal.
One particularly important member of the “old Japan hands” was Bradford Smith. A native of New England, he lived in Japan for five years during the 1930s, and became known for writing literature about Japanese people. As the head of the “Japan desk” at the Office of War Information, he was the staffer responsible for recruiting ethnic Japanese to aid in the war against Japan.
His wartime service led him to offer public support for the rights of Japanese Americans, and in the postwar period, he devoted himself to writing a popular history of Japanese Americans, with help from a two-year fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. The product of his efforts, the 1948 book Americans from Japan, was one of the first serious studies of Japanese American history.
William Bradford Smith was born in North Adams, Massachusetts on May 13, 1909, the son of William Wallis and Josephine (Cady) Smith. He was descended from the Pilgrim father William Bradford. After enrolling at MIT as an undergrad, he transferred to Columbia University, where in 1930 he graduated with B.A. degree and served as salutatorian. He remained at Columbia after graduation, and there received an M.A. degree the following year.
Unable to find a job in the United States, in 1931 he took a job at Rikkyo (AKA St. Paul’s) University, a Christian university in Japan. Just before leaving for Japan, he married a fellow Columbia graduate student, Marian Collins.
Although Smith later admitted that he had known effectively nothing about Japan when he arrived, he threw himself into exploring Japanese society. Smith and his wife lived in a Japanese home during their first few months in Tokyo, and he later claimed to have learned enough Japanese “to get around.” They thereafter took a house in Ikebukuro and established themselves as part of Tokyo’s foreign colony. They held dances at home and joined literary clubs. Their son Alanson Smith was born in Tokyo in 1933.
As professor of English at Rikkyo, Smith made contact with his students by revamping the curriculum to better attract their interest. Meanwhile, he produced a new handbook of English and American Literature designed for a mainstream Japanese audience. It was published in Tokyo in 1935. In a sign of his new reputation, in 1934 Smith was invited to become lecturer in English Composition at Teidai (Tokyo Imperial University).
Even as he interacted with Japanese people, Smith held himself out to Westerners as an expert on Japanese society, and wrote articles on Japan for such publications as Esquire, Scribner’s, The Saturday Evening Post, and Coronet. He reviewed numerous books on Japan for the New York Herald Tribune.
In June 1932 he contributed a long article on literature in Japan (illustrated by Issei artist Chuzo Tamotzu) to the Herald Tribune’s Sunday edition. In his article, Smith lauded the rise of a generation of young Japanese who spoke English, read American literature and were interested in modern culture.
Smith’s informed sympathy for the Japanese was reflected in his first book, the 1936 novel To the Mountain. The novel, published by the publisher Bobbs-Merrill, tells the story of Kimi-Chan, an innocent 15 year-old girl who is sold into prostitution by her peasant family as a way to keep from starving. Once installed in a bordello in Yoshiwara, she meets Mr. Yamano, a vulgar nouveau riche businessman who has made a fortune selling oil. They have a sexual relationship, and she becomes attached to him. However, before he can purchase her as his mistress, she is rescued by a Christian Army officer who frees her and brings her to live respectably in his house. There Kimi-Chan meets and falls in love with Shigeo, a westernized university student who turns out to be the son of the rich merchant. Unable to marry, the two lovers are trapped, and their love ends in sorrow. To the Mountain includes scenes of life in contemporary Japan, including student riots, young soldiers departing for Japanese-occupied Manchukuo, and social relations across class lines.
The book was widely advertised, and it made the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. Critical reaction was intense and mostly positive. The youthful Alfred Kazin, reviewing the book in The New York Times, wittily referred to it as “a tragedy of manners.” While uncertain about the quality of the love story itself, Kazin credited the author for making it at least seem plausible, and noted approvingly that “about the story he has arranged some shrewd pictures of contemporary Japanese life.”
John Fujii, writing in Rafu Shimpo, countered that apart perhaps from the book’s usefulness as a guide to Japanese geography, it had little to recommend it: “The plot is threadbare, the characters are too sketchily drawn, and the style is a bit slow for the modern reader.”
