On the morning of December 7, 1941, the Japanese forced the American public out of the neutral position they had taken regarding the ongoing Second World War (1939-1945).  Weeks later, a song was written and recorded by Carson Robison as a response to the event, titled “We're Gonna Have to Slap the Dirty Little Jap.”  Speaking of what the Americans planned to do, Robinson stated that “We'll skin the streak of yellow from this sneaky little fellow / And he'll think a cyclone hit him when he's thru it / We'll take the double-crosser to the old woodshed / We'll start on his bottom and go to his head / When we get thru with him he'll wish that he was dead.” ^[1]  Yet, just a decade following the end of the war, Americans began to passionately consume pieces of Japanese culture.  An example can be made of the rise in the sale of sushi to Americans, as it became a steadfast part of Japanese restaurant offerings beginning in the 1950s.  Just over twenty years later, by the late 1960s, sushi had become a staple of high-end American dining.^[2]  The difference from hoping to kill the Japanese to appreciating and consuming their culture leads us to a critical question: how could such a rapid change of opinion in the minds of Americans occur so quickly?  To answer this question, we must attempt to better understand how the Japanese were portrayed both during and immediately after the war.

        Before President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dictated that the events of December 7, 1941, was “a date which will live in infamy,” ^[3] he told members of his Cabinet that the attack by Japan “was probably the most serious crisis any Cabinet had confronted since the outbreak of the Civil War.” ^[4]  Just prior to his address, Eleanor Roosevelt recalled that earlier that day, she had seen the Japanese ambassador at the White House, remembering that the “little man was so polite to me.  I [Eleanor Roosevelt] had to get something.  That little man arose when I entered the room,” ^[5] and it was possible that they had been speaking at the exact moment when the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor.  Ironically, her own ignorance is showcased in this statement, as it was in fact the Chinese ambassador who had been at the White House that day, and this was more than likely the individual she had described meeting with at the time of the attack.^[6]  While the Japanese had hoped that their attack on Pearl Harbor would destroy both the American Pacific Fleet and the morale of the populace, they had failed to understand that the United States and its people were like “a gigantic boiler.  Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.” ^[7]

        While there had been heightened tensions during the Nanjing Massacre with the bombing of the USS Panay just one day before the Japanese took the city, this subsided.  The Japanese had eased tensions by allowing the staff of the American embassy in Nanjing to return early to the city, allowing them to investigate the atrocities that the Chinese and Americans in the city had accused the Japanese of.  On December 25, 1937, Nelson T. Johnson, the U.S. Ambassador to China stated that the Japanese had “systematically looted residences and shops,” and had engaged in “wholesale plundering of the Chinese who remained in the city including those in the refugee zone and much indiscriminate shooting and killing.” ^[8]  However, one event turned the attention of the media away from these atrocities and towards a different event.  While investigating the incident, American diplomat John M. Allison had been struck in the face by a Japanese soldier.  In Massachusetts, just one month following the Japanese capture of Nanjing, The Boston Globe reported that an investigation into the incident led to the Japanese army stating that “the matter is to be regretted.” ^[9]  An office spokesman “expressed regret and surprise… [stating that] ‘I am very sorry if the report is true.” ^[10]  With the individual who had slapped John M. Allison imprisoned after being placed under court-martial, the issue was considered resolved by both the Americans and the Japanese.  Painfully, events that had sent Americans to China had been forgotten, with the Japanese continuing to maintain diplomatic relations with the United States until they felt they were ready for war.

        The day following the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress.  In his speech, Roosevelt made it clear to the public that Japan had, seemingly overnight, become one of two major enemies of the American people.  Across the nation, millions of Americans who owned radios listened as President Roosevelt described the horrific actions of the Japanese.  During his address to the nation, President Roosevelt informed the citizens of the United States that “yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.  Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.  Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.  Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.  Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island.  And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.” ^[11]  While the Americans were certainly the victims of this horrific “premeditated invasion,” ^[12] Roosevelt’s declaration of war made certain that they would not willingly submit to Japanese aggression.  Instead, President Roosevelt believed that “the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.” ^[13]  This speech, as well as the position Roosevelt took, made it clear to the American people that there was a need to “avenge Pearl Harbor” ^[14] and as a result, hold the Japanese accountable for their actions.

