Each year, about 7,000 new Japanese immigrants enter United States ports, making up about 4% of immigration from Asia; net migration, however is significantly lower because some (does not know numbers) older Japanese –American have been moving to Japan.
In conclusion, the contributions of the Japanese –American to our country have been very great. Their industry and good citizenship are widely known to those familiar with them. They have become scientists, professors, journalists, businessman, farmers, and have entered into a wide variety of occupations throughout expand of our nation.
The world News announces:
A US study on the country's changing demographics just released this past week. The Pew Research Center surveyed thousands of Asian Americans, asking them about their lives. Researchers came up with some interesting results. The U.S. Asian population has risen in recent years at rates rarely seen in America before. It's a modern immigration wave that's thrust the group from less than 1-percent of the population in 1965 to nearly 6-percent in 2011-a more than fivefold increase, according to a new Pew Research Center Survey called "The Rise of Asian-Americans." Asians, which include Indians, Koreans, Chinese, Filipino's, Japanese and Vietnamese, among others, were the fastest growing group of recent American-immigrants in the past decade, eclipsing Hispanics-a demographic group now in steep decline. Stanley Rosen, the professor of Political Science Dept., USC says, "Here the economy plays a role in the sense that the immigration from Central-America and Mexico slowed down a bit as economic opportunities in the United States has declined a bit, and border patrols have become heavier." And there are several notable distinctions here. Asians earn more money than any other racial group. They tend to live in mixed neighborhoods and they more likely to marry interracially. Yakenda Mcgahee from Los Angeles says, "And they're more likely to be educated according to the study. 49% of Asian-Americans, foreign-born & U.S.-born, hold college degrees, compared to 28-percent of the rest of the U.S. population. And the median Income of this group is, on average, $16,000 higher than the rest of America." Stanley says, "What we're finding now with the new immigrants is that they're actually coming here to pursue educational goals; and so they're already well-educated. And that earlier generation of working in a sweat shop or working in a Chinese kitchen. That generation is dying out." The study not only answers the question, "who"; but also the question: "why." Why did a new immigrant wave from Asia choose to head West Stanley says, "This is actually one of the surprising findings of the surveys. That as the economies in Asia are booming, by-and-large, and the economies in the west including the United States, are not. You would think that the movement would be in the other direction. So this is kind of counterintuitive in a way, and they must be coming for other reasons." The reasons cited in the Pew Research report This new wave of Asian immigrants still believes in the "American Dream"-that the U.S. is a land of opportunity, despite recent economic data to the contrary.
Michael Kenji Shinoda is the Japanese American Sansei. This is his song 'Kenji' (2005) from "The Rising Tied" by Fort Minor. The Image: Japanese American family with bags packed for stay
in an internment camp, 1942-1945.
Since Japanese
immigrants came to America, they had high ambitions, drawing inspiration from
the Meiji Restoration (Modernization of Japan) of success in life. According to
Ichioka (1988), “Japanese immigrants’ history is also labor history” (p. 2).
They entered the urban service trades and agricultural railroad, mining,
lumber, and fishing industries.When Japanese warplanes pounded Pearl Harbor, Japanese
Americans were forced to be interned by Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) agents. The Second World War in the Pacific was the significant
turning point that both Japan and the United States had historical mistakes.
I learned from my experience in living in the United States that the internment
of Japanese Americans was based largely in racism. They had been the subject of
racist laws and rhetoric since the early 20th century. Racial discrimination
has always correlated in problematic ways. This dynamic becomes even more
complicated when they are intersected with war. The history of Japanese immigrants
consisted in some major conflicts, and it indicated that racial discrimination.
Japanese immigrants worked as hard laborers in the United States; however, they
were struggling against anti-Japanese laws, racism, and internment during the Second
World War in the Pacific, and it was indubitably historical mistakes.
The early histories of
Japanese immigrants were a history of a racial minority struggling to survive
in the United States. In the words of Ichioka
(1988), “Past studies of Japanese immigration have concentrated
heavily on the anti-Japanese exclusion movement from 1900 to 1924, focusing on the excluders rather than the excluded, on the
anti-Japanese racists rather than the Japanese immigrants” (p. 1).In 1900 to 1924,
Japanese immigrants had faced racism pondenderously by the society of America. In 1870,
“Congress extended the right of naturalization that was being neither white nor
black, Japanese immigrants, along with other Asian immigrants, were classified
as aliens ineligible to citizenship, without the right of naturalization”
(Spickard, 2009). Japanese immigrant’s history is labor history, during
the rapid expansion of industrial capitalism after the Civil War in America.
