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Moab Japanese Internment Camp

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Traveling northward on Route 191 from Moab, towards Interstate 70, there are many side routes such as the Klondike Bluffs Trail, Mill Canyon, Route 313 to Dead Horse Point and Canyonlands-Island in the Sky. One dirt road that is often left off the usual tourist maps, except for Mountain Biking, is Dalton Wells Road. It's a simple looking dirt road, cottonwoods lining the way and a gate of wooden and barbed wire with a "Please Close Gate" sign on it. The surrounding hills are a light green layer of the Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Formation above the purples and reds of the Jurassic Morrison Formation; stretching north and east to the Dalton Wells Dinosaur Quarry located near Yellow Cat.

The historic part of Dalton Wells is not well known by visitors and locals (younger generations) alike, and unless the remnants of two stone pillars or the historical information plaque get your attention, you just might bypass this road.

This is the location of the "Moab Isolation Center" at the Dalton Wells Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp; also known as the "Moab Relocation Camp", "Moab Internment Camp" or the "Japanese-American Concentration Camp". After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States was pulled kicking and screaming into World War 2. As a civil defense measure, camps were set up, in 1942, throughout the country to house all US citizens of Japanese descent. The fear was that these people, whose ancestry was of the "Land of the Rising Sun" would turn on the US and destroy the country from within; or work as spies for Japan with the same goal...destroy the US. Japanese-American citizens were US citizens; they were gathered up, shipped to these "isolation" camps and lost all possessions (homes, vehicles, material goods, bank accounts, businesses) and employment. Many of the men had fought for the United States during World War 1.

﻿ The camp at Dalton Wells, a mere 13 miles north of the town of Moab, was opened in January 1943 to house "criminals" from other facilities. Crimes were as simple as protesting against the harsh living conditions to calling a white person a name. After the war was over, these citizens were released with little to no restitution; new lives needed to be started over. True that the conditions at these camps were far from the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, but it is proof that, in the name of "defense of the country", it can happen here; like the Holocaust and its atrocities, we need to teach and remember.

There you have it, Moab's little piece of history from World War 2 which has nothing to do with the Old West, or making movies.

Mary Cokenour

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Traveling northward on Route 191 from Moab, towards Interstate 70, there are many side routes such as the Klondike Bluffs Trail, Mill Canyon, Route 313 to Dead Horse Point and Canyonlands-Island in the Sky. One dirt road that is often left off the usual tourist maps, except for Mountain Biking, is Dalton Wells Road.

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This site discusses Manzanar and the relation to the Moab Internment camp in Utah!

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Utah Japanese Internem

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Official website of the World War II Japanese American Internment Camp which held over 8000 internees for 3-1/2 years in the Utah desert.

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Japanese Internment Camps

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Japanese internment camps were the sites of the forced relocation and incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry in the Western United States during the Second World War and established in direct response to the Pearl Harbor attack. They remain arguably the most notorious example of war-time hysteria driving public policy decisions based on paranoia and fear-mongering than fact-based security threats.

On December 7th 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. US citizens feared another attack and war hysteria seized the country. State representatives put pressure on President Roosevelt to take action against those of Japanese descent living in the US.

On February 19th, 1942, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. Under the terms of the Order, some 120,000 people of Japanese descent living in the US were removed from their homes and placed in internment camps. The US justified their action by claiming that there was a danger of those of Japanese descent spying for the Japanese. However more than two thirds of those interned were American citizens and half of them were children. None had ever shown disloyalty to the nation. In some cases family members were separated and put in different camps. During the entire war only ten people were convicted of spying for Japan and these were all Caucasian.

Amache (Granada), CO
Opened: August 24, 1942.
Closed: October 15, 1945.
Peak population: 7,318.

Gila River, AZ
Opened July 20, 1942.
Closed November 10, 1945.
Peak Population 13,348.

Heart Mountain, WY
Opened August 12, 1942.Closed November 10, 1945.
Peak population 10,767.

Jerome, AR - Opened October 6, 1942. Closed June 30, 1944. Peak population 8,497

Manzanar, CA - Opened March 21, 1942. Closed November 21, 1945. Peak population 10,046.
Minidoka, ID - Opened August 10, 1942. Closed October 28, 1945. Peak population 9,397
Poston, AZ - Opened May 8, 1942. Closed November 28, 1945. Peak population 17,814
Rohwer, AR - Opened September 18, 1942. Closed November 30, 1945. Peak population 8,475
Topaz, UT - Opened September 11, 1942. Closed October 31, 1945. Peak population 8,130
Tule Lake, CA - Opened May 27, 1942. Closed March 20, 1946. Peak population 18,789

Life in the Japanese internment camps was hard. Internees had only been allowed to bring with then a few possessions. In many cases they had been given just 48 hours to evacuate their homes. Consequently they were easy prey for fortune hunters who offered them far less than the market prices for the goods they could not take with them.

"It was really cruel and harsh. To pack and evacuate in forty-eight hours was an impossibility. Seeing mothers completely bewildered with children crying from want and peddlers taking advantage and offering prices next to robbery made me feel like murdering those responsible without the slightest compunction in my heart." Joseph Yoshisuke Kurihara speaking of the Terminal Island evacuation.

They were housed in barracks and had to use communal areas for washing, laundry and eating. It was an emotional time for all. " I remember the soldiers marching us to the Army tank and I looked at their rifles and I was just terrified because I could see this long knife at the end . . . I thought I was imagining it as an adult much later . . . I thought it couldn't have been bayonets because we were just little kids. " from "Children of the Camps"

Some internees died from inadequate medical care and the high level of emotional stress they suffered. Those taken to camps in desert areas had to cope with extremes of temperature.

The camps were guarded by military personnel and those who disobeyed the rules, or who were deemed to be troublesome were sent to the Tule Lake facility located in the North California Cascade Mountains. In 1943 those who refused to take the loyalty oath were sent to Tula Lake and the camp was renamed a segregation centre.

In 1943 all internees over the age of seventeen were given a loyalty test. They were asked two questions:

1. Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty wherever ordered? (Females were asked if they were willing to volunteer for the Army Nurse Corps or Women's Army Corps.)

2. Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, to any other foreign government, power or organization?

In December 1944 Public Proclamation number 21, which became effective in January 1945, allowed internees to return to their homes. The effects of Japanese internment camps affected all those involved. Some saw the camps as concentration camps and a violation of the writ of Habeas Corpus, others though, saw Japanese internment camps as a necessary result of Pearl Harbor. At the end of the war some remained in the US and rebuilt their lives, others though were unforgiving and returned to Japan.
This article is part of our larger educational resource on World War Two. For a comprehensive list of World War 2 facts, including the primary actors in the war, causes, a comprehensive timeline, and bibliography, click here.

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Japanese Internment Camps in the USA - History

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Japanese internment camps were the sites of the forced relocation and incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry in the Western United States during the Second World War and established in direct response to the Pearl Harbor attack. They remain arguably the most notorious example of war-time hysteria driving public policy decisions based on paranoia and fear-mongering than fact-based security threats.

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Japanese Internment Camps

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Executive Order 9066

On February 19, 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 with the stated intention of preventing espionage on American shores.

Military zones were created in California, Washington and Oregon-states with a large population of Japanese Americans. Then Roosevelt's executive order forcibly removed Americans of Japanese ancestry from their homes. Executive Order 9066 affected the lives about 120,000 people-the majority of whom were American citizens.

Canada soon followed suit, forcibly removing 21,000 of its residents of Japanese descent from its west coast. Mexico enacted its own version, and eventually 2,264 more people of Japanese descent were forcibly removed from Peru, Brazil, Chile and Argentina to the United States.

Anti-Japanese American Activity

Weeks before the order, the Navy removed citizens of Japanese descent from Terminal Island near the Port of Los Angeles.

On December 7, 1941, just hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the FBI rounded-up 1,291 Japanese American community and religious leaders, arresting them without evidence and freezing their assets.

In January, the arrestees were transferred to prison camps in Montana, New Mexico and North Dakota, many unable to inform their families and most remaining for the duration of the war.

Concurrently, the FBI searched the private homes of thousands of Japanese American residents on the West Coast, seizing items considered contraband.

One-third of Hawaii's population was of Japanese descent. In a panic, some politicians called for their mass incarceration. Japanese-owned fishing boats were impounded.

Some Japanese American residents were arrested and 1,500 people-one percent of the Japanese population in Hawaii-were sent to prison camps on the U.S. mainland.

Photos of Japanese American Relocation and Incarceration

John DeWitt

Lt. General John L. DeWitt, leader of the Western Defense Command, believed that the civilian population needed to be taken control of to prevent a repeat of Pearl Harbor.

To argue his case, DeWitt prepared a report filled with known falsehoods, such as examples of sabotage that were later revealed to be the result of cattle damaging power lines.

DeWitt suggested the creation of the military zones and Japanese detainment to Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Attorney General Francis Biddle. His original plan included Italians and Germans, though the idea of rounding-up Americans of European descent was not as popular.

At Congressional hearings in February 1942, a majority of the testimonies, including those from California Governor Culbert L. Olson and State Attorney General Earl Warren, declared that all Japanese should be removed.

Biddle pleaded with the president that mass incarceration of citizens was not required, preferring smaller, more targeted security measures. Regardless, Roosevelt signed the order.

War Relocation Authority

After much organizational chaos, about 15,000 Japanese Americans willingly moved out of prohibited areas. Inland state citizens were not keen for new Japanese American residents, and they were met with racist resistance.

Ten state governors voiced opposition, fearing the Japanese Americans might never leave, and demanded they be locked up if the states were forced to accept them.

A civilian organization called the War Relocation Authority was set up in March 1942 to administer the plan, with Milton S. Eisenhower from the Department of Agriculture to lead it. Eisenhower only lasted until June 1942, resigning in protest over what he characterized as incarcerating innocent citizens.

Relocation to 'Assembly Centers'

Army-directed removals began on March 24. People had six days notice to dispose of their belongings other than what they could carry.

Anyone who was at least 1/16th Japanese was evacuated, including 17,000 children under age 10, as well as several thousand elderly and disabled residents.

Japanese Americans reported to "Assembly Centers" near their homes. From there they were transported to a "Relocation Center" where they might live for months before transfer to a permanent "Wartime Residence."

Assembly Centers were located in remote areas, often reconfigured fairgrounds and racetracks featuring buildings not meant for human habitation, like horse stalls or cow sheds, that had been converted for that purpose. In Portland, Oregon, 3,000 people stayed in the livestock pavilion of the Pacific International Livestock Exposition Facilities.

The Santa Anita Assembly Center, just several miles northeast of Los Angeles, was a de-facto city with 18,000 incarcerated, 8,500 of whom lived in stables. Food shortages and substandard sanitation were prevalent in these facilities.

Life in 'Assembly Centers'

Assembly Centers offered work to prisoners with the policy that they should not be paid more than an Army private. Jobs ranged from doctors to teachers to laborers and mechanics. A couple were the sites of camouflage net factories, which provided work.

Over 1,000 incarcerated Japanese Americans were sent to other states to do seasonal farm work. Over 4,000 of the incarcerated population were allowed to leave to attend college.

Conditions in 'Relocation Centers'

There were a total of 10 prison camps, called "Relocation Centers." Typically the camps included some form of barracks with communal eating areas. Several families were housed together. Residents who were labeled as dissidents were forced to a special prison camp in Tule Lake, California.

Two prison camps in Arizona were located on Native American reservations, despite the protests of tribal councils, who were overruled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Each Relocation Center was its own "town," and included schools, post offices and work facilities, as well as farmland for growing food and keeping livestock. Each prison camp "town" was completely surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers.

Net factories offered work at several Relocation Centers. One housed a naval ship model factory. There were also factories in different Relocation Centers that manufactured items for use in other prison camps, including garments, mattresses and cabinets. Several housed agricultural processing plants.

Violence in Prison Camps

Violence occasionally occurred in the prison camps. In Lordsburg, New Mexico, prisoners were delivered by trains and forced to march two miles at night to the camp. On July 27, 1942, during a night march, two Japanese Americans, Toshio Kobata and Hirota Isomura, were shot and killed by a sentry who claimed they were attempting to escape. Japanese Americans testified later that the two elderly men were disabled and had been struggling during the march to Lordsburg. The sentry was found not guilty by the army court martial board.

On August 4, 1942, a riot broke out in the Santa Anita Assembly Center, the result of anger about insufficient rations and overcrowding. At California's Manzanar War Relocation Center, tensions resulted in the beating of Fred Tayama, a Japanese American Citizen's League (JACL) leader, by six men. JACL members were believed to be supporters of the prison camp's administration.

Fearing a riot, police tear-gassed crowds that had gathered at the police station to demand the release of Harry Ueno. Ueno had been arrested for allegedly assaulting Tayama. James Ito was killed instantly and several others were wounded. Among those injured was Jim Kanegawa, 21, who died of complications five days later.

At the Topaz Relocation Center, 63-year-old prisoner James Hatsuki Wakasa was shot and killed by military police after walking near the perimeter fence. Two months later, a couple was shot at for strolling near the fence.

In October 1943, the Army deployed tanks and soldiers to Tule Lake Segregation Center in northern California to crack down on protests. Japanese American prisoners at Tule Lake had been striking over food shortages and unsafe conditions that had led to an accidental death in October 1943. At the same camp, on May 24, 1943, James Okamoto, a 30-year-old prisoner who drove a construction truck, was shot and killed by a guard.

Fred Korematsu

In 1942, 23-year-old Japanese-American Fred Korematsu was arrested for refusing to relocate to a Japanese prison camp. His case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where his attorneys argued in Korematsu v. United States that Executive Order 9066 violated the Fifth Amendment.

Korematsu lost the case, but he went on to become a civil rights activist and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. With the creation of California's Fred Korematsu Day, the United States saw its first U.S. holiday named for an Asian American. But it took another Supreme Court decision to halt the incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Mitsuye Endo

The prison camps ended in 1945 following the Supreme Court decision, Ex parte Mitsuye Endo. In this case, justices ruled unanimously that the War Relocation Authority "has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal to its leave procedure."

The case was brought on behalf of Mitsuye Endo, the daughter of Japanese immigrants from Sacramento, California. After filing a habeas corpus petition, the government offered to free her, but Endo refused, wanting her case to address the entire issue of Japanese incarceration.

One year later, the Supreme Court made the decision, but gave President Truman the chance to begin camp closures before the announcement. One day after Truman made his announcement, the Supreme Court revealed its decision.

Reparations

The last Japanese internment camp closed in March 1946. President Gerald Ford officially repealed Executive Order 9066 in 1976, and in 1988, Congress issued a formal apology and passed the Civil Liberties Act awarding $20,000 each to over 80,000 Japanese Americans as reparations for their treatment.

Sources

Japanese Relocation During World War II. National Archives.
Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites. J. Burton, M. Farrell, F. Lord and R. Lord.
Lordsburg Internment POW Camp. Historical Society of New Mexico.
Smithsonian Institute.

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Japanese Internment Camps: WWII, Life & Conditions | HISTORY

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Japanese internment camps were established during World War II by President Franklin D. Roosevelt through his Executive Order 9066. From 1942 to 1945, it was the policy of the U.S. government that people of Japanese descent, including U.S. citizens, be incarcerated.

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*NOTE* This one was more interesting, but it may not be the most helpful. I would suggest looking through these and then finding a source focused on an aspect that interested or surprised you.

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We are sharing the 25 Do's and Don'ts in Japan so that you have some insight into what you should and shouldn't do in this country of the rising sun. Of course, some are tongue in cheek, but others are quite straightforward. Japan is one of the most culturally interesting places for all visitors, check out the best itineraries when visiting Japan. It has a rich and intriguing history and is a society bound by etiquette, or rules of behaviour. One of the reasons for this is that Japan has a very large population. This population of 126 million on a land mass of 377,944 km² means that there need to rule that to ensure that entire fabric of this society does not break down. These rules of conduct are also intrinsically linked to its very rich history. However, you can also experience how the Japanese break out of the well-behaved modes of conduct, and how they push the boundaries. Regardless, Japan is one of those countries that you do need to visit, and to experience.

Updated, September 2018

25 Do's and Don'ts in Japan

1. Do not litter.

The Japanese are fanatical, in a very good way, on recycling. Have you ever noticed that Japan is one of the countries that is really into overpackaging as every little thing must be displayed beautifully and then wrapped beautifully? They are fanatical when it comes to recycling. You won't see rubbish bins around the cities; because the people take the rubbish to recycling bins, and there are many of them. Read about rubbish shaming in Japan. Recycling in Japan - Confusing yet Effective.

2. Do try Pachinko

or, at least, walk into a pachinko parlour for the noise and the colour, and the amazement. Pachinko is one of the few ways to illegally gamble in Japan. It is theoretically illegal to gamble in Japan so you just trade your winnings for a voucher to get food or drinks. Those in the know, like all of them, walk to a booth down the street and get real money. The amount spent in Pachinko parlours is said to be bigger than many world casinos ..combined, such is the Japanese dedication to anything that they put their mind to. Go in, walk around, play if that is your thing. It is a uniquely Japanese experience. So when in Japan, Play Pachinko. (Note - we are encouraging gambling). About playing Pachinko in Japan

3. Do have an onsen,

but do read the rules about having an onsen. The public baths are one of the most amazing things in Japan, but there is a proper way to have an onsen. Strictly speaking, I should be saying to have onsen, as the 'an' is not necessary.
How to use an onsen in Japan
4. Do try Japanese food

Miso soup, sushi and okonomiyaki are typically Japanese, and well worth trying. No matter how good you are at using chopsticks, you will never do it like a Japnese person. Don;t let that worry you, just have a go.

Okonomiyake is a food
Miso Soup in Japan
Eating Sushi in Japan

5. Learn some Japanese phrases

It is just a nice thing to be able to say thank you in the language of the country that you are visiting. If you ski like I do at Nozawa Onsen, then it helps to be able to say Excuse me and sorry when you run into someone.

Thank you - arigato or Arigatoo gozaimasu.
Please - onegai shimasu
Excuse Me - Sumimasen.
Sorry - Gomen'nasai.
Read about Nqzawa Onsen
6. Embrace your inner Hello Kitty in Japan.

Do try and understand the Japanese obsession with cute. Japanese Love Cute? or Kawai-i.
Why Do the Japanese Love Cute? or Kawai-i
7. Don't Get into a Drinking Competition

Do not get into a sake or beer drinking competition with Japanese men. You will lose. For some reason, they can get mightily drunk, and then be at work the next morning bright eyed and bushy tailed, whereas you will feel as if you have died a thousand deaths.

8. How to drink sake in Japan

There are rituals involved in serving and drinking sake in Japan. Remeber, Sake sneaks up on you. Just letting you know that what tastes as smooth as silk, has a kick like a mule.
How to Drink Sake in Japan
9. Do go to Karaoke

All the booths in Japan are private, so you can only make a fool of yourself in private unless someone shares it on Youtube. It is a favourite pastime with the Japanese. Maybe it is a chance to break from the rigorous codes of conduct that the Japanese live by. Maybe it is the sake and the beer.

10. Do get a Suica card.

This is one of those e-cards that can be used on trains and to pay for goods, and at convenience stores, etc. It makes your life easier. Learn also how to get from Narita Airport to Tokyo.
How to Get from Narita Airport to Tokyo
11. Eat at Convenience Stores and Train Stations

I didn't think I would utter these words either, still having the image of the lone hot dog/Weiner going around and around in The Simpsons, at Apu's Kwik-E-Mart. But ..the food in the Convenience Stores is changed over every 2 hours so is as fresh as anything, and varied. Ditto the train stations.

12. Shoes, on and off, on and off

Do get used to taking your shoes off when you enter a house or restaurant, particularly outside of Tokyo.

The floors in traditional Japanese houses were covered with tatami mats and with very little furniture.Most houses still are such is the tradition. These mats were used to sit on and to sleep on instead of chairs and beds. As the streets generic cialis with mastercard were muddy and dirty, they did not want to bring this dirt onto the mats and into the houses. So shoes were taken off outside and slippers were put on inside.
Japan - Some Unusual Facts
13. Japanese Toilets

Do play with every button on the toilets and listen to music, bird calls, and get a wash or two for free, where you least expect it if you play with too many buttons at the one time.

14. Do play with the vending machines.

The main reason that there are so many vending machines is that they are convenient for a very large and very busy population. They are also constantly stocked and re-stocked particularly the food vending machines. Nothing is even close to a use by date, so meticulous are the Japanese. Anybody who owns property can put a vending machine outside their premises. Coke, Suntory or any of the other beverage companies will come and set a vending machine on a piece of land that you own and all you have to do is to pay for the electricity. You will then get a share of sales, which starts, at 20% of the sale cost. They also come to fill up and provide the maintenance of the machine. Each and every vending machine is different and to be quite honest it was not until it was pointed out to me and I started looking more carefully that I could see this. You learn to differentiate between the various companies of vending machines by their branded logo on the side and also by what they offer.

