Case Study: Japanese Migration & the U.S.
Close-up Read
Learn how Japanese migration to the U.S. has shaped and been shaped by various government policies.
Introduction
Early Japanese immigration to Hawaii and the western states resulted in Japanese Americans becoming one of the largest Asian ethnic groups in the United States. Although they faced many obstacles, Japanese Americans integrated and eventually became successful in government, business, the sciences, and cultural enterprises. Learn about the history of Japanese migration to and within the United States, then complete the assignment at the end.
Japanese Migration & the U.S.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 1,469,637 Japanese Americans in the United States in 2016. Also, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. population at the end of 2016 was 324,650,630.¹
Though the Japanese American population remains less than one half of one percent of the U.S. population, the Japanese American experience offers a look at various types of migration.
Identifier: LC-DIG-ppmsc-09965. Source: Library of Congress
Time Periods
For the purposes of this lesson, the history of Japanese migration and the United States is divided into the following three time periods:
1. Mid-19th century to 1924
2. 1941 to 1946
3. 1965 to the present
*This is not meant to be a comprehensive history of Japanese migration and the United States.
Teahouse at Koishikawa the Morning After a Snowfall by Katsushika Hokusai, ca. 1830–1832.
Identifier: LC-DIG-jpd-02457. Source: Library of Congress
Mid-19th century to 1924
Beginning in the 1630s and lasting for more than 200 years, Japan largely isolated itself from foreign powers, allowing very few Westerners into the country and very few Japanese out.
Nevertheless, contact between Japanese and Westerners did occur to a limited extent, and in the mid-19th century, some shipwrecked Japanese who were rescued by Americans were brought to the United States.
Among them were Manjiro Nakahama, who adopted the name John Manjiro, and Hikozo Hamada, who adopted the name Joseph Heco.
Manjiro later became an interpreter for Commodore Matthew C. Perry, who played a leading role in the opening of Japan to the West. Heco became the first Japanese to become a naturalized U.S. citizen.
Manjiro Nakahama, ca. 1880.
Source: The Millicent Library
Meanwhile, powerful companies in Hawaii were recruiting plantation laborers, and the passage of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act by the U.S. government prohibited all immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States, which resulted in labor shortages in places like California. Japanese immigrants were recruited to fill the labor void.
Approximately 30,000 Japanese, mostly from poor farming communities, traveled to Hawaii over a nine-year period from 1885 to work on sugar plantations on three-year contracts.³
Chinese laborers on a sugar plantation in 19th-century Hawaii.
Honolulu Advertiser photo collection. Source: University of Hawaii
By 1920 there were 109,274 Japanese and Japanese Americans in Hawaii.⁴ Many early immigrants to the U.S. mainland worked as farm labor, but also in lumber mills, canneries, mines, and railroads of the American West. Eventually, many established their own businesses, ranging from small restaurants and general stores to large farms.⁵
In 1890, there were 2,039 Japanese and Japanese Americans on the U.S. mainland,⁶ but over the next 20 years their population increased to 138,834.⁷ By 1920, Japanese immigrant farmers controlled more than 450,000 acres of land in California.⁸
Some early immigrant laborers returned to Japan after the end of their labor contract period, but others chose to stay. Many of the young men were second or third sons who—due to Japanese inheritance practices at the time—could not inherit their ancestral land.
Some immigrants were not laborers, but students or entrepreneurs who traveled to U.S. cities in search of educational or economic opportunities outside of Japan.⁹
Like other immigrant groups, early Japanese immigrants experienced discrimination, including laws that specifically targeted them.
In 1907, the Gentlemen’s Agreement, an informal agreement between the United States and Japan, resulted in Japan agreeing to end further emigration of laborers to the United States and also the immigration of Japanese laborers from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland.
Although this effectively ended male immigration, there was a loophole in the Gentlemen’s Agreement that allowed wives and children to join their immigrant husbands or fathers in Hawaii and the U.S. mainland.
loophole
an ambiguity or inadequacy in the law or a set of rules
Japanese store, Honolulu, HI, ca. 1895–1910.