        Although Japanese aggression was not completely unexpected, there had been no warning signs that they planned to attack Pearl Harbor.  The island itself was almost four thousand miles away from the island of Japan.  While Americans had begun to question the actions of the Japanese, there was a sudden turn towards depicting them as a merciless and animalistic enemy.  American wartime propaganda posters, created by the government, highlighted and exaggerated Japanese features such as their eyes, teeth, and small stature. As the Japanese had never fully been considered equals to Americans, their image was able to be manipulated once again.  With this attack against the United States, The Akron Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio considered them to be “Japanese animals,” ^[15] capable of committing actions and crimes that no mature and dignified individual would do.  The piece which described them as animals told of “5o British officers and men, captured when Hong Kong fell, [who] were bound together and stabbed to death with bayonets… European and Asiatic women were [later] assaulted and murdered; [with the Japanese in power,] bestiality beyond the imagination of a civilized person was the rule in the conquered colony.” ^[16]

In political cartoons from the Second World War, there was a distinction between the way that the Japanese and Germans were portrayed.  While Nazi Germany was usually showcased through an image of Adolf Hitler, with his toothbrush mustache and hair pushed forward, the Japanese, although sometimes showcased through Hirohito, were understood to be clones of one another.  Although in both cases, political and military leaders were satirized and criticized, ordinary Germans were not.  Those who sought to portray the Japanese in popular culture during the Second World War showcased them as being “inherently inferior men and women who had to be understood in terms of primitivism, childishness, and collective mental and emotional deficiency.  [Therefore,] Cartoonists, songwriters, filmmakers, war correspondents, and the mass media, in general, all seized on these images… [and] ventured to analyze the Japanese national character during the war” ^[17] as being less than capable.  While “Waiting for the Signal From Home…” was published in 1942 in the months following Pearl Harbor, there was already an understanding that there were no differences between the Japanese living in America from those that had attacked the United States.  On December 9, 1941, just days after Pearl Harbor, Theodor Seuss Geisel, more commonly known as Dr. Seuss, drew a political cartoon titled  “The End of the Nap,” which showed a group of small Japanese men, identical in size, stature, and looks, harassing an eagle who had been roused from his slumber.  Dr. Seuss never assumed that all of the German people were identical to Adolf Hitler, while the Japanese were always shown with Hirohito’s infamous round wire glasses.  Rather than just those leading Japan being considered evil as was the case with Germans, all Japanese individuals were considered to be a threat to America’s way of life.

The idea that the Japanese had no decision-making abilities of their own and were unlike Americans was a common assumption by westerners throughout the Second World War.  This was allowed by the assumption made by Americans that the Japanese were a “subhuman, inhuman, lesser human, [and or] superhuman” ^[18] race.  By characterizing them as anything but human, they were able to be understood as a “demonic other.” ^[19]  While newspapers proved the idea that the Japanese were childish and animalistic to adults, cartoons were used to speak to children.  Tokio Jokio, a 1943 Looney Tunes cartoon, opens by demonstrating to the viewer “Japan’s finest air raid siren,” ^[20] which was nothing more than one Japanese man poking another with a needle, forcing him to scream into a megaphone.  The aircraft spotter was shown next, painting polka dots on a plane, and it was “too late” ^[21] to see the fire prevention headquarters, which had burned down.  A mouse-like Japanese man was then shown, demonstrating the proper way to handle an incendiary bomb, waiting five seconds while looking at his swastika stopwatch before approaching it in order to properly cook a piece of meat before it explodes, blowing him up in the process.^[22]  From being unable to kill a fly to hiding in a tree trunk with a skunk during an air raid, the Japanese were shown in Tokio Jokio as undeveloped, childlike creatures who failed to live up to western power, choosing to make foolish mistakes that even a child would understand to avoid.

