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Japanese American
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are Americans of Japanese heritage. Japanese Americans have historically been among the three largest Asian American communities, but in recent decades have become the sixth largest group at roughly 1,204,205, including those of mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity. In the 2000 census, the largest Japanese American communities were in California with 394,896, Hawaii with 296,674, Washington with 56,210, New York with 45,237, and Illinois with 27,702.
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Encyclopedia
are Americans of Japanese heritage. Japanese Americans have historically been among the three largest Asian American communities, but in recent decades have become the sixth largest group at roughly 1,204,205, including those of mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity. In the 2000 census, the largest Japanese American communities were in California with 394,896, Hawaii with 296,674, Washington with 56,210, New York with 45,237, and Illinois with 27,702. Each year, about 7,000 new Japanese immigrants enter United States ports, making up about 4% of immigration from Asia; net migration, however, is significantly lower because some older Japanese Americans have been moving to Japan.
Cultural profile
Generations
Japanese Americans, Japanese Brazilians, Japanese Peruvians, Japanese Argentineans, Japanese Filipinos, Japanese Cubans, Japanese Mexicans, and other persons of Japanese descent have special names for each of their generations who are citizens or long-term residents of countries other than Japan. These are formed by combining one of the Japanese numbers corresponding to the generation with the Japanese word for generation (sei ?). The Japanese-American communities have themselves distinguished their members with terms like Issei, Nisei, and Sansei which describe the first, second and third generation of immigrants. The fourth generation is called Yonsei and the fifth is called Gosei. The term Nikkei was coined by Japanese American sociologists and encompasses all of the Japanese immigrants across generations.
| Generation | Summary |
|---|
| Issei | The generation of people born in Japan who later immigrated to another country. | | Nisei | The generation of people born in North America, Latin America, Hawaii, or any country outside of Japan either to at least one Issei or one non-immigrant Japanese parent. | | Sansei | The generation of people born in North America, Latin America, Hawaii, or any country outside of Japan to at least one Nisei parent. | | Yonsei | The generation of people born in North America, Latin America, Hawaii, or any country outside of Japan to at least one Sansei parent. |
The kanreki, a pre-modern Japanese rite of passage to old age at 60, is now being celebrated by increasing numbers of Japanese-American Nisei. Rituals are enactments of shared meanings, norms, and values; and this traditional Japanese rite of passage highlights a collective response among the Nisei to the conventional dilemmas of growing older.
Languages
Issei and many Nisei speak Japanese in addition to English as a second language. In general, later generations of Japanese Americans speak English as their first language, though some do learn Japanese later as a second language. In Hawaii however, where Nisei are about one-fifth of the whole population, Japanese is a major language, spoken and studied by many of the state's residents across ethnicities. It is taught in private Japanese language schools as early as the second grade. As a courtesy to the large number of Japanese tourists (from Japan), Japanese subtexts are provided on place signs, public transportation, and civic facilities. The Hawaii media market has a few locally produced Japanese language newspapers and magazines, however these are on the verge of dying out, due to a lack of interest on the part of the local (Hawaii-born) Japanese population. Stores that cater to the tourist industry often have Japanese-speaking personnel. To show their allegiance to the U.S., many Niseis and Sanseis intentionally avoided learning Japanese. But as many of the later generations find their identities in both Japan and America, studying Japanese is becoming more popular than it once was.
Education
Japanese American culture places great value on education. Across generations, parents tend to instill their children with a deep value for higher education. As a result of such cultural ambition, math and reading scores on standardized tests often exceed national averages. They fill gifted classrooms and have the largest showing of any ethnic group in nationwide Advanced Placement testing each year.
Most Japanese Americans obtain advanced college degrees. Japanese Americans once again face stereotyping as dominating the sciences in colleges and universities across the United States, while in reality, there is an equal distribution of Japanese Americans across academic disciplines in the arts and humanities in addition to the sciences.
Intermarriage
Before the 1960s, the trend of Japanese Americans marrying partners outside their racial or ethnic group was generally low, as well a great many traditional Issei parents encouraged Nisei to marry only within their ethnic/cultural group and arrangements to purchase and invite picture brides from Japan to relocate and marry Issei or Nisei males was commonplace.
