Postwar Assimilation of Japanese Americans And Japanese Ethnicity
Kazuo Yagami
Florida State University
Just like many other ethnic groups, Japanese Americans faced the harsh and discriminative social conditions in the prewar era. Yet, when the war ended, while most of the other ethnic groups either remained unassimilated or had to struggle in their assimilation efforts, Japanese Americans began their smooth and rather rapid assimilation into the mainstream of U.S. society.
What made the difference? An answer to this question seems to be found in the ethnic backgrounds of Japanese Americans. Although Japanese Americans and the other ethnic groups shared the similarity in economic and social conditions they faced, Japanese Americans uniquely and fundamentally differed from the others in the ethnic background. Therefore, one premise that could be made here is that Japanese Americans may have had certain ethnic traits that helped them in their assimilation effort, while the others did not have.
This study attempts to see what those ethnic traits were, and how they helped Japanese Americans in the United States to have such prompt and smooth assimilation in the postwar era.[1]
This theme is not new. Various publications have already touched upon it. None of them, however, has treated the theme in a comprehensive manner. They fall short from thoroughness in an examination. This paper hopefully remedies that shortcoming.
It is impossible to achieve a clear comprehension of the postwar assimilation of Japanese Americans without understanding their prewar settlement.
Japanese immigration in the prewar era started in the late 19th century and ended when the US government passed the Immigration Act of 1924 which terminated all Oriental immigration.[2] Most of the Japanese immigration settlements in the prewar era took place either in Hawaii or on the West Coast.
Japanese Americans on the West Coast experienced blatant discrimination because of the anti-Asian atmosphere inherited from Chinese immigrants. Unlike the early period of the postwar economic boom, the prewar economy hardly provided sufficient output to meet everyone’s needs. Most of the jobs were found in the fields, the forests, the mines, and the mills, over which white Americans and the immigrants competed against each other in order to make a living. In the early 1930s, the Great Depression made already gloomy economic conditions worse. It was natural to see an anti-immigration movement develop. Because of the notion of Asian immigrants as cheap laborers taking away jobs from white Americans and also the notion of their unassimilability in U.S. society because of their cultural background and their outlook—yellow skin versus white skin, Asian immigrants were one of the main targets for such anti-immigration movement on the West Coast.
Responding to this general mood of “anti-Asian immigration,” the numerous laws were enforced by the federal and local (California) governments to stop Asian immigration. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed to ban further immigration of the Chinese labors, followed by the Gentlemen’s Agreement in 1907–1908 in which the Japanese government agreed to enforce a stricter immigration policy.[3] In the late 1910s and the early 20s, when the considerable number of Japanese Americans on the West Coast began to have their own farm lands, the California government quickly enforced a series of laws(the Alien Land Acts: in 1913, 1920, and 1923) to limit Japanese land ownership.[4] Then, the Immigration Act of 1924 almost completely banned Japanese immigration.[5] This Asian “bashing” peaked when the internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans on the West Coast took place in 1942 under Franklin Roosevelt’s Excessive Order No.9066.[6]
Despite these adverse conditions, the settlement of Japanese Americans in the prewar era was considered successful at least in an economic sense, particularly in agriculture. According to the United States census in 1940, there were 6,000 Japanese-operated farms on the West Coast; Japanese farmers tilled more than 250,000 acres and owned real property to a much greater degree than the general American population.[7] They succeeded even to the extent that their own success worked against them.[8]
How did they succeed? There are several factors to be considered here. First, there was the level of education Japanese immigrants had. Compared to other ethnic immigrants who normally came to the United States with a little education or none at all, Japanese immigrants were relatively well educated. The Japanese law enforced by the Meiji government required every Japanese citizen, regardless of sex, to have at least four years of compulsory education and another four years of optional education. Thus, none of Japanese immigrants were illiterate. Particularly, those who went to the West Coast were highly educated.[9] About 60 percent of them finished at least middle school, and about 21 percent had earned high school diploma.[10] (These figures may not sound impressive from today’s standard, but one must put in mind that this was at the turn of the century!) Second, perhaps more importantly than the first, there was the role of the Japanese government in creating a stricter immigration policy to select only those who were mentally and physically able to immigrate.[11] The Japanese government created this policy to make sure that the humiliating experience of Chinese immigrants on the West Coast would not be repeated in their experience and also to ensure a successful Japanese settlement in the United States so that the reputation of Japan as a rising power would not be denigrated.
These two factors were unarguably helpful for Japanese Americans in achieving their economic success. However, this success would not have been possible without one characteristic of their ethnic culture, “group orientation.” This group orientation is, today, recognized both in and out of Japan as the most distinguishing characteristic of Japanese culture. It has even become almost synonymous with Japanese culture.