Commando Duck was released by the Walt Disney Company in 1944.  While a large amount of attention was given to a nervous Donald Duck who had been instructed to “surround the enemy and wipe them out,” ^[23] the Japanese soldiers and their war tactics were also given attention.  Introduced by saying that “Japanese customs say always shoot a man in the back please,” ^[24] the viewer then sees Donald Duck in the midst of gunfire, yet the Japanese cannot hit the sitting duck.  When the first Japanese soldier is shown, he has been given all the stereotypical traits, such as wire-framed glasses and buck teeth, and is covered by twigs in order to disguise himself.  Although his shot at the rope holding Donald’s raft away from the waterfall was successful, it is also this shot that leads to the Japanese destruction of the Japanese airfield, as the raft begins to inflate.  Making sure that nothing pops it until the opportune moment, the planes were overcome with water, leaving nothing but ruins behind.  Upon seeing this, Donald writes “contacted enemy, washed-out same,” ^[25] a play on the saying that was commonly used as a signal sent by an American airman during World War II.  Although Donald had been successful in his task of defeating the Japanese, it may not have been accomplished so swiftly had it not been for the shot taken by the Japanese soldier earlier in his mission.

The treatment of Allied prisoners of war and others who lived in areas taken over by the Japanese proved the animalistic instincts of the Japanese, as their actions showed that they lacked the morals westerners had.  The Daily Advertiser in Lafayette, Louisiana, reported in 1943 that “the barbaric Japanese [had] executed some of the United States Army Air Force [who had been] captured after the raid on Tokyo… [holding] them as criminals.” ^[26]  In contrast to this, months earlier the Americans had taken Japanese prisoners to San Antonio, Texas, where they “were being fed on the best in the land.” ^[27]  Later that year, the United Press reported that the “beheading of an Allied flier in the southwest Pacific provides proof of Japan’s lack of civilization.” ^[28]  This incident was revealed in a “diary taken from a Jap prisoner.” ^[29]  In the Mansfield News-Journal in Mansfield, Ohio, an image of fighter pilot Lieutenant Sam S. Logan was shown.  Lieutenant Logan had “survived a barbaric Japanese ordeal in which he had his foot cut off by the propeller of a Jap Zero plane as he parachuted helplessly to earth… [Logan] was shot at by the Jap Zero pilot and [after] failing to kill him as he ‘cheated to earth, the fiendish Jap aimed his plane right at Logan, the propeller cutting off his foot.” ^[30]  Certainly, the paper made clear that only a person who had no morals would take part in such a horrific act, as Lieutenant Logan no longer was a threat as he attempted to escape his damaged plane and return to Earth alive.  

        Along the West Coast of the United States, there was a heightened fear that Japanese-Americans who resided within the nation could pose a serious national security threat.  Even before the outbreak of the Second World War, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had identified undocumented German, Italian, and Japanese individuals who were suspected of being potential enemy agents, keeping them under surveillance.^[31]  In the forty-eight hours following Pearl Harbor, over 1,200 undocumented Japanese were arrested by the FBI.  While this was an aggressive strategy, on February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066.  This order led to the forced evacuation and relocation of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast, something that a majority of Americans at the time had no issue with.  In December of 1942, a Gallup Research Poll asked Americans if they thought that the “Japanese who were moved inland from the Pacific coast should be allowed to return to the Pacific coast when the war is over.” ^[32]  The response from the general public was startling.  Despite these individuals having nothing to do with the attack on the United States, only 35 percent of respondents said they should be allowed to return to their homes.^[33]  In the following question, which asked what should be done with the interned Japanese-Americans living within the United States, half of the respondents stated that they should be sent back to Japan, despite the fact that two-thirds of those interned had been born in the United States of America.^[34] Thirteen percent said that they should be sent out of the United States.  Perhaps most alarming was that 1 in 10 Americans said to “leave them where they are–under control.” ^[35]

