Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto

"Her life was a bridge from the nineteenth century to the twentieth, from the time-hallowed beauty and rigidity of a samurai household to the disorienting, forward-looking freedoms of the West." —Janice P. Nimura, from the foreword. This classic memoir tells the story of a remarkable Asian-American woman navigating two very different cultures—a loyal wife, a widowed mother, and a bilingual breadwinner—who finds her voice in a strange new world. Follow her journey as she:Witnesses her father prepare and perform ritual seppuku, and her mother burn down the ancestral homeBids an emotional farewell and sails across the ocean to marry a wealthy merchant in a new landReturns to Tokyo with her two daughters and mother-in-law, only to find her homeland as alien as America, forcing her to reinvent herself to provide for her familyEventually returns to America with her children after the death of her mother-in-lawAn international bestseller when first published a century ago, A Daughter of the Samurai remains a testament to a woman's resolve, strength, and endurance. This edition includes a new foreword by 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist Janice P. Nimura.

Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto was born into a samurai family after the Meiji Restoration in 1868. In this autobiography, she recounts her experiences growing up in a culture with severely strict expectations. As her family's influence and power wanes, a marriage is arranged for her, and she leaves to join her future husband in America. Etsu's story is interleaved with insightful explanations of Japanese culture, religion, and history. As she is exposed to more of the world outside of Japan, she must reconcile the differences between the traditions she grew up with and the ideas of her new homeland. A beautiful, moving, personal account by a young woman caught between two cultures.

"Her life was a bridge from the nineteenth century to the twentieth, from the time-hallowed beauty and rigidity of a samurai household to the disorienting, forward-looking freedoms of the West." —Janice P. Nimura, from the foreword. This is the story of one woman's remarkable life successfully navigating two very different cultures—the first memoir of an Asian-American woman. Beautifully told, this immigrant's account of an unforgettable journey is the story of a headstrong and empowered woman—a loyal wife, a widowed mother and a bilingual breadwinner—finding her way and finding her voice in a strange new world. Follow in her footsteps and trace the remarkable trajectory of her life as she:Witnesses her father prepare and perform the ritual seppuku and her mother burn down the family homeBids an emotional farewell and sails across the ocean to marry a wealthy merchant in a new landReturns to Tokyo with her two daughters and mother-in-law, only to find her homeland just as alien as America, forcing her to reinvent herself again in order to provide for her familyReturns to America with her children following the death of her mother-in-lawAn international bestseller when it was first published a century ago, A Daughter of the Samurai emerges as a rare testament to a singular woman's resolve, strength and endurance. This edition features a new foreword by 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist Janice P. Nimura.

A Daughter of the Samurai is written by Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto. Her story, as Sugimoto tells it, is: "How a daughter of feudal Japan, living hundreds of years in one generation, became a modern American." In this book, intriguing intimate episodes involving love, duty, and family ties are revealed even as there was clash of cultures and misunderstandings between Japanese and Western ways. While living between a semi-mythical past and a resurgent international scenario, the author recounts the personal impact of the profound social changes brought about by Japanese-American relations during the Meiji period. Sugimoto offers an insider's view of traditional Japanese samurai family life as it is in the process of being brushed off. Although the book contains several chapters, it starts with author's description of Japan. In the very first chapter 'Winters in Echigo, ' Sugimoto tells, Japan is often called by foreign people a land of sunshine and cherry blossoms. Among her delicate and significant anecdotes, she tells of the Japanese fianc e whose betrothed had a plum-blossom as his family crest.

A Daughter of the Samurai (1925) is an autobiography by Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto. Born in Japan, she was sent to the United States to fulfill an arranged marriage with a Japanese merchant. Raised in a family whose prominence had fallen toward the end of the feudal era, Sugimoto gained a unique perspective on Japanese life that would shape her literary career and outlook as a professor at New York’s Columbia University. “Japan is often called by foreign people a land of sunshine and cherry blossoms. […] In the province of Echigo, where was my home, winter usually began with a heavy snow which came down fast and steady until only the thick, round ridge-poles of our thatched roofs could be seen.” Born and raised in a northern province of Japan, Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto came from a family of high-ranking samurai officials. Originally prepared to live as a priestess, Etsu became the center of her father’s attention when her brother eloped and left for America. No longer financially stable, Sugimoto’s father depended on his children to secure their family’s future. Soon, he arranged for his daughter to marry a successful merchant living in Ohio, sending her to Tokyo to study at a Methodist school. Then, she made the journey across the ocean to start a new life in America. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Setsuko Hirakawa’s A Daughter of the Samurai is a classic of Japanese American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Born in 1874 the youngest daughter of a samurai and former daimyo-a feudal prince under the Takugawa shogunate-Etsu Inagaki grew up surrounded by ghosts of an aristocratic military lineage. Having fought on the losing side in the wars that installed the Meiji emperor, the Inagaki family was reduced in power, status, and wealth but not in pride or devotion to its traditional roles and customs. Etsu's upbringing and education were conservative and old-fashioned, guided by the Shinto and Buddhist beliefs her family held. The samurai virtues of honor, stoicism, and sacrifice applied to daughters and wives as well as sons and fathers: "The eyelids of a samurai know not moisture." Family turmoil, including her father's death and the return of her prodigal brother, led her on another path-to an English-language mission school in Tokyo and an arranged marriage to a Japanese businessman in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she became mother to two daughters before being widowed and returning with them to Japan. Her story, as she tells it, is: "How a daughter of feudal Japan, living hundreds of years in one generation, became a modern American." The clash of cultures, the momentous and sometimes hilarious misunderstandings between Japanese and Western ways are revealed in intriguing intimate episodes involving love, duty, and family ties. Living between a semi-mythical past and an emergent international present, Mrs. Sugimoto recounts the personal impact of the profound social changes brought about by Japanese-American relations during the Meiji period (1868-1912) and offers an unexpected insider's view of traditional Japanese samurai family life as it is in the process of being swept away.