In California and other western states until the end of World War II, there were attempts to make it illegal for Japanese and other Asian Americans to marry whites or Caucasians, but those laws were declared unconstitutional by the US supreme court, like the anti-miscegenation laws which prevented whites from marrying African-Americans in the 1960s.
According to a 1990 statistical survey by the Japan Society of America, the Sansei or third generations have an estimated 20 to 30 percent out-of-group marriage, while the 4th generation or Yonsei approaches nearly 50 percent. The rate for Japanese women to marry Caucasian and other Asian men is becoming more frequent, but lower rates for Hispanic and American Indian men (although the number of Cherokee Indians in California with Japanese ancestry is much reported), and with African-American men is even smaller.
During the WWII Internment era, the US Executive Order 9066 had an inclusion of orphaned infants with "one drop of Japanese blood" (as explained in a letter by one official) or the order stated anyone at least one eighth Japanese (descended from any intermarriage) lends credence to the argument that the measures were racially motivated, rather than a military necessity.
There were sizable numbers of Korean-Japanese, Chinese-Japanese, Filipino-Japanese, Mexican-Japanese, Native Hawaiian-Japanese and Cherokee-Japanese in California according to the 1940 US census who were eligible for internment as "Japanese" to indicate the first stage of widespread intermarriage of Japanese Americans, including those who passed as "white" or half-Asian/Caucasian.
Religion
Japanese Americans practice a wide range of religions, including Mahayana Buddhism (Jodo Shinshu, Jodo Shu, Nichiren, and Zen forms being most prominent) which is the majority, Shinto, and Christianity. In many ways, due to the longstanding nature of Buddhist and Shinto practices in Japanese society, many of the cultural values and traditions commonly associated with Japanese tradition have been strongly influenced by these religious forms.
A large number of the Japanese American community continue to practice Buddhism in some form, and a number of community traditions and festivals continue to center around Buddhist institutions. For example, one of the most popular community festivals is the annual Obon Festival, which occurs in the summer, and provides an opportunity to reconnect with their customs and traditions and to pass these traditions and customs to the young. These kinds of festivals are most popular in communities with large populations of Japanese Americans, such as in southern California or Hawaii. It should be noted however, that a resonable number of Japanese people both in and out of Japan are secular as Shinto and Buddhism is most often practiced by rituals such as marriages or funerals, and not through faithful worship, as defines religion for many Americans.
For Japanese American Christians, the church is one of the most important cultural foundations. In California, Hawaii and Washington, congregations can be composed entirely of Japanese Americans. In the rest of the country they tend to be accepted in predominately white churches.
Celebrations
Japanese American celebrations tend to be more sectarian in nature and focus on the community-sharing aspects. An important annual festival for Japanese Americans is the Obon Festival, which happens in July or August of each year. Across the country, Japanese Americans gather on fair grounds, churches and large civic parking lots and commemorate the memory of their ancestors and their families through folk dances and food. Carnival booths are usually set up so Japanese American children have the opportunity to play together.
Major Celebrations in the United States | Date | Name | Region |
|---|
| January 1 | Shogatsu New Year's Celebration | nationwide | | February | Japanese Heritage Fair | Honolulu, HI | | February to March | Cherry Blossom Festival | Honolulu, HI | | March 3 | Hina Matsuri (Girls' Day) | nationwide | | March | Honolulu Festival | Honolulu, HI | | March | Hawaii International Taiko Festival | Honolulu, HI | | March | International Cherry Blossom Festival | Macon, GA | | March to April | National Cherry Blossom Festival | Washington, DC | | April | Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival | San Francisco, CA | | April | Pasadena Cherry Blossom Festival | Pasadena, CA | | April | Seattle Cherry Blossom Festival | Seattle, WA | | May 5 | Tango no Sekku (Boys' Day) | nationwide | | May | Shinnyo-En Toro-Nagashi (Memorial Day Floating Lantern Ceremony) | Honolulu, HI | | June | Pan-Pacific Festival Matsuri in Hawaii | Honolulu, HI | | July 7 | Tanabata Festival | nationwide | | July-August | Obon Festival | nationwide | | August | Nihonmachi Street Fair | San Francisco, CA | | August | Nisei Week / Tofu Festival | Los Angeles, CA |
History
The history of Japanese Americans begins in the mid nineteenth century.
