This article investigates how Asian Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area began forming a movement in the 1990s and early 2000s that demanded the Japanese government to issue an apology and reparations to the victims of the war crimes committed by the Japanese military in the 1930s and 1940s.

In the early 1990s, protesting the Japanese government’s revision of history textbooks and some Japanese leader’s denial of the Nanjing Massacre, Chinese Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area began commemorative events for victims of Japan’s invasion of China in the 1930s and 1940s. These activities of collective remembrance led to the formation of an organrzation called the Alliance for Preserving the Truth of the Sino-Japanese War. As its name straightforwardly indicates, the organrzation aimed to excavate, maintain, and educate “the truth” of the Japanese invasion in China, while another goal was to demand that the Japanese government issue an apology and reparations to the victims. The members who had experienced or whose parents experienced the atrocities committed by the Japanese military during the war actively engaged in public education and support of academic research, and created a global network among organizations with the same goals by forming the Global Alliance for Preserving the History of World War II in Asia in 1994.

The organization’s endeavors for public education bore fruit in the political arena when a conference by the Global Alliance for Preserving the History of World War II in Asia inspired California State Assembly member Mike Honda to introduce Assembly Joint Resolution (AJR 27), which urged the Japanese government to formally issue an apology and reparations to the victims of the war crimes. Honda, a Sensei who experienced the Japanese American internment during World War II, explained that based on the success of the Japanese American redress movement he had learned that an apology and reparations would heal victims’ wounds. He also emphasized the significance of this process of healing to the Asian American community in his district, which was divided by divergent memories of the war. Similarly locating AJR 27 within the history of Asian American activism, such as the Asian American movement and the Japanese American redress movement, other members of the community, including those who formed the “Rape of Nanking” Redress Committee (RNRC), supported Honda and his resolution. AJR 27 was passed in both California State Assembly and Senate in 1999.

Formed by Japanese Americans and Chinese Americans and emphasizing its Asian American panethnicity, the RNRC not only demanded the Japanese government to issue an apology and reparations to the victims of the war crimes, but also criticized U.S. foreign policy for blocking the demand toward the Japanese government based on the San Francisco Peace Treaty. Its criticism was clearly articulated when it organrzed with the Asian American studies program at the University of California, Berkeley a counter-conference against the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the treaty supported by both the Japanese and U.S. governments in 2001. Whereas Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka and Secretary of State Collin Powell celebrated the treaty for providing peace and prosperity in Japan and the Pacific alike, the participants at the conference posed an opposite view that the treaty had harmed international relations in the region. In addition, they demanded that the Japanese government issue an apology and reparations to the victims and the U.S. government to stop supporting the peace treaty.

Thus, Asian American in the San Francisco Bay Area advanced a movement to demand the Japanese government to issue an apology and reparations for war crime victims by placing their endeavors in the tradition of Asian American activism and developing a panethnic Asian American identity.

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The subject of this paper is to consider the influence of Gender Free Bashing (GFB) on present-day Japanese society. GFB means that there are certain political groups which oppose a gender-equal policy in Japan. Those who advocate GFB think that people who use words such as ‘gender’ or ‘gender-free’ are extremists who deny the existence of natural sex difference and family. Past researches has shown that GFB had influenced many young men who had supported nationalistic view. In this paper, I try to show the influence of GFB from the viewpoint of various people in connection with GFB. And I also try to show that the main aim of GFB is to achieve a invisible change in gender-equal policy through a supply of voluntary alignment of a member of administrative occupation.

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2001年の大会として11月24〜25日に上記のシンポジウムを開催した.24日の午後には「北陸の地場産業と港湾整備」と題して,石川県箔商工業協同組合,河北潟干拓地,金沢港,銭屋五兵衛記念館を見学し,25日は金沢市の石川県女性センターでシンポジウムを行った.はじめに金沢大学海域研究所の石田 啓委員長からの挨拶があり,中藤康俊大会実行委員長より趣旨説明が行われ,引き続き6名のパネル報告の後,各報告に対する4名のコメントと討論が行われた.なお,巡検の参加者は45名,シンポジウムの参加者は130名であった.シンポジウムの座長は中藤康俊(岡山大学)と柳井雅也(富山大学)が務めた.以下に各報告の要旨,討論と巡検の記録を掲げる.

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Jeju Olle, a long trail around Jeju Island in South Korea (26 courses, totaling 425km), was founded in 2007 by a passionate social entrepreneur, Ms. Myung-sook Suh, and her supporters. It created a walking tourism boom and has been widely recognized as the top brand among the 585 trails in Korea. The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in early 2020, has been suppressing our daily lives for over two years. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the reasons behind the increase in Jeju Olle walkers, especially among youths in their 20s and 30s, despite the deterioration of the economy, employment, mental health, and the Jeju tourism industry during the prolonged pandemic. The pandemic curtailed domestic service consumption, a sector in which a lot of youths are employed, resulting in an increased unemployment rate. Youths have a higher rate of depression and suicidal ideation than other generations, and have been more likely to suffer from the deterioration in mental health called “corona blue”. At the same time, they have been more inclined to participate in outdoor activities, including walking tours. The annual number of Jeju Olle walkers increased by 5% in 2020, and 54% in 2021 respectively, compared to pre-pandemic 2019 numbers, while Jeju tourists decreased by 33% in 2020 and 21% in 2021. The Jeju Olle Federation, a non-profit organization, has had some success in opening up the youth market during the pandemic, using new marketing and public relations activities via social media. The number of walkers in their 20s and 30s who had finished all courses in 2020 doubled from 2019. Their motives were, in order: to gain a sense of accomplishment (64.3%), the enjoyment of traveling Jeju (55.7%), introspection (49.6%), and making a new start (40.9%), and 72% of them answered that they had been mentally soothed. Therefore, it can be considered that in spite of the prolonged pandemic, the Jeju Olle walking tourism has been prosperous and the newly increased numbers of youths have revalued the brand of Jeju Olle in order to pursue “healing” and “self-realization” amid their struggles under the “with corona” era.

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