David J. O’Brien and Stephen S. Fugita find the origin of this group orientation in Japanese feudalism.[12] What they basically argue here is that Japanese feudalism was based on rigid superior-subordinate relationship. That relationship went beyond family structure, which created room for a development of a larger and larger social organization. In such an organization, an individual interest was secondary to the collective interests, and a functional base of an organization was not business like interest but rather one of kinship. The members of the organization felt as if they were related. A typical example of this type of organization is seen in today’s Japanese business corporations, in which a harmonious norm of group orientation is considered to be a top priority.
Although O’Brien and Fugita’s argument sounds convincing, some scholars find their argument inaccurate. Eiichiro Ishida points out in his book, Japanese Culture: A Study of Origins and Characteristics, the basic aspects of Japanese culture and society were formed during the period called the Yayoi Age (250 bc–ad 200), through the “collective” work of rice cultivation.[13] It can be argued that group orientation of Japanese culture may also have its origin in this period.
Whatever the origin, the point here is that this group orientation of Japanese culture gave Japanese immigrants a vital skill to establish an extensive network of associations. In the grim social and economic conditions that isolated Japanese Americans from the mainstream society on the West Coast, nothing could have been better help than that skill. It enabled Japanese immigrants to adopt a method of “collective” survival.
A typical example of this collective survival effort was seen in agricultural industry. Almost exclusively coming from the background of the farming families, early Japanese immigrants found themselves engaging in agriculture. More than half of Japanese Americans in prewar California were farmers. Most of them started as field laborers working for
white farm owners.[14] According to Paul R. Spickard, however, during the decade between 1910 and 1920, this situation drastically changed with the rapid increase of the number of the Japanese run-farms.[15] That number even tripled in Los Angeles County. By 1929, out of the 64,000 Japanese Americans working as farmers in California, about 51,000 were independent farmers exercising various degree of ownership.[16]
How did these Japanese Americans manage to have their own farms in such a short period of time in the place where they had no help form anywhere but from themselves? Where did the money come from? They barely had enough money to cross the ocean. An answer to these questions is found in a financial system, called tanomoshi.[17] It was designed to provide financial assistance to Japanese Americans. It consisted of a group of certain number of people, usually from 10 to 20 people. Each member of the group was required to give a fixed amount of money to the group every month for a certain period of time to set up a public fund. The money was then used to assist one member each month until every member of the group was assisted. Who should be assisted at a certain month was usually determined by drawing. For example, let’s assume, there was a group of 20 farmers. Each contributed $50 a month. So, each month, one member of the group could have $1,000, probably enough money to buy a piece of land in the early 20th century. Within a little over one and half years, every member of the group could have their own farms.
Tanomoshi was widely practiced in other various occupational fields as well. Having no door open for them to get highly skillful and more professional occupation, many Japanese immigrants, beside becoming farmers, found their job option in small businesses such as laundry, restaurant, beauty salon, etc. Tanomoshi provided financial source for them to have their own small businesses.
No legal aspect was involved in Tanomoshi. It was totally based on trust and commitment of each member of the group to his or her obligation. Only the characteristic of group orientation of Japanese ethnicity made a system like Tanomoshi possible.
Another example of a collective survival tactic is the horizontally integrated economic system, which is commonly seen today in Japan’s corporate business field, called Keiretsu.[18] In this system, different but related industries form a business group, which functions as one united business body for the purpose of promoting mutual benefits and business stability. For example, a raw material supplier, a producer of goods, a distributor, and a retailer, all agree to establish a business relationship based on mutual interest, trust, and a long term commitment to keep their relationship. Like Tanomoshi, this system was also widely practiced among Japanese Americans on the West Coast. It provided them with business stability and a competitive edge by enabling them to have better efficiency and lower cost in each phase of economy than their competitors.
It is indisputable, as these two examples indicate, that group orientation of Japanese ethnicity provided Japanese Americans with the vital asset for their economic success. However, there is one important notation that should be made here. That is, even though Japanese Americans established economic success, their assimilation into the mainstream society on the West Coast hardly took place in the prewar era.[19]
The small business owners had their businesses only in their own community, except the farm owners who had to find markets for their products outside of the community. Even for farming, however, every phase of the business cycle except retail sales was done without going through even a single hand of non-Japanese Americans. With regard to social contact between the Japanese immigrant community and the mainstream society, there was almost none, except in schooling. Mainly because of the small size in number, the children of Japanese American (Nisei—second generation) were allowed to go to the schools attended by mostly white students. However, even there, they found discrimination standing their way. Despite the fact that the children of Japanese American outperformed the white students at school, there was no prospect for them to utilize their education. For example, there were no technically and professionally oriented occupations open for the college graduates of Japanese Americans. Japanese Americans indeed lived as if they were on an “interior island” on the West Coast. The 1942 internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans well symbolized such ostracized lifestyle of Japanese Americans, and bigotry, ignorance, and fear non-Japanese Americans had toward Japanese Americans.