        With the relocation of the Japanese, the Associated Press discussed the work that these individuals would be doing to aid the Americans at war.  Roosevelt and his administration assured the public that while “they would perform work essential to the war effort… [such as farming, it would not be] a type of work which would provide any opportunity for sabotage.” ^[36]  In late March of 1942, United Press reported that the first 1,000 Japanese-Americans would be leaving Los Angeles the following week, having “volunteered to be the first to go… [However, Lieutenant General J. L. DeWitt continued, that he desired] to make it unmistakably clear that the evacuation will be carried on with or without such cooperation,” ^[37] urging the Japanese to take advantage of the time left in order to “prepare themselves for the coming [forced] move.” ^[38]  In July of 1942, The Bakersfield Californian published a series of photos from Manzanar, one of the ten internment camps within the United States.  The caption for the image “The American Way” stated that “youthful Manzanar residents find dancing–the American way–one of their best diversions, as they ‘jitterbug’ to the music provided by the camp piano.  Ball games, shows, and other forms of amusement help make life better for the 20,000 Japanese.” ^[39]  A quote from a reporter stated that “when I visited the reception center, however, I found no atmosphere of despair and stagnation, but a spirit of life and bustling activity.” ^[40]  Rather than acknowledging the truth of living in a place like Manzanar, the article highlighted an aura of acceptance of Japanese-Americans existing within their proper place, abiding by the rules set by the American government.  

        Throughout the early years of the war, Japan had defied the United States, seemingly rejecting their proper place as America’s mentor and attempting to take Asia for their own.  However, a shift occurred in the early months of 1945, with the important Allied victories in the Pacific Theater with the Battle of Iwo Jima (February 19 – March 26, 1945) and the Battle of Okinawa (April 1 – June 22, 1945).  Perhaps the most notable photo from the Second World War was taken during the Battle of Iwo Jima, with 5 Marines and 1 Naval corpsman marking the occasion by raising an American flag following the end of the battle.  While the image itself did not make reference to the Japanese, the title “Old Glory Goes Up Over Iwo” ^[41] showcased the strength Americans had over the Japanese.  This image was on the cover of many newspapers on Sunday, February 25, 1945, and provided the much-needed reassurance that the spirit of American soldiers had not been broken and that although the Japanese initially seemed as if they were no longer America’s students, they were certainly not superior.

Following the costly victory at Okinawa in June of 1945, a short documentary titled The Fleet That Came to Stay was released by the United States government in July of 1945.  This piece detailed the battle, which was described as the “fourth of July in reverse on Japanese shipping harbors [and] airfields.” ^[42]  After the Americans had waited several days with only silence from the Japanese, the Japanese had finally struck.  Suddenly, footage of a Kamikaze pilot was shown deliberately crashing into a U.S. battleship.  While the documentary stated that the Japanese call them “divine tempest, we call them suicide planes manned by the pilots wearing the ceremonial red sash of the Kamikaze cause.” ^[43]  Following a video of several Kamikaze planes crashing into Allied ships, the viewer was told that many of the pilots were “16-year-olds still in aviation school [who] were given their wings, a sash, and a mission.  A maniacal all-out effort to smash our seapower and isolate our troops on Okinawa.  It was desperation.  It was suicide.” ^[44]  Compared to the average age of American men who fought in the Second World War, which was 22 years of age,^[45] the idea that boys would be employed to defend their nation was horrifying.  Yet, with the additional information that these young boys would be partaking in a mission that would certainly end their life, the idea of Kamikaze pilots became even more unbelievable and fanatical to the American people.  If the Japanese, on their own accord, were willing to commit their young men to certain death, there was something corrupt within their way of thinking.

