The Only Woman in the Room: A Memoir of Japan, Human Rights, and the Arts - Softcover

Gordon, Beate Sirota; Dower, John W.; Gordon, Nicole A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 022613251X ISBN 13: 9780226132518

Verlag: University of Chicago Press, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

In 1946, at age twenty-two, Beate Sirota Gordon helped to draft the new postwar Japanese Constitution. The Only Woman in the Room chronicles how a daughter of Russian Jews became the youngest woman to aid in the rushed, secret drafting of a constitution; how she almost single-handedly ensured that it would establish the rights of Japanese women; and how, as a fluent speaker of Japanese and the only woman in the room, she assisted the American negotiators as they worked to persuade the Japanese to accept the new charter.

Sirota was born in Vienna, but in 1929 her family moved to Japan so that her father, a noted pianist, could teach, and she grew up speaking German, English, and Japanese. Russian, French, Italian, Latin, and Hebrew followed, and at fifteen Sirota was sent to complete her education at Mills College in California. The formal declaration of World War II cut Gordon off from her parents, and she supported herself by working for a CBS listening post in San Francisco that would eventually become part of the FCC. Translating was one of Sirota’s many talents, and when the war ended, she was sent to Japan as a language expert to help the American occupation forces. When General MacArthur suddenly created a team that included Sirota to draft the new Japanese Constitution, he gave them just eight days to accomplish the task. Colonel Roest said to Beate Sirota, “You’re a woman, why don’t you write the women’s rights section?”; and she seized the opportunity to write into law guarantees of equality unparalleled in the US Constitution to this day.

But this was only one episode in an extraordinary life, and when Gordon died in December 2012, words of grief and praise poured from artists, humanitarians, and thinkers the world over. Illustrated with forty-seven photographs, The Only Woman in the Room captures two cultures at a critical moment in history and recounts, after a fifty-year silence, a life lived with purpose and courage. This edition contains a new afterword by Nicole A. Gordon and an elegy by Geoffrey Paul Gordon.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Beate Sirota Gordon (1923-2012) was an Austrian-born American performing arts impresario. Following her work on the Japanese Constitution, Gordon devoted her life to bringing the arts of Asia to the United States. She would receive many honorary degrees and awards, including an Obie, an American Dance Guild Award, and the Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Japanese government.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

The Only Woman in the Room

A Memoir of Japan, Human Rights, and the Arts

By Beate Sirota Gordon

The University of Chicago Press

Copyright © 2014 John W. Dower
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-226-13251-8

Contents

Foreword, 
Homecoming, 
Vienna, My Birthplace, 
The House in Nogizaka, 
In Wartime America, 
The Equal Rights Clause, 
Career and Family, 
East and West, 
Afterword, 
Notes, 

CHAPTER 1

Homecoming

It was Christmas Eve, 1945.

As the propeller plane started its descent, I took out my compact and checked my reflection in the mirror. Although I had left New York more than two days before, there were no shadows under my eyes. I looked the way I felt, energetic and eager. Excitedly I applied lipstick and changed from summer clothes into a skirt and sweater, simultaneously praying and vowing as I did so: "Somehow I will find my mother and father."

The war had ended, but the thirty or so other passengers aboard the transport were all military men. Our flight from Guam had followed the route the B29 bombers used to take; after eight hours, we were finally approaching the coast of Japan. At the shoreline, the blue of the sea turned green where the waves broke in a swirl of lace. Beyond the beaches, farms and paddies came into view, arranged like so many playing cards, reminding me of the orderliness I had always associated with the Japanese. I was returning to Japan after an absence of five years. The dark green woods, gray-tiled roofs and narrow roads of the land I had longed to see again lay spread out below me. But then, after miles of fields and gardens, the scenery changed abruptly. Charred ruins and solitary chimneys stood up from the bare red earth like nails. This was the "land of the gods" that had once thought itself invincible. I had seen newspaper photos, of course, but the reality—especially from above—was utterly different. Soon we were at the outskirts of Yokohama. Atsugi Airport was close by, but the pilot deliberately circled for a while at low altitude, perhaps to show his passengers the sheer extent of the Allies' victory. It was an effective presentation. Looking down, I knew beyond a doubt that the Japanese were finished.

