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This bicultural study focuses on Japanese immigrants in New York and the ideas they had about what they would find there. It considers Japanese immigration to the East Coast, where immigrants were of a different class and social background from the labourers who came to the West Coast and Hawaii. Beginning with a portrait of immigrants' lives in New York City, the study then examines the pre-immigration experience, using popular Japanese literature to trace the origins of immigrant perceptions of the USA. Along with discussions of economics and politics in Tokyo, the book explores the prevalent images, ideologies, social myths, and attitudes of late Meiji and early Taisho Japan. The narrative draws on guide books, magazines, success literature, and popular novels to illuminate the formation of ideas about work, class, gender relations, and freedom in American society. This study analyzes the Japanese construction of a mythic America, perceived as a homomgeneous and exotic "other".