Just one month following the release of The Fleet That Came to Stay, the New York Times’ front-page headline read “Japan Surrenders, End of War!  Emperor Accepts Allied Rule; M’Arthur Supreme Commander; Our Manpower Curbs Voided.” ^[46]  Later on, in August of 1945, Our Job in Japan was released by the United States Military in order to provide a guide on how to turn Japan’s militarist state into a peaceful democracy.  Rather than focusing on the innate evil within the Japanese, as had been the case during the entirety of the Second World War, blame was placed on those in positions of power who were able to control the populace in order to wage an aggressive war.  Opening with General Douglass MacArthur stating that “it is my earnest hope, and indeed the hope of all mankind, that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past, I now invite the representatives of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese government and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters to sign the Instrument of Surrender at the places indicated” ^[47] while panning over important Japanese officials in attendance such as Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, Major General Yatsuji Naga, and Rear Admiral Tadatoshi Tomioka.  Yet, these individuals looked nothing like the Japanese who had been portrayed as violent, animalistic individuals.  Instead, their dress was formal and they seemed polite.  Shigemitsu, dressed in a tuxedo paired with a top hat, was shown signing the unconditional surrender.  

Our Job in Japan continued to use the same stereotypes that had been focused on during the Second World War but in a new way.  Although seemingly abrupt, the transition of the relationship between Japan and the United States “from a merciless racist war to an amicable postwar relationship was also facilitated by the fact that the same stereotypes that fed superpatriotism and outright race hate were adaptable to cooperation.” ^[48]  Rather than blaming the Japanese for supporting a military government, Our Job in Japan stated that Americans who occupied Japan were tasked with reforming the brains of those who had been taught to “play follow the leader.” ^[49]  The brains of the were “made of exactly the same stuff as” ^[50] American brains and although “it was beginning to learn these things [like law, geometry, architecture, and chemistry] in an old backward superstitious country,” ^[51] it had been corrupted by those who wished to use the brains of the Japanese people for evil rather than good.  In a piece from Collier’s Magazine, published in December of 1945 titled “Seventy Million Problem Children,” the author stated that Japan “is the world’s biggest kindergarten-Japan, with millions of pupils, all problem children who now promise to behave if we can show them how.  They confess having been bad boys and girls, but ‘please don’t blame us so much as the militarists and governmental crooks who led us astray.’” ^[52]  Blame was placed not on the individual, but on those who had used their power and influence to corrupt the Japanese people rather than help them become a positive asset to the global community.  In line with this, The United Press wrote that “Gen. Douglas MacArthur paved the way today for early trials of General. Hideki Tojo, Japan’s ‘Pearl Harbor’ premier.” ^[53]  General Tojo was 1 of 7 defendants sentenced to death in 1948 as a result of the findings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.  MacArthur, who had led the American occupation of Japan, defied the wishes of President Truman and refused to allow photography of their execution.  Instead, four members of the Allied Council were brought in order to act as official witnesses of their death.  This decision allowed for the Japanese populace to be spared from witnessing the death of the men who had corrupted them.  Just as a parent would shield their children’s eyes from a horrific act, America did the same to Japan.

To give Japan the ability to reinhabit its proper place, America needed to keep an individual that the Japanese trusted.  With this, the image of Emperor Hirohito was improved although he had long been seen as the individual who had been controlling the Japanese throughout the war.  In a message sent to the United States Army Chief of Staff, Dwight D. Eisenhower, General MacArthur stated that Emperor Hirohito was the symbol that united the Japanese people.  “Destroy him and the nation will disintegrate,” ^[54] he wrote in a memo to Eisenhower that was not released to the public until December of 1971.  Following the end of the war, 70 percent of the American public wished to see Hirohito executed as a result of Japanese war crimes.^[55]  As it was, every Japanese soldier had carried with him a “pocket-size Senjinkun or Field Service Code, whose opening sentence was this: ‘The battlefield is where the Imperial Army, acting under the Imperial command, displays its true character, conquering whenever it attacks, winning whenever it engages in combat, in order to spread the Imperial Way far and wide so that the enemy may look up in awe to the august virtues of His Majesty.’” ^[56]  Rather than making their own decisions, Americans believed that the Japanese were simply following the orders of Hirohito.  One month following the end of the war, the Los Angeles Evening Citizen News in Hollywood, California, reported that “as for Hirohito’s guilt, [Senator] Russel (D-GA) said that as supreme commander of the Japanese Army and Navy the Emperor never had halted any move to plunder and kill.” ^[57]  Although many Americans still felt that Hirohito should be held accountable for his involvement in the war, those in power understood that his presence was necessary as America guided Japan back into its proper place.