- 1841, June 27 Captain Whitfield, commanding a New England sailing vessel, rescues five shipwrecked Japanese sailors. Four disembark at Honolulu, however Manjiro Nakahama stays on board returning with Whitfield to Fairhaven, Massachusetts. After attending school in New England and adopting the name John Manjiro, he later became an interpreter for Commodore Matthew Perry.
- 1850. After seventeen survivors of a Japanese shipwreck are saved by the American freighter Auckland, they become the first Japanese people to reach California. In 1852, the group is sent to Macau to join Commodore Matthew Perry as a gesture to help open diplomatic relations with Japan. One of them, Joseph Heco (Hikozo Hamada) goes on to become the first Japanese person to become a naturalized US citizen.
- 1855, February 8: The first official intake of Japanese migrants to a US-controlled entity— 676 men, 159 women, and 108 children—arrive in Honolulu on board the Pacific Mail passenger freighter City of Tokio. These immigrants, the first of many such Japanese immigrants to Hawaii, have come to work as laborers on the island's sugar plantations via an assisted passage scheme organized by the Hawaiian government .
- 1861 The utopian minister Thomas Lake Harris of the Brotherhood of the New Life visits England, where he meets Nagasawa Kanaye, who becomes a convert. Nagasawa returns to the US with Harris and follows him to Fountaingrove in Santa Rosa, California. When Harris leaves the Californian commune, Nagasawa became the leader and remained there until his death in 1932.
- 1869, A group of Japanese people arrive at Gold Hills, California and build the Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Colony. Okei becomes the first recorded Japanese woman to die and be buried in the US.
- 1885, The first wave of Japanese immigrants arrives to provide labor in Hawaii sugarcane and pineapple plantations, California fruit and produce farms.
- 1893 The San Francisco Education Board attempts to introduce segregation for Japanese American children, but withdraws the measure following protests by the Japanese government.
- 1900s, Japanese immigrants begin to lease land and sharecrop.
- 1902, Yone Noguchi publishes the The American Diary of a Japanese Girl, the first Japanese American novel.
- 1907, Gentlemen's Agreement between United States and Japan that Japan would stop issuing passports for new laborers.
- 1908, Japanese picture brides enter the United States.
- 1930s, Issei become economically stable for the first time in California and Hawaii.
- 1944, Ben Kuroki became the only Japanese-American in the U.S. Army Air Force to serve in combat operations in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II.
- 1945, 442nd Regimental Combat team awarded 18,143 decorations, including 9,486 Purple Hearts, becoming the most decorated military unit in United States history.
- 1959, Daniel K. Inouye becomes the first Japanese American in Congress.
- 1963, Daniel K. Inouye becomes the first Japanese American in the US Senate.
- 1965, Patsy T. Mink becomes the first woman of color in Congress.
- 1971, Norman Y. Mineta elected mayor of San Jose, California; becomes first Asian American mayor of a major US city.
- 1974, George R. Ariyoshi becomes the first Japanese American governor in the State of Hawaii.
- 1976, Samuel Ichiye (S. I.) Hayakawa of California and Spark Matsunaga of Hawaii become the second and third Japanese American US Senators.
- 1978, Ellison S. Onizuka becomes the first Asian American astronaut. Onizuka was one of the seven astronauts to die in the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
- 1980, Congress creates Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians to investigate World War II unjust policies against Japanese Americans.
- 1983, Commission reports that Japanese American internment was not a national security necessity.
- 1988, U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, apologizing for Japanese American internment and providing reparations of $20,000 to each victim.
- 1992, Kristi Yamaguchi becomes the first Japanese American to win an Olympic Gold medal, in women's figure skating.
