Nakao, Michiko (Michi), 1934-1993

Michiko (Michi) Nakao was an editor and writer who greatly contributed to the Japanese community in New York. She was born in Hokkaido, Japan, in 1934. In Japan, Nakao worked for Iwanami Shoten, one of the most well-regarded publishers in the country. In 1956, Nakao received a scholarship to study in the United States, first at Villa Maria College in Buffalo, New York, and from 1960, at Columbia University. Unfortunately, Nakao had to leave the university due to an injury caused by a car accident. After her recovery, she worked for two Japanese companies in New York from 1965 to 1975.

In 1976, Nakao began to publish Japan/New York, a magazine for the Japanese community, and founded the publisher Vega Japan in 1983. Meanwhile, she continued to write and do research, publishing Onna hitori de kurasu New York (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1985) and New York no career women (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1987). She also worked on several books which were never published. One of these was, Fuyu no hoko, was about the Japanese Communist and labor leader Sen Katayama. Although it was not published as a monograph, the series of articles titled Fuyu no hoko is available in Japan/New York . The other, Umi wo koete, was about Japanese immigrants in the United States. She ceased publishing Japan/New York in 1990. Subsequently in 1991, Nakao was diagnosed with breast cancer. She died in Japan on March 29, 1993. Nakao made a large bequest to the Rutgers University Libraries, which is used for the purchase of Japanese-language materials.

Sen Katayama was a founding member of both the American and Japanese Communist parties, as well as, in Japan, a pioneer of the socialist movement, a founder of the profession of social work, a leader in the early trade union movement, and the editor of Japan's first labor newspaper. Sugataro Yabuki (known as Sen Katayama) was born in Hadeki-mura, Kume-gun, Mimasaka, which would become Okayama prefecture. At the age of nineteen, he was adopted into the Katayama family. He began to live in Tokyo in 1881, where he studied at a small preparatory school, the Oka Juku. At the school, he formed a lifelong friendship with Seishichi Iwasaki, whose uncle was one of the founders of the Mitsubishi Corporation, and who would later found Tokyo Gas and other large companies. Inspired by Iwasaki, Katayama decided to go to the United States. In 1888, he enrolled in Maryville College in Tennessee, transferring to Grinnell College in Iowa the following year. After his graduation in 1892, he attended Andover Theological Seminary, moving to Yale Divinity School in 1894. Through these experiences, he became a socialist and Christian.

Katayama returned to Japan in 1896, becoming the director of a settlement house called Kingsley Hall. In 1897, the first modern union in the country, Tekko Kumiai (the Ironworkers Union) was founded with Katayama as secretary. Along with the socialist and anarchist Shusui Kotoku and others, Katayama founded the Shakai minshuto (Social Democratic Party) in 1901, the first socialistic party in Japan. In 1904, Katayama attended the International Socialist Congress in Amsterdam and an American Socialist Party convention in Chicago. In 1906, he returned to Japan, where he remained active in the socialist movement. In cooperation with Kotoku, he helped found the Nihon shakaito (Japan's Socialist Party) in 1906. The two eventually split, however, over Kotoku's advocacy of direct action. In 1912, Katayama was imprisoned over his participation in the Tokyo Streetcar Strike. He soon left Japan for good, moving to California. Attracted by the success of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, he became a Communist. He went to Mexico in 1921 as an officer for the Comintern, and afterwards was called to Moscow, from where he worked to establish the Nihon kyosanto (Japanese Communist Party). Katayama Sen died in Moscow on November 5, 1933 and was buried in the Kremlin.