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 2% 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
Takaragawa Family - Los Angeles, CA
Yellow Peril - Discrimination Against Japanese and Japanese Americans
"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. Yellow Peril rhetoric can be seen in images and texts throughout history.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 Yellow Peril propaganda to argue that Japanese Americans could not be assimilated into American society.
This Yellow Peril discrimination provided the framework for the Japanese American Incarceration Camps.
Let's Explore!
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.Let's Talk About It!
- How does this letter depict people of Japanese ancestry? How would you feel if this letter was talking about you and your community?
- Who are the different groups the letter mentions? Who is the "our" in "our Nation"? Who are "the Japanese"?
- How is this letter an example of Yellow Peril? What language do the letter writers use that suggests Yellow Peril?