Identifier: LC-DIG-det-4a20736. Source: Library of Congress
Following the Gentlemen’s Agreement, Japanese women, as brides of Japanese immigrants living in Hawaii and the U.S. mainland, began to immigrate to the United States. They became known as “picture brides” because many of the marriages between Japanese women and Japanese immigrant men were based on an exchange of photographs.
Between 1907 and 1923, 14,276 Japanese picture brides arrived in Hawaii, and between 1908 and 1920 over 10,000 picture brides arrived on the West Coast of the United States.¹⁰ These women were motivated for several reasons.
Many came from poor farming families and decided to marry and emigrate for economic reasons—to not only help themselves but also their families back home.
Some felt that they could not go against their parents’ wishes that they get married even though their spouses were living abroad and thus married for social reasons. Others felt that they could possibly sidestep responsibilities that would be expected of them as “traditional” wives in Japan.
Picture bride Kane Mineta, ca. 1910.
In 1913, California passed an Alien Land Law that banned Japanese immigrants, who were ineligible to U.S. citizenship and hence “aliens,” from purchasing land. Many other states passed similar alien land laws. Some Japanese challenged their designation as aliens ineligible to citizenship.
In 1915, Takao Ozawa filed for U.S. citizenship under the Naturalization Act of 1906 that allowed only “free white persons” and “persons of African nativity or persons of African descent” to naturalize.
In 1922, in Takao Ozawa v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Takao Ozawa, who was born in Japan and had lived in the United States for 20 years, was ineligible for naturalization.
With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924—a law that effectively banned Asian immigration—Japanese immigration to the United States ended except for a few isolated cases of Japanese entering for family or specific occupational reasons.¹¹
1941–1946
In the U.S. Census of 1940, there were 157,905 Japanese and Japanese Americans in Hawaii and 126,947 Japanese and Japanese Americans in the U.S. mainland.¹² A key turning point in their lives was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941.
After the attack, Japanese American families—most of which consisted of Japanese immigrant parents who were aliens ineligible to U.S. citizenship and U.S.-born children who were thus U.S. citizens—were thrust into a very daunting situation.
Japanese community leaders in Hawaii and the West Coast, e.g., Buddhist ministers and others who were deemed possible threats to the United States, were arrested and detained without due process of law. Countless crimes were committed against Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans.
Also, Japanese Americans serving in the military were reclassified as 4C, “enemy alien,” though they were U.S. citizens.
due process
fair treatment through the normal judicial system, especially as a citizen's entitlement
On February 19, 1942, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, leading to the removal of nearly 120,000 people of Japanese descent from the West Coast, and incarceration in what the government initially called “concentration camps.”
Executive Order 9066 authorized the War Department to “prescribe military areas…from which any or all persons may be excluded… The right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave” those areas was at the discretion of the “military authorities.”
Government directives to Japanese Americans in San Francisco outlining curfew and exclusion orders, April 1, 1942.
Photo by Dorothea Lange. Identifier: 210-G-A39. Source: National Archives and Records Administration
Most were sent initially to one of 15 so-called “assembly centers” throughout the West Coast and eventually to so-called “relocation centers” in 10 desolate areas in Arizona, California, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and Arkansas.
Heart Mountain Relocation Center, WY, September 18, 1942.
Photo by Tom Parker. Identifier: 210-G-E126. Source: National Archives and Records Administration
Students were required to withdraw from schools, and adults lost their jobs. Farm-owning families were forced to leave their crops and most eventually lost their land.
At Tule Lake Segregation Center, goodbyes took place through fences.
Photo by R.H. Ross, courtesy of the Tule Lake Committee
There were many other camps as well, e.g., internment camps run by the Department of Justice. In Hawaii, there was also limited incarceration (approximately 2,400 of 157,905 Japanese and Japanese Americans) primarily at camps on Sand Island and in Honouliuli. The Japanese-American families could only take what they could carry, and in many cases their economic losses and psychological trauma were tremendous.
Students were required to withdraw from schools, and adults lost their jobs. Farm-owning families were forced to leave their crops and eventually lost their land.
