Anti-Japanese and anti-immigrant fears and hatred led to racist polemics in local newspapers and the formation of anti-Japanese associations, including those of organized labor. They also led to boycotts against Japanese merchants and white merchants who employed Japanese workers and led to legislation that limited the civil rights of Japanese American immigrants.
In 1890, there were only some two thousand Japanese living in America, working mainly as laborers and farmhands in California and the Pacific Northwest. Nevertheless, the use of Japanese to break a labor strike in the coal
Typical of the political rhetoric that was to become prevalent was a slogan used during a political campaign in 1887, when a “Dr. O’Donnell” of San Francisco included the slogan “Japs must go” in his campaign. Although the slogan had little effect on his failed political campaign, it was nevertheless a sign of things to come.
In 1889, the editor of the San Francisco Bulletin began a series of editorials attacking Japanese immigrants and making a case that they were dangerous to white American workers and to American culture. On May 4, 1892, he wrote, “It is now some three years ago that the Bulletin first called attention to the influx of Japanese into this state, and stated that in time their immigration threatened to rival that of the Chinese, with dire disaster to laboring interests in California.” The San Francisco Bulletin’s “Yellow Peril” campaign (named “yellow” for the skin-color designation of peoples of Asia) helped strengthen the growing anti-Japanese fervor in California. The campaign was not only against Japanese laborers, who were thought to be threatening the livelihoods of “real” American workers, but also against their perceived threat to American culture. Met with hostility, prejudice, and discrimination, Japanese in many urban areas settled into ethnic enclaves known as Japantowns, where they could secure employment and feel safe and comfortable among fellow compatriots.
On June 14, 1893, the San Francisco board of education passed a resolution requiring that all Japanese persons must attend the already segregated
This turn-of-the-century toy gun bears the message “Chinese must go.” When its trigger is pulled, the figure in the hat kicks the Chinese figure.
The Alaskan gold rush
With the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
After the defeat of Russia by Japan in the Russo-Japanese War, a growing fear of Japanese power led to further agitation and political tactics to limit Japanese immigration and influence in America. Whereas Chinese were hated and despised by various politicians, labor leaders, and some regular citizens, Japanese were feared.
The Yellow Peril campaign of the nineteenth century did not stop with the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1905, the San Francisco Chronicle launched another anti-Japanese campaign, emphasizing the dangers of future immigration. Later, the San Francisco Labor Council, at the urging of a local doctor and with the support of San Francisco mayor Eugene E. Schmitz
In 1906, anti-Asian sentiments continued to grow. San Francisco was struck by a devastating earthquake
In the ensuing U.S.-Japan “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” Japan promised not to issue passports to laborers planning to settle in the United States and recognized U.S. rights to refuse Japanese immigrants entry into the United States. In an executive order issued on March 14, 1907, Roosevelt implemented an amendment to the Immigration Act of 1907, which allowed the United States to bar entry of any immigrant whose passport was not issued for direct entry into the United States and whose immigration was judged to threaten domestic labor conditions.
Although anti-Japanese sentiments lessened during World War I after Japan joined the Allies in the war against Germany, almost immediately following the war these sentiments resurfaced. The 1917 and 1924 Immigration Acts barred Asian laborers from the United States. In California, a campaign to pass the 1920 Alien Land Act attracted the support of the American Legion and the Native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West.
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Ichihashi, Yamato. The American Immigration Collection: Japanese in the United States. 1932. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1969. A thorough description of Japanese immigration into the United States with an excellent chapter on anti-Japanese agitation. -
McWilliams, Carey. Prejudice: Japanese-Americans, Symbol of Racial Intolerance. 1944. Reprint. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1971. A dated but excellent account of anti-Japanese American prejudice and discrimination up to World War II. New foreword by McWilliams. -
Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. 1989. Rev. ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1998. An excellent overview of the broader picture of Asian immigration and settlement in the United States. -
Wilson, Robert A., and Bill Hosokawa. East to America: A History of the Japanese in the United States. New York: William Morrow, 1980. An excellent account of Japanese immigration and settlement in the United States.
American Era of “Old” Immigration
California Gold Rush Begins
Chinese Begin Immigrating to California
Burlingame Treaty
First Transcontinental Railroad Is Completed
Congress Enacts the Page Law
Arthur Signs the Chinese Exclusion Act
San Francisco’s Chinese Six Companies Association Forms
American Protective Association Is Formed
America’s “New” Immigration Era Begins
Chinese Californians Form Native Sons of the Golden State
Stephen J. Field.