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, laws prohibited Japanese, and other immigrants from Asia, from becoming citizens of the United States or owning land. To get around these laws, Japanese immigrants used the names of their citizen children to buy land. Japanese Americans were talented farmers, turning land that was thought to be infertile into productive farms.
- 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 used to describe Eastern, Oriental, and Asian people for the last two hundred years. Different versions of the Yellow Peril surface whenever there is an economic, political or social need to scapegoat Asian groups.By the 1940s, Japanese and Japanese Americans controlled about 50% of the truck farming business in urban 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 to argue that Japanese Americans could not be assimilated.
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 challenging 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"?