In 1936, Smith returned to the United States, and took up a position teaching English at Columbia University. In 1940 he switched to Bennington College in Vermont. Even as he taught classes, he continued his literary activities (which he claimed made up nearly half his income).
His second novel, This Solid Flesh, published in 1937, centered on the marriage between Masao, a westernized Japanese man, and Margaret, a white American woman. Reviewers spoke respectfully of its portrayal of Japanese society and the issue of interracial marriage, though some found its characters one-dimensional. (Shio Sakanishi, the renowned scholar/administrator at the Library of Congress, commented acidly in the Washington Post on the portrayal of Japanese women, “To those who know a little about the East they are types rather than individuals.”)
The Nisei press praised the author’s attempt to dramatize the conflicts faced by the couple’s hapa child Ruth, who goes off to study in the United States. Roy Takeno, writing in Kashu Mainichi, stated that he was intrigued by Ruth’s “inability in a crisis to identify patently with the Americans or the Japanese.” Reviewer “U.P.,” writing in the Nichi Bei, called the novel “a penetrating and a very human story of tortured lives during an era of cultural and economic upheaval.”
Smith’s third novel, American Quest (1938), a Preston Sturges-type narrative about a discontented executive named Quest (get it?) who decides to wander the highways and see America, attracted much less attention than his Japanese stories.
In the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack and the outbreak of the Pacific War in late 1941, Smith was invited to take a public role as an expert on Japan. He responded with a set of talks on “Our Enemy-Japan,” as well as a series of magazine articles. His “Letter to the People of Japan,” published in Kiwanis magazine in February 1942 and then excerpted in Reader’s Digest, expressed his understanding that the average Japanese had not wanted war, but noted that war had come, and warned prophetically that it would be the most devastating conflict in the history of Japan, since the powerful American people would seek total victory. “We have something to fight for; you have nothing.”
Smith followed this with a pair of articles that appeared in Amerasia magazine during early 1942. While they purported to be objective studies, they were in fact exercises in propaganda. “The Mind of Japan,” which appeared in March 1942, claimed that the Japanese character was reducible to “Shinto, Kodo, and Bushido,” that is, to Emperor worship and a samurai code of loyalty that outweighed the rights of the individual.
“The symbols by which Japan lives are the symbols of a culture which has ever thought in terms of the individual soul and mind and destiny. The dignity of man as man, the personal freedoms for which we have fought and are fighting again have no existence in Japan.”
Smith’s article received widespread public exposure, and was reprinted in full in the Congressional Record by California Republican Rep. Carl Hinshaw (an outspoken proponent of mass exclusion of Japanese Americans).
Shortly after, Smith published a second article, “Japan: Beauty and Beast.” In it, he sought to explain how ordinary Japanese people, who seemed to love beauty, could commit barbarous acts such as the “Rape of Nanking.” He resolved this apparent contradiction in terms of the different values that made up the “national character” of the Japanese. Among these values, he insisted, were uncontrolled sexuality, disregard for human life, and the absence of a religion based upon high ethical and spiritual principles.
EN
Bradford Smith: An American to Japan (and Back) — Part 2
In February 1942, Bradford Smith was recruited by Alan Cranston, the future U.S. Senator, for a job with the Office of War Information (then called the Office of Facts and Figures). In April of that year, he left his teaching position at Bennington and moved to Washington, D.C. to take a position with OWI Foreign Language Division, headed by Cranston. In keeping with his own assumed expertise on Japan, Smith was assigned to head OWI’s “Japan desk.” There he worked to ensure the loyalty of immigrant and foreign-language groups.
As is indicated by his surviving OWI correspondence, a large part of Smith’s assignment involved Japanese Americans. This was new to him. Before World War II, he had hardly met any Japanese Americans. Yet, even as he had discovered Japanese society ten years earlier, Smith now threw himself into understanding Nikkei history and culture in America. In February 1942, while still at Bennington, he placed a notice in Rafu Shimpo announcing his intention to write an article on the Nisei and asking for information on their treatment.
