The
U.S. Mainland: Growth and Resistance
In the mainland of the United States, Japanese
immigration began much more slowly and took hold much more tentatively
than it had in Hawaii. While an initial handful of adventurers
left Japan for California in the 1860s, the number of immigrants
did not reach the thousands until the 1880s. By 1900 there were
still fewer than 25,000 Japanese nationals in the U.S. These early
arrivals scattered up and down the Pacific coast, forming small
communities within small towns and larger cities, such as San
Francisco's Japan Town. Farm labor was a common choice among the
first immigrants, but they also could be found in lumber mills
and mining camps, and sometimes established general stores, restaurants,
and small hotels.
The turn of the century saw the beginning of
a great twenty-five-year surge of immigration, in which more than
100,000 Japanese nationals arrived in the U.S., and during which
many of the foundational institutions of the Japanese American
community were established. These newcomers at first found much of their employment in migratory
labor, working the farms, mines, canneries, and railroads of the
American West, sometimes becoming active in the labor agitation
of the period. Eventually, however, many were able to launch their
own businesses, at first serving the needs of their own community
with Japanese restaurants, boarding houses, and shops, but soon
opening department stores and tailoring chains that catered to the
general public. Japanese cooperative societies, such as the Japanese
Associations, provided financial support and advice to many such
enterprises. Many Japanese farmers, using the labor-intensive growing
methods of their homeland, were able to buy their own land and launch
successful agricultural businesses, from farms to produce shops.
By 1920, Japanese immigrant farmers controlled more than 450,000
acres of land in California, brought to market more than 10 percent
of its crop revenue, and had produced at least one American-made
millionaire.
Even at the peak of immigration, Japanese immigrants
never made up more than a tiny percentage of the U.S. population.
However, by the early years of the century, organized campaigns
had already arisen to exclude Japanese immigrants from U.S. life.
Sensational reports appeared in the English-language press portraying
the Japanese as the enemies of the American worker, as a menace
to American womanhood, and as corrupting agents in American society-in
other words, repeating many of the same slanders as had been used
against Chinese immigrants in the decades before. The head of
the American Federation of Labor, Samuel Gompers, denounced all
Asians and barred them from membership in the nation's largest
union. Legislators and mayors called for a Japanese Exclusion
Act to protect the U.S. from "the brown toilers of the mikado's
realm." Anti-Japanese legislation quickly followed. In 1908, the
Japanese and American governments arrived at what became known
as the "Gentlemen's Agreement"; Japan agreed to limit emigration
to the U.S., while the U.S. granted admission to the wives, children,
and other relatives of immigrants already resident. Five years
later, the California legislature passed the Alien Land Law, which
barred all aliens ineligible for citizenship, and therefore all
Asian immigrants, from owning land in California, even land they
had purchased years before.
These new legal barriers led to elaborate circumventions
of the law, as Japanese landowners registered their property in
the names of European Americans, or in the names of their own
U.S.-born children. Meanwhile, Japanese immigration became disproportionately
female, as more women left Japan as "picture brides", betrothed
to emigrant men in the U.S. who they had never met. Finally, the
Immigration Act of 1924 imposed severe restrictions on all immigration
from non-European countries, and effectively ended Japanese immigration,
supposedly forever. For as long as this Act was in effect, it
seemed that the first great generation of Japanese immigrants
was also to be the last.
The Nisei
As the hopes of future immigrants were dashed, however, a new
generation of Japanese Americans was making itself known. By 1930,
half of the Japanese in the United States were Nisei—members
of the U.S.-born second generation. Nisei were the children of
two worlds: the traditional Japanese world maintained at home
by their parents—the Issei—and the multiethnic U.S. culture
that they were immersed in at school and at work. The Nisei were
born U.S. citizens, and were more likely to speak English than
Japanese, more likely to practice Christianity than Buddhism,
and more likely to prefer "American" food, sports, music, and
social mores than those of Japanese tradition. Many Nisei struggled
to reconcile the conflicting demands of their complex cultural
heritage. However, they overwhelmingly identified themselves as
Japanese Americans, not as Japanese in America.
The Japanese American Citizens League, an organization
of Nisei professionals, declared in its creed:
I am proud that I am an American citizen of Japanese
ancestry, for my very background makes me appreciate more fully
the wonderful advantages of this nation… I pledge myself… to defend
her against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
These words were published in 1940. Before the next year was out,
the Japanese American community would find its resolve, its resilience,
and its faith in the nation put to a severe test. |