When the war ended, however, they suddenly began to see opportunities coming their way. Some scholars argue that, this change can be explained by the generational change of Japanese Americans. In the postwar era, Japanese immigrants (Issei—first generation) were no longer in charge in their household. They were replaced by new generations: Nissei (second) and Sanssei (third). These new generations were far more acculturated to US society than Issei, which made it easier for them to be accepted. This argument, however, can be refuted by the fact that, when the interment of Japanese Americans took place in 1942, more than 70 percent of Japanese Americans on the West Coast were already Nissei.
So it was not any characteristic change of Japanese Americans—although it surely made some contribution—that opened up the opportunities for Japanese Americans. Instead, one needs to see the changes in economic, political, and social conditions taking place in the end of the prewar and early postwar US society. As discussed below, they were so fundamental and drastic that they had major impact on the perceptional relationship between mainstream America and Japanese Americans.
There were several significant changes. First, there was the change in the US view of Japan. In the 1930s and early 40s, Japan was portrayed as an adversary, having economic and political conflicts with the United States over China and Southeast Asia. When the war ended, however, Japan was no longer an enemy and soon became an ally of the United States. Furthermore, Japan was increasingly becoming important as a buffer zone for Western Democracy when US-USSR rivalry began to escalate in the early postwar era. Second, the United States emerged as a leading power for preservation and promotion of Democracy in the postwar era. In early 1941, a prominent journalist, Henry Luce wrote in Life magazine a sensational article titled “American Century.”[20] He argued that the 20th Century was the US century; the United States had an obligation to take the leadership to defend democratic principles. Luce’s argument became reality in the early postwar era. The United States began its positive involvement in the international affairs for defending democracy and free economy. That made it contradictory that the United States claimed itself as a champion of Democratic principles when it was failing to practice them at home. Third, there was the psychological impact on the relationship between non-Japanese and Japanese Americans because of the two significant events in the World War II: 1. the heroic involvement of Nissei soldiers in the war to prove their loyalty to their nation and 2. the internment of Japanese Americans in 1942, over which many Americans, if not all, wished that it had never happened.[21] Finally, there was the postwar unprecedented economic boom. While the war completely wiped out the economic power of Europe and Japan, US economy remained intact. In fact, it was boosted by the war economy and dominated the postwar world market. It doubled its GNP (growth national product) between 1945 and 1960.
Although there is no measurement to see what degree and how precisely each of these changes contributed to opening up opportunities for Japanese Americans, Japanese Americans found the postwar society far less anti-ethnic and more opportunistic in terms of job and social life. Taking advantage of those opportunities, they achieved quick and smooth assimilation.
As seen in the migration of 20,000 Japanese Americans to Chicago, when the war ended, many of Japanese Americans from the camps moved into the urban cities in the north or the northeast, instead of going back to the West Coast. Today, most Japanese Americans live in Caucasian neighborhoods.[22] They have moved up the corporate ladder by getting into more technical and professional jobs. Also in their social life, they are no longer isolated, finding themselves in the midst of the mainstream of US society. They have become American middle class. Today, nearly 60 percent of Japanese Americans marry Caucasians.[23]
This “structural” assimilation has not been possible, however, by the mere changes of circumstantial conditions alone. As mentioned at the outset of this paper, one has to answer why Japanese Americans have been so successfully assimilated while the other ethic minorities have either failed or far less successfully assimilated. The postwar US society became opportunistic not only to Japanese Americans but also more or less equally to the other ethnic groups.
An answer to the question, once again, is found in one unique characteristic of Japanese culture. That is the relativistic ethic in Japanese culture. David J. O’Brien and Stephen S. Fugita call it “cultural relativism” (duel culture).[24] According to their definition, cultural relativism is the adoption of a certain element of foreign culture into one’s own culture without losing the essence of its own culture. Then, since group orientation is the essence of Japanese culture, as O’Brien and Fugita point out, cultural relativism and group orientation are inseparable elements of Japanese ethnicity.