And non-English-speaking immigrants filled the ranks of the unskilled labor. In
the western United States, Japanese immigrants were engaged the urban service
trades and agricultural railroad, mining, lumber, and fishing industries. The
life of hardship, struggle, and sacrifice of Japanese immigrants’ laborers
under this contracting system represents the dark side of Japanese immigrant
history and the untold Japanese side of western labor history
(Ichioka, 1988).
Japanese immigrants were harassedbased on denial of citizenship. American-born offspring of Japanese immigrants
were citizens by birth, known as Nisei. In the hysteria
of the Second World War, a few members of Congress sought to strip the Nisei of
their American citizenship and send them back to Japan. Japanese were
denied the right to own land or buy homes (The 1920 Alien Land Law). An
editorial published in a San Francisco newspaper claimed that Japanese
were an inferior race; the Board of Education should not allow Japanese children
to attend the public school because they were ineligible to citizenship.
The first reference to segregating Japanese school children appears in the San
Francisco in 1906.However, after receiving the
protest, the president of the board ruled it had no right to compel Japanese to
attend a school set apart for Chinese because there was not separate school for
the Japanese. Hosokawa pointed out in his book, Nisei,” But in an apparent contradiction, the president went
on to say that to exclude Japanese children from public schools was an
unjustifiable and unwarranted insult to the Japanese race”(Hosokawa, 1969).
This is unconstitutional attitude of the school board, and racism.After that, Japanese
children moved to Oriental school. In 1907, this exclusion order was withdrawn
by President Theodore Roosevelt. However, in the exchange conditions, Japanese
immigrants were not able to come to the U.S mainland via Hawaii. In 1924,
finally the Immigration Act prohibited the Asian immigration completely (Ichioka,
1988).
“War came to America on
Sunday, December 7, 1941, when Japanese warplanes pounded Pearl Harbor”
(Spickard, 2009, p.101). Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents called to
Japanese American that “enemy aliens”, and they arrested about 5,000 Japanese
American. After that, Japanese Americas were forced to relocate internment
camps located in California, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arkansas by
military force. About 112,000 Japanese Americans (including 70,000 American
citizens) sold their personal possessions and properties for low prices. The
internment happened after the attack ofthe American Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Japan
killed 2,043 Americans during the surprise attack and destroyed American
warships and aircraft. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order
9066 in February 1942 (Hosokawa, 1969).
The camps, there were large, empty spaces by high wire
fences. “Long rows of tar-paper barracks were broken at intervals by winds wept
street- dusty in dry weather” (Spickard, 2009). Also, there were vast pools of
mud in the winter raining. Daily functions were performed in central mess
halls, showers, and latrines. Outside the blocks of barracks, beyond the fences
and guard towers lay only the desert. The camps were located in the desert; the average summer temperatures
were over 100 degree and winter was falling to minus 30 degree in some
of the camps. People did not supply milk for babies, and no enough medication.
Some of them died in the camps due to inadequate medical care, the emotional
stress, and were killed by military guards. In internment camps, Japanese American lived like prisoners. Many children also
lived in camps. People founded school for children, and voluntary teachers
taught children; some camps paid for teachers(Spickard, 2009). (Reference:The Photo 1).
In 1944, they finally got out of the camps, but
they did not return to their homes because different families lived
in there. Most of them returned to the West Coast. They
began to start new lives. They lost their lands and homes. When they returned,
they tried to regain what they had lost. They moved on from what had happened. Spickard
(2009) has noted, “Many of those who went east during and after the war never
came back to the West Coast” (P.151). Japanese population grew tenfold in
Denver, New York, and Chicago because many of them could not get back in the
West Coast which they lost. Nevertheless, the Congress paid for some of
that property. They gave the Japanese- Americans 10 percent reduction they had
lost. Eventually, Japanese Americans received the letter of apology
for Japanese ancestry from the Congress in October 1, 1993.
The excluded of Japanese ancestry suffered damages such as material,
education, and intangible values. It was for these fundamental violations of
the basic civil liberties and constitutional rights of these individuals of
Japanese ancestry, the Congress apologies on behalf of the nation. By fifty years after the Second World
War, Americans of Japanese ancestry finally began to live a
normal life without racial prejudice, to get jobs,
and obtain money loans (Hosokawa, 1969).
During the Second World War, Japan, German, and
Italy were all hostile countries.
Most German- Americans and Italian Americans spent the
war free and not under any special scrutiny. However, JapaneseAmericans were interned in the number of people.
Japanese American Internment was the unconstitutionality, and unquestionable an
illegal state as I mentioned the letter of apology for Japanese ancestry from
the Congress in 1993. As a result, it was based on
anti-Japanese sentiment caused by racial prejudice. It was the truth; there
were injustice, merciless and huge mistake. Today, all forms of discrimination
against movement of the elimination of racial discrimination have a
long history in the United States, but still full eradication.
