Announcements

History and Memory is a required text of the class

2/14 - Midterm Papers Due @ start of lecture!

Office Hours – 11:15-12:45 in Lit 354

2/28 – Community Event Reflection due!

3/1 – Email description of creative project to TAs!

What medium? Prose? Poetry? Film? Music? Visual?

List key questions, themes, and texts your project will explore.

2-3 sentences max

3/13 – Creative project due!

Lecture 7: The Yellow Peril

WWII & Executive Order 9066

Issei & Nisei

1880s – begin arriving in HI as Chinese immigration prohibited were Japanese Mongolian or white?

62% of HI’s total population in 1920 = Asian immigrants

42.7% of HI’s Asian population in 1923 = Japanese immigrants

1890s – first waves to mainland

1882 – only 2,039 Japanese

1902 – 72,257 – majority Issei (first generation)

1922 – 138,834 – Issei and Nisei (second generation)

Pre-WWII – 70% of all mainland Japanese live in CA; largest Asian group in CA

Issei: Meiji Sojourners 1853 – Commodore Perry forcibly opens Japan to western trade

1868 – Meiji Restoration unites Japan; high taxes imposed on agriculture to fund Westernization and modernization programs

1884 – Japan allows Hawaiian labor recruiters

1885-1924 200,000 to HI; 180,000 to mainland

Predominantly young males - 60% younger than 30

Better educated and literate than most immigrants at that time because of Meiji compulsory education

Farming but not peasant class

Meiji immigration policies:

Required immigration application & review process

Active encouragement of female immigration to curb problems Chinese encountered

Picture Brides & Female Sojourners

1911-1920:

46% of immigrants to Hawaii = female

39% of immigrants to mainland = female

Conditions of immigration:

Women defined more by ties to husband than ties to home

Tradition of arranged marriage & picture bride system

19th century industrialization in Japan

Meiji compulsory education of women

Hawaiian contract labor policies

Japanese American Labor

Hawaiian plantation labor = Inter-ethnic antagonism and pan-Asian unionization

Early 1900s – majority of mainland immigrants = migrant labor & cannery workers

By 1910 – development of mainland Nihonmachi and Japanese businesses

By 1925 – 46% of mainland Japanese were farmers

Contract, share, lease, and ownership methods

Kenjinkai - prefectural-based association; tanomoshi – credit-rotating association; kobai kumiai – farmer cooperatives; nogyo kumiai – farmer associations

Technological advance of refrigerated cars = increase in demand for fruit & vegetables nationwide

Anti-Japanese Backlash

1902 – push to renew Chinese Exclusion Act to include Japanese

Oct 11, 1906 – SF Board of Education attempts to segregate school system; Pres. Theodore Roosevelt intervenes

1908 Gentleman's Agreement No segregation but Japan agrees to limit # of new immigrants; families can still be reunited

1913 – Alien Land Law passed in CA

1920 – land laws tightened so that American born children of aliens ineligible for citizenship could not lease land

1921 – Ladies Agreement – Japan prohibits picture brides

Issei & Nisei – Alien & Citizen

1922 – Ozawa v US – Takao Ozawa attempts to prove fitness for citizenship; denied because non-white

1924 – National Quota Act – targets Japanese immigration; reaffirms exclusion of previous Asian immigrants