Kazuko Kuramoto’s Manchurian Legacy is the story of a Japanese family of colonists in Manchuria, a region in northeastern China. Japanese emigration to Manchuria started in the early 1900s and intensified throughout the first two decades of the 20th century. In September 1931, the Japanese Imperial Army launched an invasion of Manchuria, occupying the whole region within five months. The following year, on March 9, 1932, the Japanese announced the creation of Manchukuo, a formally independent nation, but for all intents and purposes, a puppet state that significantly expanded Japan’s colonial holdings in Asia. In her memoir, Kazuko Kuramoto – born in Dalian, Manchuria, in 1927 in a family of Japanese colonists – describes herself as “the product of this almighty Japanese imperialism” (Kuramoto, x). Based on your analysis of Kuramoto’s memoir, how do you interpret Kuramoto’s statement? Specifically, how does Kuramoto’s nature as “a product of Japanese imperialism” manifest in her time in Manchuria? And how does the legacy of Japanese imperialism affect the author’s life after Japan’s defeat in the war and the dissolution of Manchukuo? Please address these questions in an essay of AT LEAST 1,800 words (you are welcome to write more). Please support your answers with at least FOUR significant examples from Kuramoto’s memoir
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