Discrimination included the formation of anti-Japanese organizations, such as the Asiatic Exclusion League, attempts at school segregation (which eventually affected Nisei under the doctrine of 'separate but equal'), and a growing number of violent attacks upon individuals and businesses. Both the Issei and Japan began to be perceived as threats.

However, the anti-Japanese movement became widespread around 1905, due both to increasing immigration and the Japanese victory over Russia, the first defeat of a western nation by an Asian nation in modern times. Approximately half became farmers, while others went to the coastal urban centers and worked in small commercial establishments, usually for themselves or for other Issei.Īnti-Japanese movements began shortly after Japanese immigration began, arising from existing anti-Asian prejudices. The Issei mostly came from the Japanese countryside, and they generally arrived, either in Hawaii or the mainland West Coast, with very little money. Nisei and Sansei who were educated in Japan are called Kibei.

Japanese immigrants were called Issei, from the combination of the Japanese words for 'one' and 'generation ' their children, the American-born second generation, are Nisei, and the third generation are Sansei. The experiences of Chinese immigrants foreshadowed those of Japanese immigrants, who began arriving about the same time the Chinese exclusion bill was passed. Discrimination became legislated at both the state and federal level, including a Chinese immigration exclusion bill passed in 1882 by the U.S. Chinese labor was cheap labor, and this economic grievance became an ideology of Asian inferiority similar to existing American racial prejudices. This economic competition increased after the completion of the trans-continental Union-Central Pacific Railroad in 1869, which had employed around 10,000 Chinese laborers. However, soon white workingmen began to consider the Chinese, who in 1870 comprised about 10 percent of California's population, as competitors.

During the initial phases of the economic boom that accompanied the gold rush, Chinese labor was needed and welcomed. began about the same time as the California gold rush of 1849. The cultural and economic forces that led to the anti-Japanese feelings are discussed in detail by Daniels, and summarized here. West Coast Anti-Asian PrejudiceĪnti-Asian prejudices, especially in California, began as anti-Chinese feelings. Prejudice, wartime hysteria, and politics all contributed to this decision. To understand why the United States government decided to remove Japanese Americans from the West Coast in the largest single forced relocation in U.S. In contrast, between 19, 18 Caucasians were tried for spying for Japan at least ten were convicted in court. Yet these innocent people were removed from their homes and placed in relocation centers, many for the duration of the war. Army to designate areas from which 'any or all persons may be excluded.' No person of Japanese ancestry living in the United States was ever convicted of any serious act of espionage or sabotage during the war. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. At that time, nearly 113,000 people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them American citizens, were living in California, Washington, and Oregon. On December 7, 1941, the United States entered World War II when Japan attacked the U.S. Excerpts from Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites by J.

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