It is a situation that cannot be extermination. After all, people are
neither wise nor intelligent enough to be eliminated from the world of racism
because everyone has different feeling.
I searched a theme of my blog,History of Japanese Immigrant to
America,and I found the
words: Japanese American internment camp, 1942-1945. As a result, I choose to
answer the questions: Who came up with the idea? What factors contributed to
its growth today? And is society taking this issue seriously? Why or why not?
During World War II,
Japanese Americas were forced to relocate internment camps located in
California, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arkansas by military force.
About 112,000 Japanese Americans (including 70,000 American citizens) sold
their personal possessions and properties for low prices. The internment happened
after the attack of"the American Pacific fleet at
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Japan killed 2,043 Americans during the surprise attack
and destroyed American warships and aircraft” (Korematsu v. United States
(1944). President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in February
1942. In internment camps Japanese American lived like prisoners and many of
them were died.
Eventually in 1988, the “Congress apologized to Japanese
Americans for their confinement. That year it passed a law giving $ 20,000 to each
confine who was still alive” (Korematsu v. United States (1944).
The court decision contributed to
American`s constitution that “the Court's decision would be a ‘loaded weapon
ready for the hand of any authority’ that decided to imprison an entire race of
Americans in the future” (Korematsu v. United States (1944). Worldwide
historical mistaken racial discrimination evens never allow to society.
The
Image: Pre-school students at Poston II Relocation Center, 1942-1945.
Courtesy of: Japanese American Archival Collection. MSS-94.
California State University Sacrament Library. Dept. of Special Collections and
University Archives.
In the
picture above, children were forced to live in internment camps. This mistaken
event was never repeated. Most tragic event of racial discrimination was
the Holocaust. “The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored
persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi …. The
Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were
‘racially superior’ and that the Jews, deemed ‘inferior,’ were an alien threat
to the so-called German racial community" (United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum).
Today, in the United States, racial
prejudices still exist. The Ku Klux Klan still exists in American society.In
addition, “During the period from 1924 to 1952, when the National Origins
Act was enforced and Japanese emigrants were excluded from the United
States, the Japanese population in the New York City hovered between 2500 and
2900. After the outbreak of World War II all Japanese organizations were forced
to cease operations, and during the war a number of their leaders and other
Japanese were detained at Ellis Island” ( The Encyclopedia of New York 671).
Theacher`s Lesson Plan 89,Let Freedom RingJapanese-American Internment: Suppressing Freedom in the Name of National Security. LaGuardia Community College/CUNY LaGuardia and Wagner archives.
Densho (2010) Japanese Americans. Seattle, Washington. The Japanese American Legacy Project. Retrieved from http://nikkeijin.densho.org/
I recommend this cite due to easy to see and rich photographs of the internment camps.
Hosokawa, B. (1969). Nisei: The
Quiet Americans BY BILL HOSOKAWA the Story of a people . New York, NY.
William Morrow and Company, Inc.
Hosokawa addressed about a history
of the second generation of Japanese Americans 1900 to 1960s. He vividly
described the history of the Nisei, who were confronted with a racial minority
struggling to survive throughout the Second World War in the United States.
Spickard, P.R. (2009). Japanese
Americans: The Formation and Transformations of an Ethnic Group New
Brunswick, New Jersey, and London. Rutgers University Press.
(Original work published 1996).
Spickard expressed Japanese-American history overall, and he argued Internment
camp as well.
Ichioka, Y. (1988). The Issei-The
World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885- 1924. New York,
NY. The Free Press.
Yoji Ichioka was a senior
researcher at the UCLA Asian American Studies Center and Adjunct Professor of
History at UCLA. Ichioka described vividly about the Issei who is a first
immigrant in the U.S. I touched by several Japanese American books, but he had
a lot of prestige such as his description, sentences, and perspective.
Picture
Credits
Grateful for copyright holders to
use the following graphics (the five photographs on cite). These photographs
are in order of up to down, photo 1, illustration 2, photo 3, photo 4, and
photo 5.
“The Photo 1”:
Pre-school students at Poston ll Relocation Center, 1942-1944 .Courtesy of
Japanese Archival Collection. MSS-94. California State University Sacrament Library.
Dept. Of Special Collections and University
“The Illustration 2”:
Graph Illustrating Populations of Immigrants
Courtesy of CUNY LaGuardia
Community College Library Media Source
“The Photo 3”: The
Internment Camp in Arizona in 1942
Courtesy of University of Arizona
Library
“The Photo 4”: Japanese
American Family with bags packed for stay in an Internment Camp in 1942.
Courtesy of CUNY LaGuardia Community College Library Media Source, Gale
Opposing Viewpoints
“The Photo 5”: The
Congress Apologies for Japanese Americans in 1993.
