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Femininity, Race and Treachery: How ‘Tokyo Rose’ Became a Traitor to the United States after the Second World War
Author(s) -
Shibusawa Naoko
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
gender and history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.153
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-0424
pISSN - 0953-5233
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0424.2010.01584.x
Subject(s) - narrative , mainstream , mythology , trial by ordeal , femininity , rose (mathematics) , race (biology) , history , literature , media studies , law , art , sociology , political science , gender studies , geometry , mathematics
Based on archival and printed sources, this article revisits the ordeal of Iva Toguri d’Aquino (1916–2006), the Japanese American woman who became trapped in the myth of ‘Tokyo Rose’ and was tried for treason in 1949. It retells the tale by weaving together the various narratives of her story and pays particular attention to the ways in which the media constructed her story. The larger purpose is to explore why the federal government and the mainstream media deliberately ignored the other available narratives that explained Toguri's actions as a broadcaster for Radio Tokyo during the war. An analysis of the alternative narratives in conjunction with the stories of other female announcers who were not prosecuted (‘Manila Rose’) or who did not gain the infamy of ‘Tokyo Rose’ (‘Axis Sally’) will help us better understand how treason is gendered and orientalised.