As already mentioned, the postwar assimilation of Japanese Americans was structural. They became part of the existing structure of US society. They were no longer living in their own community. When structural assimilation takes place, usually significant cultural adjustment has to be made on the side of the subject group. But because of cultural relativism, this adjustment has been smooth for Japanese Americans to deal with, not having much trouble in adapting themselves to the new cultural traits of the middle or upper class of US society without losing their group identity. They did not experience agonizing feeling, which most of the other ethnic groups did, particularly European ethnic groups to whom structural assimilation was “zero-sum game.”[25] It was either being assimilated by leaving their old cultural ethnicity completely behind or not being assimilated at all.
One may wonder why Japanese Americans are so persistent about their group identity after they have been so successfully assimilated into US society. The answer is rather simple. They are not “white.” Here, the word, “white,” does not necessarily mean just in a physical sense but more importantly in a cultural sense. Each group, either white Americans or Japanese Americans, has its own cultural heritage. Whether Japanese Americans are Sanssei (third generation) or Yonssei (fourth generation), it does not really matter. They cannot separate themselves from their cultural heritage. In fact, being a minority, it is easier for Japanese Americans to have a stronger sense of their cultural identity than whites in America or even the Japanese in Japan. The fact that they are minority is a constant reminder of their ethnic identity. Furthermore, the postwar assimilation has not set Japanese Americans completely free from prejudice and discrimination. They face no longer blatant but subtle discrimination.
That is why the Japanese associations, which were established in the prewar era for the purpose of aiding Japanese immigrants in their settlement struggle, mainly in an economic manner, did not die out even when the postwar structural assimilation took place. They continue to exist for different purposes such as helping individuals in various matters such as legal disputes or assisting new immigrants in their adjustment in the United States.[26] But their far more important purpose is being a “medium” for keeping a strong connection between Japanese Americans and their cultural heritage.
Just like in the prewar era, today almost every Japanese American belongs to one or two Japanese associations. Among the numerous associations, the most prominent is the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL).[27] It was founded in 1928 mainly to assist the second generation of Japanese Americans (Nissei) in their effort of being accepted to their adopted nation.[28] In the postwar era, it has taken the leadership on various issues such as promoting political awareness of Japanese Americans. Particularly, in the issue of redress, they took an active role, which resulted in the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 for monetary compensation to the surviving Japanese Americans of the internment camps.[29]
The success of JACL in the redress issue has a couple of significant implications. First of all, it symbolizes how successfully Japanese Americans have been assimilated into the mainstream of US society. They are no longer a poor or powerless minority group but considered to be one of the most successful ethnic groups, often as a model ethnic group. Secondly, it symbolizes a “strong persistence” in their effort to keep their ethnicity.
From the above discussions, it is clear that the unique characteristics of Japanese culture and ethnicity remarkably helped Japanese Americans to have the successful postwar assimilation to the mainstream of US society. What is even more remarkable is that such assimilation took place while those characteristics of Japanese ethnicity were being kept almost intact.
While it is most likely that this cultural dualism will continue, because of the high percentage of inter-marriage of Japanese Americans, some scholars today cast doubt on the continuity of this cultural dualism. They believe that this increasingly high assimilation will eventually cost Japanese Americans their ethnicity. No one can deny that there will be some negative effect as seen in the fact that those Japanese Americans who have intermarriage tend to participate less in the ethnic organizations than those marry their own ethnic group. It is too early, however, to obtain sufficient data to make any firm assessment about such effect. Also According to O’Brien and Fugita, the level of participation of Japanese Americans who intermarry in their own ethnic organizations is much higher than that of most of the other ethnic groups. For example, it is ten times higher than that of Italian and Irish Americans.[30]
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Fugita, Stephen & David S. O’Brien. “Structural Assimilation, Ethnic Group Membership, and Political participation Among Japanese Americans: A Research Note.” Social Forces 63:986–995, June 1985.
Hatayama, Leslie T. Righting Wrong: Japanese Americans and the Passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993.
______________. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, pt 1 Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1975.
Hosokawa, Bill. JACL in Quest of Justice. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1982
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Luce, Henry R. “American Century.” Life 10:62–66, Jan–Feb,1941.
O’Brien, David J. & Fugita, Stephen S. The Japanese American Experience. Indiana: Indiana University Press Bloomington Press, 1991.
O’Brien, David J. & Fugita, Stephen S. Japanese American Ethnicity: The Persistence of Community. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991.
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Spickard, Paul R. Japanese Americans: The Formation and Transformations of An Ethnic Group. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996.
Takaki, Ronald. Difference Mirror: History of Multicultural America. Boston: Little Brown & Company, 1993.
Tamura, Eileen H. Americanization, Acculturation, and Ethnic Identity: The Nisei Generation in Hawaii. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994.
