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Between 1955 and 1972, Pan Am World Airways hired women of Asian
ancestry (mostly second generation Japanese American) whom they called
'Nisei.' In Airborne Dreams: 'Nisei' Stewardesses and Pan American World Airways,
Christine R. Yano shows how Japanese immigrant, or 'Nisei,'
stewardesses represented Pan Am's globalised corporate achievement in
forging new cultural, geographic and symbolic boundaries during the Jet
Age. Yano is deliberate in terminology, careful to use 'Nisei' in
quotations to demonstrate its cultural and historical constructedness
rather than taking for granted its fixed identity. Yano conceptualises
Pan Am as a frontier that conquered national boundaries and built a
cosmopolitan image of global dominance by deliberately using 'Nisei'
women as key symbols in their workforce. In this book, Yano has woven
together archival research, personal interviews and sociocultural
analysis to demonstrate how Pan Am's corporate practices in hiring and
training 'Nisei' women enacted a soft form of empire-building, while
also shaping the lives and dreams of the women.
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Yano builds on the concept of frontier to elucidate how 'Nisei' flight
attendants helped Pan Am project 'an American vision of progress,
growth, and empire' (p. 5). 'Nisei' women were trained to learn the
Japanese language and nonverbal Japanese social relations, appealing to
the airline's Japanese clientele. They became instrumental to Pan Am's
global image because of their performance of Japanese identity and
upper-middle-class habits, serving as the 'Oriental face' of the airline
(p. 63). Pan Am's corporate practices constructed 'Nisei' women as
'domesticated, model-minority exotics,' as their foreignness was
simultaneously overcome through corporate training and practices (p.
73).
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The work and identity formation of 'Nisei' stewardesses was imbued with
hierarchies of race, gender, class, sexuality and nation. This includes
the image of the geisha, which falsely represents the Asian woman as
subservient. Yano argues: 'Gender and racial stereotypes reinforce one
another in the 'Nisei' stewardess, the loyal, empathetic, sincere,
industrious, uncomplaining workhorse of in-flight hostess duties' (p.
106). In addition to class and gender norms, Yano describes how Pan Am
trained 'Nisei' women to serve as 'homemakers,' embodying heterosexual
ideals (p. 137).
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Pan Am flaunted its 'pioneering efforts in both technological and human
engineering,' using the 'Nisei' stewardesses as symbols of its corporate
and cultural dominance (p. 39). Company speeches and pamphlets reveal
how Pan Am incorporated frontier idioms to brand the company, with the
acculturation of 'Nisei' stewardesses standing in for Pan Am's global
dominance. News reports also highlighted 'Nisei' stewardesses'
transformation from 'east to west,' featuring before-and-after images of
the women in kimonos and Pan Am uniforms. 'Nisei' stewardesses were
thus a 'corporate and national spectacle' that represented the exoticism
of air travel and the conquering of culture (p. 41).
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In a nuanced weaving of micro and macro analyses, Yano describes how Pan
Am's corporate practices shaped 'Nisei' stewardesses' bodies and
subjectivities against the political backdrop of US globalism post-World
War II. In a chapter entitled 'Becoming Pan Am: Bodies, Emotions,
Subjectivity,' Yano details how Pan Am regulated 'Nisei' stewardesses'
bodies and psyches within the context of Japanese American
acculturation. For instance, the company's grooming guide for trainees
suggested 'hand slimnastics,' or exercises to increase circulation and
wrist flexibility, as Yano argues that hands were 'windows into social
class,' (p. 132). Pan Am also regulated stewardesses' weight as part of
job performance evaluations, with the girdle being a vital component of
the Pan Am uniform. Throughout the analysis, Yano includes quotes from
'Nisei' flight attendants who offer their perspectives on what it meant
to 'become' Pan Am.
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The intersections of race, class and nation are especially salient when
Yano discusses how 'Nisei' stewardesses gained significant cultural
capital through their work. In interviews with 'Nisei' stewardesses and
through a close reading of their personal scrapbooks, Yano shows how
their roles at Pan Am afforded them cosmopolitan luxuries and access to
material and symbolic capital they were proud to obtain. 'Nisei' women
gained friendships (and in some cases marriages) with elite passengers,
learning from passengers in the 'classroom in the air' (p. 121).
Although Pan Am did not hire African American stewardesses until 1965,
Yano includes an intersectional analysis of race throughout the text.
For instance, the model minority status of 'Nisei' women contrasted with
the 'devastating' stereotyping of women of color such as Hispanics and
African Americans (p. 25). 'Nisei' hiring was therefore not indicative
of broader minority hiring practices but reflected specific aims and
stereotypes related to Japanese American women.
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Pan Am's rules and standardised training created the 'industrial
product' of 'Nisei' stewardesses, and through this multifaceted research
Yano shows how the women became corporate products that Pan Am used to
bolster its exceptional status in conquering world terrain (p. 131). The
company drew upon and constructed a particularly raced and classed
femininity while occluding all other non-white populations. Yano is
careful not to flatten the identities of 'Nisei' stewardesses,
acknowledging their ranges of experiences and forms of agency and
resistance to Pan Am corporate structures and passengers. In one
example, Yano describes how 'Nisei' stewardesses overcame challenges of
loneliness and racial and sexual discrimination—'they refused to be
geishaed,' for instance by not peeling grapes—and they formed
friendships with customers and each other for social capital and support
(p. 115).
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Yano includes rich vignettes throughout the text, adding
multidimensional perspectives and archiving 'Nisei' women's voices. Yano
also describes in rich detail how 'Nisei' stewardesses' corporate
identities bled into their lives off duty, demonstrating the interplay
between economic and intimate lives. Yano includes close readings of
'Nisei' women's personal scrapbooks, which included mementos such as
letters of promotion, photographs of travel, and newspaper clippings.
Yano argues that these scrapbooks demonstrate a 'life built around Pan
Am' (p. 149).
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Scholars across various disciplines will appreciate Yano's highly
intersectional and historically-specific analysis. Her multiple
methodologies and sources will inspire scholars and students to dig
deeper and triangulate across forms of evidence. Yano's analysis is
theoretically rich, expanding notions of globalism, multiculturalism,
frontier and postcolonial cosmopolitanism. The text raises productive
questions about the construction of gendered and racialised
subjectivities within global development. By archiving and analysing the
lived experiences of a group of women whose livelihoods and identities
were shaped through Pan Am's corporate practices, Yano shows how 'Nisei'
women, in turn, altered the trajectory of a global company by
redefining race, gender and class.
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