A Daughter of the Samurai (1925) is an autobiography by Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto. Born in Japan, she was sent to the United States to fulfill an arranged marriage with a Japanese merchant. Raised in a family whose prominence had fallen toward the end of the feudal era, Sugimoto gained a unique perspective on Japanese life that would shape her literary career and outlook as a professor at New York’s Columbia University. “Japan is often called by foreign people a land of sunshine and cherry blossoms. […] In the province of Echigo, where was my home, winter usually began with a heavy snow which came down fast and steady until only the thick, round ridge-poles of our thatched roofs could be seen.” Born and raised in a northern province of Japan, Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto came from a family of high-ranking samurai officials. Originally prepared to live as a priestess, Etsu became the center of her father’s attention when her brother eloped and left for America. No longer financially stable, Sugimoto’s father depended on his children to secure their family’s future. Soon, he arranged for his daughter to marry a successful merchant living in Ohio, sending her to Tokyo to study at a Methodist school. Then, she made the journey across the ocean to start a new life in America. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Setsuko Hirakawa’s A Daughter of the Samurai is a classic of Japanese American literature reimagined for modern readers.

A young Japanese woman leaves the only home she's ever known for married life in nineteenth-century Ohio in a delightful and charming memoir about learning your own strengths and finding your way between two cultures. Born into a high-ranking samurai family at the onset of the Meiji period, Etsu Sugimoto is originally destined to be a Buddhist priestess. She grows up as a curly-haired tomboy in Echigo, a beloved daughter of a traditional family, certain of her future role in her community. But her life changes when, as a young teenager, she is instead engaged to a Japanese merchant in Cincinnati. As a result, Etsu undertakes a new education--one focused on learning English as well as the traditional duties and ways of a Japanese wife, knowing that she will have to leave the only world she has ever known for life in the United States. Keenly intelligent and observant, Etsu arrives in Ohio as a bright-eyed twenty-six-year-old, puzzled by the differences between the two cultures and alive to the contradictions, ironies, and beauties of both. Her memoir, reprinted for the first time in decades, is a tribute to the struggles of the first generation of Japanese immigrants and the unforgettable story of a strong and determined woman.

A Daughter of the Samurai offers an elegant account of a world that had all but vanished by the time Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto put pen to paper. In her beguiling memoir Sugimoto chronicles her childhood in the frozen Nagaoka region of Japan, where she grows up in a high-ranking samurai family in the aftermath of the Meiji Restoration that stripped the samurai class of many of its privileges. Although originally destined to be a Buddhist priestess, at the age of twelve she becomes engaged by family arrangement to a Japanese merchant in Cincinnati, Ohio. To prepare for her new life in the United States Etsu attends a Methodist school in Tokyo where she studies English. In 1898 she boards a ship and leaves the only land she has ever known. An emissary of her native culture even while she is fascinated by American customs, Sugimoto keenly observes the two worlds she inhabits. Sugimoto's profound, poignant, and sometimes wry perceptions continue to resonate with authenticity and insight to this day. Includes a biographical note on the author's life and work.

"The customs of all countries are strange to untrained eyes, and one of the most interesting mysteries of my life here is my own gradual but inevitable mental evolution."-Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto, A Daughter of the Samurai (1926)A Daughter of the Samurai (1926) by Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto is the insightful account of the author's drastic change of culture from feudal Japan to an arranged marriage in the United States. The story reveals her assimilation to life as a merchant's wife and her return to Japan as a widow and mother to two daughters. Sugimoto's keen observations of the American way of life and its sharp contrast to her native Japan provide a rich reading experience for anyone interested in gaining or deepening their understanding of living in two different cultures.

"The customs of all countries are strange to untrained eyes, and one of the most interesting mysteries of my life here is my own gradual but inevitable mental evolution."-Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto, A Daughter of the Samurai (1926)A Daughter of the Samurai (1926) by Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto is the insightful account of the author's drastic change of culture from feudal Japan to an arranged marriage in the United States. The story reveals her assimilation to life as a merchant's wife and her return to Japan as a widow and mother to two daughters. Sugimoto's keen observations of the American way of life and its sharp contrast to her native Japan provide a rich reading experience for anyone interested in gaining or deepening their understanding of living in two different cultures.