“Fusa Tsumagari, a Japanese American Woman, and Her Intersectional Use of Conversational and Contrastive Rhetorical Styles”
by Skyler Drew | Xchanges 13.2, Fall 2018
Feminine Rhetorical Identity Across Cultures
While conversational rhetoric helps us see the ways that Tsumagari performed feminine identity in her letters to Breed, her feminine identity is particularly complex because she has to balance the norms of femininity for both Japanese and American cultures. In other words, her identity is intersectional. An article by Aki Uchida (1998) addresses the aspect of identity in Japanese American women. Uchida explains the struggle these women face when trying to find and establish their identity. She explains that they are often put into a binary where they are forced to identify as either American or Japanese (Uchida, 1998). There’s a false dichotomy being imposed upon them by society, and there are many factors to consider in the identity process.
It is important to note that while these women faced pressure from society to choose one cultural identity, many of them still insisted on defying societal expectations and demands, and they chose to identify as Japanese American. Their identity is intersectional in nature because they are part of a minority group based on both culture/ethnicity and gender, and they have juxtaposing ideals that stem from their cultures coexisting within one person. Tsumagari also shared this complex, intersectional identity, and it impacted her rhetorical strategy as she had to find a way to incorporate both cultural identities into one singular and cohesive writing style.
Ryuko Kubota (1997) uses contrastive rhetoric as a lens to analyze Japanese texts and traditions that were common among the culture’s writing. Kubota (1997) writes, “Japanese written texts are characterized by an abrupt topic shift manifested in a classical style called ki-sho-ten-ketsu, reader responsibility, and a quasi-inductive pattern” (p. 461). When looking at Tsumagari’s letters, there is a prevalent pattern within the letters related to Kubota’s observation. Tsumagari would sometimes switch topics suddenly and without warning. An example can be found in a letter from 1943. Tsumagari (1943a) writes, “We are all wearing sweaters for the first time in some months. We make fun of each other calling: ‘sweater girl’ cause they’re still rather odd after a hot season. / Yesterday, I finished reading Lost Horizon. It really left me with a funny feeling.” This sudden switch in topic embodies ki-sho-ten-ketsu, incorporating a traditional Japanese norm of writing with Tsumagari’s style.
Furthermore, Tsumagari would write for a long time in a “small-talk,” conversational way by bringing up less relevant points before arriving at her main objective for the letter—an inductive organizational writing style, another characterization of Japanese writing. An example can be seen in the final letter from 1945, where Tsumagari writes about Christmas, her family, and getting a “perm” before finally arriving to the main point of the camp closing and the prisoners being released home.
However, Tsumagari identified as Japanese American, which means she felt connected to both parts of her identity. One element of her writing style that was arguably more Western was when her writing became more assertive and less “private” or “feminine”—occurring specifically when addressing the internment camps and living conditions. In the first letter examined, Tsumagari (1942) writes, “Another announcement just came out stating the fact that we cannot receive any perishable or nonperishable food here. The only thing we can bring in from the outside is candy. Gee, that really makes me mad.” Assertive behavior and language is generally avoided in Japanese discourse (Kubota, 1997), so this trait is more Western/American in nature. Another Western writing trait Tsumagari displays is that she showed resistance through the letters themselves—communicating with an outsider from the camp and making her displeasure evident, going against gaman, a Japanese tradition that focuses on enduring in silence (Kubota, 1997).