In Lecture ‘Turning Japanese,’ UA Scholar Examines Female Author Caught Between Ethnicities

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Winnifred Eaton (1879-1954) was one of the first known writers of Asian descent to be published in America. She wrote several popular novels set in Japan. Yet she tried to hide her ethnic identity – she was born in Canada to an English father and Chinese mother who had been adopted by missionaries. Eaton went so far as to use a Japanese pen name — Onoto Watanna.

In the upcoming lecture “Turning Japanese: How Winnifred Eaton Became Onoto Watanna in Victorian America,” Dr. Edward Tang, associate professor of American Studies at The University of Alabama, explores her life and works. The talk will be 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 11, at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library in the second floor of Mary Harmon Bryant Hall on the UA campus. Admission is free.

Many of Eaton’s novels concern romances between American men and Japanese women. In “Me, A Book of Remembrance,” which was published anonymously, she wrote a thinly veiled autobiography in which she discussed her work as a writer but avoided mentioning her half-Chinese background.

“Eaton’s identity as a writer relied on cultural borrowings and blurrings,” Tang said. “By assuming the identity of a Japanese woman, she bowed to market demands for things Japanese but also challenged distinct racial or ethnic categories that many people at the turn of the century assumed to be fixed and stable.”

The lecture is in conjunction with an exhibit of books by Eaton/Watanna from the Hoole Special Collections Library and the 2008 Sakura Festival at UA and in Tuscaloosa.

The American Studies department is part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Team.