Saké, Memory, Identity

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Diverse and Enduring: Archaeology from Across the Asian Diaspora" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Archaeological studies have shown that members of diasporic Japanese communities in North America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries consumed a range of alcoholic beverages, including Western-style beer, wine, and distilled spirits alongside Japanese saké and Chinese liquor (baijiu). However, despite this diversity in the archaeological record, references to alcohol in oral histories and other first-person accounts of Issei (first generation) and Nisei (second generation) informants mention saké to the virtual exclusion of all other alcoholic beverages. Here I present data on alcohol production and consumption among Japanese migrant communities in the western United States and Canada during the pre-World War II era, drawn from these first-person accounts. I then explore the apparent contrast between historical and archaeological data with reference to scholarship on memory, oral history, and the process of diasporic identification.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Diverse and Enduring: Archaeology from Across the Asian Diaspora   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology