Early History of the Largest Japanese Church in Hawaii
History of the Hongwanji Mission in Hawaii / Hawai kaikyo shiyo
Notes: "A general historical survey of the 20-year Hompa Hongwanji Buddhist Mission in Hawaii. Treats the opening of the mission headquarters and its activities and the many churches dispersed throughout the islands under it. The author was the head of the mission."—A Buried Past, 355.
"History of the early stage of Buddhism in Hawaii. The first Honpa Hongwanji minister was sent to Hawaii in 1897."—JANM bibliography, 265.
"A general history of the immigrant work of the Honpa Hongwanji in Hawaii, drawing upon the personal experiences of the author, Bishop of the Mission."—Matsuda, The Japanese in Hawaii (1975), 159.
The 28-page English-language section at the back includes a two-page conciliatory note from the governor of Hawaii about the unity of ethics among religions followed by a statement from Imamura, "To the American Public." Imamura makes a case that the labor unrest among Japanese immigrants was no different than similar labor strife in the rest of the United States. He also commits the mission to a policy of assimilation of the Nisei: "I take here the liberty of announcing in no ambiguous terms that our mission as a whole advocates Americanizing the people of the territory in every possible way" (p. 9). This was likely a response to the growing anti-immigrant feeling in the US during the First World War.
The Hongwanji Mission was a Shin Buddhist mission established in Hawaii to minister to Japanese immigrant sugarcane plantation workers. It supported dozens of small Buddhist temples on the islands.
38, 18, 365, [2], 28 pages
OCLC: 13156706, 673066317, 834961595 (not to be confused with the pamphlet with a similar name, also published in 1918)
Edition + Condition: First edition. Original publisher's cloth abraded, three old Japanese library stamps inside, else very good in stiff cloth covers.
Publication: Honolulu: The Publishing Bureau of the Hongwanji Mission / Honpa Honganji Hawai Kaikyo Kyomusho Bunshobu, 1918.
Item No: #360882
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