Japanese Americans



Japanese Americans

The first Japanese Americans started arriving in the Pacific Northwest during the 1880s when federal legislation had barred the immigration of Chinese and thereby had created demand for new labor. They were primarily recruited in the railroads. Similar to other ethnic minority groups, the Japanese who had come to America with the same hope to find a country of equal economic opportunity faced a discriminatory and based attitude in the pre war era. Japanese immigration continued from the 1880s till the American government passed the immigration Act of 1924. This Act ended all oriental immigration. The Japanese immigrants were mostly concentrated in the West Coast and Hawaii. Japanese Americans initially faced discrimination on account of the atmosphere inherited by them due to Chinese immigrants. The great depression of the 1930s made the situation gloomier for them as there was a growing feeling of hostility towards the Japanese Americans who were considered to be taking the jobs away from Americans due to their cheap labor. The feeling also strengthened due to the concept of them not being capable of assimilating. This was because it was considered that Japanese Americans could not assimilate into the American society due to their outlook and different cultural background (Conroy et.al, 1972).

Despite attempts by Japanese Americans to prove their patriotism, a wave of anti-Japanese hysteria prevailed over America during the World War II. Thousands of Japanese were removed from their homes and sent to internment camp. Through an executive order issued by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1942 around 120,000 Japanese Americans were removed from the West Coast. They were shifted to inland concentration camps. Due to internment, the Japanese Americans lost their jobs, homes, businesses and their savings (Conroy et.al, 1972).

After the war had ended, the Japanese Americans differed very much with other Asian ...