Japanese American Cultural Facts

1
Japanese American Cultural Facts

• (Source Novas and Cao, Everything You Need to
  Know About Asian American History)

2
Religion Among Japanese Americans

• Japanese American religions the majority up to
  the 1920s followed Shintoism and Buddhism
  increasing converts to Christianity, and some
  believe it holds the key to assimilation into
  American society (144).

3
Japanese Americans in California

• Many Japanese immigrants ended up in San
  Francisco, taking the place of Chinese after the
  1882 Chinese Exclusion Act was ratified. The
  1906 earthquake sent Japanese out to other parts
  of California, where Japanese Americans became
  successful farmers.

4
Discriminatory Legislation

• In 1913 the Alien Land Act prohibits Japanese in
  California and other aliens ineligible to
  citizenship from owning land. Thirteen other
  states do likewise. Some alien land acts in
  force until 1947 (94).

5
The Press and The Yellow Peril

• The San Francisco Chronicle publishes a series of
  articles in 1900 warning America of the perceived
  Japanese immigration threat, the yellow peril.
  Japanese represented as hordes, threatening to
  take land and white women. The headlines read
  Crime and Poverty Go Hand and Hand with Asiatic
  Labor, The Yellow Peril How Japanese Crowd Out
  the White Race, and Brown Artisans Steal Brains
  of Whites.

6
Rise in Japanese Immigration

• The 1965 Hart-Cellar Act mattered to Japanese
  immigrants it lifted the 1924 National Origins
  Quota Act and place standard limits on
  immigration from each country, with 20,000
  maximum from each country (134).

7
Famous Japanese Americans

• Japanese Americans Kristi Yamaguchi
  (4th-generation, or Yonsei) champion ice-skater
  Nobu McCarthy, actress Noriyuki Pat Morita, of
  The Karate Kid (1984) Isamu Noguchi, famed
  sculptor, creator of akari lamps Minoru
  Yamasaki, chief designer of the World Trade
  Center, of the Twin Towers Norman Mineta, mayor
  of San José and now Democratic Senator from
  California.

8
The Japanese American Internment

• FDR signed Executive Order 9066 on March 18,
  1942. A military imperative.
• Internees relocated, housed in racetrack stalls
  and fairgrounds.
• Hastily constructed internment camps.
• Disruption of family life.

9
Japanese American Chronology

• 1868 149 Japanese illegally shipped to Hawaii.
• 1885 San Francisco builds a new segregated
  Oriental School.
• 1893 Japanese in San Francisco form first trade
  association, the Japanese Shoemakers League.
• 1900 Japanese plantation workers begin going
  from Hawaii to the mainland
• 1904 Japanese plantations workers engage in
  first organized strike in Hawaii.

10
Chronology, cont.

• 1905 San Francisco School Board attempts to
  segregate Japanese schoolchildren. Asiatic
  Exclusion League formed in San Francisco.
• 1906 Japanese scientists studying the aftermath
  of the San Francisco earthquake are stoned.
• 1907 Japan and the United States reach
  Gentlemens Agreement whereby Japan stops
  issuing passports to laborers desiring to
  emigrate to the United States.
• 1908 Japanese form the Japanese Association of
  America.

11
Chronology, cont.

• 1913 California passes alien land law
  prohibiting aliens ineligible to citizenship
  from buying land or leasing it for longer than
  three years.
• 1920 Japan stops issuing passports to picture
  brides due to anti-Japanese sentiments.
• 1921 Japanese farm workers driven out of
  Turlock, California.
• 1922 Takao Ozawa v. U.S. declares Japanese
  ineligible for naturalized citizenship. Cable
  Act stipulates that any American female citizen
  who marries an alien ineligible to citizenship
  would lose her citizenship.

12
Chronology, conclusion

• 1924 Immigration Act denies entry to virtually
  all Asians.
• 1941 United States declares war on Japan
  following attack on Pearl Harbor 2,000 Japanese
  community leaders along Pacific Coast states and
  Hawaii are rounded up and interned in Department
  of Justice camps.
• 1942 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs
  Executive Order 9066 authorizing the secretary of
  war to delegate a military commander to designate
  military areas from which any and all persons
  may be excluded incidents at Poston and Manzanar
  relocation camps.

13
See the LAS 325 Website

• http//www.public.iastate.edu/ematibag