Showing results by author "Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto" in All Categories

The youngest daughter of a high-ranking samurai, Etsu was destined to become a priestess and was molded for that path by some of the best teachers. But her fate changed when she was married off to a businessman and sent across the world to America. Finding herself miles away from the life she had imagined, she had to learn all about a new world - and come to terms with how it was changing her beliefs about what she had been taught and what she still held dear from her upbringing in Japan.

The autobiographical first novel by Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto, A Daughter of the Samurai tells the incredible true story of a young girl born into a high-status family in Nagaoka, Japan, whose father, a samurai, is stripped of his power when the feudal system in Japan collapses and his family is thrown into turmoil and uncertainty. Originally destined to become a priestess, young Etsu is instead betrothed to a wealthy Japanese merchant in Cincinnati, Ohio, and makes the unlikely and culturally jarring journey from the Japanese countryside to the American Midwest.

In the late 19th century, after Japan was restored to imperial rule, the samurais were no longer the seat of power. The families who were impacted by this shift lost wealth and power. Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto was the daughter of one such samurai, and had begun her life on a track to become a Buddhist priestess. But as the family lost their position in society, her path changed, and she was eventually sent to the United States to be in an arranged marriage to an American man. A Daughter of the Samurai is her personal memoir.