15. Do burp and slurp.

Slurping your noodles very loudly is considered to be a sign of enjoyment of the meal. The louder the slurping, the more that you have enjoyed the meal. It is disconcerting for Westerners but not for the Japanese.

16. Don't finish your drink or meal.

Don't finish your drink or meal. if you are out with Japanese people. They will assume they have not fed you enough, or have not got you drunk enough. This is insulting to the Japanese people who pride themselves on their hospitality. Always leave a little in your glass, and a little on your plate. Let your host pour your drink also.

17. Don't tip.

The Japanese do not accept or expect to be tipped. It borders on insulting.

18. Cell Phone

Use your cell phone, but don't talk on it on the trains, etc. Everyone is on theirs, but there is respect for others by keeping it quiet.

19. Do Stay in a Ryokan in Japan.

A ryokan is a traditional Japanese inn, generally with local owners and tatami mat floors, where you will need to get used to toilet slippers as well as house slippers. This will give you a good sense of the culture of the country.
Read about Staying in a Ryokan in Japan
20. Don't drink or eat while walking.

It is considered bad manners.

21. Explore the city of Tokyo, and other areas of Japan

You will mostly land in Tokyo, so take some time and visit some different disticts of Shibuya, Shinjuku, Akihabara, Ginza, Harajuku. Check out the electronics, and cos play outfits. You can see manga and anime characters as well as many of popular video game characters. Musicians and punk rockers abound. Anything to do with fantasy and magic like Harry Potter is also seen everywhere.

Explore lots of other areas in Japan as well including some hidden gems like Wakayama City and Takayama
5 must see districts in Tokyo Cosplay in Japan
22. Punctuality.

Everything and everyone is on time in Japan. Trains, people ... everything. Except once, when an avalanche buried the train line and the Japanese people were so distressed by things not running to perfection, that they fled the trains. Good story to highlight that if everything does not run according to the rules, then this is major hurdle for the Japanese.
Platform 19, not Platform 9¾ - our bullet train is stuck!
23. Do Eat KFC at Christmas time.

Although Japan doesn't traditionally celebrate Christmas, KFC outlets became popular among foreigners when they couldn't find a turkey elsewhere during the festive season. KFC very quickly filled the void and mounted a hugely successful marketing campaign in the 1970s. The Japanese now place their orders up to two months in advance to meet demand. See one of the KFC ads designed for the Japanese people on our site "Why the Japanese love KFC for Christmas?
Japanese Love KFC at Christmas
24. Bring your Business Card

The exchange of business cards, meishi, is an essential part of Japanese business etiquette. The Japanese love business cards and you do not have to be in Japan on business to offer your card. Offer the card with the Japanese side facing upwards toward the recipient. Offering the card with both hands will demonstrate greater respect. Do look at the card you have been given, turn it over and admire it. Make sure your card looks good too and is printed on both sides with your details. Place it carefully into a holder. Don't just shove it in your pocket or handbag.

25. Don't blow your nose in public.

This is considered poor form, but sniffling isn't. Try and go to one of the musical toilets before ejecting the contents of you nostrils.

These are just some of the 25 Do's and Don'ts in Japan. None are hard, and you still may slip up, but the Japanese people respect visitors who make an effort.

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We are sharing the 25 Do's and Don'ts in Japan so that you have some insight into what you should and shouldn't do in this country of the rising sun. Of course, some are tongue in cheek, but others are quite straightforward.

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Shrines are popular destinations for both Japanese and international tourists, and given their beautiful architecture and peaceful surroundings, it's not hard to understand why. Shrines are very welcoming to visitors wherever they may be from and want everyone to feel comfortable, but in turn, there are some things to consider when dropping by for a visit.

Shundo Ohura of Gosyunibito.com brings up the point that as shrines (and temples) become more popular as tourist destinations for both Japanese and international visitors, it can be easy to forget their original purpose. While Japan has a generally loose and agnostic-style approach to its religions, shrines are still places of worship that are sacred to many.

What to Wear

As with visiting a church or a mosque, one should dress accordingly. Whether you believe in Shinto or not, it's more a matter of respect towards through who do. Ohura advises: "Even if it gets hot in summer, wear something that isn't showing too much skin. (This goes for both men and women.) Flip flops and clothing that is too sloppy and casual are also a no-no. Ideally, you should also take off your hat and sunglasses when worshipping. It's also forbidden to eat or drink on shrine grounds, and make sure to avoid taking photos where it's clearly labeled it's forbidden."

Torii Tips

When entering a shrine, you'll pass through one or several torii gates leading into the shrine grounds. These gates mark the boundary between the human secular world and the sacred space of the gods. Many people will bow before entering and after leaving, but this is not a necessity as long as the visitor maintains an air of respect for the area. As shrines are the "homes" of enshrined gods, you could consider it equivalent to visiting someone's house - be respectful that you're entering someone else's private space.

The Approach

The wide sando, or approach, to the shrine, is the main pathway for the gods. Humans should walk to the left and right sides, leaving the center open for the gods. This is something often forgotten or ignored even by many Japanese people, but it's a good rule to follow, even if only because it helps to avoid bumping into people.

Temizuya: the Cleansing Ritual

The temizuya is where worshippers purify themselves before entering the sacred inner shrine area. Here's a quick instructional video on how to use the temizuya correctly:

Pick up the ladle with your right hand (even if left-handed) and fill it with running water from the spring. Pour some water onto your left hand. Move the ladle to your left hand and pour water onto your right hand. Switch hands again, this time pouring water into your cupped left hand. Rinse your mouth out with this water, or simply lift it up to your lips if you don't feel comfortable doing so. Hold the ladle with both hands and hold it up vertically, letting the water run down the handle. Place the ladle back on the temizuya, facing down.
Note: when washing out the mouth and lifting the ladle to get rid of excess water before returning it, make sure to do this above the pebbles around the fountain and not into the fountain water itself. Also, you should only scoop water from the spring once, at the very beginning.
Worshipping at the Altar

If you would like to offer a prayer or a wish at the shrine, feel free to do so regardless of other beliefs you may have. First, go up to the altar of the main hall and drop some money into the offering box. This doesn't have to be much - in fact, many people only offer one, or several, five yen coins. This is because the Japanese word for five yen ( "goen") also sounds like the word "good fortune" and is thought to give a little boost of good luck.

Next, if there is a rope bell, ring it to let the gods know you're there. Bow deeply twice, then clap your hands twice at chest height. Stay standing with your hands together as you offer a prayer or wish. Bow deeply one last time when you're done, before turning away to leave.
Note: Some of the rules and guidelines for visiting temples will be the same, but many will differ.

Tags: culture, guides & insights, Japanese culture, Tokyo life

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101 Guide to Shrine Visits in Japan | Tokyo Weekender

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Shrines are popular destinations for both Japanese and international tourists, and given their beautiful architecture and peaceful surroundings, it's not hard to understand why. Shrines are very welcoming to visitors wherever they may be from and want everyone to feel comfortable, but in turn, there are some things to consider when dropping by for a visit.

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Text excerpted from "Historical Overview," Teachers Guide - The Bill of Rights and the Japanese American World War II Experience, published by the
The incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II was the culmination of a history of racial discrimination against Asians begun in the mid-1800s, when the Chinese first immigrated to the U.S.

* "Masuo came to America seeking his fortune. He worked on the railroad and as a houseboy before setting out with a brother to start a business. . . " Family Gathering 2:05 Min.

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Like the Chinese, the Japanese had been welcomed at first as a source of cheap labor, but shortly thereafter, became targets of anti-Asian campaigns, maligned as the "yellow peril." They inherited much of the new prejudice directed previously against the Chinese, especially as the Japanese moved from itinerant farm laborers to become owners of farms and small businesses.
Discriminatory laws passed during the early l900s denied the Japanese the right to become citizens, to own land, and to marry outside of their race. In addition, they could not buy homes in certain areas and were barred from jobs in certain industries. Some could only send their children to segregated schools, and in 1924, immigration from Japan was halted altogether.

In fact, America as a whole in the 1930s was a place of little tolerance toward people of color. Institutional racism prevented many of them from living in places of their choice or moving about in society at will. Many unions prohibited them from membership. Employers routinely barred Asians and African Americans from choice jobs. Native Americans lived on reservations in poverty, ignored.
National Japanese American Historical Society and the San Francisco Unified School District. © All rights reserved.
Pearl Harbor and World War II

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Pre-War Discrimination > World War II & Roundup | Exploring JAI

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Text excerpted from "Historical Overview," Teachers Guide - The Bill of Rights and the Japanese American World War II Experience, published by the The incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II was the culmination of a history of racial discrimination against Asians begun in the mid-1800s, when the Chinese first immigrated to the U.S.

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The following history on Asian American was taken from the JACL curriculum guide, The Journey from Gold Mountain: The Asian American Experience, published in 2006. The full curriculum guide is available for download here.
"GOLD MOUNTAIN" AND THE ROOTS OF ASIAN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION
Asian immigration to central North America predates the existence of the United States. The first settlers from Asia on the American continent were Filipino deserters from Spanish ships known as "Manilamen" in English, and "Tagalas" in Spanish. Escaping the oppressive rule of the Spaniards, the colonial masters of the Philippines, these settlers organized obscure fishing villages near what became New Orleans and Acapulco, Mexico starting around 1763.[1] The village of St. Malo near New Orleans consisted of a number of wooden houses with high "Manila style roofs" supported by wooden piles above a mosquito infested swamp. Though many had families in New Orleans, only men lived in St. Malo. Set well apart from any thoroughfare to the city, these new immigrants were free to live and work without the intrusion of the police or the tax man.[2] It is speculated that some these Filipino immigrants participated in the battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812, but for the most part, they had a purposely quiet and localized impact on American society.

The first Asian immigrants to come to the United States in significant numbers were the Chinese in the middle of the 19th Century. The Chinese, primarily from Guangdong province, were motivated by problems at home as well as opportunities abroad. At that time, China was rocked by a number of violent conflicts including the Red Turban uprisings (1854-64) and the Taiping Rebellion (1850-64) responsible for the death of at least twenty million Chinese. The Opium Wars of 1839-42 and 1856-60 against Great Britain also inflicted economic devastation.[3] The Qing government of China, having lost to Britain in both conflicts, was forced to pay reparations. As a result, the Qing imposed high taxes on farmers, many of whom lost their lands because they could not sustain these payments. When the news of the 1848 discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill reached China, the dream of economic opportunity in California, popularly called Gam Saan or "Gold Mountain," lured these disenfranchised farmers as well as middle class merchants and entrepreneurs.

Nearly all of the Chinese who traveled to Gam Saan were sojourners, travelers to a foreign land with the intention of returning home when they had made enough money. As a result, the first immigrants were almost entirely men, the majority with wives in China, hoping to get rich within a few years and then return to their families. Contrary to popular belief at the time, the Chinese in America were not "coolies," kidnapped men forced into slavery. They came of their own free will, mostly by the credit ticket system in which a Chinese broker lent the emigrant money for the voyage with the promise that the worker would repay the loan with interest from his earnings in America.

Unfortunately, the tales of gold and good fortune in California were largely overblown, and Gam Saan for many immigrants did not hold the promise that its name suggested. Though some were wildly successful like Wong Kee, who at one time employed as many as 900 workers in his mining company, and more returned home as successful sojourners, most Chinese found themselves simply as outcasts in the rugged frontier West.[4] White settlers from the eastern United States were as new to California as the Chinese, but labeled the Chinese as "aliens" because of their different appearance and customs. Chinese competed with whites for the limited gold and jobs, often willing to work for less than white workers. Competition with the Chinese brought to the surface the economic pressures whites were trying to escape in the industrializing Northeast, and the Chinese quickly became scapegoats as a result.[5]

White settlers took a number of steps to discourage Chinese immigration. As early as 1852, the California legislature passed the Foreign Miner's License Tax, stipulating a monthly tax of three dollars on every foreign miner not desiring to become a citizen. Because the Chinese were sojourners, this tax almost exclusively affected them. Furthermore, even if the Chinese did want to become American citizens they were prohibited under the Naturalization Act of 1790 that allowed only "free white persons"[6] to become citizens. The tax was not uniformly collected and Chinese miners were frequently forced to pay more than they owed. In 1855, the legislature passed another law titled "An Act to Discourage the Immigration to this State of Persons Who Cannot Become Citizens Thereof" levying a $50 tax on the owner of a ship "for each passenger ineligible for naturalized citizenship."[7] As with the miner's tax, the law, though not explicit, was drafted to curb Chinese immigration.

In 1870, Congress amended the Nationality Act of 1790 that originally stated, "any alien, being a free white person who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for a term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof" to conform with the 14th Amendment of 1868 and allowed "aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent to become naturalized citizens." Congress rejected attempts to make Chinese immigrants eligible for citizenship and retained the racial prohibition on naturalization for nonwhite immigrants who would be classified as "aliens ineligible for citizenship." This term would reappear in a number of pieces of legislation, especially in California, targeting Asian immigrants. It would have a detrimental impact until the passage of the Walter-McCarran Act of 1952.

The reaction from the legislature and white working class contrasted with the messages sent from business owners and corporate moguls who needed cheap foreign labor. In 1865, white workers for the Central Pacific Railroad, then engaged in laying the tracks that would connect the eastern half of the country with the West, threatened to strike, demanding higher wages. Management countered by threatening to hire Chinese worker to prevent the strike, yet hired Chinese workers anyway. Despite initial misgivings over the Chinese being too delicate for the work, the initial crews of Chinese workers proved to be as hard working as whites and accepted less pay. From that point on, the Central Pacific actively recruited Chinese workers, even printing handbills in Chinese and sending recruiters to China.[8] Within two years, 12,000 Chinese worked for the Central Pacific Railroad, a number accounting for 90 percent of its workforce.[9]

Notwithstanding the demand for Chinese labor, they were mistreated. The Chinese could not attain the higher positions offered to whites. In addition, they were the only workers who were willing to assume the danger of handling explosives. On Cape Horn, a particularly notorious rock outcrop in the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Colfax, California, workers were lowered down the cliff face in a wicker basket to drill holes in a solid granite wall and then stuff them with dynamite. Those unlucky enough not to be pulled up before the dynamite exploded, perished. Many Chinese also died from harsh weather conditions. For their work, including those handling explosives, they received a flat salary below that of all white workers. In 1869, when tracks from east and west were joined at Promontory Point, Utah, no Chinese were allowed to attend the ceremony.

The mistreatment of Asians was also common in Hawaii, a site of major immigration from China, Japan, Korea and the Philippines. Although Hawaii was not an official territory of the United States until the passage of the Hawaii Organic Act in 1900, American sugar companies established large plantations over much of the country around the middle of the 19th Century, turning Hawaii into something of an economic colony of the United States. Between 1850 and 1920, over 300,000 Asians immigrated to Hawaii, eventually accounting for 65 percent of the population.[10] Like the Central Pacific Railroad, the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association (HSPA) actively recruited workers from China and other Asian countries. Before 1900, most came under the contract labor system. Laborers would sign contracts to work on island plantations for a number of years in return for free passage and some pay, essentially a system of indentured servitude.

For Chinese and other Asian workers, conditions on the plantations were crude. Single men were put in bunkhouses and whole families were crammed into single rooms. The water supply was frequently unsanitary, and in the early years there were no cooking or recreational facilities. Work life was heavily regimented. Whistles sounded at 5 A.M. for wakeup, and work started one-half hour later. Laborers worked six days a week until dusk supervised by "lunas," or white foremen, who would verbally abuse workers and sometimes strike them to maintain discipline. Talking during work was generally forbidden. Workers were not even allowed to stand and stretch while hoeing weeds.[11]

This controlled lifestyle was difficult for many traditional Chinese men who were used to making decisions for their household. Still, plantation life in some ways was preferable to that of the mainland. Because of the contract system, workers stayed in one place instead of roaming from place to place to compete for jobs. It was also more common for Chinese workers to bring their wives with them to the plantation (in 1900, women accounted for 13.5 percent of the Chinese population of Hawaii versus 5 percent on the mainland[12]). Additionally, because Asians accounted for such a large percentage of Hawaii's population, incidences of racial discrimination and violence were less pronounced.

In the absence of communal plantations, Chinese on the mainland formed their own communities called Chinatowns. In the 1870s, after the completion of the railroad and long after the Gold Rush, many Chinese moved into urban economies, multiplying the Chinese populations in West Coast cities, particularly in San Francisco. In response to housing segregation, Chinese established their own communities to consolidate power and maintain some sense of Chinese culture. Within Chinatowns, immigrants associated with others of the same surname or in huiguan, community organizations representing different regions of China. In 1862, the six largest huiguan in San Francisco formed an umbrella organization called the Chinese Six Companies, later the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. The Six Companies responded to the many needs of Chinatown. Lawmakers ignored the interests of the Chinese, so a governing body was needed in the Chinese community to help maintain order. The Six Companies filled this role and also served the community by providing loans, funeral services, a Chinese school, a Chinese census, settling disputes, and even acting as unofficial ambassadors to the Qing Government in China.[13]

Racial prejudice played a role in the types of jobs the Chinese could enter. To avoid conflict, many Chinese chose to be self-employed, filling Chinatowns with restaurants, shops, and particularly laundries. By 1890, there were 6,400 Chinese laundry workers in California, accounting for one out of twelve Chinese workers in the state.[14] Many Chinese men agreed to do what they viewed as "woman's work" because the cost to operate laundries was relatively low, and it offered independence, unlike the work in the mines and factories.

Nonetheless, many Chinese did enter into the factories and mines of the West Coast, putting them in direct competition with white workers, in particular with recent immigrants from Italy and Ireland. As mentioned earlier, the Chinese, partially because of the limited needs of the strictly male Chinese society in America, worked for less than whites, sparking numerous incidents of racial violence. "The Chinese Massacre" of 1871 occurred in Los Angeles when a mob of approximately one hundred white men burned and pillaged the Chinatown, killing as many as twenty-eight Chinese. The Snake River Massacre claimed the lives of thirty-one Chinese miners who were "robbed, killed, and mutilated by a group of white ranchers and schoolboys."[15]

In the mid-1880s, a string of anti-Chinese outbreaks occurred in the Northwest. Following a forced eviction of the Chinese in Rock Springs, Wyoming, the "Anti-Chinese Congress" met in Seattle to discuss the fate of the Chinese in that region. The decision of the "Congress" was to expel all Chinese from the Northwest by November 1, 1885. Similarly, a series of forced evictions occurred in Tacoma and Seattle, but less violent than the one in Rock Springs. In Seattle, the social unrest became so severe that Governor Watson Squire declared martial law and called in federal troops to protect the Chinese leaving for California on the steamer Queen.[16]

Though incidents like these were most pronounced in the West, anti-Chinese sentiment was not solely a West Coast phenomenon. The movement to exclude the Chinese from the United States started in California in the 1870s with strong assistance from the Workingmen's Party, but expanded to the national stage within a decade. The Workingmen's Party was a political party in California composed heavily of Irish immigrants. Many Irish moved west to avoid discrimination in the east, so in addition to opposing the Chinese for economic reasons, Irish immigrants could also foster a sense of their own American identity by attacking the Chinese and other non-whites as the true foreign elements in America. The anti-Chinese movement was fueled in part by the poor economy of the 1870s. The anti-Chinese sentiment became a partisan issue in California where Democrats and Republicans competed to adopt anti-Chinese platforms. The Chinese had no political voice because they were not eligible for citizenship and they could not vote.

The Chinese were victimized in the same manner during the national elections in 1876. The Democrats, with their strong base of Southern support, sympathized with the Western outcry against the Chinese because of their own animosity toward recently freed slaves. The Republicans were more hesitant on the issue of Chinese exclusion than the Democrats, but acquiesced in order to receive crucial votes from white immigrant workers. Both sides found it easier to placate workers with anti-Chinese platforms rather than tackling the root causes of workers' problems, the business practices of large industrial monopolies. In 1882, the southern Democrats sponsored the Chinese Exclusion Act, initially vetoed by President Chester Arthur for violations of treaties with China, but passed later that year upon revision.[17]

The Chinese Exclusion Act stated that "the coming of Chinese laborers" to America "endangers the good order of certain localities within the territory thereof." [18] As such, only Chinese laborers were excluded from immigrating, a compromise that did not completely satisfy the Workingmen's Party. Students and merchants could still enter the United States, inspiring some Chinese laborers to immigrate under false pretenses. The Act also specifically reaffirmed the fact that foreign-born Chinese still could not become naturalized citizens, an issue in contention after the Civil Rights Act of 1870 extended citizenship to African Americans. To maintain diplomatic relations with China, the Act was to be temporary, lasting for only ten years, but it was later renewed for another ten years by the Geary Act, and then indefinitely. Under the original Act, Chinese laborers residing in the United States by November 17, 1880 were allowed to return to the United States if they went overseas, provided they obtained a government issued pass before leaving. The Scott Act of 1888, however, severely reduced eligibility for this special pass system, stranding 20,000 Chinese who had left the country, many of whom had businesses and families in America, until its repeal in 1894.[19]
THE JAPANESE ARRIVE
Though the Page Law of 1875 restricted immigration of Chinese contract laborers and women imported for "immoral purposes," the Chinese Exclusion Act was the first and only immigration law in American history to exclusively target a particular nationality.[20] Some Chinese laborers managed to circumvent the law by claiming to be merchants, others by claiming to be the sons of Chinese American citizens (American-born Chinese were guaranteed citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment). This "paper son" method was especially popular after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 that destroyed most of the immigration records. It allowed many Chinese to claim relatives and attempt to bring them into the United States by providing family details to those who were willing to pay a fee to obtain the information, thus bringing about the term, "paper son." Still, after 1882, Chinese immigration was reduced to a trickle. While this satisfied some working class exclusionists, large companies and farmers still needed an abundant source of cheap labor, opening the door for the second "wave" of Asian immigrants - the Japanese.