- 1994, Mazie K. Hirono becomes the first Japanese immigrant elected state lieutenant governor.
- 1999, Gen. Eric Shinseki becomes the first Asian American U.S. military chief of staff.
- 2000, Norman Y. Mineta becomes the first Asian American appointed to the U.S. Cabinet, working as Commerce Secretary (2000-2001) and Transportation Secretary (2001-2006).
Immigration
People from Japan began migrating to the U.S. in significant numbers following the political, cultural, and social changes stemming from the 1868 Meiji Restoration. Particularly after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Japanese immigrants were sought by industrialists to replace the Chinese immigrants. In 1907, the "Gentlemen's Agreement" between the governments of Japan and the U.S. ended immigration of Japanese workers (i.e., men), but permitted the immigration of spouses of Japanese immigrants already in the U.S. The Immigration Act of 1924 banned the immigration of all but a token few Japanese.
The ban on immigration produced unusually well-defined generational groups within the Japanese American community. Initially, there was an immigrant generation, the Issei, and their U.S.-born children, the Nisei Japanese American. The Issei were exclusively those who had immigrated before 1924. Because no new immigrants were permitted, all Japanese Americans born after 1924 were--by definition--born in the U.S. This generation, the Nisei, became a distinct cohort from the Issei generation in terms of age, citizenship, and English language ability, in addition to the usual generational differences. Institutional and interpersonal racism led many of the Nisei to marry other Nisei, resulting in a third distinct generation of Japanese Americans, the Sansei. Significant Japanese immigration did not occur until the Immigration Act of 1965 ended 40 years of bans against immigration from Japan and other countries.
The Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted naturalized U.S. citizenship to "free white persons," which excluded the Issei from citizenship. As a result, the Issei were unable to vote, and faced additional restrictions such as the inability to own land under many state laws.
Japanese Americans were parties in several important Supreme Court decisions, including Ozawa v. United States (1922) and Korematsu v. United States (1943). Korematsu is the origin of the "strict scrutiny" standard, which is applied, with great controversy, in government considerations of race since the 1989 Adarand Constructors v. Peńa decision.
In recent years, immigration from Japan has been more like that from Western Europe: low and usually related to marriages between U.S. citizens and Japanese (usually Japanese women), with some via employment preferences. The number is on average 5 to 10 thousand per year, and is similar to the amount of immigration to the U.S. from Germany. This is in stark contrast to the rest of Asia, where family reunification is the primary impetus for immigration. Japanese Americans also have the oldest demographic structure of any non-white ethnic group in the U.S.; in addition, in the younger generations, due to intermarriage with whites, non-whites, and other Asian groups, part-Japanese are more common than full Japanese, and it appears as if this physical assimilation will continue at a rapid rate.
Internment
During WWII, an estimated 120,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese residing in the United States were forcibly interned in ten different camps across the US, mostly in the west. The internments were based on the race or ancestry rather than activities of the interned. Families, including children, were interned together.
For the most part, the internees remained in the camps until the end of the war, when they left the camps to rebuild their lives in the West Coast. Several Japanese Americans have started lawsuits against the U.S. government for wrongful internment. The lawsuits have dragged on for decades.
World War II Service
Many Japanese Americans served with great distinction during World War II in the American forces. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team/100th Infantry Battalion is one of the most highly decorated unit in U.S. military history. Composed of Japanese Americans, the 442nd/100th fought valiantly in the European Theater. The 522nd Nisei Field Artillery Battalion was one of the first units to liberate the prisoners of the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. Hawaii Senator Daniel K. Inouye is a veteran of the 442nd. Additionally the Military Intelligence Service consisted of Japanese Americans who served in the Pacific Front.
Redress
In the U.S., the right to redress is defined as a constitutional right, as it is decreed in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Redress may be defined as follows:
- 1. the setting right of what is wrong: redress of abuses.
- 2. relief from wrong or injury.
- 3. compensation or satisfaction from a wrong or injury.
Reparation is defined as:
- 1. the making of amends for wrong or injury done: reparation for an injustice.
