Japanese Immigration (1890-1934)

Question 1

Cause

Answer 1

• Chinese Immigration Act of 1882
• Chinese labor needed to be replaced

Question 2

Dekasegi Period (1885-1907)

Answer 2

• Dekasegi = practice of Japanese laborers leaving home to work, with the intention of returning
• term is expanded to people going overseas
• Japanese government sponsoring and strictly regulating Japanese emigrants as “representatives” of Japan

Question 3

Settler-Permanent Resident Period (1908-1924)

Answer 3

• result of Gentlemen’s Agreement
• Japanese decided to remain permanently in the hopes that doing so would combat anti-Japanese sentiment
• picture brides start coming

Question 4

Japanese Gov’t Criteria for Emigrants

Answer 4

• wanted to separate from Chinese treatment and denigration
• government believed that lower-class Japanese emigrating would give American working class justification to exclude Japanese workers
• some relationship between Japanese and emigrants, but not to be relied upon
• Japanese sent healthy, literate migrants

Question 5

The Dekasegi Themselves

Answer 5

• student-laborers
• “schoolboys”
• worked through school
• avoided military draft by learning in the West and returning to Japan to do skilled work
• worked as domestic servants for American families
• few graduated college, but led Japanese labor movements because they were more educated than the immigrants that came later and understood American labor systems and English

Question 6

Labor Contractors

Answer 6

• Japanese served as labor for agriculture-intensive shift in focus that both mainland US and HI were going through
• schoolboys were labor contractors; middlemen between landowners and laborers who settled wages, benefits, and negotiated contracts
• schoolboys relied on these contracts to get to school?

Question 7

Japanese and Agriculture

Answer 7

• replaced Chinese as the majority of agricultural laborers
• remained in agriculture until WW2 when incarcerated
• Japanese already experienced farmers, and increased importance of rice, potatoes, vegetables, and dairy (so did Indians)

Question 8

Working Conditions

Answer 8

• taxing, demoralizing, isolated geographically, poorly compensated
• not what they had come for, but the reality of what they could afford
• highly migratory because of different crop growing seasons and locations
• far from what the recruiting ads had prepared them for
• labor camps were leaky and the cause of high mortality rates

Question 9

Oct 1906 SF School Board Crisis

Answer 9

• school board in SF called for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean kids to be in separate Oriental schools
• Japan called it a disgrace and protested to Teddy Roosevelt
• R had negotiated Russo-Japanese Treaty and knew Japan was a world power, but was also really racist
• R ordered school board to rescind order about Japanese kids, but it still applied to Chinese and Korean
• Japanese placated

Question 10

Results/Analysis of SF School Board Incident

Answer 10

• Japanese had inherited anti-Chinese sentiment and Japan government furious about that
• important in shifting from Dekasegi to settler permanent resident period
• resulted in Gentlemen’s Agreement

Question 11

Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907-1908)

Answer 11

• negotiated between Secretary of States of Japan and US (way of saving face for Japan)
• prohibited Japanese immigrants with passports to HI, Mexico, or Canada to re-migrate to US mainland
• goal was to stop more Japanese immigrants to the US
• Japan agreed not to issue passports to laborers, only Japanese gentlemen
• pivot point from Dekasegi to settler-permanent resident period

Question 12

Loophole in Gentlemen’s Agreement

Answer 12

• Japanese immigrants already in the US could bring their parents, wives, and kids
• resulted in picture bride phenomenon

Question 13

Settler-Permanent Resident Period

Answer 13

• change in mentality of Japanese workers from temporary workers hoping to return to Japan to settling in the US
• Japanese workers were providing economic and agricultural stake in American society
• Japanese leaders thought Dekasegi mentality contributing to American racism and opposition, so they wanted to send message that “they are here to stay”
• figuratively and literally could sink roots in US soil thru agriculture

Question 14

Tenant Farming

Answer 14

• Pacific West, esp CA
• turned to tenant farming bcs white collar jobs and skilled work prohibited for Asians

Question 15

Tenancy Structure/Agricultural Ladder

Answer 15

• opportunity for the Japanese to move up socioeconomically in US despite constraints
• laborer –> tenant farmer –> farm owner/operator

Question 16

Laborer Rung of Agricultural Ladder

Answer 16

• what Japanese initially immigrated as

Question 17

Tenant Farmer Rung of Agricultural Ladder

Answer 17

• lease land from landowners
• more economic autonomy and possibility for profit
• provides transition from laborer to farmer
• win-win for landowners because they get cash rents and portion of yields/profits

Question 18

Farm Owner/Operator Rung of Agricultural Ladder

Answer 18

• achieving American dream
• owning land
• even more economic autonomy, and all proceeds are theirs

Question 19

Importance of Refrigerated Cart and Railroad

Answer 19

• agriculture grown in CA could be shipped east
• provides economic opportunities and expansion of US agriculture
• sizable Japanese ethnic community job involves agriculture
• high agriculture output per Japanese
• Japanese produced 70% of strawberries of CA, but their actual numbers are relatively small

Question 20

Japanese Ethnic Economy

Answer 20

• thriving
• rooted in rural agricultural activities as tenancy structure shows
• also urban area involvement to service needs of Japanese workers
• urban private businesses: hotels, boarding houses, restaurants, shops, small markets, distributors of agricultural goods
• promoted by arrival of Japanese women (free labor)

Question 21

Chinese immigrants at this time

Answer 21

• aging men in bachelor communities bcs no Chinese women
• largely out of work, unemployed
• opium addicts
• no ethnic economy
• not a lot, if any, Chinese women because of Chinese Exclusion Act

Question 22

Picture Brides

Answer 22

• exploited loophole in Gentlemen’s Agreement that male laborers already in US could bring parents, wives, and children
• matchmakers/parents of men in Japan would find a girl, marry the two w/out the groom present, and the Japanese gov’t would sign the papers for them to emigrate
• many of the men lied or were much older by the time the women got there, but the women stayed in the US and contributed to Japanese ethnic economy, hoping to return to Japan one day once they’d reached economic success

Question 23

Result of Women Coming

Answer 23

• up until 1890s, mostly male Japanese immigrants
• after GA, women came in greater numbers
• more even gender ratio to support ethnic economy and population
• unpaid labor in ethnic economy as they helped w/ farms and stores
• resulted in Nisei

Question 24

Nisei

Answer 24

• 2nd generation
• Japanese American citizens
• changes priorities for parents, who want to stay in US for kids to do well
• men more encouraged to keep stable jobs and secure fortunes for family through opportunities provided by agricultural ladder
• development of Japanese language schools for kids