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Miyako, the oldest Japanese restaurant in New York City, c. 1950s.
to strengthen the Japanese capitalist economy, which provided a bulwark
against communism in Asia, the us kept its own market open to Japanese
goods and made technology and capital available to Japanese enterprises.
Until the 1990s the us remained a chief market for Japanese products. For
example, in 1960 the value of Japanese exports to the us was six times larger
than that to the countries of the European Union; a decade later it was
still nearly five times larger, and by 1990 only double. 11 One of the consequences
of the strong economic ties between Japan and the us was a relatively
large Japanese expatriate community (on top of the already existing
Japanese-American community). The number of Japanese employed overseas
tripled during the period 1968–75 (from 130,000 to approximately
450,000), largely due to Japanese enterprises setting up subsidiaries in the
us in order to avoid trade frictions. 12 In 2004 more than 35 per cent of nearly
a million Japanese who resided abroad for longer than three months lived
in the United States. 13 As the Japanese expatriate communities grew in size,
Japanese from Japan began to establish travel agencies, beauty parlours,
food stores, restaurants and other businesses to cater to their needs. 14 At a
later stage, this ‘service community’ became involved in the popularization
of sushi among the local population.
An important factor that familiarized the American public with the
idea of dining ‘Japanese-style’ – in a way preparing Americans for the
sushi boom – was the restaurant chain Benihana. In fact, today most
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