Before World War II
The Japanese American Experience Before Camp
The first wave of Japanese immigrants pursued the American Dream by working as laborers on farms, mines, railroads, factories, and fishing boats. They worked hard and saved money to buy land and houses.Since 1790, Japanese, and other immigrants from Asia, were not allowed to become citizens of the United States. Aliens, or non-citizens, were not allowed to own land due the Alien Land Law Act of 1913, which was largely created to prevent Japanese immigrants from buying farm land. Japanese immigrants were talented farmers, and worked hard to make land which was previously considered unfarmable, fertile. As their success in truck farming began to threaten white farmers, the Alien Land Law was created to limit their ability to farm. Immigrants' children, called "Nisei," who were born in the United States were allowed to own land. Many parent bought land in the names of their children and began to have success in truck farming.
Although Japanese residents in California controlled less than two percent of the total farmland before 1940, they produced a third or more of the state’s truck crops, like fruits and vegetables.
Munemitsu Family - Westminster, CA
Janice Munemisu's great-grandparents came to California from Japan in 1921. By the 1930's they had two sons and a farm in Westminster, CA.
Yellow Peril - Discrimination Against Japanese and Japanese Americans
The "Yellow Peril" is a racist metaphor that has been to describe Eastern, Oriental, and Asian people by Western societies for the last two hundred years. Different iterations of the Yellow Peril are emerge whenever there is an economic, political or social need to vilify non-western, Asian groups.By the 1940s, it is estimated that Japanese and Japanese Americans controlled about 50% of the truck farming business in major metropolitan areas, such as Los Angeles and Seattle. White farmers began to complain about their success, and different groups, including the Native Sons of the Golden West and Native Daughters of the Golden West began to campaign against people of Japanese descent. The Native Sons' monthly newspaper, The Grizzly Bear, created propaganda and a Yellow Peril about the unassimibility of Japanese Americans. They claimed there was unprecedented growth of Japanese American birthrates, creating a fear of Asians propagating across the US and displacing white Americans. They worked through their groups and the media to resurrect the Yellow Peril that was levelled against the Chinese after the completion of the railroad, and transferred it onto the Japanese, through fear of economic loss and miscegenation.
This Yellow Peril discrimination provided the framework for the Japanese American Incarceration Camps.
! ACTIVITY !
Mouse over the letter written by The Native Sons of the Golden West group, asking their supporters to fund a lawsuit to challenge the citizenship of all people of Japanese ancestry. Read it carefully, taking notice of the language and phrases it uses.Discussion Activity
1) How is this letter an example of Yellow Peril? What language do they use that suggests Yellow Peril?2) What "evidence" do they use to support their argument?
3) Who are the different groups they mention? Who is the "our" they mention in "our Nation"? Who are the "Japanese" that they are referring to?