In 1944, Ex parte Endo was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled that the U.S. government could not continue to detain a citizen who was “concededly loyal” to the United States in concentration camps. This ruling led to Japanese Americans being allowed to return to the West Coast and the eventual closing of the camps. After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, many Japanese-American families moved back to the West Coast and others moved to cities in the mid-West (such as Chicago, Salt Lake City, Denver) and the East Coast (like New York City); these cities still maintain sizeable Japanese-American populations. The last of the camps closed in 1946.
There were many other camps as well, e.g., internment camps run by the Department of Justice. In Hawaii, there was also limited incarceration (approximately 2,400 of 157,905 Japanese and Japanese Americans) primarily at camps on Sand Island and in Honouliuli. The Japanese American families could only take what they could carry, and in many cases their economic losses and psychological trauma were tremendous.
In 1944, a U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled that the U.S. government could not continue to detain a citizen who was “concededly loyal” to the United States in concentration camps. This ruling led to Japanese Americans being allowed to return to the West Coast and the eventual closing of the camps.
After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, many Japanese American families moved back to the West Coast and others moved to cities in the Midwest (such as Chicago, Salt Lake City, Denver) and the East Coast (like New York City); these cities still maintain sizeable Japanese American populations. The last of the camps closed in 1946.
During the Allied Occupation of Japan, 1945–1952, thousands of U.S. servicemen in Japan married Japanese women, and the War Brides Act of late 1945 allowed Japanese spouses to emigrate to the United States despite the Immigration Act of 1924. As many as 45,000,¹³ arrived in the hometowns of their husbands.
Importantly, with the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (also known as the McCarran-Walter Act), the “aliens ineligible to citizenship” category, which de facto only applied to people of Asian descent, was abolished. The Act allowed people from Japan and other Asian countries to immigrate to the United States (though with strict quotas of about 100 per country) and to become citizens.
1965 to the Present
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 changed U.S. immigration law by ending the national origins quota system, which discriminated against non-northern Europeans. The Act resulted in a significant increase of immigrants entering the United States, especially from countries in Asia and Latin America. Between 1971 and 2002, 177,600 Japanese immigrants arrived in the United States.¹⁴
With the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, Japanese Americans received a formal apology from the U.S. government for their forced removal from their homes during World War II and were also offered reparations. The Act was sponsored by Congressman Norman Y. Mineta from California (who had been incarcerated as a 10-year old boy), Senator Alan K. Simpson from Wyoming, and Senator Pete Wilson from California.
President Ronald Reagan signs the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.
The legislation stated that government actions were based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” Also in the 1980s, the Hirabayashi, Yasui, and Korematsu cases were reopened by the writ of coram nobis;
the subsequent proceedings eventually nullified their convictions.
writ of coram nobis
a legal order allowing a court to correct its original judgment upon discovery of a fundamental error which did not appear in the records of the original judgment’s proceedings and would have prevented the judgment from being pronounced.
Courtesy of Densho, the Kinoshita Collection. Source: Densho Encylopedia License
During the height of Japanese economic power, 1986 to 1991, thousands of Japanese business people (including families) as well as students came to the United States. This “economic bubble” burst in 1992, leading many of these families to return to Japan. However, some stayed permanently.
More recently, Japanese government and business leaders like Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Tadashi Yanai, founder and CEO of Fast Retailing (Uniqlo, Theory), have been encouraging more Japanese to study in the United States and to do business in places like Silicon Valley. During a speech at Stanford University in April 2015, Abe noted that Japan must transform its economy in a way that mirrors the innovation ethos in places like Silicon Valley and Stanford University.¹⁵
Yanai has established the Yanai Tadashi Foundation that offers an International Scholarship Program that “aims to provide promising young people with leadership potential the opportunity to study at world-class universities in the United States. The scholarship enables recipients to mix with an internationally diverse student body to cultivate their entrepreneurial skills and enhance their global perspective, encouraging their development as future drives of a better society.” ¹⁶ Whether these types of initiatives help to increase Japanese migration to and perhaps permanent settlement in the United States is yet to be seen.
Silicon Valley
a part of the San Francisco Bay Area that is known for the many technology companies that have either started in the area or that have offices there. Major companies located in Silicon Valley include Google, Apple, Facebook, and Yahoo.
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Use the following dimensions to characterize Japanese migration experiences to and within the United States: international versus domestic migration, forced versus voluntary migration, push factors, pull factors.
