Historical Studies on National Consciousness in America

我们试图在研究中跨越国界，与日本以外的学者交换意见，并纳入受美国影响的移民和生活在其他地区的人。这些是我们的发现：1.对媒体的研究揭示了它创造国家意识的功能，例如，战后新闻创造了一个统一的美国公民形象，以南北战争中士兵的男子气概和勇敢为缩影，在20世纪90年代的新闻中，美国被描绘成“非洲艾滋病毒流行病”的救世主。2.性别研究表明，国家意识的形成过程与性别问题密不可分；例如，男子气概被认为是公民身份的理想条件，而政府在美国军队中控制性病是通过压制第一次世界大战期间妇女卖淫来创造美国人模式的一种方式。对波兰移民、非裔美国人和加勒比海移民的研究表明，美国的民族意识和一个人对以前国家或祖先的归属感之间的关系并不总是稳定的。他们曾经共存，但在另一次两极分化，也有一些情况下，人们可能没有意识到他们是美国公民，尽管他们申请美国公民身份。对墨西哥和冲绳的研究表明，尽管美国的军事/经济实力有明显的影响，但那里的人在形成民族意识方面并没有受到影响。相反，他们利用美国经济实力在日常生活中的存在来实现自己的目标。在跨越国界关注人们的日常生活时，我们清楚地看到，国家意识的含义对每个人来说并不相同，创造国家意识的方式也因多种因素而有所不同。

We attempted to cross national boundaries in our research by exchanging opinions with scholars outside Japan, and by including immigrants and people living in other areas under U.S. influence. These are our findings:1. Studies on media shed light on its function of creating national consciousness, demonstrating cases, for instance, in which postbellum journalism created a unified image of American citizenship epitomized by soldiers' manliness and bravery in the Civil War, and in which 1990s' journalism depicted the U.S.A. as a savior for the "HIV epidemics in Africa."2. Studies on gender indicate that processes of forming national consciousness are inseparable from gender issues; for instance, manliness was identified as the ideal qualification of citizenship, and governmental control of venereal disease among U. S. military forces was one way of creating a model of an American by repressing the prostitution of women during WWI.3. Studies on Polish immigrants, African Americans, and Caribbean immigrants show the relationship between U.S. national consciousness and a people's sense of belonging to their former countries, or their ancestors', was not always stable. They coexisted at one time and were polarized another time, and there are also cases in which people might not have a sense of being a U.S. citizen although they apply for U.S. citizenship.4. Studies on Mexico and Okinawa indicate that despite the apparent influence of U.S. military/economic power, people there were not influenced in terms of forming a national consciousness. On the contrary, they took advantage of the existence of U.S. economic power in their daily lives to achieve their goals.In focusing on people's daily lives across national boundaries, it is clear to us that the meaning of national consciousness was not the same for everyone, and that ways of creating national consciousness have varied depending on many factors.