Japanese Immigrants in America - Literature review Example

Japanese Immigrants in America The history of the Japanese people is very long and full of both triumphs and disgrace, high moral standards and low moral behaviors and remains a history that has followed its people wherever they go. It is partly for this reason that it is difficult to trace just when Japanese settlers began arriving on North American shores. There is, for example, a widespread and factually based rumor that the first Japanese immigrants arrived in North America thousands of years ago to found some of the earlier Native American tribes (Swanbrow, 2000). Less founded rumors suggest that, in more recent times, Native American tribes often held Japanese people as slaves even before the arrival of the Europeans. However, the presence of Japanese people in North America since the arrival of the Europeans is relatively easier to trace because, although they were strongly engaged in trade and international commerce before the 1600s, the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Edo period effectively closed the borders of Japan for more than 200 years (Smith, 2008). It wasn’t until America’s Admiral Perry arrived in Japan in 1853 that a peace treaty between the United States and Japan could be worked out and true emigration/immigration of Japanese to America could begin. When the borders of Japan were finally opened in the late 1800s, it was mostly Japanese men who immigrated to North America, specifically Hawaii, in an attempt to find new prosperity for their family. Hawaii at that time was heavily involved in operating huge sugar plantations for which they needed labor. The first immigrants to arrive were put to work on such difficult tasks as chopping and weeding the sugar cane, jobs they had not been accustomed to in Japan and were now expected to do without breaks for long hours every day. “The workday was long, the labor exhausting and, both on the job and off, the workers’ lives were strictly controlled by the plantation owners” (“Hawaii”, 2006). This was because the workers had no option but to work for the plantation owner, live in homes provided by the plantation owner and shop in stores owned by the same plantation owner. “Each planter had a private army of European American overseers to enforce company rules, and they imposed harsh fines, or even whippings, for such offenses as talking, smoking, or pausing to stretch in the fields” (“Hawaii”, 2006). This harsh treatment caused many of these workers to desert the plantation for passage to the mainland United States and caused the Japanese government itself to take action as they began threatening to close their borders again. This enabled the Japanese in Hawaii to begin organizing in hopes of gaining better wages and improved working and living conditions, eventually forming the Hawaii Laborers’ Association, a multiethnic labor union that worked for the rights of all laborer’s on Hawaii’s plantations. Japanese immigration into mainland United States was also largely fueled by a labor shortage. Japanese contract workers from the Hawaiian plantations fled to California and were able to quickly find work as rural farmers and farm hands. “In 1890, 2,038 Japanese resided in the United States; of this number, 1,114 lived in California” (“A History”, 2004). It is important when looking at numbers such as these to remember that at this time, Hawaii was not yet a state and the numbers of Japanese on the islands are not included in the above figures. As has been seen in other nationalities and regions, the Japanese were at first grudgingly welcomed as a necessary, low-status evil which quickly changed, with escalating numbers, to active resistance on the part of European settlers also in the area. In 1908, the US and Japan entered into what was referred to as the ‘Gentlemen’s Agreement”. Under this agreement, no further Japanese male laborers were supposed to enter the United States unless they had already been in the country at some point in the past. Because most of the immigrants to this point had been young male workers, the agreement allowed for Japanese wives and children to enter the country to join their husbands. “The 1900 Census indicates that only 410 of 24,326 Japanese were female” (“A History”, 2004). This led to a great influx of what were termed ‘picture brides’, in which the new technology of photographs was an important first step in the arrangement of overseas marriages between Japanese laborers in the United States and matched brides back in Japan. The agreement did have a profound impact upon the Japanese population in the United States because, while most of the laborers were now older, their wives were younger and their children were all born within the same span of approximately 20 years (“A History”, 2004). In addition, many Japanese families opted to have their children educated back home in Japan. While the American Japanese population continued to grow because of new births and some immigration, the numbers indicate that there were more Japanese returning to Japan than arriving in America in the years leading up to World War II. As has been noted, the Japanese in California did suffer a great deal of discrimination once their numbers began to rise, partially due to their success as farmers and store owners. With the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, dragging