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How was the early Japanese immigration experience to Hawaii and the U.S. mainland impacted by the Chinese experience in the United States?
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What are some examples of laws that made it challenging for Japanese immigrants to integrate into U.S. society?
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To what extent have Japanese Americans successfully integrated into U.S. society over time? Use evidence to support your position.
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After reading the information above, have your thoughts or interpretations of the poem, “The New Colossus,” changed? If so, how?
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How does the history of Japanese migration and the United States fit into the broader history of immigration to the United States?
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How, if at all, has the Japanese American experience in the United States shaped your thoughts on the question, “What does it mean to be an American?”
Questions
Next Up:
The opening of Japan to the West in 1853 precipitated a series of dramatic disruptions to Japan’s political, economic, and social system.
The shogun's government collapsed, civil war erupted, and Japan began to urbanize and industrialize.
Many farmers were forced to leave their land, and workers either saw their wages plummet or lost their jobs due to foreign competition.
As word of a booming U.S. economy spread, some Japanese began to look for opportunity abroad.²
Large-scale Japanese immigration to Hawaii and the United States began in 1885, due primarily to the Japanese government loosening restrictions on Japanese emigration.
Japanese Laborers on Spreckelsville Plantation, Maui, HI, by Joseph Dwight Strong, ca. 1885.
Painting by Joseph Dwight Strong, 1885. Source: Wikimedia
Crowd of Japanese Americans stand behind a barbed wire fence waving to departing friends on train, Santa Anita, CA, ca. 1942.
Photo by Julian F. Fowlkes. Identifier: LC-DIG-ds-13565. Source: Library of Congress
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“Asian Alone or in Any Combination by Selected Groups: 2016,” U.S. Census Bureau; “U.S. and World Population Clock,” U.S. Census Bureau, https://www.census.gov/popclock/ [17 June 2020].
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“Immigration: Japanese,” Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/japanese.html [17 June 2020].
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Masayo Umezawa Duus, The Japanese Conspiracy: The Oahu Sugar Strike of 1920 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press), 14.
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Eleanor C. Nordyke and Y. Scott Matsumoto, “Japanese in Hawaii: A Historical and Demographic Perspective,” Hawaiian Journal of History, Vol. 11, 1977, 165.
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“Immigration: Japanese.”
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Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore (Canada: Little, Brown & Company Ltd., 1989), 180.
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Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore, 180.
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“Immigration: Japanese.”
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Emily Anderson, “Immigration,” Densho Encyclopedia, http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Immigration/ [17 June 2020].
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“Picture Bride,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picture_bride [17 June 2020].
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“The Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act),” Department of State Office of the Historian, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-act [17 June 2020].
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Ann Heinrichs, The Japanese American Internment: Innocence, Guilt, and Wartime Justice (New York, NY: Cavendish Square Publishing, 2010), 13–14.
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Kathryn Tolbert, “The Untold Stories of Japanese War Brides,” Washington Post, 22 September 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/09/22/from-hiroko-to-susie-the-untold-stories-of-japanese-war-brides [17 June 2020].
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C. N. Le, “The 1965 Immigration Act,” Asian-Nation, http://www.asian-nation.org/1965-immigration-act.shtml [17 June 2020].
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Clifton B. Parker, “Shinzo Abe at Stanford: Innovation Will Spur Japan’s Future,” Stanford News, 1 May 2015, https://news.stanford.edu/2015/05/01/shinzo-abe-visit-050115/ [17 June 2020].
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“International Scholarship Program,” Yanai Tadashi Foundation, http://www.yanaitadashi-foundation.or.jp/en/scholarship/ [17 June 2020].
References
Vocabulary
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loophole—an ambiguity or inadequacy in the law or a set of rules
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due process—fair treatment through the normal judicial system, especially as a citizen's entitlement
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writ of coram nobis—a legal order allowing a court to correct its original judgment upon discovery of a fundamental error which did not appear in the records of the original judgment’s proceedings and would have prevented the judgment from being pronounced
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Silicon Valley—a part of the San Francisco Bay Area that is known for the many technology companies that have either started in the area or that have offices there. Major companies located in Silicon Valley include Google, Apple, Facebook, and Yahoo.