Japanese Americans

Immigration Beginnings

In the mid-1800s, Japan faced depressed farming conditions and political turmoil. In 1868, Japanese farmers, mostly young men, made up the first wave bound for employment on Hawaiian sugar plantations. After the Chinese were banned from immigrating to the U.S. as a result of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Japanese men came in increasing numbers to fill jobs previously held by the Chinese. These jobs included work on Washington’s railroads and farms and in developing the state’s strawberry and oyster industries.

As a result of the U.S. annexation of Hawaii in 1898 and the passage of Organic Act in 1900, which resulted in labor migration onto the mainland, an increasing flow of Japanese plantation workers headed to California and the Pacific Northwest. Between 1898 and 1907, the Japanese were Washington’s fastest-growing minority group.

Soon there were calls to ban Japanese immigration as well. However, Japan’s protectiveness of its people and its military strength made the U.S. cautious of angering Japan. Therefore, President Theodore Roosevelt made a secret arrangement with the Japanese emperor. In 1907, they signed a “Gentleman’s Agreement,” where Japan agreed to slow the flow of immigrant labor and the U.S. would try to metigate the bad treatment of Japanese workers.

Unionization

Although Japanese workers had the cautious eye of their native government, they did not escape unfair labor practices. A common labor practice at the time, plantation owners set minority groups against each other by creating an atmosphere of competition for the same jobs. For example, owners kept the number of workers in each minority group small and in relative size to each other, which promoted intense competition. Also, after some time, owners brought in new groups willing to work at lower wages. Both practices had the effect of diminishing the potential for large scale unionization. However, aware they could not effectively advance themselves, Japanese workers tended to emphasize a class strategy of unionization. By 1903, the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association defined their struggle in class terms and for the first time in California history, two minority groups came together to form a union. By 1920 Filipinos and Japanese in Hawaii, joined by Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese laborers, participated in the first major interethnic working-class struggle, cooperating against the sugarcane-planter class.

Picture-Brides and Community Growth

Although immigrant labor slowed down considerably, the Japanese community grew and developed largely because Japan sanctioned and the U.S. allowed the emigration of Japanese picture-brides and other family members. The Japanese government believed that a family-oriented Japanese American community, committed to permanent settlement in the U.S., would eliminate anti-Japanese sentiment. Interestingly, the custom of picture-brides allowed the Japanese community to establish strong communities in the U.S. early on, unlike other Asian groups whose male to women ratio remained grossly disproportionate for decades.

Another factor to the Japanese American community’s strength was its ability to seek support within its own. Denied employment in many labor markets and the meager wages of agricultural jobs, Japanese Americans commonly sought self-employment. According to the Immigration Commission, by 1909, there were between 3,000 and 3,500 Japanese-owned establishments in the western states. But the community’s very success aroused further exclusionist protest, and their withdrawal into self-contained ethnic communities for survival and protection aroused suspcision and hostility.

Executive Order 9066

A turning point in Japanese American history was in World War II (WWII), when the U.S. declared war on Japan on Dec. 8, 1941, the day after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, without warning. On Feb. 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which singled out the removal of people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast, despite the fact that the U.S. was also at war with Germany, Italy, Rumania, Slovakia, and Finland. The Japanese American community in Bainbridge Island in Washington was the first to be evacuated. In the end, approximeately 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, were forced out of their homes and sent to concentration camps scattered in inhospitable desert regions of the West.

The Japanese American community was torn by the internment. Some refused to report to the internment camps and fled East and into Canada. Others challenged curfews and internment orders. Notable were Minoru Yasui, Gordon Hirabayashi, and Fred Korematsu whose “civil disobedience” cases reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Many others found resistance in the internment camps, where they were forced to fill out and sign a loyalty questionnaire: Loyal, disloyal, if asked, what should I answer? Some 4,600 or 22% of the 21,000 males eligible to register for the military draft answer the question with a “no, no” in protest of the internment. Later called “no, no boys,” many continued to refuse induction and were sentenced to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.

Still others were eager to prove their patriotism and joined the 100th battallion, almost entirely made up of Japanese Americans from Hawaii. In 1944, the 100th battalion became part of the all-volunteer Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which later became the most decorated unit of its size in American military history with 18,143 medals for valor and 9,486 Order of the Purple Heart decorations. The unit achieved this despite the fact that it never had more than 3,000 soldiers at any one time. Also noteworthy are the significant number of Japanse Americans who served in the U.S. Military Intelligence Service, where they performed critical intelligence missions in the Pacific.

Civil Rights Affirmation

After WWII, Japanese Americans were allowed to return to the West Coast. Some did not want to talk about the internment. It was too humiliating and and painful. Others actively protested the actions of the U.S. government as a violation of civil liberities. Eventually, the community came together for the redress movement that questioned the necessity of their internment.

In 1976, President Gerald Ford declared the internment a “national mistake.” In 1981, Commission on Wartime Relocation declared that the WWII Japanese internment was a “grave injustice” caused by “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” In 1988, President Reagan signed House Resolution 442, providing redress payments to surviving internees, education funds, and a formal apology by the U.S. government.

Sources: Takaki, Ronald. “Strangers from a Different Shore,” 1989; Vall-Spinosa, Peter “History of Japanese Americans in Seattle,” 1969; Chan, Sucheng. “Asian Americans,” 1991.