the United States into the Second World War, those of Japanese origin living in the United States were viewed with even greater hostility and executive orders had many of those living on the West Coast relocated to what were referred to euphemistically as ‘relocation camps’. The basic premise behind this action was that, while most Japanese-American citizens were probably loyal to the United States, the possibility existed that disloyal agents could easily move about among the Japanese population and thus present a threat to the United States from the inside. Rather than incurring the cost of screening all these individuals to determine which were innocent and which guilty, then President Roosevelt determined it would be easier by far to simply herd all of the Japanese into ‘safe zones’ where they could be watched and protected from a virulent European-based public. “Although prejudice and discrimination played major roles in the internment, economics and jealousy did also, as many Californians were jealous of the economic success that the Japanese-American farmers and store owners enjoyed (“Japanese-American”, 2008). An important element to consider in this relocation effort is the fact that Japanese-Americans living in the east and in Hawaii were not subject to such relocation efforts, a fact that places even more weight upon the reactions and jealousies of the public in the atrocities committed upon the Japanese people during this time period. The camps “consisted of poorly-constructed barracks surrounded by barbed wire, sentry posts and armed guards … These people were forced to abandon their businesses, their homes and, in many cases, their families as some individuals were taken elsewhere and held, again without trial, for years. The Japanese-Americans suffered severe economic losses, personal humiliation and, in some cases, death, due to this relocation” (“Japanese-American”, 2008). Following the war, many Japanese were forced to start over again wherever they found themselves. Immigration was restricted to ‘war brides’, Japanese women who had married non-Japanese US soldiers during the conflict and wasn’t reopened generally until 1952, when 185 immigrants were permitted to enter the country per year (Azumo, 2007). These restrictions were abolished, though, by 1965. Efforts to rebuild were strained as many Japanese-Americans felt justifiably angry over their treatment during the war. “In 1978, the Japanese American Citizens League officially asked Congress to investigate whether the imprisonment during World War II was unjustified and wrong. A bipartisan commission conducted extensive research and, in a report titled ‘Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians,’ finally concluded that the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II was a ‘grave injustice’ and resulted from ‘race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership’” (Le, 2007). In 1988, Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act as a means of making a formal apology to the entire Japanese-American population. As part of the final settlements offered, each individual internee was offered $20,000 in restitution fees, but no attempt was made to award them with the full market value of what they had lost. As of 2007, approximately 80,000 individual claims had been paid, equaling approximately $1.6 billion (Le, 2007). While Japanese-Americans have suffered a long and difficult road in establishing themselves here in America, they have managed to do so with true American grit and determination, today recognized as a strong element of the US population and having earned the respect of many who understand this history. Works Cited “A History of Japanese Americans in California: Immigration.” History. National Park Service, (2004). Azuma, Eiichio. “Brief Historical Overview of Japanese Emigration, 1868-1998.” Discover Nikkei. (2007). “Hawaii: Life in a Plantation Society.” Immigration. Washington D.C.: Library of Congress, (2006). “Japanese-American Internment Camps.” Bookmice. (2008). June 3, 2008 Le, C.N. “Construction and Destruction: Japanese American Internment.” Asian-Nation: The Landscape of Asian America. (September 11, 2007). Smith, S.E. “What was the Tokugawa Shogunate?” WiseGeek. Conjecture Corporation, (2008). June 3, 2008 < http://www.wisegeek.com/what-was-the-tokugawa-shogunate.htm> Swanbrow, Diane. “Old World Origins of First Americans Revealed in Analysis of Skulls.” Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, (February 15, 2000). Possible Images for use in presentation Japanese workers cutting down sugar cane Image available at http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/immig/japanese2.html Japanese housing on the Hawaiian sugar plantations Image available at http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/immig/japanese2.html Japanese picture brides meeting their husbands for the first time at the detention barracks Image available at http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/5views/5views4a.htm Inside the barracks of a Japanese-American ‘relocation’ camp Image available at http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/camp.html Exterior of a Japanese internment camp in the US western desert Image available at http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/camp.html Read More