When Commodore Perry arrived in Edo (modern day Tokyo) in 1853 with a fleet of battleships to "open" the island chain, Japan had been completely closed to the Western world. Though Perry succeeded in his mission, emigration from Japan was still prohibited by the Japanese government until 1885, and then under strict regulation until 1894. When Japan did "open" its labor market, Hawaiian sugar planters took advantage. Between 1885 and 1894, 29,000 Japanese came to Hawaii on three-year work contracts; and from 1894 to 1908, 125,000 came.[21] Planters liked importing Japanese workers because they believed they offset the Chinese workers by preventing strikes and the formation of unions. Similarly, plantation owners imported Portuguese, Italians, Southern blacks, and Koreans, though not to the same degree. Japanese laborers became even more attractive in 1900 when Hawaii was annexed by the United States, extending the Chinese Exclusion Act to the islands.

The Japanese emigrated for reasons similar to the Chinese where economic conditions at home caused many to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Intimidated by Perry's military display, Japan reluctantly entered into a treaty with the United States. In the transition to internationalism and modernization, the Tokugawas fell in 1868 after centuries of rule, making way for the imperial Meiji government. The Meiji government was avidly pro-modernization, and promoted a program of industrialization. To finance this program, the new government devised a new land-tax system. Farmers formerly taxed on the size of their crop were now taxed on the value of their land, a system that did not account for factors such as crop failures. In the 1880s, some 367,000 farmers lost their land under the new system.[22] Rather than be tenant farmers in their own country, many decided to seek their fortune abroad.

The Japanese began arriving on the United States mainland in the early 1890s. The flow of immigrants increased when the Organic Law of 1900 rendered the contracts of all Japanese in Hawaii null and void, freeing them to pursue opportunity in the American West. Many Issei (first generation Japanese immigrants) sought work in farming in California's growing agricultural economy. The Immigration Commission in 1909 calculated that of the 79,000 Japanese immigrants on the mainland, approximately one-half were involved in farming.[23] White farmers also valued Japanese for their expertise in agriculture and for the comparatively low cost of their labor. In addition, Japanese also sought jobs as industrial fishermen, miners, loggers and service workers. The growing population together with restrictive housing barriers gave rise to the establishment of Japantowns in many urban centers of the West. These enclaves provided opportunities to many independent Japanese business owners.

Because of their physical similarities the Issei, or immigrant generation, they were mistaken for Chinese during the early years of their immigration. Though most Japanese who came before 1908 were " dekaseginin" or sojourners, they were adaptable to western ways. Japanese men adopted western clothes and haircuts. It was also more common for Japanese women to immigrate than Chinese women who had been constrained from coming to the United States by federal law. The Japanese government sought to reduce the problems of gambling, drunkenness and prostitution found in bachelor societies by encouraging the emigration of women to Hawaii and the mainland.[24] A picture bride system soon developed where Japanese men married women from Japan through an exchange of photographs.

Before the turn of the 20 th Century, Asians were viewed as an inferior race, little better than "beasts of burden." This all changed with the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Japan prevailed in both wars and established Korea as a Japanese protectorate. In less than forty years, Japan had transformed itself from a pre-modern agrarian society to a formidable industrial and military power. Unfortunately, these victories earned the Japanese more fear than respect in America. The rapid influx of out-of-work Japanese soldiers and Korean refugees after the Russo-Japanese War together with the increasing labor and social organization of the Issei, contributed to the view of the Japanese and other Asians as the "Yellow Peril."

The "Yellow Peril" stereotyped all Asians, not just the Japanese, as a threat both at home and abroad. At the time, America was becoming a small colonial power. By the end of the Spanish-American War, the United States had dominion over Puerto Rico, Guam, Samoa, Cuba, Hawaii and the Philippines. With interests now in the Pacific, Japan's colonial expansion was seen as threatening. At home, many white Americans looked at Asian immigrants as foreign agents intent on securing world control for their home countries. These fears were embodied in the form of the fictitious Dr. Fu Manchu, first appearing in the popular novel, The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu (1913), and further popularized in subsequent novels and movies. Fu Manchu "lived" in London's Chinatown and secretly schemed to bring the world under the control of an "Asiatic Empress."[25]

The "Yellow Peril" fears compounded the pre-existing animosity toward Asian immigrant laborers. Like the Chinese before them, Japanese workers were frequently used as strike breakers across the West. Cries for Japanese exclusion arose almost from the moment the Japanese arrived in America. The first national push occurred in 1902 to include Japan in the renewal of the Chinese Exclusion Act. When the movement failed, western residents acted locally. The San Francisco Labor Council organized a boycott of Japanese businesses on March 10, 1905. Two months later, the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League was formed to lobby against Asian immigration and to promote anti-Asian laws.[26]

On October 11, 1906, the San Francisco school board mandated that all "Oriental" students attend segregated schools in Chinatown, ignoring the fact that it was nearly impossible for most Japanese and Korean students to commute that far.[27] Japanese community organizations, unable to sway the school board, alerted the Japanese press and the Japanese government. With the school board's decision now a national matter, President Theodore Roosevelt stepped in to mediate. The President, careful to quiet the rage of Californians rallying around the decision, and to pacify the powerful Japanese government, invited a delegation of state representatives and the mayor of San Francisco to the White House on January 3, 1907. After a week of discussions, the school board agreed to relent in return for a promise from the President that Japanese immigration would be curbed. On March 14, Roosevelt barred immigration of Japanese from Hawaii, Canada and Mexico by executive order. Then, in late 1907 and 1908, a series of secret notes were passed between the governments of the United States and Japan. This series of exchanges became known as the Gentlemen's Agreement, where Japan agreed not to issue any passports to Japanese laborers trying to enter the United States.[28] As the Panama Canal had not been completed, which would ease the movement of naval fleets from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, Roosevelt felt he needed to avoid any potential aggression from Japan.

The Gentlemen's Agreement, while significantly restricting Japanese immigration, did not eliminate it. Non-laborers were still allowed to enter the United States, and many laborers obtained visas for Canada or Mexico, crossing the border more easily from those countries. The nature of Japanese immigration also changed. The Gentlemen's Agreement allowed laborers already in the United States to bring their wives, parents and children from Japan. As a result, thousands of Japanese women came to the mainland, even outnumbering male Japanese immigrating in the years immediately following the agreement. The Japanese no longer came as sojourners, but with the intention of settling in America.

Anti-Japanese elements in the United States were not pleased by this development. In 1913, California passed the Alien Land Law declaring that aliens who could not become naturalized could not own land in the state. The Law was directed at the Japanese, who more than any other group of Asian immigrants pursued land ownership. Some Issei began registering property under the names of their Nisei (second generation) children who were born in the United States and were American citizens. To prevent this, the California legislature passed a stricter Alien Land Law in 1920 that outlawed this practice and barred Japanese from even leasing land. As a result, Japanese-owned lands shrunk from 74,769 acres in 1920 to 41,898 acres in 1925, a decline of 44 percent and leased lands from 192,150 to 76,397 acres, a decline of 60 percent.[29]

The two California land laws and similar ones in other western states proscribing land ownership clearly defined the benefits to be derived from becoming a naturalized citizen. Although this privilege had been specifically denied to Chinese immigrants through the Chinese Exclusion Act, there was still some question as to whether Japanese immigrants could be naturalized. The issue garnered national attention in 1922 with the Supreme Court case Ozawa v. United States. In the case, lawyers for Takao Ozawa claimed that when Congress drafted the Naturalization Act of 1790, they intended "free white persons" to mean all those who weren't black. Ozawa, a highly assimilated Japanese immigrant appealing his rejected application for citizenship, was lighter skinned than many naturalized Italians and Greeks and therefore appeared clearly eligible. Though the Court agreed that Ozawa was assimilated and light skinned, it held that "the words 'white person' were meant to indicate a person of what is popularly known as the Caucasian race."[30]

One year later, the Naturalization Act was again challenged by an Asian Indian applying for citizenship in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind. Asian Indians, numbering only a few thousand in the United States at the time, were considered technically Caucasian, and some were granted citizenship. Thind, a United States veteran of World War I, was naturalized in 1920, but the Board of Immigration challenged his citizenship for his outspoken beliefs on India's independence.[31] In Thind, the Court backtracked from Ozawa, stating that the 1790 Act "does not employ the word 'Caucasian,' but the words 'white persons.'" According to the Court, whiteness should be defined by "common speech" and not "scientific origin."[32] As a result, Thind along with many other Asian Indians became "denaturalized."

Both Ozawa and Thind exemplified the popular belief of nativism, which promoted the idea that Western European Americans with older immigrant lineages and Native Americans were the true "natives" of America. Fueled by increasing United States involvement in international politics and the growing immigration from Asia and Eastern Europe, nativism contributed to the passage of the Immigration Act of 1917. The 1917 Act was the most comprehensive immigration doctrine the United States had enacted. It declared a "barred zone" over most of Asia with the exception of Japan, forbidding immigration from those countries. As isolationist sentiment increased after World War I, Congress passed the even stricter Immigration Act of 1924. To inhibit postwar immigration from Eastern Europe, the number of immigrants admitted from each nation would be equal to two percent of the population of United States residents from that nation according to the census of 1890, a year before most Eastern Europeans came to the United States. The Act also added Japan to the list of barred countries, nullifying the Gentlemen's Agreement and ending Japanese immigration to America.

This era also witnessed the immigration of Koreans to the United States motivated primarily by political chaos and poverty, and limited at first to Hawaii where approximately 7,000 emigrated between 1903 and 1905 seeking better working and living conditions.[33] Some Koreans then migrated to California; by 1905 approximately 1,000 Koreans lived in that State.[34] In that year, after learning of the deplorable working conditions and the low wages in other countries, and under pressure from Japan, which then occupied Korea, the Korean Government banned all emigration. This, in effect, stopped the entry of Koreans into the United States until years later.[35]
"LITTLE BROWN BROTHERS" AND THE ALL-AMERICAN LOOPHOLE
The desires of exclusionists conflicted with the needs of American businessmen. Despite worker outcry, there was no shortage of jobs, especially during the "roaring twenties." This continuing demand for labor prompted the immigration of Filipinos, sometimes dubbed the "third wave" of Asian American immigrants.

Officially, America acquired the Philippines from Spain in 1898 for $20 million following the American victory in the Spanish-American War, though fighting did not end on the islands until 1902. A segment of the Filipino population led by Emilio Aguinaldo declared independence from the United States, precipitating a bloody war. American victory in the Philippine American War, known in the United States as the Filipino "insurrection," claimed the lives of 4,243 American soldiers and countless Filipinos.[36] What followed was over forty years of American rule.

After the war, the United States tried to cultivate a regime of "benevolent despotism" or at least the appearance of it. William Howard Taft, first civilian governor of the Philippines, declared Filipinos to be America's "little brown brothers."[37] From 1903 to 1910, the United States funded a program to educate Filipino students in American schools on the mainland. These "pensionados" numbered only about five hundred when the program ended and they returned home to the Philippines, but they inspired thousands of unsponsored students to come to the United States. The United States also actively recruited Filipinos to work for the navy. By 1930, there were about 25,000 Filipinos working for the United States Navy, mostly as stewards and mess hall attendants.[38]

Though they were not citizens of the United States, Filipinos were considered American nationals. Consequently, Filipinos could freely move from the Philippines to Hawaii or to the mainland once they acquired an easily obtainable certificate of residence. This loophole to Asian exclusion first caught the attention of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association (HSPA) after immigration of Japanese laborers to Hawaii was banned by the Gentlemen's Agreement. In 1909, the HSPA began full-scale recruitment to bring Filipinos to Hawaii. Filipino laborers, called Sakadas, came mostly under three-year contracts negotiated in advance. After the expiration of their contracts, many stayed in Hawaii while others returned home or moved to the mainland.

Filipinos began migrating in large numbers to California after the Immigration Act of 1924. Many were displaced tenant farmers, so they were able to blend into the agricultural economy of the state. A number of Filipinos also went to Alaska to work in salmon canneries. Like the Asian immigrants before them, the vast majority of Filipinos were male laborers and worked for less than competing workers, including whites and Japanese. Unlike the Chinese and Japanese, however, Filipinos did not tend to live in dense, segregated communities. "Little Manilas" were rare and fleeting, possibly because centuries of Spanish rule or their identity as American nationals had diminished their "cultural cohesiveness."[39] Filipinos also differed from earlier Asian immigrants in that they were the first to actively court white women and even inter-marry.

This last difference became the source of much agitation. In the Philippines, Filipinos were taught that they were a part of a friendly father country. When they arrived in America, however, they found that Americans did not treat them as the so-called "little brown brothers." Americans looked upon Filipinos as "jungle folk," only recently civilized by American influence, and feared mixing between races.[40] A number of violent outbursts occurred over the popularity of Filipino dance halls, where Filipino men would dance with white women. The most notable incident was the race riots in Watsonville, California on January 19, 1930. The riots began with a nonviolent anti-Filipino demonstration against a Filipino dance hall, but over the course of a few days, groups of demonstrators turned into mobs that targeted Filipinos, beating them, and destroying their property. The riots ended on January 22, when a Filipino man, Fermin Tobera, was shot through the heart.[41]

Fears of intermarriage and miscegenation were not only reflected in the violent actions of mobs, but also in state and federal laws. As early as 1884, interracial marriage was banned under Section 69 of the California Civil Code forbidding the marriage of a white person to a "Negro" or a "Mongolian." In the 20th Century, prohibitions against miscegenation were linked to the notion of the "Yellow Peril." For some, the threat of the "Yellow Peril" was twofold: the threat of Asiatic domination by conventional warfare coupled with a "fifth column" revolution, and the threat of the dissolution of the white race through race mixing. This second facet of the "Yellow Peril" was argued in Lothrop Stoddard's book, The Rising Tide of Color, in 1920. Stoddard, a eugenicist, held that white blood, particularly from the "Nordic" races of Western Europe, was the most advanced or "highly specialized." He also argued that because Nordic blood was so highly specialized, it was most at risk of contamination. Stoddard feared a "racial suicide" and the washing away of Nordic blood by the "rising tide" of the colored races.[42] This type of popular sentiment may have led to the passage of federal laws such as the Cable Act of 1922, which stipulated that any female American citizen would lose her citizenship by marrying an "alien ineligible for citizenship."

The popularity of books like The Rising Tide of Color reveals the trend of the time to justify racism with science. Although the classification and judgment of races was arbitrary and based on visible rather than actual genetic differences, it was held by many to be an indisputable, scientific fact. This pseudo-scientific racism sometimes undermined the aim of exclusionist laws. The 1884 California code only prohibited marriage to "Mongolians," thus exempting Filipinos because they were considered to be of the "Malay" race. Since Filipinos were considered as American nationals, the Cable Act did not apply to them. Until April 21, 1933, many Filipinos married white women until the California Civil Code was amended on that date to include a prohibition against "Malays."[43]

Filipino immigration was resisted in the 1920s, but strong support to exclude Filipinos did not materialize until the 1930s. Just as the economic hardship of the 1870s had fueled the Chinese Exclusion Movement, the Great Depression roused sentiment against Filipinos. Philippine independence was the avenue advocated by most exclusionists. If the Philippines were no longer under the ownership of the United States, then they could be included in the Asiatic Barred Zone. In 1934, Congress passed the Philippine Independence Act, known as the Tydings-McDuffie Act, which promised independence for the Philippines in ten years. Under this Act, Filipinos were reclassified as aliens and an immigration quota of fifty Filipinos a year was established. For twelve years (Philippine independence was delayed by World War II), Filipinos were in the odd position of owing allegiance to a country in which they were considered aliens. This alien status was especially damaging during the Depression because it rendered them ineligible for government relief programs. The passage of the Tydings-McDuffie Act was the final step in Asian exclusion, effectively shutting down all immigration from Asia until World War II.
WORLD WAR II AND THE JAPANESE AMERICAN INCARCERATION
December 7, 1941 profoundly affected America's views about Asians. The attack at Pearl Harbor reinforced the "Yellow Peril" fears, but it also caused the United States to forge alliances with Asian nations, China among them. America's entry into World War II presented opportunities for some Asian Americans and for others, it caused loss and disillusionment.

Following Japan's attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, agents of the FBI swept through Japanese American communities in California, Oregon and Washington, arresting leaders who were identified as "potential threats" to the security of the West Coast. Those arrested were leaders of Japanese American community organizations, ministers of churches, teachers at language and martial arts schools, and editors of Japanese American vernacular newspapers. Despite never having been accused of any crime or acts of treason, and without trial or representation, they were taken away to United States Department of Justice detention centers, many for the duration of the war. Their families did not know where they were taken or if they would ever see them again.

On February 19, 1942, two months after the attack at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which set into motion a series of events that led to one of our country's most tragic constitutional failures. Executive Order 9066 gave broad authority to the military to secure the borders of the United States and to create military zones from which individuals - citizens and aliens alike - could be forced from their homes. Although the executive order was carefully crafted so that no specific groups of people were singled out, its implementation resulted in the wholesale removal and imprisonment of the entire Japanese American population residing on the West Coast of the United States.

Under the authority of Executive Order 9066, the western portions of California, Washington and Oregon were declared as military zones, and in April 1942, the military imposed a curfew and travel restrictions on Japanese Americans. Singled out by race alone, Japanese Americans became the target of racial policies that deprived them of their rights as American citizens. Soon after the curfew, the military posted notices in all Japanese American communities, ordering all citizens and resident aliens of Japanese ancestry to abruptly leave their homes, schools and businesses and report to assembly areas, bringing with them only what they could carry. The government euphemistically referred to this program as an "evacuation" to "relocation centers," when in fact it was the forced removal and incarceration of American citizens into concentration camps.

Under direction of armed police and the military, Japanese immigrants and Americans of Japanese ancestry were herded onto buses and trains for the forced journey to government detention camps. Without regard for due process or basic constitutional guarantees, over 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, (the Issei - or first generation - were ineligible for citizenship due to discriminatory naturalization laws) were imprisoned in ten concentration camps located in remote, desolate areas in California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming and Arkansas. Approximately 10,000 people were imprisoned in each camp surrounded by barbed wire and armed military guards.

In January 1943, the United States Department of War announced that Japanese American volunteers would be accepted for military combat duty in Europe. Most of the volunteers came from Hawaii, but there were also those who volunteered from within the concentration camps on the mainland. The volunteers were assigned to a segregated Japanese American unit - the 442 nd Regimental Combat Team. For its size and length of service, the 442 nd eventually became the most decorated American unit in United States military history.

The treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II remains as one of the most serious violations of constitutional rights in the history of the United States. The President signed the executive order with an intent to single out those of Japanese ancestry; the Congress supported the President's actions and gave statutory authority to the order; and the Supreme Court upheld the government's actions in three test cases that sanctioned the forced exclusion and imprisonment of a group of citizens based solely on race. This all transpired, despite the fact that eight articles and amendments of the Bill of Rights had been denied them.

The long struggle for regaining citizenship rights is a good example of the difficult and slow struggle that Japanese Americans faced when returning to normal life. Anti-Japanese sentiment on the West Coast still thrived in their absence and many people were opposed to the return of the Japanese Americans. In addition, much of the personal property that had been left behind had been stolen, vandalized or ruined by neglect. Unlike their forced removal, there was no large government effort to reintroduce Japanese Americans back into society after the war. They were forced to pick up the pieces of their lives after their incarceration.
A CHANGING NATION: THE AFTERMATH OF WORLD WAR II
After World War II, the United States found itself in a new position with regard to Asia. Japan had been defeated and all other Asian nations were not equipped to pose a military threat to the United States. Though the "Yellow Peril" had always been more racist myth than fact, its influence waned with the diminished level of a perceived threat. Furthermore, knowledge of the horrors of Nazi brutality toward Jews and others caused many to abhor parallel racism in American society.[44] Slowly, the American attitude towards those of Asian descent within its borders began to change.