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[1]In a discussion of assimilation of Japanese Americans in the postwar era, there has to be a distinction between Japanese Americans in Hawaii and Japanese Americans in the mainland. One third of Hawaii population were Japanese Americans, while only fraction of the mainland population were Japanese Americans. This made a difference in terms of social, economic, and political conditions each group faced. There has to be a separate study to be made in this topic. The subject of this study is Japanese Americans in the mainland.
[2] Hilary Conroy & T. Scott Miyakawa, ed., East Across The Pacific (Santa Barbara: American Bibliographical Center Clio Press, 1972), p. 220.
[3] Paul R. Spickard, Japanese Americans: The Formation and Transformation of an Ethnic Group (New York: Twayne Publishers: An Imprint of Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1996), pp. 27–28.
[4] All these Acts made it illegal for Japanese immigrants to own land because of their ineligibility for citizenship. See Stephen S. Fugita & David J. O’Brien, Japanese American Ethnicity: The Persistence of Community (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991), P. 8.
[5] Stephen S. Fugita & David O’Brien, Japanese American Ethnicity: The Persistence of Community (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972), p. 22.
[6]One of the reasons for the internment was that the loyalty of Japanese Americans was questionable because of their unassimilability to US society. See US Select Committee Investigation on National Defense Migration, 77th Cong., 2nd Sess., (Washington D.C.: House of Representative, 1942), p. 10974.
[7]Roger Daniels, Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), P. 17.
[8]The economic success of Japanese Immigrants was one of the key factors for anti-Japanese mood on the West Coast.
[9]Paul R. Spickard, Japanese Americans: The Formation and Transformations of An Ethnic Group (New York: Twayne Publishers: An Imprint of Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1996), p. 15.
[10]Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970,” pt. 1. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1975), pp. 379–80.
[11]The Japanese government put stricter qualification for obtaining a passport in order to control immigration.
[12]David O’Brien & Stephen S. Fugita, The Japanese American Experience (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), P. 7.
[13]Eiichiro Ishida, Japanese Culture: A Study of Origins and Characteristics (Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii, 1974), pp. 90–91.
[14]“In 1915, 82 percent of California Issei farmers were farmhands, and only 18 percent were owners or managers.” See Paul R. Spickard, Japanese Americans: The Formation and Transformations of an Ethnic Group (New York: Twayne Publishers: An Imprint of Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1996), p. 37.
[15]Paul R. Spickard, Japanese Americans: The Formation and Transformations of an Ethnic Group (New York: Twayne Publishers: An Imprint of Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1996), p. 38.
[16]Paul R. Spickard, Japanese Americans, p. 38.
[17]David J. O’Brien & Stephen S. Fugita, The Japanese American Experience (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), p. 27.
[18]Kazuo Yagami, “The US-Japan Trade Friction: Is Japan Really A Protectionist As Claimed By Japan Bashers?” Graduate Thesis Florida State University, pp. 23–24.
[19] According to Ronald Takaki, the Japanese painfully discovered that their accomplishments in America did not lead to acceptance. See Ronald Takaki, Different Mirror: History of Multicultural America (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1993), p. 8.
[20]See Henry R. Luce, “American Century,” Life 10: 62–66, Jan–Feb 1941.
[21] Daniel K. Inouye, Journey to Washington (New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967), p. 85.
[22]Stephen S. Fugita & David J. O’Brien, “Structural Assimilation, Ethnic Group Membership, and Political Participation Among Japanese Americans: A Research Note,” Social Force 63:4, June, 1985, p. 26.
[23]Stephen S. Fugita & David J. O’Brien, “Structural Assimilation, Ethnic Group Membership, and Political Participation Among Japanese Americans,” p. 26.
[24] David J. O’Brien & Stephen S. Fugita, The Japanese American Experience (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1991), p. 93.
[25]David J. O’Brien & Stephen S. Fugita, Japanese American Experience, p. 93.
[26]The immigration legislation of 1954 opened up Japanese immigration in the postwar. See Harry H. Kitano, Japanese Americans: The Evolution of a Subculture (New Jersey: Prentice, Inc., 1969), p. 131.
[27]See Bill Hosokawa, JACL in Quest of Justice (New York: William Morrow and Company, inc., 1982). It provides an excellent account about JACL.
[28]Paul R. Spickard, Japanese American: The formation and Transformation (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996). pp. 90–92.
[29]Leslie T. Hatayama, Righting Wrong: Japanese Americans and the Passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), p. 191.
[30] David J. O’Brien & Stephen S. Fugita, The Japanese American Experience (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), pp. 124–126.