Christine Reiko Yano Bücher

Tracing the global circulation and consumption of Hello Kitty, Christine R. Yano analyzes the spread of Japanese cute-cool culture, which she sees as combining kitsch with an ironic self-referentiality.

In 1953, members of the Honolulu Japanese Junior Chamber of Commerce created a beauty contest, the Cherry Blossom Festival Queen Pageant. This work analyzes the pageant through its decades of development within multiple frameworks of gender, class, and race/ethnicity. It paints a portrait of not only a beauty pageant, but also a community.