The OWI job brought Smith into regular contact with individuals and members of Japanese communities. He worked with Issei and Nisei writers such as Sokei-an Sasaki, Chitoshi Yanaga, Kiyanao Okami, and John M. Maki. Chronicler Mary Oyama Mittwer reported to the Heart Mountain Sentinel in 1944 that OWI staffer Chitoshi Yanaga had arranged for her to meet Smith, whom she found “young, intelligent, and nice-looking.”
Smith’s primary mission with the OWI was media relations. Sensitive to the barrage of hostile stories about Issei and Nisei, Smith contacted WRA leaders and proposed establishing an information program to counter anti-Nisei propaganda. “The American People demonstrably have a very hazy idea of what the Japanese evacuation is all about,” he told his supervisor, former WRA director Milton Eisenhower, in November 1942. “They confuse internment camps with relocation centers, and Americans of Japanese Ancestry with ‘Japs.’”
In September 1942, Smith contacted John Bainbridge, editor of The New Yorker, to ask whether his magazine would be interested in doing a story on one of the WRA camps, stating, “[Unless] the American public realizes that the majority of Japanese in the camps are American citizens, we are heading for difficulty in solving the program of this group once that war is over.”
During that time, he also exchanged information with Larry Tajiri, editor of the Pacific Citizen, about publicizing the good citizenship of Nisei in Hawaii. Along with Cranston, he discussed closing down the Denver-based Japanese-language newspaper Rockii Nippon for sedition, and transforming the rival Colorado Times into a government-controlled pro-democracy organ for communicating with Japanese speakers in the camps. In the end, control of the newspapers remained in private hands, but their content was closely surveilled.
Smith also assisted Japanese Americans through public declarations. In December 1942, he took part in a Victory Rally in New York organized by the Japanese American Committee for Democracy. There he refuted rumors of Japanese American sabotage at Pearl Harbor and lauded the conduct of Japanese Americans in Hawaii during the raid.
Smith stated that they had manned the guns that shot at Japanese airplanes, converted their trucks to ambulances to drive the wounded to hospitals, and been the first to donate blood for the wounded, on whom Japanese American doctors had operated. “Contrary to popular opinion and contrary to some public statements, Japanese-Americans on the West Coast were of invaluable aid to the authorities in exposing Japanese espionage.”
Smith’s talk was serially reprinted in the Pacific Citizen under the title “The Fellowship of Freedom.” Anticipating the argument that Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. would make in his Cold War liberal manifesto The Vital Center six years later, Smith insisted that freedom was a fighting faith, and was stronger than the bonds of citizenship or race.
By fall 1943, Bradford Smith had moved to San Francisco, where he worked as acting head of the OWI Japanese and Korean Section. There he directed production and distribution of anti-Tokyo propaganda, such as radio scripts ridiculing Japan’s leaders. Together with Langdon Warner, Smith presented a plan in late 1943 to recruit Nisei from the camps to be intensively trained for postwar service in Japan and the Far East (the plan foundered on opposition from the State Department—who claimed speciously that white officers would not work together on equal terms with Nisei).
Later Smith was sent to Honolulu, Hawai’i where he set up and directed the OWI’s Center of Pacific Operations. As chief, he directed production and distribution of print and broadcast material for the war against Japan, including six hours of daily shortwave radio broadcasts.
Even as Smith worked for OWI, his fourth novel, the 1943 work The Arms are Fair, appeared in print. It told the story of Akiyama Tadeo, a Japanese university student forcibly conscripted into the Japanese Army and sent to China, who is inspired by his contact with the Chinese to join the side of freedom. Although some critics praised Smith for his effort to show good men among the Japanese occupiers, the novel did not achieve much in the way of attention or success.
After the appearance of The Arms are Fair, Smith ceased to write about Japan. Instead, in the wake of his wartime experience, Smith decided to devote himself to reporting on Japanese Americans.