One factor contributing to the changing opinion of Asian Americans was their heroic participation in the war effort. The heroic exploits of the Japanese American 442 nd Regimental Combat Team became widely known and heralded. Tens of thousands of Asian Americans of all ancestries enlisted to serve their country, enough to support military units for Chinese, Filipino and Korean Americans as well as the Filipinos who were recruited to fight against the Japanese in the Philippines with the promise of United States citizenship. The goodwill generated by this contribution was reflected in the legislation of the time. In 1946, three years after Chinese could become naturalized as citizens, the Luce-Cellar Bill extended the same right to Filipinos and Asian Indians. In a similar display of postwar goodwill, the War Brides Act of 1945 (later amended in 1947 to include veterans of Asian descent) along with the GI Fiancées Act of 1946, allowed thousands of Asian fiancées and wives of servicemen to enter the United States. No longer concerned with an "Asian invasion," these women were allowed to enter as non-quota immigrants.[45] Anti-miscegenation laws, while still supported by a segment of the population, also fell from favor. In 1948, the California Supreme Court declared in Perez v. Sharp that California's anti-miscegenation law constituted a violation of civil rights, releasing a wave of marriage applications that had been stymied for years.

The Cold War with Russia and the "hot" war with North Korea and China further influenced America's opinion towards Asians. After the war, the Soviet Union, a former ally during the war, was now America's greatest foe. The United States became increasingly fearful of the "domino effect," the idea that as one country turned to communism, other surrounding countries would follow suit like "dominoes." This theory seemed an all too present reality when China and most of Eastern Europe "fell" to communism after World War II. On the Korean Peninsula, the country was divided at the 38 th parallel. On the north was Soviet-liberated Korea with guerilla leader Kim Il Sung as chairman, and on the south was American-liberated Korea that became its own country in 1948 with the election of Korean exile Syngman Rhee. The Korean War started in June of 1950 when North Korea invaded southern Korea. At the time, most American forces had left Korea, but they soon returned to help the South Korean government. Communist China countered by backing North Korea in November of that year. The war stalemated after three years with the 38 th parallel once again designated as the border dividing north and south.[46]

The Korean War again showed that the United States was no longer an isolationist country. Now it was involved in the reconstruction of a war-torn world, including Japan and Germany. America was deeply involved in world politics and interested in modeling itself as the leading nation to promote democratic values. In the landmark anti-segregation case Brown v. Board of Education, the amicus brief by Justice Department stated, "The existence of discrimination against minority groups in the U.S. has an adverse effect upon our relations with other countries."[47] At the same time, the United States was gripped by fear of communism, and believed tighter and more organized control of its borders to be the solution against communist infiltration. These somewhat conflicting desires worked to reshape racially-biased American immigration policy.

The Korean War initiated the largest wave of Korean immigration to the United States since the Russo-Japanese War. Most of this immigration consisted of Korean women and orphans covered under the War Brides Act. In 1952, Congress passed the Walter-McCarran Act, over a veto by President Harry Truman, a compromise between the desire for equality and a hesitation to open national borders. On the one hand, the act nullified both the Naturalization Act of 1790 and all federal anti-Asian exclusion laws, allowing for the first time all legal immigrants in America to become naturalized citizens. On the other hand, the Act did not abolish the biased quota system, allowing only a total of 2,000 visas annually for all nineteen of the countries in the Eastern hemisphere. One other important difference in the Act was the establishment of a preference system. The United States no longer looked at race as the only factor for immigration but gave preference to those with professional and technical skills.[48]

Anti-Asian laws also were repealed in state and local governments during the 1950s, including the infamous alien land laws of California in 1956. The development of the Civil Rights Movement continued to change things for Asian Americans, most notably with the Immigration Act of 1965. Since the mid-1950s, Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders had been advocating equal rights and opportunity for all Americans. In 1964, the government acknowledged this movement on a federal level with the passage of the Civil Rights Act. With discrimination within United States borders, the discriminatory policies used to control those borders came into sharp relief, and Congress soon turned their attention to immigration reform. The Immigration Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Cellar Reform Act, abolished the national origins quota system established in 1924 and adopted a hemisphere quota system. Quotas for Asian nations jumped from approximately 100 to 20,000 immigrants per year, making the quotas representative of world population distribution rather than by racial preference.[49]

The era of the Civil Rights Movement also produced a new stereotype for Asian Americans - the "model minority." Sociologist William Peterson first coined the term in his 1966 article, "Success Story: Japanese American Style," to contrast Japanese Americans with other so-called "problem minorities," implicitly African Americans and Latinos. At the time, these minorities were drawing attention to the discrimination and racism that existed in the United States with boycotts, protests and civil disobedience. The riots in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles occurred six months before publication of the article. By comparison, Asian Americans were cast in the stereotype of being quiet, successful, and self-reliant. They were portrayed as the embodiment of the Horatio Alger "rags to riches" dream, persevering despite prejudice and hardships, and without government assistance. Nevertheless, this seemingly positive stereotype still did not remove the stigma of Asian Americans as being "foreigners." Moreover, the "model minority" myth was sometimes used to deflect responsibility for the affects of racism on other minorities.
AFTER 1965: INCREASING UNITY AND COMPLEXITY IN THE ASIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY
Legislators of the time could not have predicted the effect that the Immigration Act of 1965 would have on immigration from Asia. When it passed, the bill was not expected to have that great an impact. Since the bill favored spouses and children of American citizens, allowing them to enter as non-quota immigrants, it was reasoned that not many Asians would enter the United States. In defense of the bill he proposed, Emmanuel Cellar declared, "Since the people of... Asia have very few relatives here, comparatively few could emigrate from those countries." Cellar could not have been more wrong. Since 1965, Asians have been coming to America in numbers that far exceed pre-1965 statistics. Between 1971 and 1980 alone, about 1.6 million Asian immigrants arrived on American soil, and between 1981 and 1990, a surprising 2.8 million.[50] Aided by the increased ease of travel and motivated by new economic and political opportunities in the United States, Asian Americans grew to be more numerous, diverse and vocal than ever before in American society.

One immediate diversifying effect that the act produced was the surge in immigration of Koreans and Asian Indians. For Koreans, post-1965 immigration became known as a renewed "third wave." For Asian Indians, it was the first time they had come to the United States in significant numbers. Because the 1965 Immigration Act maintained the "preference system," like that of the Walter-McCarran Act, most immigrants from these countries were educated professionals. This phenomenon of importing the "best and brightest" was particularly pronounced with Asian Indians, and the process became known as a "brain drain."

In the 1970s, other new groups of Asians, those affected by the Vietnam War, would be motivated to come to the United States. The United States became involved in Vietnam in the 1950s after France released colonial control of the country following an eight-year war. At the time, Vietnam was divided at the 17 th parallel between the communist north and anti-Communist south. The United States provided financial and military aid to South Vietnam to repress internal communist insurgencies, dramatically increasing the number of American "advisors" in the country when the National Liberation Front, known popularly as the Viet Cong, was created in 1960. Motivated by the attack on the USS Maddox and the USS C. Turner Joy, in the Gulf of Tonkin by North Vietnamese gunboats, the United States began an all out war against North Vietnam in early 1965. After years of unsuccessful warfare against North Vietnam, the United States began seeking a way to end its involvement in this unpopular war. As a result, the United States signed a ceasefire with North Vietnam in January of 1973, evacuating the last American troops from Saigon on April 30, 1975.[51]

When Vietnam "fell" to the North Vietnamese, it did so faster than expected. South Vietnamese soldiers, trained to defend their country, were expected to hold off North Vietnamese forces until at least 1976, but suffered a quick defeat as soon as American troops were gone. In the final hours of the Saigon evacuation, American troops along with South Vietnamese desperate to leave their country were airlifted from the tops of buildings. This hurried departure led to the first wave of 132,000 Vietnamese refugees, most of whom had strong ties to the United States government and would certainly be singled out for severe retribution by the North Vietnamese had they stayed in Vietnam. Subsequent waves lasting into the 1980s would also include ethnic Vietnamese minorities like the Cham, Montagnards, Khmer and ethnic Chinese, as well as refugees from Laos and Cambodia fleeing communist regimes in those countries. Refugees from Southeast Asia numbered in the hundreds of thousands, many seeking refuge in surrounding Asian countries, but the majority looking for asylum in the United States.[52]

Because refugees fled Southeast Asia in such numbers, it often took years for them to find homes in other countries. Large numbers of refugees who left on boats were consistently denied entry as they traveled from one country's port to another, and became known as "boat people." Feeling responsible for this human crisis, the United States began accepting "boat people" in 1977 under a third preference visa, good for two years. Three years later, Congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980. The Refugee Act superseded the Immigration Act in the area of refugees and helped more than one-half million Southeast Asians gain permanent resident status in the United States within the first decade of its passage. In 1987, the Amerasian Homecoming Act became law permitting foreign-born children of American soldiers, many of whom were orphans, and their families to immigrate to the United States. Overall, well over a million Southeast Asian refugees and immigrants have come to America since the Vietnam War, turning that previously non-existent Asian community into a booming one.[53]

The war in Vietnam shaped certain negative images about this new group of immigrants. During the war, American soldiers used the term "gook," a racial slur that originated during the Korean War, to describe all Asians they encountered. Because the Vietnam War experience seemed, for many soldiers, a series of guerilla battles in which it was difficult to distinguish North Vietnamese soldiers from South Vietnamese allies and dangerous southern Viet Cong from peaceful civilians, many soldiers started labeling all Asians as "gooks." The trauma of war abroad turned into tensions at home for some soldiers who returned to find Vietnamese as their neighbors.

During the 1980s, American automobile manufacturers operating outdated plants began losing their competitive edge to newer, more efficient Asian manufacturers, particularly Japan. People accused Japan of trying to do economically what they failed to do militarily in World War II. Lee Iacocca, chairman of the Chrysler Corporation, even made a joke about dropping more nuclear weapons on Japan.[54] "Buy American" campaigns were started, and anything that was Japanese became a target for "Japan bashing." The perceived Japanese threat was embodied in Hollywood films such as Rising Sun, where the protagonist battles a faceless horde of Japanese businessmen and gangsters bent on American economic takeover.[55]

These tensions were expressed in hate incidents and hate crimes directed at Asian Americans. The most notable incident occurred in Detroit where two disgruntled autoworkers beat Vincent Chin, a young Chinese American to death. The tragedy was compounded when the judge in the case sentenced the killers to only three years probation and $3,750 in fines.[56] Other examples include an incident in 1989 when Patrick Purdy, wearing combat fatigues and using an AK-47 rifle, sprayed a playground filled primarily with Asian American children at the Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California. One Vietnamese and four Cambodian children were killed and 29 others were wounded. In another incident in 2000, Benjamin Smith, a member of a supremacist group calling itself the World Church of the Creator, went on a shooting spry in Illinois and Indiana, killing a Korean student, Won-Joon Yoon at the University of Indiana and wounding a Chinese American student at the University of Illinois.

Interethnic tension led to a tragic incident affecting the Korean American community - the Los Angeles riots of 1992. The riots began when the beating of African American motorist Rodney King by Los Angeles Police officers provoked anger in the African American community when the beating was caught on tape and played continuously by media outlets. Community outrage erupted into violence when a jury acquitted the policemen of using excessive force in subduing King. The riots took place as a result of the years of discrimination and neglect toward the residents in Watts. For the Korean store-owners, their presence in Watts presented one of the few ways for these immigrants to make a living, in part, because of language barriers and because many had difficulty finding entry level opportunities elsewhere. Rioters ransacked stores owned by people of all nationalities, but Korean immigrant store owners suffered fully one-half of the $850 million of damage, with 2,300 Korean stores destroyed.[57]
A GROWING POPULATION AND POLITICAL EMPOWERMENT
Since 1970 when the Census Bureau counted approximately 1.5 million Asian Americans, or less than one percent of the total United States population, the growth in the Asian American population has been dramatic. By 2000, there were nearly 12 million Asian Americans, comprising 4.2 percent of the population. In contrast to an earlier time, this growth was not limited to certain geographic areas such as the West Coast. The states with the largest Asian American populations in order were California, New York, Hawaii, Texas and Illinois. The cities with the largest Asian American populations in order were New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia.

The growth in the Asian American community brought with it recognition for the importance of political empowerment. For Asian Americans, this movement grew out of the civil rights challenges of the 1960s, which began with efforts to establish Asian American studies programs on university campuses. Following statehood for Hawaii in 1959, Asian Americans quickly became a political force because of their sizable population in the state. Hiram Fong was elected as Hawaii's first United States senator and Daniel Inouye was elected as its first United States representative. On the United States mainland, Norman Mineta was the first Asian American elected as a congressman from California in 1974, after having served as the mayor of San Jose. Mineta later became the first Asian American to be appointed to the Cabinet, serving as the Secretary of Commerce under President Bill Clinton and as Secretary of Transportation under President George W. Bush. In 1996, Gary Locke became the first Asian American to serve as the governor of a mainland state when he was elected as Washington's governor. Mee Moua became the first Hmong elected to the Minnesota Senate in 2002. Despite these electoral successes, the Asian American community continues to struggle to see representatives from their community elected to offices within all levels of government. These efforts to increase their political representation are similar to the efforts by the Hispanic and African American communities, and by the Irish, Italians, Polish and other ethnic groups dating to their initial arrival in the United States.

Coupled with attempts to elect individuals to public office have been the efforts by Asian American communities to influence public opinion and shape public policy. The killing of Vincent Chin in a Detroit suburb in 1982 by two autoworkers during a climate of "Japan-bashing," became a focus of national attention when the judge gave a light sentence to the killers following their guilty pleas for manslaughter. The case became a rallying point for Asian Americans eager to seek justice and to begin addressing the history of marginal and discriminatory treatment by the government. One of Chin's killers was convicted of civil rights violations and sentenced to 25 years in prison, though he was later acquitted in a re-trial in 1987. Vincent Chin's mother later awarded damages in a civil court.

Beginning in 1978, the Japanese American community, led by the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), a national civil rights organization, began a decade-long campaign to seek reparations from the federal government for unjustly incarcerating Japanese Americans during World War II. This "Redress" campaign resulted in the establishment of a federal commission, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC), to investigate the facts and circumstances surrounding the incarceration and to make recommendations to Congress. In 1983, the CWRIC concluded that the incarceration was unjustified and recommended an apology by Congress and a payment of $20,000 to those affected by Executive Order 9066. Many in the Japanese American community regarded the amount of the payment as purely symbolic because the monetary sum could not replace the loss of liberty or the personal and community trauma caused by the incarceration. It would take five more years before the House of Representatives finally approved legislation on September 17, 1987, adopting the primary provisions of the CWRIC recommendations. Following approval of the legislation by the Senate, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act into law on August 11, 1988.
THE IMPACT OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
Following the September 11, 2001 terrorists attacks, Arab Americans and Muslim Americans were singled out and associated with the terrorists. However, because of ignorance and the proximity of certain Asian countries to the Middle East, South Asian and Muslim Americans were also targeted for acts of intolerance. Just as Muslim women wearing hijab (headscarves) were singled out and forced to wear stickers stating they had passed airport security, so too, were Sikh men wearing turbans subjected to the same treatment. Four days after September 11 th, a Sikh man was shot and killed while planting flowers outside his gas station in Mesa, Arizona. The man arrested said he did it because the victim was "was dark-skinned, bearded and wore a turban." The pattern of hate crimes and hate incidents directed at South Asians and Muslims has continued since September 11, 2001. This story has repeated itself through the decades beginning with the initial immigration of the Chinese who were demonized as foreigners and targeted as the cause for economic downturns during the 1800s. Japanese Americans suffered the same fate at the outbreak of World War II when they were deemed a security risk to our nation and confined unjustly in concentration camps during the 1940s.
AND FINALLY
Though there is much in the Asian American historical experience that recounts mistreatment and discrimination, there has also been a steadfast endeavor by Asian Americans to find opportunity and to contribute and become an integral part of American society. Asian American contributions are reflected in the building of the Transcontinental Railroad and in the influence Japanese Americans had in developing the agricultural industry in California and the heroic exploits of the Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Europe during World War II. Asian Americans continue to make significant contributions to American society and to our popular culture. This is seen through the contributions of individuals such as the renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Olympian Apollo Anton Ono, Pittsburgh Steeler Pro-Bowler Hines Ward, the architect of New York's World Trade Center, Minoru Yamasaki, Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang, astronauts Ellison Onizuka and Kalpana Chawla who died in separate NASA missions, the Pulitzer prize author Jhumpa Lahiri, comedian Margaret Cho, Linkin Park rock musician Mike Shinoda, television chef Ming Tsai and fashion designer Vera Wang. Moreover, Asian Americans have brought their customs and traditions which have been absorbed into our culture helping shape our ever-changing society.

[1] Bautista, The Filipino Americans (1763-Present) p.100

[2] Ibid p.103-4

[3] Takaki, Strangers From a Different Shore p. 32

[4] Chang, The Chinese in America, p. 45

[6] Chin, Franks, Ng, Yamato, Asian Americans in the United States p. 31

[7] Takaki, p. 82

[8] Chang, p. 55-7

[9] Takaki, p. 85

[10] Takaki, p.132

[12] Tong, The Chinese Americans p.26

[13] Chang, p. 78-9

[14] Takaki, p. 92

[15] Chang, 134

[16] Wilcox, "Anti-Chinese Riots in Washington." Anti-Chinese Violence in North America p.205-11

[17] Okihiro, The Colombia Guide to Asian American History p. 82-3

[18] The Chinese Exclusion Act

[19] Chang, 136

[20] Cao, Novas, and Silva, Everything You Need to Know About Asian American History p. 29-30

[21] Chan, p.11-2

[23] Wilson and Hosokawa, East to America p. 64

[24] Takaki, p. 46

[26] Wilson and Hosokawa, p. 122

[27] McWilliams, Prejudice p.26

[28] Wilson and Hosokawa, p. 125

[29] Takaki, p. 206

[30] Takao Ozawa v. United States

[32] U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind

[33] Bong-Youn Choy. Koreans in America (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1979), pp. 77-78.

[36] Daniels and Kitano, Asian Americans: Emerging Minorities p. 84

[38] Bautista, p.110-1

[39] Cao, Novas, & Silva, p. 228

[40] Goethe, "Filipino Immigration Viewed as a Peril," Letters in Exile p.73

[41] Bogardus, "Anti Filipino Race Riots," Letters in Exile p. 54-5

[42] Lee, p. 136-9

[43] Bautista, p.131

[44] Lee, p. 146-8

[46] Cao, Novas, and Silva, p. 172-6

[47] Lee, p. 156-7

[48] Tong, p. 78-9

[49] Kitano, p.18

[50] Cao, Novas, and Silva, p.50-1

[51] Chan, p. 153-5

[52] Rutledge, The Vietnamese Experience in America, p. 2-6

[53] Ibid, p 36-7, 133

[55] Chung, "'Rising Sun' Protest," Asian Weekly, p. 2

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The following history on Asian American was taken from the JACL curriculum guide, The Journey from Gold Mountain: The Asian American Experience, published in 2006. The full curriculum guide is available for download here. "GOLD MOUNTAIN" AND THE ROOTS OF ASIAN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION Asian immigration to central North America predates the existence of the United States.

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Topaz - Japanese American Internment Camp

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By 1940, people from many different ethnic and racial groups had settled in California. But the war with Japan worsened racism at home.

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Customs and Traditions of Japanese People

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Customs and Traditions of Japanese People

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Some Japanese tea cermonies use traditional garden houses for the services. (Photo: Art Wolfe/Digital Vision/Getty Images )

The customs and traditions of the Japanese people come from the rich cultural and social history from the Nara, Heian and Kamakura Periods dating from 710 to 1333. Many of the modern traditions, including trends in the arts and theater, date to the Edno and Meiji Periods beginning in 1602 and ending in 1912. Visitors to modern Japan, however, have a variety of activities and attractions that explore the Japanese heritage and cultural experience from all historic eras.

Gardens

The tradition of gardening in Japan ties ritual and religion to garden design and horticulture techniques. Visitors to Kyoto, Nara and Kanazawa have examples of historic gardens and also modern-influenced garden designs. Many of the traditional gardens are kept by Zen Buddhist monks as part of the monastery, but welcome visitors to dry landscape, hill or flat gardens. The Kiyomizu-dera Temple in Kyoto (pref.kyoto.jp/visitkyoto), a UNESCO World Heritage Site, features garden designs developed between the eighth and 17th centuries that formed the basis for gardening throughout the world. The gardens are open to the general public for viewing.

Theater

Modern theater in Japan draws from many influences, including the traditional kabuki. This drama genre uses dance and dramatic performance to tell a story. The exclusively male cast members wear elaborate face makeup and traditional gowns during the performances. Puppet theater, known as bunraku, is also a traditional dramatic form of performance in modern Japan. Visitors can view both bunraku and kabuki performances at the Asakusa (Tokyo) Public Hall (kabuki-bito.jp) in and at the National Bunraku Theatre (ntj.jac.go.jp) in Oska.