The soldiers on the plane whistled and flocked to the windows, exulting openly, but I felt numb with shock. We were all American citizens assigned to the General Headquarters of SCAP (Supreme Commander Allied Powers), where General Douglas MacArthur was directing the Occupation, but at that moment I was brought up short by the differences between us. To me, Japan meant home, the country where I had been brought up and where my parents still lived. Silently I said another prayer for their safety.

The plane banked away from Yokohama toward Atsugi Airport. Below us, I saw many other planes spread about, all American military aircraft, looking like great steel birds that had flown down to rest. A couple of them had red crosses on white backgrounds. Formerly a special base of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Atsugi now looked as if it had always been an American facility. Our transport continued to descend. On the ground several jeeps were moving about, and I caught glimpses of steel-helmeted soldiers and a single army tank. The soldiers on our plane had fallen silent, as though by agreement, and the cabin was filled with the noise of the engines. We touched down with a bump. The sun was already setting on this short winter's day.

We had flown from New York to the naval base at San Diego and from there to Hawaii. The next day brought us to tiny Johnston Island, then on to Guam and, at last, Atsugi. It was a trip of more than thirty hours.

It did not feel like Christmas Eve at Atsugi. A squad of soldiers appeared, marching back and forth, jeeps drove by, and fighter planes and transports were taking off and landing constantly. I could see Japanese men wearing white armbands and working under close supervision. It was apparent from their uniforms that they were former naval personnel, and their insignia showed high-ranking men among them. Presumably they still hadn't received permission to return to their families.

One of them caught my eye. Having grown up as a woman in Japan, I automatically looked down. But his response was to bow deeply. It seemed unthinkable: a Japanese serviceman deferring to me, a twenty-two-year-old Caucasian woman. For the second time I felt a stab of dismay at the totality of Japan's defeat.

There was already an immigration and customs office at Atsugi to deal with the numerous Allied personnel arriving there. Passport control was a formality. The soldier in charge merely looked at my photo, then at me, stamped "Occupied Japan" in my passport, thanked me and handed it back. He ignored the entries for my date of birth, birthplace (Vienna) and occupation. If he had checked the last, he would surely have questioned it. On my passport application I had written "research expert," but a State Department official had left out the word "research" and entered only "expert."

A jeep and driver were quickly found for me and my two suitcases, and we headed for Tokyo. Along the dusty road, all the signs were printed in English as well as Japanese. We passed through Yokohama, the damage caused by aerial bombardment—so dramatically visible from the plane—unfolding in scenes as still and silent as a frieze under the bleak December sky. What buildings had been left standing were smudged and blackened with smoke; not one of them had a pane of glass intact. Yet in the burned-out areas between the buildings rice had been planted, and the fragile green shoots of onions and winter radishes were visible amid the sea of red-brown rubble.

Night had fallen by the time we entered Tokyo. My heart was racing. As soon as I had learned that I would be returning to Japan, I had sent my parents a cable, so I hoped they would be waiting either at our house in Nogizaka or in the lobby of the Dai-Ichi Hotel in Shimbashi. We reached the Ginza. Shimbashi lay straight ahead, but first I had to leave my baggage at the billet assigned to me. Since I was the first civilian woman in occupied Japan, there was no separate billet for me; I had to stay with the WACS (Women's Army Corps) in one of the few buildings to have survived the fires. I left my bags in a room that housed six, and went off in the waiting jeep to the Dai-Ichi Hotel, which had been turned into living quarters for high-ranking GHQ officers. I pushed the front door open and entered eagerly.

The lobby was dark. I expected to hear my mother and father call my name, but apart from two naval officers, the place was deserted. I looked everywhere, even in the rest rooms, and inquired in vain at the reception desk for "a middle-aged European couple." At this point the two officers called out to me. They probably hadn't seen a young non-Asian woman in months, and wanted to know what the problem was.

"I was supposed to meet my parents here," I explained. "I sent a cable from New York." My voice rose sharply and wobbled.

"A cable?" one of the officers repeated, clearly amazed at my naïveté. "Haven't you seen the conditions here—after the bombing? Where did you send it? Isn't it obvious that a cable can't be delivered?"

The other man saw that I was near tears.

"What are your parents' names?" he asked kindly.

I told him their names and my father's profession—pianist—but I felt devastated. The possibility that the cable hadn't been delivered had never crossed my...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of Chicago Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 022613251X
• ISBN 13: 9780226132518
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 180
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar