The Japanese American Incarceration: A Case For Redress

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Despite such barriers, there were more opportunities in California than in poverty-stricken China, and more Chinese immigrants arrived. But with the much larger influx of white immigrants
from Eastern states and Europe, the proportion of Chinese persons
in California dropped to 10% of the population.
Big business recruited Chinese workers for menial labor, but
white labor unions agitated for the removal of all Chinese persons
from California. The rallying cry for white labor leaders became:
"The Chinese must go!" White elected officials soon joined the
exclusion movement and pressured the federal government to stop
immigration from China. In response to the California lobby, Congress passed a series of Chinese Exclusion Acts beginning in 1882.
The California pressure groups won their first campaign to exclude
an Asian minority.
JAPANESE ARRIVE
As the Chinese population rapidly declined due to the lack of
women and the men returning to China, an acute labor shortage
developed in the Western states and the Territory of Hawaii in the
1880s. The agricultural industry wanted another group of laborers
who would do the menial work at low wages, and looked to
Japan as a new source. At that time, however, Japan prohibited
laborers from leaving the country. The United States pressured
Japan to relax the ban on labor emigration, and Japan consequently allowed laborers to leave in 1884.
The American agricultural industry recruited Japanese laborers
to work in the sugar cane fields of Hawaii, and the fruits and vegetable farms of California. From the handful who were here prior to
the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Japanese population increased to
about 61,000 in Hawaii and 24,000 on the mainland by 1900. The
Japanese replaced the Chinese as the largest non-white ethnic
group in the West Coast and Hawaii.
As long as the Japanese remained docile, their hard labor was
welcomed, but as soon as they showed signs of initiative they
were perceived as threats to white dominance. Japanese farm
laborers, together with Mexican farm laborers, conducted the first
successful agricultural strike in California in 1903. Japanese farm
laborers were well organized and engaged in collective bargaining for higher wages: many saved enough money to lease or buy
land.
The Japanese farmers reclaimed much of the unwanted land
and developed it into rich agricultural areas. In California, Japanese farmers produced 50—90% of some fruits and vegetables
despite operating only 4% of the farmlands. Envy led to hate, and
the prevailing anti-Asian animosities became focused on the Japanese.
The anti-Japanese campaign began with acts of violence and
lawlessness: mob assaults, arson, and forcible expulsion from
farming areas became commonplace. Soon these prejudices became institutionized into law. As with the earlier Chinese pioneers, the Japanese were also denied citizenship, prohibited from
certain occupations, forced to send their children to segregated
schools, and could not marry whites. In addition, some laws were,
specifically directed against the Japanese, including the denial of
the right to own, lease, or give gifts of agricultural land.
Like the Chinese exclusion movement before, California lobbied
the federal government to stop all immigration from Japan. As a
result of these pressures, Japanese laborers were excluded by executive action in 1907, and all Japanese immigration for permanent residence was prohibited by the Asian Exclusion Act of 1924.
Japan considered the Exclusion Act a national insult, particularly
since the United States had insisted upon Japanese immigration in
the first place. President Theodore Roosevelt once remarked: "The
infernal fools in California insult the Japanese recklessly and in the
event of war it will be the nation as a whole which will pay the
consequences."
To the dismay of the exclusionists, the Japanese population did
not quickly decrease as the Chinese population did earlier. There
were sufficient numbers of Japanese women pioneers who gave