Art

Traditional Japanese art explores the elements of nature, and modern artists working in Japan integrate both the traditional with the modern social themes. The National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo (momat.go.jp) and in Osaka (nmao.go.jp) and the Singapore Art Museum (singart.com) feature both traditional and contemporary fine art collections and modern art displays incorporating multimedia. The museums host a variety of exhibitions during the year focused on the collections and also display traveling exhibits from Japanese artists. All three museums offer public tours, educational programs with hands-on activities for youngsters and guided tours conducted both in Japanese and English.

Dining and Tea

The Japanese tradition of drinking tea dates to the ninth century, but the formal tea service developed during the 13th century. The chanoyu involves a tea master, special tea cups and brewing equipment, and room screens and an incense burner to complete the setting for the elaborate service. Many of the large hotels in major Japanese cities (jnto.go.jp), including the Imperial Hotel, Hotel Okura and the Hotel New Otanai, all in Tokyo, offer the ceremony for English-speaking visitors. The ceremony requires a minimum commitment of 20 minutes, but some formal presentations can take up to two hours for the complete service.

About the Author

Lee Grayson has worked as a freelance writer since 2000. Her articles have appeared in publications for Oxford and Harvard University presses and research publishers, including Facts On File and ABC-CLIO. Grayson holds certificates from the University of California campuses at Irvine and San Diego.

Photo Credits

Art Wolfe/Digital Vision/Getty Images

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Customs & Traditions of the Japanese People

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The customs and traditions of the Japanese people come from the rich cultural and social history from the Nara, Heian and Kamakura Periods dating from 710 to 1333. Many of the modern traditions, including trends in the arts and theater, date to the Edno and Meiji Periods beginning in 1602 and ending in 1912.

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by Stanley E. Easton and Lucien Ellington

Overview

A country slightly larger than the United Kingdom (about the size of California), Japan lies off the eastern coast of the Asian continent. An archipelago, Japan consists of four main islands-Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū, and Shikoku-as well as 3,900 smaller islands. Japan has a total land area of 145,825 square miles (377,688 square kilometers). Much of Japan is extremely mountainous and almost the entire population lives on only one-sixth of the total land area. Of all the world's major nations, the Japanese have the highest population density per square mile of habitable land. Japan has virtually no natural resources except those found in the sea. To Japan's north, the nearest foreign soil is the Russian-controlled island of Sakhalin while the People's Republic of China and South Korea lie to the west of Japan.

The word, "Japan," is actually a Portuguese misunderstanding of the Chinese pronunciation of the Chinese term for the country. The actual name for the country is Nippon or Nihon ("source of the sun"). Japan has a population of approximately 124 million people. By the standards of other nations, the Japanese are one of the most homogeneous people on earth. Under two million foreigners (less than one percent of the total Japanese population) live in Japan. Koreans constitute well over one-half of resident minorities. There are also two indigenous minority groups in Japan, the Ainu and the Burakumin. The Ainu, a Caucasian people, number around 24,381 and live mainly in special reservations in central Hokkaidō. Ethnically, the approximately two million Burakumin are no different than other Japanese, but have traditionally engaged in low-status occupations; and although they have the same legal status as their fellow citizens, they are often discriminated against. Shinto, an indigenous religion, is the most popular spiritual practice in Japan, followed by Buddhism, a Korean and Chinese import. Followers of other religions constitute less than one percent of the Japanese population. Culturally, the Japanese are children of China but have their own rich native culture and have also borrowed extensively from Western countries. Tokyō is Japan's capital and largest city. The national flag of Japan is a crimson disc, symbolizing the rising sun, in the center of a white field.

HISTORY

The oldest identified human remains found in Japan date from upper Paleolithic times of the last glacial period, about 30,000 B.C. While there is some dispute, most historians believe that political unity in Japan occurred at the end of the third century or the beginning of the fourth century A.D. The Yamato chiefs who unified the country developed an imperial line, which is the oldest in the world. However, early in Japanese history, emperors lost political authority. Compared to China, ancient and medieval Japan was undeveloped culturally. From early in Japanese history many Chinese imports, including architecture, agricultural methods, Confucianism, and Buddhism, profoundly influenced the Japanese. The Japanese established a pattern that still exists of selectively importing foreign customs and adapting them to the archipelago. Medieval and early modern Japan was marked by long periods of incessant warfare as rival families struggled for power. While power struggles were still occurring, the Japanese had their first contact with Europe when Portuguese traders landed off southern Kyūshū in 1543. In 1603, through military conquest, Tokugawa Ieyasu established himself as ruler of the entire country. Early in the Tokugawa era, foreigners were expelled from Japan and the country was largely isolated from the rest of the world until Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the U.S. Navy forced Japan to open its doors in 1853.

MODERN ERA

Japan's modern history began in 1868 when a number of citizens led by Satsuma and Chosū domains

overthrew the Tokugawas. In the decades that followed Japan feverishly modernized in an attempt to end Western efforts at dominance. By the early twentieth century, Japan possessed a rapidly industrializing economy and a strong military. At first the rest of Asia was excited by Japan's rise. However, the militarization of Japan in the 1930s, and Japan's attempt to dominate the rest of Asia, resulted in the Pacific War that pitted much of Asia and a number of Western countries (including the United States) against Japan. In August 1945, a devastated Japan accepted the surrender terms of the Allied powers. The subsequent American occupation resulted in major political and economic change as Japan became a democracy, renounced militarism, and resumed its impressive economic growth. Today, Japan is a stable democracy among the world's economic superpowers.

MIGRATION TO HAWAII AND AMERICA

In 1835, American settlers established the sugar plantation system in Hawaii, which was then an independent monarchy. The sugar plantations required large numbers of workers to cultivate and harvest the cane fields and to operate the sugar refineries. Beginning in 1852, the plantation owners imported Chinese laborers. In many ways, this "coolie" trade resembled the African slave trade.

By 1865, many of the Chinese were leaving the plantations for other jobs. Hawaii's foreign minister, a sugar planter, wrote to an American businessman in Japan seeking Japanese agricultural workers. On May 17, 1868, the Scioto sailed from Yokohama for Honolulu with 148 Japanese-141 men, six women, and two children-aboard. These laborers included samurai, cooks, sake brewers, potters, printers, tailors, wood workers, and one hairdresser. Plantation labor was harsh; the monthly wage was $4, of which the planters withheld 50 percent. The ten-hour work days were hard on the soft hands of potters, printers, and tailors. Forty of these first Japanese farm laborers returned to Japan before completion of their three-year contracts. Once back home, 39 of them signed a public statement charging the planters with cruelty and breach of contract.

On May 27, 1869, the Pacific Mail Company's China brought a party of samurai, farmers, tradesmen, and four women to San Francisco. These Japanese had been displaced from their homes by the ending of the Tokugawa shogunate and the restoration of the Meiji emperor. Followers of lord Matsudaira Katamori established the 600-acre Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony on the Sacramento River at Placerville. The colony failed in less than two years because the mulberry trees and tea seedlings perished in the dry California soil. A few of the settlers returned to Japan while the rest drifted away from the colony seeking new beginnings. Such were the origins of the first-generation Japanese ( Issei ) on Hawaiian and American shores.

EFFORTS TO BAN JAPANESE IMMIGRATION

The U. S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, prohibiting further Chinese immigration. In 1886, Hawaii and Japan signed a labor convention that led to large numbers of Japanese contract workers in Hawaii and student laborers in California. The increase of Japanese in California gave rise to an anti-Japanese movement and a 1906 San Francisco school board order segregating Japanese American students. Ninety-three students of Japanese ancestry and a number of Korean students were ordered to attend the school for Chinese. The Japanese government was insulted. President Theodore Roosevelt, wishing to maintain harmonious relations with Japan, condemned anti-Japanese agitation and the school segregation order. He advocated naturalization of the Issei, but never sponsored introduction of a bill to accomplish it. Political reaction against Roosevelt in California was fierce. Several anti-Japanese bills were introduced in the California legislature in 1907. President Roosevelt called San Francisco school officials and California legislative leaders to Washington. After a week of negotiations, the Californians agreed to allow most Japanese children (excluding overage students and those with limited English) to attend regular public schools. Roosevelt promised to limit Japanese labor immigration. In late 1907 and early 1908 Japan and the United States corresponded on the matter. Japan agreed to stop issuing passports to laborers in the United States. The United States allowed Japanese who had already been to America to return and agreed to accept immediate family members of Japanese workers already in the country. This was the so-called "Gentlemen's Agreement."

Under the Gentlemen's Agreement some Japanese migration to the United States continued. Between 1908 and 1924, many of the immigrants were women brought by husbands who had returned to Japan to marry. Between 1909 and 1920, the number of married Japanese women doubled in Hawaii and quadrupled on the mainland. Most of the Japanese women who migrated to Hawaii and the U. S. during that period were "picture brides." Marriages were arranged by parents. Go-betweens brokered agreements between families. Couples were married while the bride was in Japan and the groom was in the United States. Husband and wife met for the first time upon their arrival at the pier in Honolulu, San Francisco, or Seattle, using photographs to identify one another. This wave of immigration changed the nature of the Japanese American community from a male migrant laborer community to a family-oriented people seeking permanent settlement.

By 1924, many Americans favored restricting immigration through a quota system aimed primarily at restricting European immigration without discriminating against any country. Such a bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives in April 1924. U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson of California, however, wanted a ban on all immigration from Japan. Hoping to avoid offending the Japanese government further, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes asked the Japanese ambassador to write a letter summarizing the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907-1908 since its provisions were not widely known. Ambassador Masanao Hanihara wrote the letter and included an appeal to the senators to reject any bill halting Japanese immigration. He referred to "the grave consequences" that exclusion would have upon relations between his country and the United States. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, who chaired the Foreign Relations Committee, called Hanihara's letter a "veiled threat" and led the Senate to incorporate Japanese exclusion into the immigration bill. President Coolidge signed the Immigration Act of 1924, including the ban on further Japanese immigration, into law on May 24. Japanese immigration was curtailed until 1952, except for post World War II Japanese brides of U.S. servicemen.

POST WORLD WAR II IMMIGRATION

In 1952 the McCarran-Walter Act allowed immigration from South and East Asia. The new law ended Japanese exclusion, but was still racially discriminatory. Asian countries were allowed 100 immigrants each, while immigration from European countries was determined by the national origins quotas of the Immigration Act of 1924. The McCarran-Walter Act also repealed the racial clauses in the naturalization law of 1790 that forbade non-white immigrants from obtaining American citizenship. Over 46,000 Japanese immigrants, including many elderly Issei, became naturalized citizens by 1965.

The Immigration Act of 1965 abolished the national origin quotas and annually permitted the admission of 170,000 immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere and 120,000 from the Western Hemisphere. Twenty thousand immigrants per year per Asian country were allowed to enter the United States. This law opened the way for the second wave of Asian immigration and resulted in a new composition of the Asian American population. In 1960, 52 percent of the Asian American population were Japanese American. In 1985 only 15 percent of Asian Americans were Japanese. Between 1965 and 1985, there were nearly four times as many Asian immigrants as there had been between 1849 and 1965.

MODERN ERA

According to the 1990 census figures, there were 847,562 Japanese Americans in the United States. About 723,000 of the Japanese Americans lived in the West, 312,989 of those in California. Today there are Japanese Americans located in each of the 50 states.

Recent decades have brought not only legal and institutional changes but positive attitudinal change on the part of many white Americans toward Japanese Americans. The combination of legal and attitudinal change, along with the higher levels of education that Japanese Americans tend to attain, compared to whites, have resulted in a reversal of the dismal situation of overeducated and underemployed Japanese Americans that existed in the 1930s. Although a substantial number of Japanese Americans are employed by corporations and are members of professions that require college educations, Japanese Americans still experience problems that are a direct result of racially-based misconceptions that some members of the majority population hold.

Many white Americans, particularly well-educated white Americans, think of Japanese Americans as a "model minority" because of their reputation for hard work and their high educational attainment. Despite this reputation, many Japanese-as well as other Asian Americans-complain that they are stereotyped as good technicians but not aggressive enough to occupy top managerial and leadership positions. Anti-Asian graffiti can sometimes be found at top universities where at least some white students voice jealousy and resentment toward perceived Asian American academic success.

Recent economic competition between the United States and Japan has resulted in a rise in anti-Japanese sentiment on the part of many Americans. The 1982 murder of Vincent Chin, a young Chinese man in Detroit, by two auto workers who mistook him to be Japanese is one grisly example of these sentiments. Third-and fourth-generation Japanese Americans often cite incidents of fellow Americans making anti-Japanese statements in their presence or mistaking them for Japanese nationals.

The issue of cultural revitalization is not related to racial attitudes but is still serious to many Japanese Americans. Because of the amazing success of Japan's economy since World War II, the number of Japanese immigrating annually has been far below the 20,000 quota allotted to Japan. In recent years, Japanese immigrants have constituted less than two percent of all Asian immigrants. As a result, the Japanese towns of large American cities are not being culturally renewed and many second-and third-generation Japanese have moved to the suburbs. Many third-and fourth-generation Japanese Americans are not literate in the Japanese language. Unlike the lingering prejudices toward Japanese Americans, the over-assimilation problem may very well have no ultimate solution.

Acculturation and Assimilation

In the United States, Japanese Americans built Buddhist temples and Christian churches. They built halls to serve as language schools and as places for dramas, films, judō lessons, poetry readings, potlucks, and parties. They constructed sumō rings, baseball fields, and bath houses. They also established hotels, restaurants, bars, and billiard parlors. Japanese Americans opened shops to provide Japanese food and herbal medicines.

The Issei faced many restrictions. They were excluded from some occupations, could not own land, and could not become U.S. citizens. They faced discrimination and prejudice. The Issei's pleasure was in seeing the success of their children. Despite their poverty, the Issei developed large,

close-knit families. They encouraged their children (Nisei) to become educated and obtain white collar jobs rather than stay in farming communities. This drove the Nisei into close associations and friendships with Caucasians. The Nisei were educated in American schools and learned white middle-class American values. Hierarchical thinking, characteristic of Japanese culture, led to pressure to achieve academically and to compete successfully in the larger Caucasian-dominated society.

Between 1915 and 1967 the proportion of Japanese Americans living in predominantly Japanese American neighborhoods fell from 30 percent to four percent. With the end of World War II, prejudice and discrimination against Japanese Americans declined. The majority of Nisei now live in largely Caucasian neighborhoods. Their children (Sansei) have been schooled there and have mostly Caucasian associations. A majority of Sansei are unfamiliar with the Japanese American world characterized by intimate primary, communal association, and close social control. They rarely see members of their clan. Their world has been that of Little League and fraternities and sororities. Whereas only ten percent of Nisei married outside their ethnic group, about 50 percent of the Sansei did.

Many Sansei long to know more about their cultural roots, although the ways of their grandparents are alien to them. They are concerned over the demise of Japanese values. They seek to preserve their Japanese culture through service to the Japanese community at centers for the elderly, participation in community festivals, involvement with Asian political and legal organizations, and patronizing Japanese arts.

In Japanese Americans, sociologist Harry Kitano observed that Japanese Americans developed a congruent Japanese culture within the framework of American society. This was due to necessity rather than choice, since there was little opportunity for the first Japanese immigrants to enter into the social structure of the larger community. Now most Japanese Americans can enter into that social structure. Nisei and Sansei continue to identify themselves as Japanese Americans, but that identity is of little importance to them as members and partakers of a larger society that is not hostile toward them as it was to the Issei. The degree to which Japanese Americans have been assimilated into the predominant culture is unusual for a nonwhite group. Coexistence between Japanese and American cultures has been successful due to the willingness of both cultures to accommodate to one another.

Japanese American history brings us to some critical questions. What the future holds for fourth-generation Japanese Americans (the Yonsei) is unclear. The Japanese American ethnic community may disappear in that generation, or complete assimilation may bring about the demise of the values that pushed Japanese Americans to socioeconomic success. It is uncertain whether the Yonsei will retain their Japanese characteristics and inculcate them in the next generation.

TRANSPLANTED TRADITIONS

In Japanese American communities many Japanese still celebrate New Year's Day very much in the manner the Issei did, following the customs of Meiji-era Japan. New Year is a time for debts to be paid and quarrels to be settled. It is an occasion when houses are cleaned, baths are taken, and new clothes are worn. On New Year's Eve, many Japanese Americans go to temples and shrines. Shinto shrines are especially popular. Just inside the red tori gate, worshippers wash their hands and rinse their mouths with water from the special basin. Then a priest cleanses them by sprinkling water from a leafy branch on them and blesses them by waving a wand of white prayer papers. The people sip sake, receive amulets (charms), and give money.

In Japanese American homes where the traditions are observed, New Year's offerings are set in various places of honor around the house. The offering consists of two mochi (rice cakes), a strip of konbu (seaweed), and a citrus arranged on a "happiness paper" depicting one or all of the seven gods of good luck. The offerings symbolize harmony and happiness from generation to generation.

At breakfast on New Year's Day many Japanese Americans eat ozoni, a toasted mochi, in a broth with other ingredients such as vegetables and fish. Mochi is eaten for strength and family cohesiveness. Sometimes children compete with each other to see if they can eat mochi equal to the number of their years.

Friends, neighbors, and family members visit one another on New Year's Day. Special foods served include kuromame (black beans), kazunoko (herring eggs), konbumaki (seaweed roll), kinton (mashed sweet potato and chestnut), and kamaboko (fish cakes). Also, sushi (rice rolled in seaweed), nishime (vegetables cooked in stock), sashimi (raw fish), and cooked red snapper are commonly provided for New Year's guests. At many celebrations the Japanese cheer of " Banzai ! Banzai ! Banzai !" rings out. That salute, which originated around 200 B.C. , means 10,000 years.

HEALTH ISSUES

Generally, Japanese Americans are healthier than other Americans. Japanese Americans have the lowest infant death rate of any ethnic group in the United States. In 1986, 86 percent of babies born to Japanese American mothers were born to women who had received early prenatal care, compared to 79 percent for Caucasians and 76 percent for all races. Relatively few Japanese American infants have low birth weight and only eight percent of Japanese American births were preterm, compared to ten percent for all races in 1987. Asian Americans have fewer birth defects than Native Americans, Caucasians, or African Americans, but more than Hispanic Americans. Asian and Pacific Islanders were two percent of the U.S. population in 1981-1988, but accounted for only one percent of all U.S. AIDS cases during that period. In October of 1987 less than one percent of drug abuse clients in the United States were Asian Americans.

A study comparing the health status of Japanese and Caucasians over the age of 60 in Hawaii revealed that better health could be predicted from younger age, higher family income, maintenance of work role, and Japanese ethnicity (Marvelu R. Peterson and others, "A Cross-Cultural Health Study of Japanese and Caucasian Elders in Hawaii," International Journal of Aging and Human Development, Volume 21, 1985, pp. 267-279). The better health of Japanese Americans in Hawaii may be due to cultural values such as the priority of family interests over those of the individual, reverence for elders, and obligation to care for elders.

Many Japanese Americans consider the use of mental health services as shameful. They tend to use them only as a last resort in severe disorders, such as schizophrenia. Japanese Americans under-use mental health services in comparison to other ethnic groups. They believe the causes of mental illness to be associated with organic factors, a lack of will power, and morbid thinking. They tend to seek help from family members or close friends, rather than from mental health professionals. Further, since Japanese Americans tend to somaticize psychological problems, they may seek help from traditional medical practitioners instead of mental health professionals. There are, however, a number of Japanese American psychiatrists in practice today, indicating greater acceptance of the need for professional mental health care.

Language

The Japanese language is unique and has no close relationship to any other language, such as English does to German, or French does to Spanish. It is a popular misconception that Japanese and Chinese are similar. Although many kanji, or ideograms, were borrowed from classical Chinese, the two spoken languages do not have a single basic feature in common. The origins of Japanese are obscure, and only Korean can be considered to belong to the same linguistic family. Spoken Japanese was in existence long before kanji reached Japan. While there is some variation in dialect throughout Japan, variance in pronunciation and vocabulary is, in general, quite small.

Japanese is easy to pronounce and bears some similarity to the Romance languages. The five short vowels in Japanese order are "a," "e," "i," "o," and "u." They are pronounced clearly and crisply. The same vowels in the long form are pronounced by doubling the single vowel and making a continuous sound equal to two identical short vowels. Japanese consonants approximately resemble English.

Some useful daily expressions include: Ohayōgozaimasu -good morning; Konnichiwa - hello; Kombanwa -good evening; Sayōnara -goodbye; Oyasumi nasai -good night; Okaeri nasai -welcome home; O-genki desu ka -how are you; Dōmo arigatō gozaimasu -thank you very much; Chotto matte kudasai -wait just a moment please.

Many linguists believe that Japanese is the world's most difficult written language. Written Japanese consists of three types of characters: kanji, hiragana, and katakana. Kanji, which means "Chinese characters," are ideograms, or pictorial representations of ideas. Kanji were imported into Japan sometime during the fifth century A.D. from China via Korea. Although there are said to be some 48,000 kanji in existence, roughly 4,000 characters are commonly used. The Ministry of Education identified 1,850 kanji (called tōyō kanji) in 1946 as essential for official and general public use. In 1981 this list was superseded by a similar but larger one (called jōyō kanji) containing 1,945 characters. These are taught to all students in elementary and secondary school. Kanji are used in writing the main parts of a sentence such as verbs and nouns, as well as names. Kanji are the most difficult written Japanese characters, requiring as many as 23 separate strokes.

