Essay On Japanese Immigration

Japanese Immigration to the United States

Japanese immigration began in the United States in 1800s. Thousands of Japanese workers helped construct the Great Northern, Northern Pacific, Oregon Short Line and other railroads in the Columbia River Basin. By 1907, the Japanese made up approximately 40 percent of Oregon’s total labor force. These workers began demanding a higher wage as workers began competing for their labor. Japanese in large cities like Portland providing housing, restaurants, stores and employment for incoming immigrants. One Japanese American, Shintaro Takaki came to Portland to sell immigrants stuff and by 1889 had opened a restaurant. He became a labor contractor giving immigrants employment like fishing, jobs in canneries,

Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 ordering all Japanese Americans to evacuate the West Coast. The outcome of this resulted in the relocation of approximately 120,000 people, most being American citizens being sent to one of the ten internment camps located across the country. American born children were allowed authority against those who weren’t American. Some Japanese American citizens were allowed to return to the West Coast beginning in 1945, the last camp closed in the March of 1946. The relocation of the Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II was said to be “one of the most flagrant violations of civil liberties in American history”. According to an official survey of 1940 approximately 127,000 people of Japanese ancestry lived in the United States, the majority of which living on the West Coast and a third being born in Japan. Some of these people could not own land, become American citizens or vote. After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, rumors started to spread which was fueled by race discrimination, of a plot among Japanese Americans to sabotage the war effort. In the early 1942, the Roosevelt administration was pressured to remove Japanese people from the West Coast by seeking to eliminate Japanese competition, politicians hoping to gain something for standing against an unpopular group and military