The Japanese immigrant experience in America is often ignored, which makes works like The Four Immigrants Manga an invaluable record, both as history and as art.
It is a semi-autobiographical work by Henry Kiyama – born Yoshitaka Kiyama – who immigrated to San Francisco around 1904. It was originally serialized in a Japanese-language newspaper between 1924-1927, and then compiled into a single volume and self-published in 1931 as The Four Students Manga. Interestingly, it was never published in Japan. It lay forgotten for decades until being rediscovered around 1980 by Frederik L. Schodt, the author of Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics and who was also an early advocate for Japanese comic books. After many years, it was translated by Schodt as The Four Immigrants Manga in 1999.
The story follows the titular four immigrants as they arrive
in San Francisco. There’s Fred, who dreams of becoming a farmer, Frank who just
wants to strike it rich, Charlie who wants to study American democracy, and
Henry, who has come to study art. It’s clear that “Henry” is a stand-in for
Kiyama himself and the others are fictionalized versions of his friends.
The manga is very episodic and shows the struggles Japanese
immigrants faced, with a comedic touch. They were often sent out as “boys” for
rich white families, which included cooking and cleaning. Of course, the four
characters are inept and usually mess things up, leading to them always getting
fired. For example, Henry cleans a woman’s house but accidentally teaches a
woman’s parrot how to cuss both in English and Japanese, so she cans him.
There is also a lot of fun at the expense of the Americans
themselves. When Charlie leaves the employ of one rich white lady, she goes
looking for another Japanese “boy.” Finding a dapper Japanese gentleman, she
offers him a job. Offended, he protests that he is the consul-general for the
Japanese Empire in San Francisco.
Other big events throughout American history are covered.
The most famous being the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, which leveled the
city. Another being America’s entry into the First World War. Charlie dreams of
going overseas and fighting the entire German Army with a samurai sword. When
he comes back and asks for American citizenship, he’s told, “Um! Not for
Orientals yet!”
Other, less well-known incidents are depicted too, like the
Turlock Incident in which a white mob kicked Japanese immigrants out of the
town Turlock by gunpoint. Racism is a common theme, in which everyone
stereotypes everyone else. White people are referred to as keto and
black people are called kuroto, drawn in the blackface stereotype of the
time. There is no camaraderie between the Japanese and Chinese immigrants, even
though Charlie often goes to their gambling dens in Chinatown. After all, there
was a racial chauvinism carried by many Japanese at the time, which allowed them to
think they were “superior” to the Chinese.
However, in one such incident, a white woman berates Charlie
for not helping a Japanese woman with her luggage. After all, they are both
Japanese. Too lazy to help, Charlie replies, “Me Chinaman. Me no care.”
The original manga was published in Japanese but several
characters speak English throughout. Schodt’s translation left these English
phrases in but used a different font for when the characters are speaking
Japanese. A good touch, I think.
The Four Immigrants Manga is a fascinating piece of
history – Japanese, American, San Francisco, and comics history. The humor
might be dated with unfortunate stereotypes, but it is priceless as a time
capsule for an era many Americans know little about.