Since spoken Japanese existed before kanji reached Japan, the Japanese adopted the Chinese ideograms to represent spoken Japanese words of the same or related meanings. Since the sounds of Japanese words signifying the ideas were not the same as the sounds of the Chinese words, it became important to develop a writing system to represent the Japanese sound. Therefore, the Japanese developed two sets of characters, hiragana and katakana, from original Chinese characters. Each kana, as these two systems are called, is a separate phonetic syllabary and each hiragana character has a corresponding katakana character. Hiragana and katakana characters are similar to English letters in that each character represents a separate phonetic sound. Hiragana are used in writing verb endings, adverbs, conjunctions, and various sentence particles and are written in a cursive, smooth style. Katakana, which are used mainly in writing foreign words, are written in a more angular, stiff style. Both hiragana and katakana are easy to write compared with kanji. In modern written Japanese, kanji, hiragana, and katakana are combined. Traditionally, Japanese is written vertically and read from top to bottom and right to left. Now, most business writing is done horizontally because it is easier to include numerals and English words. Even though the written language is illogical, in many ways, it has aesthetic appeal and contributes to a feeling on the part of many Japanese that they are unique among the world's peoples. For a variety of reasons, including negative pressures by the majority population and a lack of new Japanese immigrants in the United States, many third- and fourth-generation Japanese Americans do not know the language of their ancestors.

Family and Community Dynamics

Communalism did not develop in overseas Japanese communities as it did among the overseas Chinese. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Japan's land-based lineage community gave way to down-sized extended families. Only the eldest son and his family remained in the parental household. Other sons established separate "branch" households when they married. In Japan, a national consciousness arose while in China, the primary allegiance remained to the clan-based village or community. Thus, Japanese immigrants were prepared to form families and rear children in a manner similar to that of white Americans. The "picture bride" system brought several thousand Japanese women to the United States to establish nuclear branch families.

The "picture bride" system was fraught with misrepresentation. Often old photographs were used to hide the age of a prospective bride and the men sometimes were photographed in borrowed suits. The system led to a degree of disillusionment and incompatibility in marriages. The women were trapped, unable to return to Japan. Nevertheless, these women persevered for themselves and their families and transmitted Japanese culture through child rearing. The Issei women were also workers. They worked for wages or shared labor on family farms. Two-income families found it easier to rent or purchase land.

By 1930, second-generation Japanese Americans constituted 52 percent of the continental U.S. population of their ethnic group. In the years preceding World War II, most Nisei were children and young people, attempting to adapt to their adopted country in spite of the troubled lives of their parents. For many young people the adaptation problem was made even more ambiguous because their parents, concerned that their children would not have a future in the U.S., registered their offspring as citizens of Japan. By 1940, over half of the Nisei held Japanese as well as American citizenship. Most of the Nisei did not want to remain on family farms or in the roadside vegetable business and with the strong encouragement of their parents obtained high school, and in many cases, university educations. Discrimination against Japanese Americans, coupled with the shortage of jobs during the Great Depression, thwarted many Nisei dreams.

The dual-career family seems to be the norm for Sansei households. Recently, spousal abuse has surfaced as an issue. If it was a problem in previous generations, it was not public knowledge. In San Francisco an Asian women's shelter has been established, largely by third-generation Asian women.

In Japanese tradition, a crane represents 1,000 years. On special birthdays 1,000 hand-folded red origami cranes are displayed to convey wishes for a long life. Certain birthdays are of greater importance

because they are thought to be auspicious or calamitous years in a person's life. For men, the forty-second birthday is considered the most calamitous. For women it is the thirty-third year. Especially festive celebrations are held on these birthdays to ward off misfortune. The sixty-first birthday is the beginning of the auspicious years and the beginning of a person's second childhood. Traditionally, a person in his or her second childhood wears a crimson cap. The seventy-seventh birthday is marked by the wearing of a loose red coat ( chanchan ko ) over one's clothes. The most auspicious birthday is the eighty-eighth, when the honoree wears both the crimson cap and the chanchan ko.

At a wedding dinner, a whole red snapper is displayed at the head table. The fish represents happiness and must be served whole because cutting it would mean eliminating some happiness. Silver and golden wedding anniversaries are also occasions for festive celebrations.

Religion

While virtually all Issei came to the United States as Buddhists, Christian missionaries worked at converting the immigrants from the very beginning. The Methodists were particularly successful in this effort and records of the Pacific Japanese Provisional Conference of the Methodist Church indicate that three immigrants from Japan were converted in 1877, 11 years before Japan legally allowed citizens to emigrate. In the beginning the Japanese, even though they understood no Chinese, were segregated into Chinese churches. By the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century, separate Japanese Christian churches and missions were established in various California cities as well as in Tacoma, Washington, and Denver, Colorado. These early Japanese Christian organizations usually offered night English classes and social activities as well. While Methodism remained, other denominations such as Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, and Catholics also claimed converts.

Organized Buddhism was somewhat slow in attempting to minister to the spiritual needs of Japanese Americans. The first record of Japanese Buddhist priests in the United States was in 1893 when four of them attended the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. The priests had limited contact, however, with Japanese Americans. The success of one San Francisco Methodist minister, Yasuzo Shimizu, in winning converts stimulated a Japanese American to return to his native land and pressure priests of the Nishi Honganji sect of the Jodo Shinshu denomination to begin establishing Buddhist churches in the United States. The arrival in San Francisco of two Nishi Honganji priests, Shuyei Sonoda and Kukuryo Nishijima, on September 2, 1899, is regarded as the founding date for the Buddhist Churches of America. By the early years of the twentieth century, a number of Buddhist churches were founded on the West Coast. In the 1990s, Jodo Shinshu, organized as the Buddhist Churches of America with headquarters in San Francisco, is the dominant Buddhist denomination in the United States. However, Zen, Nichiren, and Shingon sects of Buddhism are represented in various cities throughout the United States. While only a minuscule number of Japanese Americans practice Zen Buddhism, this particular sect has exercised a profound influence on many artists, musicians, philosophers, and writers who are members of the majority American population.

Because of cultural assimilation it is difficult to obtain statistics on the religious practices of Japanese Americans. However, followers of Christianity are probably more numerous than Buddhists.

Employment and Economic Traditions

The Issei, who came to the United States in the late 1800s and early twentieth century, worked on the West Coast as contract seasonal agricultural workers, on the railroad, and in canneries. For the most part, working conditions were abysmal; and because of racism and pressure by organized labor, Issei were barred from factory and office work. As a result many Japanese Americans created small businesses such as hotels and restaurants to serve their own ethnic group or became small vegetable farmers. The term "ethnic economy" is often used to describe the activities of pre-World War II Japanese Americans. While Japanese produce interests sold to the majority population from the beginning, the grower, wholesaler, and retailer networks were Issei. Issei were remarkably successful in both of these endeavors for several different reasons. Small businessmen, farmers, their families, and work associates toiled an incredible number of hours and saved much of what was earned. Also, the Issei community was well organized, and small businesses and farms could rely upon their tightly knit ethnic group for capital, labor, and business opportunities. Ethnic solidarity paid off economically for Japanese Americans. By the eve of World War II, 75 percent of Seattle's Japanese residents were involved in small business, and Japanese farmers were responsible for the production of the majority of vegetables in Los Angeles County.

Japanese economic success caused a substantial white backlash spearheaded by elements of the majority population who felt their livelihoods threatened. Unions were consistently anti-Japanese for a variety of reasons and California agricultural groups assumed leadership roles in the land limitation laws. The laws resulted, between 1920 and 1925, in the number of acres owned by Issei declining from 74,769 to 41,898 and the acreage leased plummeting from 192,150 to 76,797.

POST WORLD WAR II ECONOMIC CHANGES

No event in history has resulted in more economic change for Japanese Americans than World War II. Before the war Japanese Americans constituted mostly a self-contained ethnic economy. The internment of Japanese Americans and societal changes in attitudes toward Japanese destroyed much of the prewar economic status quo. Since the war a minority of Japanese Americans have been employed in Japanese American-owned businesses. Many Japanese American farmers, because of the internment, either sold their land or never were able to lease their pre-war holdings again. As a result of the internment, Japanese Americans also sold or closed many family businesses. A comparison of pre-war and post-war economic statistics in Los Angeles and Seattle illustrates these major changes. Before World War II, Japanese Americans in Seattle operated 206 hotels, 140 grocery stores, 94 cleaning establishments, 64 market stands and 57 wholesale produce houses. After World War II, only a handful of these businesses remained. In Los Angeles, 72 percent of Japanese Americans were employed in family enterprises before World War II. By the late 1940s, only 17.5 percent of Japanese Americans earned their livelihood through family businesses.

While these economic changes were largely forced upon Japanese Americans because of the events surrounding the internment, other societal factors also contributed to the end of the Japanese American ethnic economy. The pre-war racial prejudice against Japanese Americans declined substantially in the late 1940s and 1950s. Japan no longer constituted a geo-political threat; many Americans were becoming more sympathetic about the issue of minority rights; and Japanese American West Coast agricultural interests no longer were seen as threatening by other Americans. As a result of these events, the large majority of Japanese Americans in the post-war years have experienced assimilation into the larger economy.

THE CONTEMPORARY ECONOMIC POSITION OF JAPANESE AMERICANS

Today, because of the changes in the post-war years, Japanese Americans are well-represented in both the professions and corporate economy. The prewar discrimination against university-educated Japanese Americans is largely ended. Japanese Americans today have higher levels of education on average than the majority population and comparable to slightly higher incomes. Studies documenting the absence of Asian Americans from top corporate management and public sector administrative positions provide some evidence that there is some sort of "glass-ceiling" for Japanese Americans still present in the larger economy. Still, the economic position and socioeconomic mobility of Japanese Americans is much higher now than any time in American history.

Politics and Government

LABOR MOVEMENTS

In February 1903, 500 Japanese and 200 Mexican farm workers in Oxnard, California, formed the Japanese Mexican Labor Association, the first farm workers union in California history. Led by Kozaburo Baba, the union called a strike for better wages and working conditions. By March 1903, membership had grown to 1,200 members, about 90 percent of the work force. On March 23 a Mexican striker was shot and killed and two Mexicans and two Japanese were wounded in a confrontation with the Western Agricultural Contracting Company, the major labor contractor. Negotiations led to a settlement by the end of March. Despite such effective organization and leadership, however, the American Federation of Labor denied the Japanese Mexican Labor Association a charter, due to its opposition to Asians.

In Hawaii there were 20 strikes by Japanese plantation workers in 1900 alone. In 1908 the Higher Wage Association asked for an increase from $18 to $22.50 per month. In May 1909, 7,000 Japanese workers struck all major plantations on Oahu. The strike lasted four months. The planters branded the strike as the work of agitators and evicted the strikers from plantation-owned homes. By June, over 5,000 displaced Japanese were living in makeshift shelters in downtown Honolulu. The leaders of the Higher Wage Association were arrested, jailed, and tried on conspiracy charges. The Association called off the strike about two weeks before their leadership was convicted.

In 1920 the Japanese Federation of Labor struck the Hawaiian plantations for higher wages, better working conditions, and an end to discriminatory wages based on race and ethnic background. The strike lasted six months and cost the plantation owners an estimated $11.5 million. The union saw their cause as part of the American way. Hawaii's ruling class-the plantation owners and their allies-called the strike anti-American and painted it as a movement to take control of the sugar industry. The planters evicted over 12,000 workers from their homes. Many deaths resulted from unsanitary conditions in the tent cities that arose.

WARTIME INTERNMENT OF JAPANESE AMERICANS

The great plantation strike of 1920 generated fears within the U.S. government that the labor movement in Hawaii was part of a Japanese plot to take over the territory. Japanese Americans accounted for about 40 percent of the Hawaiian population in the 1920s and 1930s. Beginning in the 1920s, the U.S. Army viewed the presence of Japanese in the Hawaiian Islands as a military threat. The army formulated plans for the declaration of martial law, registration of enemy aliens, internment of Japanese who were considered security risks, and controls over labor. On the afternoon of December 7, 1941, the United States declared martial law, suspension of habeas corpus, and restrictions on civil liberties, following the attack by the Japanese navy on U.S. naval and army bases at Pearl Harbor.

Immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor American officials in Hawaii began rounding up Japanese Americans. A concentration camp was established on Sand Island, a flat, barren, coral island at the mouth of Pearl Harbor. Terror and punishment were applied to the internees. Terror techniques included strip searches, frequent roll calls, threats to shoot, and excessive display of firepower by the guards who were armed with machine guns and pistols. The prisoners were often forced to eat in the rain, use dirty utensils, and sleep in tents. Ultimately, the army held 1,466 Japanese Americans in Hawaii and sent 1,875 to mainland camps such as Fort Lincoln (North Dakota), Fort Missoula (Montana), Santa Fe (New Mexico), and Crystal City (Texas).

General Delos Emmons, military governor of Hawaii, recognized that Japanese American labor was essential to the territory's economic survival. Therefore, he resisted pressure from Washington to intern more Japanese Americans. Those Japanese Americans in Hawaii who were not interned were required to carry alien registration cards at all times. They were to observe a curfew that applied only to them and were forbidden to write or publish attacks or threats against the U.S. government.

On the U. S. mainland, Japanese Americans were not considered essential to the economy or the war effort. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the army to designate military areas from which "any or all persons may be excluded" and to provide transportation, food, and shelter for persons so excluded. Lt. General John L. DeWitt, commander of the Western Defense Command, issued proclamations dividing Washington, Oregon, California, and Arizona into military areas from which enemy aliens and all Japanese Americans would be excluded.

These proclamations also laid down a curfew between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. for enemy aliens and all Japanese, aliens and citizens alike.

RESPONSES TO THE INTERNMENT

While some in the majority population objected to the oppressive treatment of loyal American residents and citizens, most Americans either approved or were neutral about the actions of our government. Wartime American propaganda about the Japanese reflected long-held racist attitudes of many Americans. While cartoonists depicted Germans as buffoons, Japanese were typically caricatured as apes or monkeys.

On December 7, 1941, there were about 1,500 Nisei recruits in U.S. Army units in Hawaii. On December 10 the army disarmed them and confined them to quarters under armed guard. Two days later they were re-armed and placed on beach patrol. On June 5, 1942, after rounding them up and disarming them again, the army organized 1,432 Japanese American soldiers into the Hawaiian Provisional Battalion and shipped them to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin. There, they trained for seven months, initially with wooden guns. The Nisei from Hawaii were joined by other Japanese American soldiers, mostly volunteers and draftees from mainland concentration camps, to form the segregated 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Many Nisei argued that serving the United States in war against Japan and her Axis allies would prove their loyalty and worth as citizens and overcome the discrimination from which they suffered. In all, about 33,000 Japanese Americans served the United States's cause in World War II.

Other patriotic Japanese Americans saw the situation differently. In 1943, about 200 Nisei at the Heart Mountain concentration camp in Wyoming formed the Fair Play Committee (FPC) to resist conscription into the armed services. The FPC published a manifesto that read in part, "We, the Nisei, have been complacent and too inarticulate to the unconstitutional acts that we were subjected to. If ever there was a time or cause for decisive action, IT IS NOW!" The Fair Play Committee protested denial of their rights as citizens without due process, without any charges being filed against them, and without any evidence of wrongdoing on their part. In June 1944, at the end of the largest draft resistance trial in U.S. history, 63 Nisei resisters were sentenced to three years in prison. On Christmas Eve 1947, President Harry S Truman pardoned them.

From the beginning, Japanese Americans sought to right the wrong of interning up to 120,000 innocent civilians. Mitsuye Endo agreed to serve as the test case against the internment program in 1942. On December 18, 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously declared the detention of Japanese Americans unconstitutional and ordered Endo's immediate release. One day before the ruling, and in anticipation of it, the Western Defense Command of the U.S. Army announced the termination of its exclusion of loyal Japanese Americans from the West Coast, effective January 2, 1945.

After the war, many Japanese Americans returned home from the camps or the armed services and went to work to secure their rights and redress the wrongs committed against them. In Hawaii, Daniel K. Inouye, a decorated veteran, entered politics. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1959 to 1962. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1962. Along with three other Japanese American legislators (Senator Spark M. Matsunaga of Hawaii and Representatives Norman Y. Mineta and Robert T. Matsui of California), Inouye sponsored a bill to apologize for the wartime internment and offer cash payments of $20,000 (tax-free) to each of the 60,000 victims still living. Congress enacted the bill in 1988, but because Congress failed to appropriate the necessary funds, a second bill had to be passed in 1989 to assure the payments.

Individual and Group Contributions

ACADEMIA

Harry H. L. Kitano (1926- ), a native of San Francisco, is a professor of sociology at UCLA, where he holds an endowed chair in Japanese American studies.

ARCHITECTURE

Minoru Yamasaki (1912-1986) designed the World Trade Center in New York City. Its twin towers, erected in 1970-1977, rise 110 stories high.

ART

Perhaps the most famous Japanese American sculptor was Isamu Noguchi. His work extended beyond sculptures to include important architectural projects and stage designs, including designs for the Martha Graham Dance Company.

Ruth Asawa (1926- ) is a Nisei artist known for her wire mesh sculptures and bronzed "baker's clay" sculptures. She is co-founder of the School of the Arts Foundation in San Francisco.

Isami Doi (1903-1965) exhibited his art works widely. Born and reared in Hawaii, he studied art at the University of Hawaii, Columbia University, and in Paris.

Toyo Miyatake (1895-1979) was a noted photographic artist and a leader in the Los Angeles Little Tokyo Community. During World War II, he and his family were interned at Manzanar, California, where he was allowed to take photographs documenting life in the camp. After the war he reopened his studio.

FILM, MUSIC, AND ENTERTAINMENT

Philip Kan Gotanda (1949- ), a playwright, musician, and director, is best known for musicals and plays about the Japanese American experience and family life. His plays include The Avocado Kid, The Wash, A Song for a Nisei Fisherman, Bullet Headed Birds, The Dream of Kitamura, Yohen, Yankee Dawg You Die, and American Tatoo.

Sessue Hayakawa (1890-1973) was a leading figure in silent films. After an absence of many years, he returned to Hollywood filmmaking in the 1950s and won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Colonel Saito in The Bridge on the River Kwai.

Hiroshima is a Sansei pop music group which blends traditional Japanese instruments into jazz.

Makoto (Mako) Iwamatsu (1933- ) was the founding artistic director of the East West Players, an Asian American theater company in Los Angeles. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his supporting role as a Chinese coolie in The Sand Pebbles.

Nobu McCarthy (1938- ) was a Hollywood star in the 1950s and is currently artistic director of the East West Players in Los Angeles. Her early film roles were mostly stereotypical (geisha girls and "lotus blossoms"). In the 1970s and 1980s, she appeared in more rounded roles in Farewell to Manzanar, The Karate Kid, Part II, and The Wash.

Midori (1971- ) is a celebrated violinist who has performed with many of the world's great orchestras.

Noriyuki "Pat" Morita (1932- ) became a major television and film actor in the 1980s. In 1984 he starred as Miyagi, a kind-hearted karate instructor, in The Karate Kid, and was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor.

Sono Osato (1919-) is an important dancer who worked with Diaghilev, the Ballet Russe, Balanchine, Tutor, Fokine, Massine, the American Ballet Theatre, and performed in the original production of the Jerome Robbins/Leonard Bernstein On The Town.

Seiji Ozawa (1935- ), conductor, became music director of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1970 and the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1973.

Pat Suzuki (c. 1930- ), singer and actress, was the first Nisei to star in a Broadway musical, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song, in 1958.

Miyoshi Umeki (1929- ) received an Academy Award as best supporting actress in 1957 for her role in Sayonara.

GOVERNMENT

John Fujio Aiso (1909-1987) was director of the Military Intelligence Service Language School which trained about 6,000 persons in Japanese for intelligence work during World War II. In 1953 he became the first Japanese American judge.

George Ryoichi Ariyoshi (1926- ) served as governor of Hawaii from 1973 to 1986. He was the first Japanese American lieutenant governor and governor in U.S. history.

S. I. Hayakawa (1906-1992), a professor of English, gained national attention for his strong stand against dissident students during his tenure as president of San Francisco State College (1968-1973). He served as a Republican U.S. Senator from California from 1977 to 1983.

Daniel K. Inouye (1924- ) of Hawaii was the first Nisei elected to the U.S. Congress. A Democrat, he served in the House of Representatives from 1959 to 1962. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1962. He was a decorated veteran of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II.

Clarence Takeya Arai (1901-1964), a Seattle lawyer, was a key figure in the founding of the Japanese American Citizens League. He was active in Republican politics in the state of Washington in the 1930s. He and his family were sent to the relocation camp at Minidoka, Idaho, during World War II.

