Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Geography. / Electronic thesis. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-118). Also available in print ed.

This thesis examines the Utah Nippo, its messages to Salt Lake City's Nikkei population, and draws out the paper's editorial themes intended for resident Utah Nikkei. The Utah Nippo was one of three Japanese-language newspapers that published during World War II and it was a voice for community leaders and editors who urged Salt Lake Nikkei to behave in certain ways that (they believed) would prove a certain loyal American identity. Such an identity was comprised of prescribed behaviors: supporting the government and war effort, attending patriotic activities, keeping a low social profile, and quietly enduring the fear and discrimination directed at them as Nikkei in the midst of a national war against Japan. The Utah Nippo painted the model minority stereotype during World War II, although scholars view it as a postwar concept imposed on Asian Americans. Although not entirely dictated by the Japanese American Citizens League, the newspaper content was influenced by the League's wartime campaigns for working with the U.S. government and behaving loyally. Nikkei in community leadership roles actively encouraged this image because it meant safety by assurance of Americanism. Individuals and editorials highlighted behaviors that helped or hurt the group image. The newspaper also focused on ending racism in the U.S. within Nikkei communities and as they resettled throughout the nation. While the Utah Nippo printed such sentiments, not all residents necessarily agreed with or did as the newspaper suggested, yet the articles indicated the identity that editors and leaders hoped to create. In light of the tenuous situation that Salt Lake Nikkei felt they lived in, it made sense for individuals to outwardly conform and incorporate the paper's behavioral guidelines in order to deflect suspicions over loyalty away from the group.

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Anthropology, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 84-93).

The following thesis is a study of the founding years of the Mormon supplementary religious education between 1890 and 1930. It examines Mormonism's shift away from private denominational education towards a system of supplementary religious education programs at the elementary, high school, and college levels. Further, this study examines the role that supplementary religious education played in the changes between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. During the 1870s and 1880s, Utah's territorial schools became an important part of the battles over polygamy and the control of Utah. As the Federal Government began to wrest control of the schools from the Mormon community, the Church established a system of private academies. Economic problems during the 1880s and 1890s, however, made it difficult for the Church to maintain many of these schools, necessitating the Mormon patronage of the public schools. As a result, in 1890 the Church established its first supplementary religious education program, known as the Religion Class program. The Religion Class program suffered from a variety of problems and was criticized by both Mormon and non-Mormon officials. Despite the failings of the Religion Class program, the need for supplementary religious education became increasingly important during the first two decades of the twentieth century. In 1912, the Granite Stake established the Church's first high school seminary. Within ten years, the seminary program replaced the majority of the academies and became the Church's preeminent educational program. During the 1920s, the Church began extending supplementary religious education to its students in colleges and universities through the establishment of the institute program and the near-complete abandonment of its private colleges and schools. The successive establishment of these three programs demonstrates a shift in Mormon educational priorities and attitudes throughout this period. Whereas the academies and the Religion Class program emphasized a general fear of Americanization, the seminary and institute programs accepted the public schools and much of the Americanization that accompanied them, while at the same time providing means for the continued inculcation of Mormon values into the lives of Latter-day Saint youth.