Poverty in America turns heads in Japan

Japanese journalist and author Mika Tsutsumi will deliver a lecture, titled “Why my book Poverty Superpower America sold 500,000 copies in Japan,” Thursday, Oct. 13 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in the Smith Memorial Student Union, room 327.

A book about poverty in the United States is nothing new, and Portlanders see examples of poverty every day. So why is Tsutsumi’s book so popular in Japan?

“Many Japanese have a very strong image of the U.S. as an image of prosperity,” said Ken Ruoff, Portland State’s director of the center for Japanese studies. “After the post-war period, it was a model for Japan, and they continue to have positive feelings towards the U.S.”

Ruoff first saw Poverty Superpower America, a book published by Japan’s Iwanami Shoten, in a Tokyo bookstore last January.

“The fact that a book with this title would become a bestseller made me realize that the Japanese view of the U.S. had undergone a change,” he said.

Ruoff arranged for Tsutsumi to speak at PSU.

“She wrote the book as a corrective of the idea that every time something has gone wrong in Japan, they should look to the U.S. as a model,” he explained.

This is was one of the reasons Tsutsumi thought her book was so popular in Japan. One Japanese reader, who prefers to remain anonymous, agreed with Ruoff’s claim about Japan’s changing perception of American prosperity.

“This book makes us think twice about simply doing things like Americans,” said the reader, who grew up in Japan. “In the book, she says poor people never escape poverty, so that’s one thing that Japan doesn’t want to copy.”

This person added that poor people have it rough in America.

“That’s a big part of Mika’s book,” the reader said. “America is not the dream country we thought it was.”

This issue is particularly compelling to Japanese people because poverty has recently become an important topic in their country.

“Japan is experiencing an increasing gap between wealthy and poor,” Ruoff said. “When they read the book, they find out that the U.S. doesn’t have the solutions.”

Tsutsumi has a first-hand account of what many Japanese people don’t know about America. Having worked as a reporter in the U.S., she “has a strong understanding of this country. Everything she writes is quite empirically based,” Ruoff said.

Now, she is one of the most influential commentators in Japan and has a huge national following.

In Eriko Arita’s article “Spotlight on the States,” which ran in The Japan Times Online in April, Arita said that Poverty Superpower America “exposed to Japanese readers the shocking reality of the lives led by millions in the U.S., including legions of students mired deeply in debt because of loans they have had to take out at high interest rates to pay for their tuition.”

This is an issue that hits close to home for many PSU students. Japan recently decided to adopt the same kind of student-loan policy as the U.S., which Tsutsumi avidly opposes.

“Miss Tsutsumi is very pleased to be giving a presentation in the United States,” said Mari Ueda, managing editor of Iwanami Shoten, in a statement translated by Dr. Laurence Kominz, a professor of Japanese at PSU.

“One of the major points she’ll be talking about is globalization and a ‘new freedom-ism’ and ‘corporatism,’ and in what ways normal people’s lives will be changed by these things. She doesn’t examine from on high, like a scholar, but from looking at daily lives of Americans, looking up from the ground level.”

“It is important for Americans to understand that Japan is one of our most important allies,” Ruoff said. “Now this book is saying that the U.S. is an anti-model. I would be concerned about the fact that more and more Japanese look at us and have a more negative view.”

“There is a saying in Japan,” said Mari Ueda. “Whatever happens in Japan is what has just happened in America, just a half step behind.” Mika Tsutsumi’s book cautions her nation to tread carefully.