JOURNALISM

James Hattori is a television correspondent for CBS News.

Harvey Saburo Hayashi (1866-1943) was both a physician and newspaper editor for the rural Japanese American community of Holualoa in Kona, Hawaii. He founded the Kona Hankyo in 1897. The newspaper was published for the next 40 years and reached a circulation of 500 at its peak.

William K. "Bill" Hosokawa (1915- ) has served as a writer and editor for the Denver Post. He is the principal historian for the Japanese American Citizens League. During his wartime internment at Heart Mountain, Wyoming, he edited the Heart Mountain Sentinel.

Ken Kashiwahara (1940- ) is a television correspondent for ABC News and one of the first Asian American journalists to work in network television.

James Yoshinori Sakamoto (1903-1955) began the first Nisei newspaper, the American Courier, in 1928. He was a strong supporter of the Japanese American Citizens League from its beginning and served as its national president from 1936 to 1938.

LAW

Lance A. Ito (1950- ), Los Angeles County superior court judge, is a highly respected jurist who gained national prominence as the judge in the O. J. Simpson murder trial.

LITERATURE

Velina Hasu Houston (1957- ) is known for her plays and poetry reflecting on the experiences of Japanese American women and her own experience as a multiracial Asian woman. Her plays include Asa Ga Kimashita, American Dreams, Tea, and Thirst.

Jun Atushi Iwamatsu (1908- ) is best known as author and illustrator of children's books. He has been runner-up for the Caldecott Medal for Crow Boy (1956), Umbrella (1959), and Seashore Story (1968). He has held several one-man exhibitions of his paintings.

Tooru J. Kanagawa (1906- ), a journalist and decorated veteran of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, published his first novel at the age of 83. His novel, Sushi and Sourdough, is based on his youth in Juneau, Alaska.

Toshio Mori (1910-1980) chronicled the lives of Japanese Americans in numerous short stories and six novels. Most of his writings, however, remain unpublished.

SCIENCE

Leo Esaki (1925- ) is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who invented the tunnel diode while working for the Sony Corporation in Japan. In 1960, Esaki immigrated to the United States to work at IBM's Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York.

Makio Murayama (1912- ), a biochemist, received the 1969 Association for Sickle Cell Anemia award and the 1972 Martin Luther King, Jr. medical achievement award for his research in sickle cell anemia.

Hideyo Noguchi (1876-1928), a microbiologist, devoted his life to fighting diseases such as bubonic plague, syphilis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and yellow fever.

Jokichi Takamine (1854-1922) was a chemist who developed a starch-digesting enzyme ( Takadiastase ), which was useful in medicines. In 1901 he isolated adrenaline from the supradrenal gland and was the first scientist to discover gland hormones in pure form.

SPORTS

Masao Kida (1968- ), a major league baseball player for the Detroit Tigers, Kida is a pitcher and was born in Tokyo.

Hideo Nomo (1968- ), a major league baseball player for the Milwaukee Brewers, Nomo was born in Kobe, Japan.

Kristi Yamaguchi (1971- ), a figure skater, won the women's gold medal in figure skating at the 1993 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France.

PRINT

Chicago Shimpo.

Bi-lingual newspaper. The only Japanese publication in the Midwest.

Contact: Akiko Sugano, Editors.

Address: 4670 North Manor Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60625.

Telephone: (773) 478-6170.

Fax: (773) 478-9360.

The Hawaii Hoichi.

A bilingual publication intended to keep non-English fluent Japanese Americans informed about the United States.

Contact: Mr. Mamoru Tanji.

Address: 917 Kokea Street, Honolulu, Hawaii 96817-4528.

Telephone: (808) 845-2255.

Fax: (808) 847-7215.

Hokubei Mainichi.

A bilingual publication. Covers Japanese politics as well as national news. Receives strong support from local Japanese American organizations.

Contact: Ms. Atsuko Saito.

Address: 1746 Post Street, San Francisco, California 94115.

Telephone: (415) 567-7323.

Fax: (415) 567-1110.

Nichi Bei Times.

A bilingual publication geared toward both visitors from Japan and Japanese Americans. Covers world, national, local, and lifestyle news.

Contact: Ms. Keiko Asano.

Address: 2211 Bush Street, San Francisco, California 94115.

Telephone: (415) 921-6820.

Fax: (415)-921-0770.

Rafu Shimpo.

A bilingual publication. Main source of Japanese American news in Southern California.

Contact: Ted Ubukata.

Address: 259 South Los Angeles Street, Los Angeles, California 90012.

Telephone: (213) 629-2231.

Fax: (213) 687-0737.

RADIO

KALI-FM (106.3).

Japanese language news broadcast weekdays from 7 to 9 AM. Affiliated with Bridge, U.S.A. magazine.

Contact: Mr. Ono.

Address: 20300 South Vermont Avenue, Suite 200, Torrance, California 90502.

Telephone: (310) 532-5921.

Fax: (310) 532-1184.

KJPN.

Japanese language news broadcast daily.

Contact: Ms. Ikuko Tomita.

Address: 711 Kapiolani Boulevard, Honolulu, Hawaii 96813.

Telephone: (808) 593-1950.

Fax: (808) 593-8040.

KZOO-AM (1210).

Largest exclusively Japanese broadcast in the United States.

Contact: David Furuya.

Address: 250 Ward Avenue, Suite 209, Honolulu, Hawaii 96814.

Telephone: (808) 593-2880.

Fax: (808) 596-0083.

TELEVISION

The following television stations offer programming in Japanese language: KDOC-TV, Anaheim, California; KTSF (Channel 26), Brisbane, California; KHNL, Hilo, Hawaii; KSCI (Channel 18), Pasadena, California; WMBC (Channel 63), New York City, New York; and WNYE (Channel 25), New York City, New York.

Organizations and Associations

Japan-America Society of Washington (JASW).

Contact: Patricia R. Kearns, Executive Director.

Address: 1800 Ninth Avenue, Suite 1550, Seattle, Washington 98101-1322.

Telephone: (206) 623-7900.

Fax: (206) 343-7930.

E-Mail: admin@us-japan.org.

Online: http://www.us-japan.org .

Japanese American Citizens League (JACL).

Educational, civil, and human rights organization founded in 1929 with 115 chapters and 25,000 members.

Contact: Herbert Yamanishi, National Director.

Address: 1765 Sutter Street, San Francisco, California 94115.

Telephone: (415) 921-5225.

Fax: (415) 931-4671.

E-mail: jacl@jacl.org.

Japan Hour Broadcasting.

Founded in 1974, it produces radio and television programs in Japanese for Japanese residents in the United States, and English language programs on Japan to promote American understanding of Japan and U.S.-Japanese relations.

Contact: Raymond Otami, Executive Director.

Address: 151-23 34th Avenue, Flushing, New York 11354.

Japan Society (JS).

Organization for individuals, institutions, and corporations representing the business, professional, and academic worlds in Japan and the United States; promotes exchange of ideas to enhance mutual understanding.

Contact: William Clark, Jr., President.

Address: 333 East 47th Street, New York, New York 10017.

Telephone: (212) 832-1155.

Fax: (212) 755-6752.

E-mail: gen@jpnsoc.com.

Online: http://www.jpnsoc.com .

Nippon Club.

Organization for persons who take special interest in Japanese affairs.

Contact: Tsutomu Karino, Executive Director.

Address: 145 West 57th Street, New York, New York 10019.

Telephone: (212) 581-2223.

Fax: (212) 581-3332.

Museums and Research Centers

Japanese American Cultural and Community Center.

A performing and visual arts center founded in 1980.

Address: 244 South San Pedro, Suite 505, Los Angeles, California 90012.

Telephone: (213) 628-2725.

Fax: (213) 617-8576.

E-mail: jaccc@ltsc.org.

Online: http://www.jaccc.org/ .

Japanese American Curriculum Project.

Address: 234 Main Street, P.O. Box 1587, San Mateo, California 94401.

Telephone: (800) 874-2242.

Japanese American National Museum.

The first national museum dedicated to preserving and sharing the history of Japanese Americans.

Address: 369 East First Street, Los Angeles, California 90012.

Telephone: (800) 461-5266; or (213) 625-0414.

Fax: (213) 625-1770.

Online: http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/janm/ main.htm .

Japanese American Society for Legal Studies.

Contact: Professor Daniel H. Foote.

Address: University of Washington Law School, 1100 Northeast Campus Parkway, Seattle, Washington 98105.

Telephone: (206) 685-1897.

Fax: (206) 685-4469.

E-mail: wjackson@u.washington.edu.

U.S.-Japan Culture Center (USJCC).

Seeks to promote mutual understanding between the United States and Japan; to help the public, scholars, government officials, and businesspersons of both countries increase their knowledge of U.S.-Japan relations.

Contact: Mikio Kanda, Executive Director.

Address: 2600 Virginia Avenue, N.W., Suite 512, Washington, D.C. 20037.

Telephone: (202) 342-5800.

Fax: (202) 342-5803.

E-mail: info@usjpcc.com.

Online: http://www.usjpcc.com/ .

Sources for Additional Study

Ellington, Lucien. Japan: Tradition and Change. White Plains, New York: Longman, 1990.

Hosokawa, Bill. Nisei: The Quiet Americans. New York: William Morrow, Inc., 1969.

Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Tokyo, Japan: Kodansha, 1993.

Japanese American History: An A to Z Reference from 1868 to the Present. New York: Facts on File, 1993.

Kitano, Henry E. Japanese Americans: The Evolution of a Subculture. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1969.

--. Generations and Identity: The Japanese American. Needham Heights, MA: Ginn Press, 1993.

Lyman, Stanford M. Chinatown and Little Tokyo: Power, Conflict, and Community Among Chinese and Japanese Immigrants in America. Millwood, New York: Associated Faculty Press, 1986.

Montero, Darrel. Japanese Americans: Changing Patterns of Ethnic Affiliation Over Three Generations. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1980.

Nakano, Mei T. Japanese American Women: Three Generations 1890-1990. Berkeley, California: Mina Press, 1990.

Takahashi, Jere. Nisei/Sansei: Shifting Japanese American Identities and Politics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997.

Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1989.

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Japanese Americans - History, Modern era, Migration to hawaii and america

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Japanese Americans - History, Modern era, Migration to hawaii and america Ha-La

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How Japanese Americans preserved traditions behind barbed wire

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How Japanese Americans preserved traditions behind barbed wire

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At a century-old Buddhist temple in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo, seven elderly Japanese American artists appeared recently in a once-in-a-lifetime performance of music, dance, and theater. The event, titled "Hidden Legacy," honored individuals who taught traditional Japanese arts while imprisoned in far-flung WWII "relocation" camps.

Mastery of any art or musical instrument requires patience, persistence, and time - as Shirley Muramoto Wong, who organized "Hidden Legacy," should know. The Berkeley staff member and alum is a master of the koto, a traditional Japanese stringed instrument. Her discovery of internment-camp artists, too, required not years but decades - as she tracked down now-elderly artists, coaxing out and recording their memories, to reveal their unsung role in history.

Her interest was personal, as she had learned koto from her mother, who studied the instrument as a pre-teen at the Topaz, Utah and Tule Lake, Calif. camps. (While at Berkeley in the '70s, Muramoto gave private lessons; she later taught her son Brian, who now teaches koto on campus with Professor of Music Bonnie Wade.)

Was her mother's experience, learning koto behind barbed wire, unusual? Or had other internees connected with their Japanese heritage, at other camps, through the arts? And how had internees gotten sizeable kotos into camp, when they'd been forced to leave their homes with only what they could carry? "I love my koto, but it's six feet long! It takes up a lot of space," Muramoto remembers thinking.

The Public Affairs staffer scoured photo collections and pored over archival materials in L.A.'s Japanese National Museum, hoping that the "outpouring of research" since the U.S. government's 1988 apology for the internment - offering monetary reparations along with self reproach for "race prejudice," "war hysteria," and "failure of political leadership" - would lead to answers.

A wealth of photos from the camps was by then available - though overwhelmingly of internees enjoying "all-American" activities such as baseball, swing dance, baton-twirling, and Scouting. That was no accident, Muramoto discovered.

"The War Relocation Authority, which oversaw the incarceration of Japanese Americans in concentration camps," worked consciously on "Americanizing the Japanese Americans," she explains. With war hysteria at a high after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Japanese Americans' loyalty in question, even the Japanese American Citizens League, a civil-rights organization, "was trying to encourage everyone to be more American." Fearing FBI raids, persecution, even deportation, some destroyed musical scores and correspondence Japanese that might link them too closely with Japan.
Kabuki in the desert
Answers to her questions did not come easily, but word of her interest spread in the koto scene and the Japanese American community. A UCLA professor recommended a scholarly paper about a koto teacher at Manzanar, in the eastern Sierra. And she was excited to come upon a photo of a girl learning koto at Amache, in Colorado, as her mother had at Topaz and Tule Lake.

"'How much more of this is out there that we don't know about?'" she remembers wondering.

Gradually Muramoto began to learn of individuals, many of them women, who had taught and organized performances of koto, biwa (lute), buyo (a dance form), nagauta shamisen (a string instrument accompanied by singing) or other traditional Japanese arts in major relocation camps throughout the American west and Midwest.

Biwa teacher Molly Kyokuto Kimura, in an interview, recalled how she decided to do "the unpopular thing" while imprisoned at the sprawling Tule Lake camp - start a Buddhist Sunday School and take instruction in Japanese language, flower arranging, tea ceremony, sand painting, and other Japanese arts.

Artist Bando Mitsusa, also at Tule Lake, earned $19 per month (the highest salary allowed) teaching buyo to 140 students. At Gila River, Ariz. and other camps, internees put on Kabuki theater performances, complete with scenery, painted on gunny sacks, and improvised costumes. At Amache, Matsui Suimin - a Kabuki producer by then arthritic and wheel-chair bound - fashioned theater wigs, using tin stovepipe as a base and strands of rope, dyed with black shoe polish, to look like hair. Artist Kotani Enjirou planted turnips at Tule Lake, for use in making papier-mâché masks for plays. Obon festivals, honoring the dead, took place in "just about every" relocation camp, Muramoto discovered.

As for those cumbersome kotos, many parents scavenged materials to build or repair instruments for their children, she learned. At Manzanar, internees used scrap wood, nails, and string to jury-rig practice kotos, and fashioned picks from cow bones and horn found on the grounds. Further north at Tule Lake, Muramoto's grandfather, Yasuki Hori, turned a stripped-down koto body into a playable instrument for his young daughter - tying reeds together to make strings and carving tuning bridges from wood scraps and toothbrush handles. It "sounded terrible," Muramoto speculates. "But they worked with their situation."
Spreading word
Conflict (2:50 min.)

As a koto soloist and founding director of the Murasaki Ensemble, a jazz/world-music fusion group, Muramoto has performed for prime ministers, taught scores of private students, and overseen the release of six CDs (another, with her son Brian, is forthcoming). Lately, though, she has scaled back her performance and teaching schedule in order to focus on her research.

"All these artists are getting older, and I don't know how much time I have," she says.

With events in L.A. and San Francisco, showcasing internment-camp artists, now behind her, Muramoto's next dream is to incorporate recordings from those performances, and her interviews with Japanese American artists, in a video documentary. In that way, she hopes to spread the word about a remarkable piece of history.

"All Americans are from somewhere; they have an ancestral culture," Muramoto says, choosing her words with care. But as time goes on, traditions, if untended, fade. "It might not be such a bad thing to remember some of it again," she suggests. "What makes America special is that we come from so many different places. If we can remember some of that, it will make us richer people."

More on Shirley Muramoto Wong: Campus koto player fuses the traditional and the modern (2004 article)

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How Japanese Americans preserved traditions behind barbed wire

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At a century-old Buddhist temple in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo, seven elderly Japanese American artists appeared recently in a once-in-a-lifetime performance of music, dance, and theater. The event, titled "Hidden Legacy," honored individuals who taught traditional Japanese arts while imprisoned in far-flung WWII "relocation" camps.

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Revisiting Japanese internment on the 75th anniversary

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This Was Life for Japanese-Americans During WWII

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Japanese American Cultural Identity: The Role ofWWII, Internment, and the 3/11 Disaster in Japan

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Japanese American Cultural Identity: The Role ofWWII, Internment, and the 3/11 Disaster in Japan

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Cultural Differences between the US and Japan

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Cultural Differences between the US and Japan

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The vast majority of Japanese people identify as Shinto, Buddhist, or both at the same time. Though Christian missionaries have been present in Japan for hundreds of years, their presence has had little effect on Japan's religious identity and philosophy. Therefore, issues that are the basis of debates in the Abrahamic faiths, such as gay marriage or teaching creationism in schools, lack a religious foundation in Japan. In Japan, Shinto and Buddhist practices are predominantly limited to traditions, celebrations, and superstitions more than strong spiritual beliefs. For example, in America, a politician's religious affiliation may become the cause of heavy debate, but there are few such issues in Japan.

2. Japanese People Are More Formal Than Americans

This generalization depends on which region of Japan you are referring to, but overall Japan, especially Tokyo, is known for being socially colder than most areas of the United States. People tend to stand a relatively far distance apart when speaking, and last names with honorifics are used when people speak to or about one another. An example of this can be seen in different approaches to customer service. In America, ideal customer service is usually warm and friendly. In Japan, it is formal and unobtrusive. Waiters don't usually stop by tables to ask customers how the food is or what their weekend plans are, and strangers won't often chat while waiting for the bus. Physically touching others in public is also less common in Japan than it is in America.

3. Japanese People Are Nationalistic, But Overall Not Very Political

Politicians in Japan have a shockingly low approval rate. Politicians are quick to resign after making mistakes, which is why Japan has switched its prime ministers almost once a year since 2005. Japan has a parliament system with many parties, and politicians don't win elections with a majority vote. In fact, Japanese people have a notoriously low voter turnout rate. On the other hand, Japanese people tend to have a lot of love for their country, and they celebrate their unique history, language, and culture in a way that's not dissimilar to Americans.

4. America Is Made Up of People From Many Different Countries, Whereas Japan Is Predominantly Japanese

The population of Japan is about 98% ethnic Japanese, and the biggest minority groups are Korean and Chinese people. Most Japanese citizens have an identical ethnic and national identity, therefore seeing people who don't appear to be of East Asian descent can lead to instant assumptions. This can affect society in the sense that because Japanese people view their culture as homogeneous, it is expected that everyone understands the traditions and rules of society.

5. Japanese People Bow

It is well known that many Asian countries utilize bowing instead of shaking hands, but Japanese people bow in more situations than just greetings. Bowing can be done while apologizing or expressing gratitude. People might bow to a deep 45 degree angle in business or professional environments, but most bows are just a casual bob of the head and slight incline of the back. Despite the prevalent importance of bowing in Japan, Japanese people are well aware of the fact that foreigners usually shake hands, and they might readily offer their hands in greeting instead of bowing.

6. Japanese People Will Often Live With Their Parents Until They Get Married

In Japan there is less of a social stigma surrounding an unmarried person living with their parents during or after college. In fact, it isn't unheard of for newlyweds to live with one partner's parents until they can find a place of their own. In the U.S. people tend to move out of their parents' homes unless they're financially or culturally discouraged from doing so.

7. There Is No tipping in Japan

Tipping is not practiced at establishments in Japan. It can even be insulting to tip because doing so is considered to be an affront to an employee's salary. If you leave a few bills on the table after eating out, prepare to have the waiter run after you with your "forgotten" item. In America, tips are meant to show appreciation for good service. Considering that many service jobs in the U.S. pay minimum wage or less, tipping has become a necessity in order for waiters and waitresses to survive.

8. Space in Japan Is More Precious

Because Japan is an island country that's only about the size of California, and much of the land it has is mountainous terrain, its available land is precious and often expensive. Apartments and houses are usually small, and yards are often tiny if they exist at all. Still, Japanese people have learned to adapt in ways to maximize space, but it can still be shocking for an American who might take space for granted.

9. Americans Tend to Be More Direct and Blunt, Whereas Japanese People Are More Subtle

Being too direct in Japan can be considered rude. This can be seen in body language too. People in the U.S. are taught to look directly in someone's eyes when speaking or listening to show that they are actively participating in the conversation. In Japan, extended eye contact can be uncomfortable between people who aren't close, and eyes are often averted. Japanese people also tend to be more reserved than Americans, and they share less personal or sensitive information, even with close friends.

10. Gender Roles Are Strict

In 2012, Japan received an embarrassing rank in the Global Gender Gap Report, which measured women's equality in various countries. America received the 22nd place and Japan received the 101st spot. There are very few female politicians and CEOs in Japan. When women join companies, they are often expected to quit when they get married to become housewives and stay-at-home mothers. The concept of masculinity can also be very strict, though among youth culture-typically university-aged people or younger-there is some gender androgyny celebrated in fashion, appearances, and theatrical roles.