MacArthur was one of those who did not agree with the majority opinion of the American populace.  With Japanese culture so intertwined with the emperor, MacArthur believed that if Hirohito was allowed to remain in power while being controlled by the United States, the American occupation of Japan would be made much easier.   Hirohito, following the end of the war, was dissuaded by the Americans from acknowledging any moral responsibility for the violence that had been carried out in his name and with his assumed endorsement.^[58]  As he remained silent, there was the chance that his image could be reworked into one where he became a figurehead for Japan, guiding its people and following orders stated by America.

As Americans trusted MacArthur, showing him next to Hirohito would begin to reconstruct his image within the United States.  During the first of  10 meetings that occurred between Hirohito and MacArthur, a series of three images were taken of the two men.   Of those three, two were unusable.  Yet, the one published, which is the most well-known image from the American occupation of Japan, showed two very different men, one with unquestionable authority over the other.  MacArthur was wearing an open-necked khaki shirt with no medals, holding himself casually with his hands behind his hips.  The General towered over Hirohito, who stood stiff as a board in full morning dress.  On the front page of the United Press, under the headline “34 Jap Officers Who Massacred War Prisoners Arrested By MacArthur,” there was printed the image of Hirohito and MacArthur, with the title of the image reading “Hirohito Meets His Master.” ^[59]  Hirohito’s depiction next to MacArthur assumed the role that the Japanese would take during the American occupation of Japan–a role that consisted of subordination and learning from the dominant power.  With this image, there was a clear understanding that there was no reason for the Americans to fear Hirohito or the Japanese, as they were both firmly placed back under American control, just as it was assumed they should be.  

A large number of actors participated in reshaping the image of the Japanese from that of an animal to a child.  With political struggles in Asia leading to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and growing issues between the governments of North and South, Japan became America’s “‘bulwark’ against communism in the Far East.” ^[60]  While Hollywood and government officials were important figures in this reformation, American tourists also helped to reshape the image of the Japanese.  As they began to visit Japan, tourists brought first-hand accounts back home.  Unknowingly, these individuals aided in spreading the perception encouraged by the American government that the Japanese were no longer to be feared.  Instead, they required the aid of America in order to guide them to their rightful place.

Americans, even before the war, had become familiar with the nation Japan through trinkets brought back to the United States and descriptions of them provided in different works.  Lucy Herndon Crockett, a Red Cross worker who wrote Popcorn on the Ginza: An Informal Portrait of Postwar Japan following her return to the United States, remarked that “each scenic feature… was already familiar as a Fujiyama trademark.” ^[61]  Although Crockett had gone into Japan filled with hostility towards those that had committed terrible atrocities against Allied forces, a maid at her hotel lowered her defenses as the maid entered, bowed, and gave Crockett a vase of flowers as a “present-o,” ^[62] later telling her that “American ladies very nice-u.” ^[63]  In addition to women, Japanese children also assisted in softening the preconceived notions Americans held against their former enemy.  While the adults hid in horror from the Americans, a Marine Corps sergeant told Crockett, the children were curious, peeking their head around corners.  “Before we knew it we were surrounded… [and] when the older people watching our every movement saw that we weren’t bayoneting their kids and tearing them apart, but instead were treating them with kindness, they realized we weren’t the monsters they had expected.” ^[64]  These children could not resist candy, and Newsweek reported that G.I.’s would often engage with the “Jap youngsters [who] are especially cute, [and] the soldier will give candy or food to the wide-eyed Jap kids, who often show far less hatred towards Americans than their war-conscious parents.” ^[65]

