Perilous Memories: The Asia-Pacific War

by Takashi Fujitani (Editor), Lisa Yoneyama (Editor), Marita Sturken (Contributor)

Perilous Memories makes a groundbreaking and critical intervention into debates about war memory in the Asia-Pacific region. Arguing that much is lost or erased when the Asia-Pacific War(s) are reduced to the 1941–1945 war between Japan and the United States, this collection challenges mainstream memories of the Second World War in favor of what were actually multiple, widespread conflicts. The contributors recuperate marginalized or silenced memories of wars throughout the region—not only in Japan and the United States but also in China, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, Okinawa, Taiwan, and Korea.
Firmly based on the insight that memory is always mediated and that the past is not a stable object, the volume demonstrates that we can intervene positively yet critically in the recovery and reinterpretation of events and experiences that have been pushed to the peripheries of the past. The contributors—an international list of anthropologists, cultural critics, historians, literary scholars, and activists—show how both dominant and subjugated memories have emerged out of entanglements with such forces as nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, racism, and sexism. They consider both how the past is remembered and also what the consequences may be of privileging one set of memories over others. Specific objects of study range from photographs, animation, songs, and films to military occupations and attacks, minorities in wartime, “comfort women,” commemorative events, and postwar activism in pursuing redress and reparations.
Perilous Memories is a model for war memory intervention and will be of interest to historians and other scholars and activists engaged with collective memory, colonial studies, U.S. and Asian history, and cultural studies. Contributors . Chen Yingzhen, Chungmoo Choi, Vicente M. Diaz, Arif Dirlik, T. Fujitani, Ishihara Masaie, Lamont Lindstrom, George Lipsitz, Marita Sturken, Toyonaga Keisaburo, Utsumi Aiko, Morio Watanabe, Geoffrey M. White, Diana Wong, Daqing Yang, Lisa Yoneyama

Genres: Japan, History, Nonfiction, Japanese History, Theory, World War II

472 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a good collection of papers that focuses on previously unspoken memories from the Pacific War. We are largely familiar with the common narratives that come from Japan and the US, yet, fought over the course of at least fifteen years over multiple war fronts, these essays effectively demonstrate the complex and contesting memories that come from the Pacific.

The first section focuses on fragmentary images produced by the war and the memories they evoke. We learn about Japanese internment through the eyes of a second generation Japanese American who was not old enough to experience her mother's memories. We see the ongoing debate over the Nanjing Massacre in postwar Japan and China or the formation of memory in Okinawa. We see images of war in Japanese popular culture in the mid-1990s and US wartime photos of Pacific Islanders, as they are posed to represent a narrative model. These essays introduce us to the production of memory, their images, and subaltern nature.

The second section deals primarily with the politics of war memory. We travel to Guam, where citizens have to navigate the liminal space between Japanese and US colonization and pontificate on the meaning of "liberation." In Singapore, in dealing with over a century of colonization, old memories are erased and new ones are created. Former Taiwanese soldiers have to cope with rejection from postwar Taiwan, China, and Japan, while former Korean soldiers are put on war crimes trials by the Allied Forces and Japanese Americans contemplate fighting for a country that locked up their families. A debate erupts over the interpretation of History at the Arizona Monument at Pearl Harbor.

The final section contains essays that deal with memories as a means of healing in the wake of the war. The use of history is contemplayed during the alleged "End of History," while the binaries between national and international, and memory and history are deconstructed in an analysis of the Smithsonian's controversial 1995 Enola Gay exhibit. Black American soldiers contemplate support for Japan's imperialist efforts as a symbol of racial solidarity, while Korean laborers working in Hiroshima look for compensation from their government and Japan's. Finally, former Korean "comfort women" regain their subjectivity and can begin the healing process through speaking up about their memories and finding a voice in the midst of a silencing presence. This final section powerfully demonstrates the importance of history and its use as a way to heal our collective memories.

Although there has been significant research done in this direction since the original publication, the papers in this volume have tremendous value when grouped together. They demonstrate the complex and multifaceted nature of war, memory, and history, revealing that there are always many sides to any story. By focusing on subaltern and liminal spaces, we can resuscitate hidden voices from the past and allow them to bear witness, giving us hope for peace in the future.

[Mills College Library]

940.53 P444 2001

[Chi Pham · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Perilous Memories" is an early edited volume on the interaction between history and memory, all within the context of the Asia-Pacific War that spanned the 15 years from 1931-1945. As one of the authors have thoughtfully pointed out, the so-called Asia-Pacific War is actually the juxtaposition of many local, anti-colonial wars that are eventually subsumed and remembered under the banner of the Pacific theater of WWII. This edited volume thus achieves a great presentation of the very diverse scope of the war(s), from Japan, (South) Korea, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Guam, the Pacific Islands and of course the United States. While many topics might be familiar to the diligent reader of East Asian history, the main theme of history remembering (in whatever formats) will still draw out some unexpected conclusions. However, as expected of any edit volume, some chapters are much stronger and ultimately more interesting than the others. Yet overall, this edited volume should serve as an gateway towards the huge scholarship on the Asia-Pacific War, including a later book, "Race for Empire" by the volume editor Takashi Fujitani.

[Naeem · Rating 4 out of 5]

An edited book. the introduction is excellent. i think i read four or so of the essays. It is a history of WWII (in the Pacific ocean) but told NOT from the large warring nations point of view. Rather, it tells the story from those whose islands and homes the war came to visit.

If you recall the film The Thin Red Line, these essays are told from the point of that man who just walked past the soldiers without bothering to look at them.

[Benemint · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important collection of overall good quality essays on WWII memory issues in Asia. Very convenient for teaching!