- 2. Usually, reparations. compensation in money, material, labor, etc., payable by a defeated country to another country or to an individual for loss suffered during or as a result of war.
- 3. restoration to good condition.
- 4. repair. (“Legacies of Incarceration,” 2002)
The campaign for redress against internment was launched by Japanese Americans in 1978. The Japanese American Citizens’ League (JACL) asked for three measures to be taken as redress: $25,000 to be awarded to each person who was detained, an apology from Congress acknowledging publicly that the U.S. government had been wrong, and the release of funds to set up an educational foundation for the children of Japanese American families. Under the 2001 budget of the United States, it was also decreed that the ten sites on which the detainee camps were set up are to be preserved as historical landmarks: “places like Manzanar, Tule Lake, Heart Mountain, Topaz, Amache, Jerome, and Rohwer will forever stand as reminders that this nation failed in its most sacred duty to protect its citizens against prejudice, greed, and political expediency” (Tateishi and Yoshino 2000). Each of these concentration camps was surrounded by barbed wire and contained at least ten thousand forced detainees.
Life under United States policies before and after World War II
Like most of the American population, Japanese immigrants came to the U.S. in search of a better life. Some planned to stay and build families in the United States, while others wanted to save money from working stateside to better themselves in the country from which they had come. Before the Attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese residents experienced a moderate level of hardship that was pretty typical for any minority group at the time.
Farming
Japanese Americans have made significant contributions to the agriculture of the western United States, particularly in California and Hawaii. Nineteenth century Japanese immigrants introduced sophisticated irrigation methods that enabled the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, and flowers on previously marginal lands.
While the Issei (1st generation Japanese Americans) prospered in the early 20th century, most lost their farms during the internment. Although this was the case, Japanese Americans remain involved in these industries today, particularly in southern California and to some extent, Arizona by the areas' year-round agricultural economy, and descendants of Japanese pickers who adapted farming in Oregon and Washington state.
Japanese American detainees irrigated and cultivated lands nearby the World War II internment camps, which were located in desolate spots such as Poston, in the Arizona desert, and Tule Lake, California, at a dry mountain lake bed. Due to their tenacious efforts, these farm lands remain productive today.
Politics
Japanese Americans have shown strong support for candidates in both political parties. Leading up to the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election, Japanese Americans narrowly favored Democrat John Kerry by a 42% to 38% margin over Republican George W. Bush. With the remaining 19% undecided or voting for other candidates, once the margin of error is taken into effect, a mere 4% lead is statistically insignificant.
Neighborhoods and communities
The US west coast
- Central Valley, California region:
- Hawaii, where a quarter of the population is of Japanese descent.
- Los Angeles, California, includes the Little Tokyo section
- Monterey County, California, especially Salinas, California
- Sacramento, California and the neighborhoods of Florin, California and Walnut Grove, California
- San Diego, California
- San Francisco, California, notably the Japantown section.
- San Francisco Bay Area, the main concentration of Nisei and Sansei in the 20th century:
- Santa Barbara, California
- Santa Cruz County, California
- Santa Rosa, California
- Bellevue, Washington
- Seattle, Washington
- Tacoma, Washington
- Yakima Valley, Washington
- Portland, Oregon
- Willamette Valley, Oregon
- Southern California has sporadic Japanese American communities:
Outside the US west coast
- Arlington, Virginia
- Boise, Idaho
- Boston, Massachusetts
- Chicago, Illinois
- Denver, Colorado, note Sakura Square
- Gallup, New Mexico, in WWII the city fought to prevent the internment of its 800 Japanese residents.
- Las Vegas, Nevada
- New York City, New York
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Phoenix, Arizona
- Southern Arizona, part of the "exclusion area" for Japanese internment during WWII along with the Pacific coast states.
- Yuma County, Arizona
Notable individuals
After the Territory of Hawaii's statehood in 1959, Japanese American political empowerment took a step forward with the election of Daniel K. Inouye to Congress. Inouye's success led to the gradual acceptance of Japanese American leadership on the national stage, culminating in the appointments of Eric Shinseki and Norman Y. Mineta, the first Japanese American military chief of staff and federal cabinet secretary, respectively.