In the relationship that began to form between American men stationed in Japan and Japanese women, the proper place of the Japanese began to once again take form.  Japanese women would scurry “into the kitchen and preparing a thick, sizzling steak–with a mountain of french fries–for her man,” ^[66] inhabiting their proper place and showing they were subordinate to the Americans.  Babysan, where the prior quote was written, was a popular comic created by an American artist while he was stationed in Japan.  The book was dedicated to “all Americans who have visited the land of Fujisan and who may have learned from the Japanese how to be occupied while occupying.”^[67]  The Babysan books depicted a young Japanese woman who flattered and flirted with American  G.I.'s who were formerly stationed in Japan following the end of the war.  Even the title of the book showed their subordination, with it translating to Miss Baby.  The opening page read that the book followed the “antics of the fun-loving Babysan… [who depicted] a phase of Japanese-American life hitherto untouched–a phase that will keep the reader roaring with laughter… To anyone who has ever served with the Allied forces in Japan, this book will bring many a chuckle in recalling Babysan’s antics.” ^[68]  Babysan looked to reverse the stereotypes made about Japan through her cute and childish attitude and Western style of dress.  She often made references to American misconceptions about Japan, helping the men stationed in Japan learn who Japanese women truly were.  For added fun, a full dictionary was added at the end in order to translate some of Babysan’s words, which included words such as sayonara, which was “usually slurred to sah ah nah da” ^[69] and meant goodbye or goodnight, as well as swabbie, which she used when speaking about a sailor.  Just as an infant would use words that were not intelligible to adults, the Japanese did the same.  Once a parent came to know what their child was attempting to say, they would be able to address their needs.  The dictionary at the end of Babysan allowed the American men to treat Japanese women as if they were their own children, learning their adolescent ways in order to tend to and take care of them.

Following the end of the Second World War, between 30 to 35,000 Japanese women migrated to America.  For the Japanese women who did return home with their American husbands, life was not the same as that experienced by Babysan.  While some Japanese wives chose to attend bride schools in order to learn to bake cakes the American way and walk in heels, this did little to help them face the racism they met when they entered the United States.  Hiroko Tolbers was 21 when she met her husband’s parents for the first time.  Picking her favorite kimono for the train ride to upstate New York, she suddenly learned that her “in-laws wanted me to change. They wanted me in Western clothes. So did my husband. So I went upstairs and put on something else, and the kimono was put away for many years.” ^[70]  In addition to this, her husband’s family gave her a new, American name: Susie.  A different Japanese woman also traveled to the United States with her American husband.  When she came to the United States, she graduated from an American university with a degree in microbiology and had found a good job at a hospital, yet she faced continued discrimination despite her accomplishments  When she was interviewed for a 2015 BBC article, she said that “I'd go to look at a home or apartment, and when they saw me, they'd say it was already taken. They thought I would lower the real estate value. It was like blockbusting to make sure Blacks wouldn't move into a neighborhood, and it was hurtful.” ^[71] 

By 1952, with the help of Americans who traveled to Japan, the Japanese once again were in their proper place.  The Treaty of San Francisco, which ended the Allied occupation of Japan, was signed on September 8, 1951, and came into effect the following year on April 28, 1952.  Full sovereignty was restored to Japan, with exceptions being made for the island chains of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, which the United States continued to control.  Following the end of the American occupation of Japan, Hirohito remained a reserved individual, just as a wife would be to her husband.  Although Japan had been reconstructed by the Americans, Hirohito seemed to embrace these changes.  This, in turn, allowed the Japanese to return to their proper place as America's younger siblings, needing to be mentored by their older and wiser sibling.

