The Real Japanese Question

1921, K. K. Kawakami

The book starts off talking about the Japanese immigrants to Hawaii, and that the relationship between them and the whites is pretty good.

Then he shows just how strange some of the anti-Japanese people were:

“One afternoon last fall th Board of Supervisors of Los Angeles Country was discussion various measures in the usual fashion. Abruptly a member stood up and frothing at the mouth shouted, “They are coming-they are coming!-armed!-they are coming to drive us out!!”

He had apparently been reading the newspaper hate articles on the Japanese and it finally got to be too much for him.

He talks about how some people were worried that California, Oregon and Washington would become as filled with Japanese as was Hawaii. The author then shows in tables that the Japanese owned less than 1/4 of 1% of the land in California, less than 1.3 of 1 percent (?) in Washington, and less than 1-50th of 1% in Oregon.

There's more math on the issue of how much of the money for crops goes to Japanese. He points out that they produce about 18% of the food in California. Of the money they get, 35% goes to landowners as rentals, 45% for labor, and the Japanese tenants (or contractors) get only about 20%.

The author then talks about the controversial community of Florin in California, and disputes arguments about how the Japanese had taken over the town and ruined it.

After talking about the Gentlemen's Agreement, the author then talks about the anti-Japanese groups:

“The politicians and fire-eaters find a good ally in a large section of the California press, for California, and especially San Francisco and Los Angeles, is noted for its peculiar papers. Not a day passes that these newspapers do not publish anti-Japanese news stories or editorials, often absolutely groundless, always conceived to rouse suspicion or resentment towards the Japanese.”

This is a good example of just how influential newspapers were in the days before television.

I particularly liked the following quote:

“Left alone by busybodies, the Japanese an Americans in California can get along amicably together. This is not an assertion but a fact.”

He adds:

“...any community can be aroused against any race by a persistent propaganda such as been carried on against the Japanese by politicians and newspapers. In the past year or more the California Anti-Oriental League, sponsored by Senator Phelan and his political cohorts, has honeycombed the state with anti-Japanese meetings, poisoning the minds and hearts of well-meaning townsfolk and villagers. But for this agitation there would have been no sinister posters and placards in nay part of California.”

This can be reflected even on a national level. The author talks about the California anti-Japanese Land Initiative Law which was passed in November of 1920 by around a 3 to 1 majority. The rest of the nation was surprised the difference was that big, but Californians were surprised the difference was that small. Apparently the prediction was that it would pass by a 9 to 1 margin.

Once that law passed, other states tried similar things. A table the author includes points out that such a move failed in Oregon (Feb. 19, 1921); Idaho (Feb. 28, 1921); Montana (March 3, 1921); Utah (Feb. 28,1921), and Nevada (no date given.)

However, the same kind of thing passed in Colorado (April 4, 1921); Nebraska (Feb. 15, 1921); Arizona (Feb. 25, 1921); Texas (March 9, 1921); and was yet to be voted on in New Mexico.

The California legislature followed up with bills that tried to do the following:

1. Abolish Japanese language schools.
2. Allow school districts to segregate Japanese schoolchildren where “such a measure is necessary.”
3. Prohibit Japanese to fish commercially. 4. Require landowners to notify the country recorder of how much land they allow ineligible aliens to cultivate. 5. Spend $50,000 for anti-Japanese propaganda to be used through the United States. 6. Determine what corporations have Japanese shareholders.

The one that really gets me is the fifth, which would have made it an official policy of the government of the state to spread hate throughout the entire country.

In a chapter on the anti-Oriental tradition in the United States, the author examines the history of Chinese immigrants and how they were treated.

The author then returns to the issue of the press, and notes how the papers bury any good news about the Japanese if they run any of it at all. He then gives a very specific and most interesting example. On December 5, 1920, the Japanese Young Men of Central California issued a resolution:

“We, the Japanese young men of Central California, in consideration of the situation confronting us to-day, declare that we shall do our utmost for the Americanization of our people in America.”

A few days later the Japanese Exclusion League reported the resolution stated the following:

“We are firmly resolved that Central California, as the impregnable fortress of Japanese development in America, shall be defended to the deathblow at whatever sacrifice.”

What I find particularly interesting about this is that we saw exactly the same type of tactics in the recent Presidential election where news stories varied incredibly depending on which news channel one watched.

The next chapter is about Japanese Language Schools, with the usual type of information on why they were set up and what they do. What the author does, though, is point out how false the information was provided by the newspapers. In one article, for example, they claimed that 8 of the schools were really Buddhist-oriented schools, and they gave specific addresses for the schools.

2 of the 8 addresses provided didn't even have any schools of any kind at the address. None. One of the schools was Christian, and one was Catholic. Three of them were non-sectarian. Of the 8 listed in the article, only 1 was actually Buddhist.

He talks about some rumors he had heard, like there were 20 million Japanese in the U.S. when, at the time, there were about 100,000. Another rumor was that Japanese children were crowding all the schools, where, at the time, there was only 1 school in the entire state of California where there were more Japanese than whites, and that was by a margin of only three students, and that at a relatively small village.

He talks about the actual positive views of Japanese schoolchildren held by teachers.

The next chapter is about Dual Citizenship, and it's followed by a chapter on Japanese Associations in America. These include:

1. The United Northwestern Japanese Association (Seattle)
2. The Japanese Association of Oregon (Portland)
3. The Japanese Association of America (San Francisco)
4. The Central Japanese Association of Southern California

The author has his own solution to the problem.

1. Japanese immigrating should be allowed economic privileges according to those from nations under the “most favored country” status.
2. Japan should stop all new immigration into the U.S.
3. Appoint a Commission of Japanese and Americans to examine all phases of Japanese immigration, and come up with rules and regulations to cover all possibilities.



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