Many Japanese Americans have also gained prominence in the arts and sciences. These include Minoru Yamasaki, architect of the World Trade Center, and Ellison Onizuka, the first Asian American astronaut and the mission specialist aboard Challenger at the time of its explosion. Poet laureate of San Francisco Janice Mirikitani has published three volumes of poems. Artist Sueo Serisawa helped establish the California Impressionist style of painting.
Japanese Americans first made an impact in Olympic sports in the late 1940s and in the 1950s. Harold Sakata won a weightlifting silver medal in the 1948 Olympics, while Japanese Americans Tommy Kono (weightlifting), Yoshinobu Oyakawa (100-meter backstroke), and Ford Konno (1500-meter freestyle) each won gold and set Olympic records in the 1952 Olympics. Konno won another gold and silver swimming medal at the same Olympics and added a silver medal in 1956, while Kono set another Olympic weightlifting record in 1956. Also at the 1952 Olympics, Evelyn Kawamoto won two bronze medals in swimming.
More recently, Eric Sato won gold (1988) and bronze (1992) medals in volleyball, while his sister Liane Sato won bronze in the same sport in 1992. Hapa Bryan Clay won the decathlon gold medal in the 2008 Olympics, the silver medal in the 2004 Olympics, and was the sport's 2005 world champion. Apolo Anton Ohno won five Olympic medals in short-track speed skating (two gold) in 2002 and 2006, as well as a world cup championship.
In figure skating, Kristi Yamaguchi, a fourth-generation Japanese American, won three national championship titles (one in singles, two in pairs), two world titles, and the 1992 Olympic Gold medal. Rena Inoue, a Japanese immigrant to America who later became a U.S. citizen, competed in single skating and pair skating for Japan, and then competed at the 2006 Olympics in pair skating with John Baldwin for the United States. Kyoko Ina, who was born in Japan, but raised in the United States, competed for Japan in single skating before switching to competing for the United States in singles and pairs, and was a multiple national champion and Olympian with two different partners. Mirai Nagasu won the 2008 U.S. Figure Skating Championships at the age of 14 and became the second youngest woman to ever win that title.
In distance running, Miki (Michiko) Gorman won the Boston and New York City marathons twice in the 1970s. A former American record holder at the distance, she is the only woman to win both races twice, and is the only woman to win both marathons in the same year.
In professional sports, Wataru Misaka broke the NBA color barrier in the 1947-48 season, when he played for the New York Knicks. Misaka also played a key role in Utah's NCAA and NIT basketball championships in 1944 and 1947. Lindsey Yamasaki was the first Asian American to play in the WNBA and finished off her NCAA career with the third-highest career 3-pointers at Stanford University.
Hikaru Nakamura became the youngest American ever to earn the titles of National Master (age 10) and International Grandmaster (age 15) in chess. In 2004, at the age of 16, he won the U.S. Chess Championship.
Japanese Americans now anchor TV newscasts in markets all over the country. Notable anchors include Tritia Toyota, Adele Arakawa, David Ono, Kent Ninomiya, and Lori Matsukawa.
George Takei (of Star Trek fame) and Pat Morita (Happy Days) helped pioneer acting roles for Asian Americans while playing secondary roles on the small screen during the 1960s and 1970s.
Today, Shin Koyamada launched a leading role in the Warner Bros. epic movie The Last Samurai and Disney Channel movie franchise Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior and TV series Disney Channel Games. Masi Oka plays a prominent role in the NBC series Heroes and Grant Imahara appears on the Discovery Channel series MythBusters.
Notable Japanese American musicians include singer, actress and Broadway star Pat Suzuki; rapper Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park and Fort Minor, guitarist James Iha of Smashing Pumpkins fame; world-renowned violinist Anne Akiko Meyers; singer & songwriter, composer and Japanese expatriate Mari Iijima; Shodo Artist, J-Poet, Gravure Idols and BURN Flame Miki Ariyama; ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro, famous J-pop superstar Hikaru Utada and critically-acclaimed singer-songwriter Rachael Yamagata.
See also
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