During the 1970s, he visited Europe and the United States, yet was met with very different responses.  A New York Times article stated that while visiting the Netherlands, “the windshield of the Emperor’s limousine was cracked by a stone hurled by a demonstrator… Some homes along his route flew Dutch flags at half-staff.  There were no Japanese flags displayed and almost no crowds turned out.  Outside the emperor’s residence in The Hague, a former Dutch prisoner of war picketed with a sign in English: ‘I owe it to my dead fellow P.O.W.’s to protest against the arrival of a murderer.” ^[72]  With an estimated 200,000 Dutch citizens having been imprisoned by the Japanese in the Dutch East Indies during the war, the memories of the Second World War remained vivid in the minds of many.  Although Hirohito’s visit had been an attempt to improve relations between the Japanese and Dutch, reporters had argued that the visit had instead “reopened old wounds.” ^[73]  Even though over 27,000 American prisoners of war had been held by the Japanese during the Second World War, Hirohito had a far different experience in the United States.  During his visit in 1975, the only protests reported by The New York Times were directed at the “killing of whales by Japanese whaling fleets.” ^[74]  Although it was reported by The Indianapolis News that a man “with an unloaded rifle in the trunk of his car… [was questioned and then] released when it was determined he was not a threat to the visitors.” ^[75]  Unlike his time in Europe, there was no public outcry against him coming to the United States.  On October 2, 1975, he met with President Gerald R. Ford, who formally welcomed the Emperor and his wife to the United States at a ceremony held on the South Lawn of the White House.  The United Press International reported that Hirohito had brought with him a “glittering banquet–served on royal china flown in from Tokyo–to seal a friendship between the two nations.” ^[76]  Earlier that same day, Hirohito had received a “21-gun salute as he entered Arlington National Cemetery, the burial ground for many American servicemen who fell fighting Japan in World War II.  He placed a wreath of white chrysanthemums–the personal symbol of the emperor–and red carnations at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.” ^[77] 

Days after Hirohito visited with President Ford, The Times in Munster, Indiana, reported that “Japanese Emperor Hirohito fulfilled a ‘long cherished desire’ in a daylong visit here [in Disneyland], eating California avocados amid mariachi music and shaking hands with two of his favorite personalities, John Wayne and Mickey Mouse.” ^[78]  During his time in Disneyland, Hirohito and his wife took a steam-engine train ride through the park before watching the Bicentennial America on Parade.  Earlier in the day, he had been at a luncheon with Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, where he took note of the Los Angeles area having “the largest Japanese-American population in the United States.” ^[79]  The Associated Press quoted Hirohito who stated that “we have long cherished a desire to visit this beautiful city… I am pleased to note that the 130,000 Japanese-Americans in this region are playing active roles as good American citizens.” ^[80]

In the span of thirty years, Emperor Hirohito had been transformed from a man who was categorized by the El Paso Herald-Post as “trickier than a Rhesus monkey, [and the] world’s greatest egotist” ^[81] to “an ordinary human being–a friend and open symbol of Japan.” ^[82]  Gone were the days of thinking of the Japanese as war-hungry animals, searching for places where they could expand their dominance.  It was believed that early on, although the Japanese had once been willing to learn from Western nations, they had gone off course, resulting in a need for the United States to harness and control them, bringing Japan back to its proper place in the global hierarchy.  In the days leading up to Hirohito’s visit to the United States, the Inquirer Wire Services published an article that described his transformation as a public figure, focusing on how he was a positive individual and was fit to lead Japan.  Following the end of the war, “while Japan’s top military leaders were tried as war criminals, Hirohito was let alone.  He was portrayed as a passive ruler who had been dragged into war by his generals and admirals and whose subsequent pleas for a peace settlement were ignored and overruled.” ^[83]  Hirohito, as a result, represented the will of the common people of Japan.  Although they had started the Second World War in the Pacific, following American occupation it was understood that the Japanese–Hirohito included–had simply followed the orders of those above them and were not given a chance to oppose such policies.  This had led to trouble when a corrupt government regime was at the helm of the nation.  Yet, following the American occupation of Japan, the Japanese had returned to their proper place, once again becoming America’s mentees and abiding by the rules that their mentor had laid out for them.