In examining records from the U.S. Census Bureau and from the Japanese Consulates General in the United States, Jin estimates that 50,000 Nisei Japanese (citizens born in the United States) departed the United States for Japan or the territories of the Japanese Empire in the first half of the twentieth century—approximately one-fourth of the Nisei Japanese in the United States during this era. The scholarly and popular historical works about the Nisei Japanese, which are hardly numerous, generally discuss these people as an Asian American minority rooted within the United States. Jin’s use of sources from both sides of the Pacific, however, discovers that for the Nisei Japanese, transpacific migration was more “the norm rather than the exception.” The diversity of their experiences is the major theme throughout this well-researched study.
Some of the Nisei Japanese went to Japan to join their families and others to study the Japanese language,...