In 1945, while he was still working for the OWI in Honolulu, he was commissioned to write a book on Japanese Americans (originally to be titled “They Came from Japan”) for editor Louis Adamic’s series of popular histories of immigrant Americans. With University of Hawaii professor Yukuo Uyehara serving as judge, he ran a contest, with a $100 top prize, for essays on the experiences of Japanese Americans in the islands that he could reprint in his proposed study.
Once the war was over, Smith left the OWI. With aid from a two-year Guggenheim fellowship, he traveled around the mainland and Hawaii to visit Japanese communities.
His first writing on Japanese Americans, “Experiment in Racial Concentration,” appeared in the July 17, 1946 issue of Far Eastern Survey (the journal of the Institute for Pacific Relations). In it, Smith made use of the final dissolution of the WRA to review the history of wartime confinement. Freed from the former restrictions posed by his own government employment, he forthrightly denounced mass removal as “unnecessary and indefensible,” and assigned heavy blame for the policy to “professional racists” and agricultural interests in California, who had profited heavily from the dispossession of their Japanese neighbors.
Significantly, Smith noted that Naval Intelligence officers, who had long cultivated community informants who had tipped them off as to the actions of Japanese spies, had opposed mass removal but had ben overruled by the army. Although Smith deplored the impact of official incarceration on Japanese communities, he hailed the white citizens who joined fair play committees or otherwise helped Japanese Americans as decisive actors in fighting injustice:
“The evacuation was a pragmatic test of the moral tone of our government and our people...We came out of it just fairly well, but the interesting thing is that where our formal institutions failed to judge and act according to bedrock principles of freedom and democracy, our informal institutions and our people, by and large, did.”
Beyond the question of mass removal, Smith became interested by the postwar adjustment of the Nisei. His article “The Nisei Discover America,” accompanied by photos from Nisei artist Vincent Tajiri, was first published in American magazine and later excerpted in Readers Digest. It told the story of Japanese American resettlement in Chicago and the Midwest.
Smith pointed out how the Nisei who relocated to the midwest had achieved success. They were able to find jobs that made use of their skills and to “get stretched out socially” alongside their white neighbors. Republican Illinois congressman Robert J. Twyman arranged for the article to be reprinted in the Congressional Record.
In 1948 Smith’s popular history of Japanese Americans was published by the established Philadelphia publishing house Lippincott, under the name Americans From Japan. While by that time, studies of wartime confinement such as Carey McWilliams’s Prejudice and Miné Okubo’s Citizen 13660 had already appeared, Smith’s book was the first full-length popular study of Japanese Americans as immigrant/ethnic history. It told the story of Issei settlement and growth in Hawaii and the West Coast, then the story of the Nisei. Smith concentrated his narrative on the prewar era and restricted to a single chapter the story of wartime confinement, with another on the Nisei soldiers.
The book received respectful reviews. Former WRA supervisor Robert Cullum, writing in Common Ground, declared, “Americans from Japan is not only a full and accurate account of the history of Americans of Japanese descent in Hawaii and the United States; but is very pleasant reading as well.”
Japanese Americans hailed the appearance of the book. Rev. Joseph Kitagawa explained in Shikago Shimpo that the book was directed not at Japanese Americans but at the general public, as a means of educating them about the Nikkei. Nevertheless, he found it “stimulating and informative,” marvelling that a novelist should be able to create such a superior work of history and sociology. At the tme of publication, author Smith was profiled in an article for the fledgling photo magazine Nisei Vue, which featured his portrait by photographer Toge Fujihira.
In his later years, Bradford Smith lived in Shaftsbury, Vermont, where he worked as a freelance journalist, author, and educator. In 1948-49 he served as director of the Vermont Forums (he invited Nisei Sam Ishikawa as one of the speakers). During the 1950s, he directed an international summer school at Bennington under State department sponsorship.
At the end of the 1950s, Smith and his wife moved to India, where they spent three years as directors of the Quaker International Center in New Delhi. Smith later told the story of his experience in India in his book A Portrait of India.
Meanwhile, he worked as a freelance author and journalist. He wrote a pair of books on his New England forebears, Bradford of Plymouth and Captain John Smith, His Life & Legend. plus a set of historical biographies for children. He created the syndicated cartoon, “American Adventure.”
