Orientals vs. Yankees: Discourse on Race and Nationalism of Japanese Baseball Games in Chicago, 1910–30

My paper explores the ways in which representations of baseball games between University of Chicago and Waseda University of Tokyo contributed to reminding a conventional racial hierarchy between white Americans and Japanese in Chicago from the 1900s to the 1910s.  It will illustrate how discourse on these baseball games provided a symbolical way for white Americans to maintain the racial order, while offering both Chicagoans opportunities to express their ethnic pride and patriotism.
In Chicago, the baseball games drew overwhelming attention from the public as well as Japanese community and were frequently covered by media such as Chicago Daily Tribune.  Under the Windy City’s relatively tolerant racial environment for Japanese, which was distinct from cities on the West coast, the spectators and players —both Japanese and white Americans—embraced a space where they could openly take a side in the battles on the field.  Nevertheless, journalists reported the competitions with a belligerent and sometimes discriminatory terminology and described Japanese players as little brothers from “the Orient,” who needed to be taken care of by their big brother, the University of Chicago Maroons.  And the games were often juxtaposed with the social and cultural conditions of these two racial groups and their cheering and hooting was often politicized.
Key to understanding the impact of these baseball games on the racial relations between Japanese and white Americans lie in global and local contexts.  White racial superiority was conceptually threatened by prevailing representations of the rise of Imperial Japan in local as well as national—an elaborate pavilion of Japanese government at the Columbian Exposition, and her victory in the Sino-Japan War and the Russo-Japan War.  My paper will show the moment when the entertaining sporting event became a politically and socially contested space for Japanese and white Americans.