People from Japan began emigrating to the U.S. in significant numbers following the political, cultural, and social changes stemming from the 1868 Meiji Restoration. Japanese immigration to the Americas started with immigration to Hawaii in the first year of the Meiji period in 1868.
Following the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Japanese immigrants were increasingly sought by industrialists to replace the Chinese immigrants. However, as the number of Japanese in the United States increased, resentment against their success in the farming industry and fears of a "yellow peril" grew into an anti-Japanese movement similar to that faced by earlier Chinese immigrants. Around the turn of the century, around four thousand Japanese immigrants lived in San Francisco, funding their education as domestic workers. In 1907, the Gentlemen's Agreement between the governments of Japan and the U.S. ended immigration of Japanese laborers (i.e., men), but permitted the immigration of spouses and children of Japanese immigrants already in the U.S. The Immigration Act of 1924 banned the immigration of all but a token few Japanese.
The ban on immigration produced unusually well-defined generational groups within the Japanese American community. Initially, there was an immigrant generation, the Issei, and their U.S.-born children, the Nisei Japanese American. The Issei were exclusively those who had immigrated before 1924. Because no new immigrants were permitted, all Japanese Americans born after 1924 were â€" by definition â€" born in the U.S. This generation, the Nisei, became a distinct cohort from the Issei generation in terms of age, citizenship, and English language ability, in addition to the usual generational differences. Institutional and interpersonal racism led many of the Nisei to marry other Nisei, resulting in a third distinct generation of Japanese Americans, the Sansei. Significant Japanese immigration did not occur until the Immigration Act of 1965 ended 40 years of bans against immigration from Japan and other countries.
The Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted naturalized U.S. citizenship to "free white persons," and an 1870 amendment extended the right to African Americans, but the Issei and other Asian immigrants were excluded from citizenship. As a result, the Issei were unable to vote, and faced additional restrictions such as the inability to own land under many state laws. These laws would remain in effect until 1952, when the Supreme Court ruled alien land laws unconstitutional and the Walter-McCarran Act removed race-based requirements for naturalization.
Like most of the American population, Japanese immigrants came to the U.S. in search of a better life. Some planned to stay and build families in the United States, while others wanted to save money from working stateside to better themselves in the country from which they had come. Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese residents experienced a moderate level of hardship that was fairly typical for any minority group at the time.
Timeline of life before World War II
This Was Life for Japanese-Americans During WWII - After Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, many Japanese-Americans were sent to internment camps. Betty Taira was only eight when her family was sent to the ...
1907: The Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 between United States and Japan results in Japan ending the issuance passports for new laborers.
1913: California passed the Alien Land Law which prohibited "aliens ineligible to citizenship" (i.e. all Asian immigrants, including Japanese) from owning land or property, though it permitted three year leases.
1920â€"1925: Several states adopted similar alien land laws to prohibit leasing or selling land to "aliens ineligible to citizenship"
1924: The federal Immigration Act of 1924 banned immigration from Japan.
June, 1935: Congress passed an act making aliens ineligible to citizenship eligible if they had served in the U.S. armed forces between April 6, 1917, and November 11, 1918, and been honorably discharged, and they were permanent residents of the United States. Only a handful of Japanese residents gained American citizenship under this act before the deadline on January 1, 1937
1940: The Alien Registration Act (the Smith Act) was passed by the US Congress that required all aliens to register with the US government and be fingerprinted. President Roosevelt signed the 'Two Ocean Navy Expansion Act'. This act was the first step in preparing America for war against Germany, Japan, or both.
The first military draft during peacetime in American history takes place.
Roosevelt is elected as President of the United States for a third term with 54 percent of the popular vote.
August 18, 1941: Michigan representative John D. Dingell, Sr. suggests in a letter to President Roosevelt that 10,000 Hawaiian Japanese Americans should be held as hostages to ensure "good behavior" on the part of Japan.
Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941
See also
- Gakusei Kai
- Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907
- Harada House
- Japanese language education in the United States
- Kinmon Gakuen
- Nihon Go Gakko (Tacoma)
- North American Post
- Rafu Shimpo
References
Further reading
- Arnold, Bruce Makoto. "Pacific Childhood Dreams and Desires in the Rafu: Multiple Transnational Modernisms and the Los Angeles Nisei, 1918â€"1942".
- Arnold, Bruce Makoto. "The Japanese Ethnopole as Determinant: The Effects of the Japantowns on Second-Generation Japanese-Americans".
External links
- http://academic.udayton.edu/race/02rights/intern01.htm
- http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~VR3K-KKH/japamerican/ja1top/japame1top.htm
- https://web.archive.org/web/20070527084939/http://www.asianamericanmedia.org/jainternment/camps/questions.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20070429163134/http://www.asianamericanmedia.org/jainternment/postwar/index.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20070502144642/http://www.asianamericanmedia.org/jainternment/ww2/prewar.html
- http://www.asian-nation.org/internment.shtml
- http://www.cetel.org/1942_9066.html
- http://www.children-of-the-camps.org/history/timeline.html
- http://contest.thinkquest.jp/tqj1998/10060/kyoseicamp.html
- http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/anthropology74/ce1.htm
- http://www.densho.org/
- http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-3/japanese.htm
- http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5154
- http://www.historyonthenet.com/WW2/japan_internment_camps.htm
- http://homepage3.nifty.com/ubiquitous/Japanese-Americans/Page08.htm
- http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/connections_n2/great_depression.html
- http://caliber.ucpress.net/toc/phr/74/2
- ja:日系人ã®å¼·åˆ¶åŽå®¹
- http://www.janm.org/jpn/nrc_jp/accmass_jp.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20070310151129/http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0312008/Lifebefore.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20070619073757/http://www.lib.utah.edu/spc/photo/9066/9066.htm
- http://likeachild94568.hp.infoseek.co.jp/index.html
- http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/99/fear/gallery.html
- http://www.metapress.com/content/407ww2237778
- http://www.old-picture.com/japanese-internment-world-war-ii-index-001.htm
- https://web.archive.org/web/20141223220816/http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist8/intern1.html
- http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/wwii/ahf/mineta/before_war.htm
- http://yellowworld.org/activism/141.html
- https://www.academia.edu/5462481/The_Japanese_Ethnopole_as_Determinant_The_Effects_of_the_Japantowns_on_Second-Generation_Japanese-Americans
- https://www.academia.edu/5318273/Pacific_Childhood_Dreams_and_Desires_in_the_Rafu_Multiple_Transnational_Modernisms_and_the_Los_Angeles_Nisei_1918-1942
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