In 1954, in the midst of the McCarthy period, he published A Dangerous Freedom, a powerful book on civil liberties. He also produced a popular study of national characteristics, Why We Behave Like Americans. During these years, he wrote a weekly column, “Small World,” for a set of New England newspapers.
After returning to Hawaii, where he had served during the latter part of World War II, for several months in 1954, he wrote a pair of interesting books about the Islands. Yankees in Paradise (1956), described the impact of New Englanders on the development of the Kingdom of Hawaii during the 19th century. Islands of Hawaii (1958) was a guide to the islands, with much material on their natural history.
One of Smith’s chief interests during these years was religion. His last book, Meditation: The Inward Art (1963), was a study of forms of mediation from Buddhists and Zen forms to Quakers. It represented somewhat of a merging of his interests in Asian culture and American life. In his later years Smith was plagued by cancer, and he wrote a number of articles about living with untreatable illness. He died on July 14, 1964.
Bradford Smith was a rare mix of creative writer, activist, and administrator. In his novels published in the 1930s, he attempted to shed light for his fellow Americans on complexities of modern Japanese society. While he had little contact with Issei and Nisei before World War II, he was inspired by his wartime experience with them to become a great public defender afterwards.
© 2022 Greg Robinson
Author
Greg Robinson
Greg Robinson, a native New Yorker, is Professor of History at l'Université du Québec À Montréal, a French-language institution in Montreal, Canada. He is the author of the books By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans (Harvard University Press, 2001), A Tragedy of Democracy; Japanese Confinement in North America (Columbia University Press, 2009), After Camp: Portraits in Postwar Japanese Life and Politics (University of California Press, 2012), Pacific Citizens: Larry and Guyo Tajiri and Japanese American Journalism in the World War II Era (University of Illinois Press, 2012), and The Great Unknown: Japanese American Sketches (University Press of Colorado, 2016), as well as coeditor of the anthology Miné Okubo: Following Her Own Road (University of Washington Press, 2008). Robinson is also coeditor of the volume John Okada - The Life & Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy (University of Washington Press, 2018).
His historical column “The Great Unknown and the Unknown Great,” is a well-known feature of the Nichi Bei Weekly newspaper. Robinson’s latest book is an anthology of his Nichi Bei columns and stories published on Discover Nikkei, The Unsung Great: Portraits of Extraordinary Japanese Americans (University of Washington Press, 2020). It was recognized with an Association for Asian American Studies Book Award for Outstanding Achievement in History Honorable Mention in 2022. He can be reached at robinson.greg@uqam.ca.
Updated March 2022
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Greg Robinson
Greg Robinson, a native New Yorker, is Professor of History at l'Université du Québec À Montréal, a French-language institution in Montreal, Canada. He is the author of the books By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans (Harvard University Press, 2001), A Tragedy of Democracy; Japanese Confinement in North America (Columbia University Press, 2009), After Camp: Portraits in Postwar Japanese Life and Politics (University of California Press, 2012), Pacific Citizens: Larry and Guyo Tajiri and Japanese American Journalism in the World War II Era (University of Illinois Press, 2012), and The Great Unknown: Japanese American Sketches (University Press of Colorado, 2016), as well as coeditor of the anthology Miné Okubo: Following Her Own Road (University of Washington Press, 2008). Robinson is also coeditor of the volume John Okada - The Life & Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy (University of Washington Press, 2018).
His historical column “The Great Unknown and the Unknown Great,” is a well-known feature of the Nichi Bei Weekly newspaper. Robinson’s latest book is an anthology of his Nichi Bei columns and stories published on Discover Nikkei, The Unsung Great: Portraits of Extraordinary Japanese Americans (University of Washington Press, 2020). It was recognized with an Association for Asian American Studies Book Award for Outstanding Achievement in History Honorable Mention in 2022. He can be reached at robinson.greg@uqam.ca.
Updated March 2022
Get updates
A project of the
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