11. Social Hierarchy Is Important in Japan

The junior/senior relationship is very important in Japan. An employee who is younger and probably hasn't worked at a company as long as his older coworker will be a "junior" to the "senior," more experienced employee. It is the same for students, especially in school clubs. In theory, the upperclassman serves as a mentor for the underclassmen, and it is the junior's duty to help out and support the senior members of the group. These roles aren't non-existent in America, but roles are often based on personal accomplishments, and they aren't always respected as a rule either.

12. Japan Is a Collectivist Culture, Whereas the United States Is More Individualistic

Japanese culture places importance on groups and communities. Satisfaction and pride are meant to be found within the group you belong to. In the United States, people tend to find satisfaction in their own accomplishments, and people tend to focus on their own aspirations. An example of this can be observed in Japanese business culture. In Japan employees tend to work for one company for their entire lives. Company loyalty is valued, and promotions are often given on the basis of seniority. In Japan, this can also influence the ways that people live in and contribute to society. In America, people focus on their careers independent from the companies they work for, and they will often change companies a number of times throughout their professional lives. Promotions are supposed to be given on the basis of merit in the U.S.

13. Eating in Public

In the U.S. people are often seen eating snacks or small meals while traveling on public transit, during their commute, while shopping, or while they run errands. In Japan, people are less likely to eat while strolling about. People in Japan usually eat while sitting in restaurants, cafes, or at their own kitchen tables. Eating on the go can be messy and food odors in places that are not designated for eating can be unpleasant to others. Even though people in Japan occasionally eat on the go, they don't do it often.

14. Train Etiquette

In the U.S., people tend to do whatever they want while riding trains or buses. People are often observed eating snacks, talking on their phones, listening to music (with or without headphones,) texting, playing mobile games, sleeping, working, dancing, etc. In Japan most people adhere to social etiquette that discourages disruptive activities on trains and buses. People typically silence their phones while they're utilizing public transportation, and they don't usually answer phone calls. Because sexual harassment has been a widespread issue on Japanese trains, many rush hour routes offer cars that are solely for female commuters so they won't be at risk of groping or harassment.

15. Money Exchanges While Shopping

When shopping in Japan, people typically pay for items with cash and they place their cash in a tray beside the register for the salesperson to pick up, count, and process. The salesperson will place change in the tray for the customer to pick up after the transaction is complete. In America, shoppers hand money directly to the salesperson and it can be considered rude for someone to place money on the counter rather than hand it directly to a person.

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Cultural Differences Between the USA and Japan

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The vast majority of Japanese people identify as Shinto, Buddhist, or both at the same time. Though Christian missionaries have been present in Japan for hundreds of years, their presence has had little effect on Japan's religious identity and philosophy.

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Japan has a distinct, fascinating culture that is unlike any other countries, and will leave a lasting impression with you! This is part of what makes it such a captivating country to visit and it is certainly one of the most unique countries in the world!

Japanese culture has many different uniquely interesting aspects, both modern and traditional, such as: cuisine, architecture, performing arts, fashion, anime, manga and Geisha. On the one hand Japanese culture is immersed in a rich history and deep traditions dating back thousands of years; on the other Japanese society is one that is in a continual state of rapid change, and is continuously evolving with new trends in fashion, technology and pushes the boundaries of what is possible.

At present, the culture of Japan stands out as one of the leading and most prominent cultures around the world, mainly due to the global reach of its popular culture. If you are looking for something different and a culture like no other you'll certainly find that in Japan!

Japanese Cuisine

Japanese cuisine is well known and appreciated globally for its precision, highly detailed technique and unique presentation. Each region in Japan has its own variety of specialty dishes with ingredients that are carefully selected to complement its individual flavour. Rice has been an essential food and source of nutrition for millennia and has been used to make various products such are rice cakes and condiments: from Sushi, Okonomiyaki, Teppanyaki, Teriyaki, Tempura, Udon, and Yakitorit, to name but a few. Washoku has been recently included on the list of UNESCO's (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. These are traditional foods that are regularly eaten at home on a daily basis; it consists of cooked rice, soups, pickles and side dishes to make the rice more appetizing.

Temple Lodging (Shukubo)

Temples and shrines offer accommodation to visitors and serve traditional vegetarian food. A Buddhist service is held early every morning at Shukubo temples. During the ceremony, the chief priest and monks of the temple chant Buddhist sutras in the main temple hall. It may be noted many temples offer a course on meditation. In the past, temple lodgings were only for monks engaged in disciplined practices. However, Buddhists temples these days are open to tourists regardless of their beliefs. This is why religious tourism and the hospitality that temples give, is a popular choice among overseas visitors.The best example of this would be Koyasan which has more than 50 temples. It has been awarded as part of the "Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range", a place on UNESCO's prestigious world heritage list.

Traditional Performing Arts - Noh

Noh or Nogaku is a one of the oldest, surviving and regularly performed traditional Japanese theatres which has two types Genzai no (realistic Noh) and Mugen no (fantasy Noh). The music, dance and drama all originated the 14th century. The well-known Noh founder, Zeami, is one of the most important historical figures in Japanese theatre. It has also been designated as an "Intangible Cultural Heritage" by UNESCO. Many years ago, all Noh players were men, but lately there have been a growing number of female players. The hero or heroine wears a mask during the performance and Waki -a stock character, acts both as a performer and musician.

Origami

The art of folding paper often associated with Japanese culture.

Ikebana

Japanese art of flower arrangement

Japanese Fashion

Japanese fashion has influenced the global world of style. It has inspired futuristic, avant-garde and the exotic, in all parts of the world. From the traditional Kimono, street fashion in Harajuku or luxury brands: the Japanese have created their own unique designs.

Cosplay

The term Cosplay was invented by a Japanese reporter, Nobuyuki Takahashi, and it is a mixture of the words costume and play. Although Cosplay did not start in Japan, it has influenced ordinary folk to dress up as a character from film, television, book, or video game, or from the Japanese genres of Manga or Anime. They portray characters that they love in costumes, props or make-up. There are many conventions throughout the world which have served to widen its appeal creating a fan base many times larger than its humble origins. You can find many cosplayers on the streets of Harajuku.

Cat Cafe

This is for cat lovers and owners, or simply for people who want to interact with cats while enjoying their cup of coffee. The idea first originated in Taiwan not long before it became popular in Tokyo and Osaka. Should you wish to visit a cat café in Tokyo there is cafe Nekorobi or Cafe Calico, and Temari no Ouch.

Robot restaurant

With robots, music, drums, lights and dancing the Robot Restaurant in Shinjuku is definitely a sensory overload that's definitely a must-see while in Tokyo. Address: 1-7-1 Kabukicho Shinjuku Shinjuku-ku Tokyo,Japan

First Stage　opening act 15:10～　main show 16:00～

Second Stage　opening act 17:00～　main show 17:55～

Third Stage　opening act 19:00～　main show 19:50～

Fourth Stage　opening act 21:00～　main show 21:45～

Entrance fee: 8,000 yen per person (Reservation needed in advance)

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Japan has a distinct, fascinating culture that is unlike any other countries, and will leave a lasting impression with you! This is part of what makes it such a captivating country to visit and it is certainly one of the most unique countries in the world!

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Japanese Culture and Tradition - Globalization Partners International

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Japan, pronounced in Japanese as "Nippon" or "Nihon", is a Pacific Ocean island nation off the coast of mainland Asia. It is comprised of approximately 6,900 islands. The most prominent and populous islands are Honshu, Hokkaido, Shikoku and Kyushu, making up 97% of the country.

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Images

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After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which established 10 internment camps for "national security" purposes.

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This site explores a period of U.S. history when racial prejudice and fear upset the delicate balance between the rights of a citizen versus the power of the state. Focusing on the experiences of Japanese Americans who were placed in detention camps during World War II, this exhibit is a case study in decision-making and citizen action under the U.S.

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Her dad had never talked to her about the stand he took against his own government. She went home that night and confronted him about what she had learned.

"He simply said it happened a long time ago and what he thought he did was right and the government was wrong, and I could just see this hurt go over his face," she said.

Karen, who is now the founder and executive director of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute, said her dad never doubted his constitutional rights as an American citizen that he learned about as a student at Oakland's Castlemont High School.

"Why should he go to a prison camp when there were no charges, there was no day in court, there was no access to an attorney?" Karen said. "All due process of law was completely violated."

Fred Korematsu was tried and convicted in federal court in 1942 for violating military orders issued under Executive Order 9066, and was taken with his family and placed in the Central Utah War Relocation Center in Topaz, Utah.

Fred Korematsu Events

Oakland: 7th Annual Fred Korematsu Day Of Civil Liberties And The Constitution, 'Mass Incarceration Across Communities,' 1/29 at the Paramount Theater
Emeryville: Launch party for children's book 'Fred Korematsu Speaks Up,' Feb. 4 at the J-Sei Center
Chico: Fred Korematsu Celebration, Jan. 30 at Chico Peace and Justice Center

Four decades after Korematsu's arrest, a district court judge in San Francisco formally vacated his conviction. The ruling came in the wake of revelations that the U.S. solicitor general who argued Korematsu v. United States before the Supreme Court had deliberately suppressed FBI reports concluding that Japanese-American citizens posed no security risk.

"It was truly amazing," Karen said about that day in 1983 when a federal judge overturned her father's conviction.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Korematsu stood up against the Patriot Act and other attempts to curtail the rights of Arab and Muslim-Americans.

"My father spoke out and said, 'No, this is wrong, and we need to learn from our lessons of history,'" Karen said.

In 2010, California established January 30 as Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution -- the first statewide holiday recognizing an Asian-American. A handful of other states have since done the same.

Ahead of this year's Fred Korematsu Day, Karen is worried that Americans don't understand the power of executive orders like the one her father challenged.

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Daughter of Civil Rights Icon Fred Korematsu Reflects on Internment, Executive Orders

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Her dad had never talked to her about the stand he took against his own government. She went home that night and confronted him about what she had learned. "He simply said it happened a long time ago and what he thought he did was right and the government was wrong, and I could just see this hurt go over his face," she said.

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Why I love a country where they once betrayed me...

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George Takei: Why I love a country that once betrayed me

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When he was a child, George Takei and his family were forced into an internment camp for Japanese-Americans, as a "security" measure during World War II. 70 years later, Takei looks back at how the camp shaped his surprising, personal definition of patriotism and democracy.

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Core Story JIC

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Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment

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Main - Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment

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A grassroots organization dedicated to preserving, educating, and sharing the story of World War II-era incarceration of Japanese Americans in order to deepen understandings of American history and inspire action for equity.

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When Warren Furutani was growing up in Los Angeles in the 1950s, he sometimes heard his parents refer to a place where they once spent time - a place they called "camp." To him "camp" meant summer camp or a YMCA camp, but this was something different. During World War II the US government incarcerated Warren Furutani's parents, along with over 110,000 other Japanese Americans, in ten different detention centers throughout the United States. When they talked about "camp" that's what they meant.

In 1969, Warren Furutani and his friend, Victor Shibata, went looking for the closest camp to Los Angeles, a place called Manzanar. It wasn't going to be easy to find. After World War II, Manzanar had been almost completely dismantled. But they discovered that the camp had been located a few miles past the town of Lone Pine off route 395 in a high desert valley of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

The two men drove through the desert and eventually came across an old white pillar with Japanese lettering on it. It was the original tower marking the Manzanar cemetery. They had found the remains of a camp that only a few decades earlier had imprisoned over 10,000 Japanese Americans.

When Warren and Victor found Manzanar there were no books and very little information about what had happened to Japanese Americans during WWII. Manzanar itself had no historical designation and no plaque. They set out to change that. On a December morning in 1969, Warren and Victor returned with over 150 people piled into cars, vans and buses on a pilgrimage to Manzanar.

Most of the people on the pilgrimage were younger Japanese Americans who had never spent time at a camp, but there were a few people who had actually lived at Manzanar. One of them was Sue Kunitomi Embrey.

Sue grew up in a largely Japanese American neighborhood in Los Angeles. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, anti-Japanese racism reached a fever pitch in states like California. Military leaders repeatedly questioned the loyalty of all people of Japanese descent, and in May of 1942 Sue's family received a notice from the government that they had five days to pack their most valuable belongings and report to Manzanar. Most families had to sell property quickly, often at a fraction of its value. Some rented out their homes or left them with friends, but others abandoned them altogether.

Sue's family arrived at Manzanar in the dark and found their way to their assigned barrack. They had brought only what they could carry with them. Sue kept thinking, "we're American citizens and they're doing this to us, and we have no rights, nobody to speak up for us."

In total, there were 800 buildings and over 10,000 people packed into one square mile. One of the hardest parts of life at camp was the total lack of privacy. The latrines were completely open and exposed, with no stalls or dividers between the showers or toilets. A five-strand barbed wire fence encircled the entire camp, with eight guard towers around the perimeter. Each guard tower had a searchlight and a soldier with a machine gun.

Manzanar was undoubtedly a prison, but the people inside did everything they could to turn it into a livable community. They had schools, churches and clubs, even a newspaper, ironically titled the Manzanar Free Press. Men would sometimes sneak under the fence to go trout fishing in nearby streams. People built rock gardens and planted flowers and vegetables.

On November 21, 1945, a few months after the US bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and nearly four years after the camp had first opened, the government closed Manzanar for good, and dismantled the camp.

After Sue Kunitomi Embrey left the camp she moved to the Midwest for a little while, but ultimately ended up back in Los Angeles. More than twenty years later, when she heard about a bunch of young college students making a pilgrimage to Manzanar, she decided to join them.

Following the 1969 pilgrimage, Sue Embrey, Warren Furutani and others formed the Manzanar Committee, with the goal of getting the site recognized as an historic landmark. They lobbied hard for three years, all the while continuing yearly pilgrimages to the site. In 1972 the state of California designated Manzanar a state landmark and agreed to install a bronze plaque. It was one of the first public acknowledgements of what had happened there during the war.

The plaque called Manzanar a "concentration camp bounded by barbed wire and guard towers," and it concluded with this oath: "May the injustices and humiliation suffered here as a result of hysteria of racism and economic exploitation never emerge again."

Some locals took exception to the wording. Within weeks, the plaque was riddled with shotgun pellets and someone took an axe to the word "racism."

But the Manzanar Committee was undeterred. They wanted to get the camp designated as a National Historic Site. After decades of activism and lobbying, the Manzanar Committee ended up drafting legislation for Congress.

In 1992, Sue Embrey flew to Washington DC to testify before the US Senate subcommittee on Public Lands, National Parks, and Forests. In her successful appeal, she argued: "democracy is a fragile concept only as good and strong as the people who practice it. Let us tell the world that we are a people strong and resolute acknowledging the errors of our past in order not to repeat them in the future. This is the legacy we believe the Manzanar Historic Site can leave for future generations."

The legislation passed and in 1992 Manzanar was declared a National Historic Site. But apart from the cemetery, there was little there. The committee did not want to settle for a staid, sterile museum and so they worked with the National Park Service to rebuild portions of the camp exactly as they had been during the war.

Near the visitors' center there is a rebuilt barrack, guard tower and lone basketball hoop. One can also drive around the grounds, following a one-way road that traces a long and winding circuit through what used to be the camp. Signposts along the way show where specific buildings once stood. In some places, cracked concrete foundations and the remains of rock gardens have been unearthed or rebuilt.

But the most powerful symbol might be the site's newest addition, a replica of the women's latrine with a trough sink and row of five toilets with no dividers between them. It's a stark reminder of the humiliation felt by many Japanese Americans during their incarceration.

Alisa Lynch is the head of historical interpretation at the site. She has spoken to hundreds of people who were incarcerated at Manzanar, and they all have different stories about life at camp. She just wants the site to tell the full, messy history of what happened there.

The Manzanar committee continues to host the annual pilgrimage, and every Spring hundreds if not thousands of people journey to the site. It's not just Japanese Americans. Since 9/11, there has almost always been a speaker from the Muslim community. The activists who lead the pilgrimage want to connect connect the history of wartime discrimination against Japanese Americans with contemporary discrimination against Muslim Americans in the name of security.

Organizers believe that this year's annual pilgrimage on April 29th, 2017 may be the biggest one yet. Visit the Manzanar Committee pilgrimage page to learn more.

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When Warren Furutani was growing up in Los Angeles in the 1950s, he sometimes heard his parents refer to a place where they once spent time - a place they called "camp." To him "camp" meant summer camp or a YMCA camp, but this was something different.

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Japanese Internment

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The resources in this primary source set are intended for classroom use. If your use will be beyond a single classroom, please review the copyright and fair use guidelines.

Teacher's Guide

To help your students analyze these primary sources, get a graphic organizer and guides: Analysis Tool and Guides

Between 1942 and 1945, thousands of Japanese Americans were, regardless of U.S. citizenship, required to evacuate their homes and businesses and move to remote war relocation and internment camps run by the U.S. Government. This proved to be an extremely trying experience for many of those who lived in the camps, and to this day remains a controversial topic.

Historical Background

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan," declared President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his address to a joint session of Congress.

The repercussions of this event in the U.S. were immediate. In cities and towns up and down the West Coast, prominent Japanese Americans were arrested, while friends and neighbors of Japanese Americans viewed them with distrust. Within a short time, Japanese Americans were forced out of their jobs and many experienced public abuse, even attacks.

When the president issued Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, he authorized the evacuation and relocation of "any and all persons" from "military areas." Within months, all of California and much of Washington and Oregon had been declared military areas. The process of relocating thousands of Japanese Americans began.

Relocation

The relocation process was confusing, frustrating, and frightening. Japanese Americans were required to register and received identification numbers. They had to be inoculated against communicable diseases. They were given just days to divest themselves of all that they owned, including businesses and family homes. Bringing only what they could carry, they were told to report to assembly centers: large facilities like racetracks and fairgrounds. These centers became temporary housing for thousands of men, women and children. Stables and livestock stalls often served as living and sleeping quarters.

There was no privacy for individuals - all their daily needs were accommodated in public facilities. Internees waited, for weeks that sometimes became months, to be moved from the assembly centers to their assigned war relocation centers.

Life in the Camps

These hardships continued when internees reached their internment camp. Located in remote, desolate, inhospitable areas, the camps were prison-like, with barbed wire borders and guards in watchtowers. Many people, not always family members, shared small living spaces and, again, public areas served internees' personal needs. Eventually, life in the camps settled into routines. Adults did what they could to make living quarters more accommodating. Schools were established for the educational needs of the young. Residents performed the jobs necessary to run the camps. Self-governing bodies emerged, as did opportunities for gainful employment and for adult teaching and learning of new skills. Evidence of normal community living appeared as newspapers, churches, gardening, musical groups, sports teams, and enclaves of writers and artists emerged. The barbed wire and watchtowers, however remained in place.

Serving Their Country

Despite this treatment, Japanese Americans did their best to get through the internment experience and serve their country during a time of war. More than 30,000 Japanese American men enlisted in the armed forces. The all Japanese American 442nd Regiment became the most decorated unit of its size in U.S. history.

After the War

First generation Japanese immigrants were hardest hit by the internment. Many lost everything - homes, businesses, farms, respect, status and sense of achievement. Their children and grandchildren also experienced disruptions to their lives, but they emerged after the war with lives that, while changed, were not destroyed. These second- and third-generation Japanese American citizens began to shoulder responsibility for leadership in the Japanese American community.

Suggestions for Teachers

Select and analyze one image of life in a relocation center. What can be learned from the image? What questions does the image raise? Analyze additional images from the set to see what questions can be answered, and what new questions come up. Students might organize their thinking into categories such as living conditions, recreation, or work. If time permits, select one or two questions for further research using primary or secondary sources.

Ask students to study a selection of items related to life in a relocation center and form a hypothesis about how the people shown reacted to being interned, and then list details from one or more primary sources to support the hypothesis. Alternatively, give students a hypothesis, a selection of items from the set, and ask some students to find evidence to support the hypothesis, and others to find evidence that refutes it. Compare photographs by two or more photographers. Consider purpose, style, intended audience, and the impact of each image.

Watch the oral history clip from Norman Ikari. Ask students to write a brief retelling of the oral history in their own words, and then allow time for students to compare their writing with a partner's. What aspect of the oral history did each student emphasize? What is the significance of this oral history? Ask students to think about how this oral history supports, contradicts, or adds to their understanding of the period or events. How does encountering this history firsthand change its emotional impact? (For more questions and ideas, consult the Teacher's Guide: Analyzing Oral History.)

This primary source set also provides an opportunity to help students understand that different times shape different cultural values and mores. The set may also provide impetus for discussions that compare and contrast the unfair treatment of other segments of the U.S. population, in America's past and today.

Additional Resources

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Japanese American Internment | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress

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Jump to: Background Suggestions for Teachers Additional Resources Between 1942 and 1945, thousands of Japanese Americans were, regardless of U.S. citizenship, required to evacuate their homes and businesses and move to remote war relocation and internment camps run by the U.S. Government.

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Japanese Americans interned at Topaz Camp share their stories

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Japanese Americans Visit a WWII Incarceration Camp

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Japanese Americans Visit a WWII Incarceration Camp

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Japanese Americans Visit A WW2 Incarceration Camp