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==History== The experience of emigrants is inevitably affected by a range of factors directly related to the Japanese society they left behind. As immigrants, the conflicts between the old country and the new played out in unique ways for each individual, and yet common elements do begin to appear in the history of the Japanese Canadian and Japanese American communities. ===Emigrants from Japan=== Japan was a closed country for more than two centuries, 1636 to 1853, since military rulers from the [[Tokugawa shogunate|Tokugawa]] family wanted to keep foreigners away from Japanese society.<ref>Spickard, Paul R. (1997). ''Japanese Americans: The Formation and Transformations of an Ethnic Group,'' p. 7.</ref> The only exceptions were Chinese and some [[Dutch (ethnic group)|Dutch]], but even they were discouraged from associating with Japanese [[Citizenship|citizens]]. Also, it was strictly prohibited by law for ordinary Japanese citizens to go abroad. Change came around the early 19th century when the visit of an American fleet commanded by [[Matthew C. Perry|Commodore Perry]] caused the new Japanese government to replace the Tokugawa system of economics and politics during the [[Meiji era]] to open its door to trade and contact with the outside world. After 1866, the new Japanese government decided to send students and laborers to the U.S. to bring back the knowledge and experience necessary for the nation to grow strong.<ref name="tamuraxxxvii">Tamura, Linda. (1998). [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ju-xQV-gGIMC&q=issei ''The Hood River Issei: An Oral History of Japanese Settlers in Oregon's Hood River Valley,'' p. xxxvii.]</ref> After 1884, emigration of working classes was permitted; and the first issei began to arrive in North and South America soon after. For example, in 1890, only 25 Issei lived in Oregon. By 1891, 1,000 Japanese lived in Oregon. In 1900, 2,051 Japanese had come to live in Oregon.<ref name="tamuraxxxvii"/> By 1915, Japanese men with savings of $800 were considered eligible to summon wives from Japan.<ref>Tamura, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ju-xQV-gGIMC&q=issei p. xxxviii.]</ref> ===Immigrants in America=== {{main|History of Japanese Americans|Japanese-American life before World War II|Japanese-American life after World War II}} Few Japanese workers came to North America intending to become immigrants. Initially, most of them came with vague plans for gaining new experiences and for making some money before returning to homes in Japan. This group of workers was overwhelmingly male. Many ''Issei'' arrived as laborers. They worked in employment sectors such as agriculture, mining, and railroad construction. The Issei were born in Japan, and their cultural perspective was primarily Japanese; but they were in America by choice. Despite a certain nostalgia for the old country, they had created homes in a country far from Japan. If they had not been prohibited from becoming citizens, many would have become citizens of the United States.<ref>Yenne, Bill. (2007). [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ok3JZw28xhEC&dq=issei&pg=PA12 ''Rising Sons: The Japanese American GIs Who Fought for the United States in World War II,'' p. xv.]</ref> In 1913, California's Alien Land Law prohibited non-citizens from owning land in the state, and several other states soon after passed their own restrictive [[alien land laws]]. This included the ''Issei'', Japanese residents born in Japan, but not their children, the Nisei, who were born in United States or Hawaii, and who therefore were American citizens by birth. Many of the Issei responded to the law by transferring title to their land to their ''Nisei'' children.<ref>Yenne, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ok3JZw28xhEC&dq=issei&pg=PA12 p. 12.]</ref> ===Americans' first impression of Issei=== Americans generally viewed the ''Issei'' as a crude, ill-educated lot.<ref>Spickard, p. 15.</ref> Possible reasons for this may be the fact that most Japanese were forced to work in menial jobs in the U.S., such as farming. Many Issei were in fact better educated than either the Japanese or American public. Sixty percent had completed middle school, and 21 percent were high school graduates. {{citation needed|reason=No citation is given for Issei being well-educated, the numbers on their education.|date=August 2018}} Whether Christian, Buddhists, or nonbelievers, the ''Issei'' almost never caused trouble in the civil authority. The arrest rate for the ''Issei'' from 1902 to the 1960s was relatively lower than for any other major ethnic group in California.<ref>Spickard, p. 57.</ref> The only exceptions were that some young ''Issei'' committed crimes relating to gambling and prostitution{{citation needed|date=August 2018}}, which stemmed from different cultural morals in Japan. ===Racial segregation and immigration law=== {{main|Anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States}} The post-1900 cause to renew the [[Chinese Exclusion Act (United States)|Chinese Exclusion Act]] became generalized protests against all [[Asian people|Asian]] immigrants, including the Issei.<ref>Mercier, Laurie ''et al.'' [http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/crbeha/ja/ja.htm "Historical overview,"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080513165141/http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/crbeha/ja/ja.htm |date=13 May 2008 }} ''Japanese Americans in the Columbia River Basin,'' Washington State University web project.</ref> Since Chinese immigration to the U.S. was largely limited, hostility fell on the ''Issei.'' American labor organizations took an initiative in spreading [[anti-Japanese sentiment]]. [[White American]]s wanted to exclude them since they did not want any Asians to take their jobs away. As a result, they formed the [[Asiatic Exclusion League]] that viewed Japanese and Chinese as a threat of American workers. The protest of the league involved picketing and beatings of the Issei. In October 1906, amid this anti-Japanese milieu, the San Francisco School Board, carrying out a campaign promise of the mayor, ordered all Japanese and Korean pupils to join the Chinese students at a [[Racial segregation|segregated]] school.<ref name=densho>{{citation| last=Densho and The Board of Trustees of The Leland Stanford Junior University| title=Reading: The Issei immigrants and Civil Rights| url=http://www.densho.org/learning/spice/lesson2/2reading2.asp| access-date=25 April 2008| url-status=dead| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080417110939/http://www.densho.org/learning/spice/lesson2/2reading2.asp| archive-date=17 April 2008}}</ref> The ''Issei'' were displeased with the situation and some reported to Japanese newspapers. This caused the Japanese government to protest against the former president, [[Theodore Roosevelt]], and as a result, they signed the [[Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907]]. This agreement led the period of settling and family building to come. By 1911, almost half of the Japanese immigrants were women who landed in the U.S. to reunite with their husbands. After the Gentleman's agreement, a number of ''Nisei'', the second-generation Japanese, were born in California. Yet, it did not stop some white Americans from segregating Japanese immigrants. The ''Issei'' were a role model of American citizens by being hardworking, law-abiding, devoted to family and the community. However, some Americans did not want to admit the virtues of the ''Issei.'' The [[Immigration Act of 1924]] represented the Issei's failed struggle against the segregation. The experiences of the Issei extend from well before the period before 1 July 1924, when the Japanese Exclusion Act came into effect.<ref>Kirmura, Yukiko. (1988). [http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED344810&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED344810 ''Issei: Japanese Immigrants in Hawaii,'' (abstract).]</ref> The ''Issei,'' however, were very good at enhancing rice farming on "unusable" land. Japanese Californian farmers made rice a major crop of the state. The largest ''Issei'' community settled around [[Vacaville, California]], near San Francisco. ===Internment=== {{main|Japanese Canadian internment|Internment of Japanese Americans|Japanese Peruvian#World War II}} When the Canadian and American governments interned West Coast Japanese in 1942, neither distinguished between those who were citizens (''Nisei'') and their non-citizen parents (''Issei'').<ref>Dinnerstein, Leonard ''et al.'' (1999). [https://books.google.com/books?id=cOFDhehJ68gC&q=Ethnic+Americans ''Ethnic Americans: A History of Immigration,'' p. 181.]</ref> When the apology and redress for injustices were enacted by the American Congress and the Canadian Parliament in 1988, most of the ''Issei'' were dead, or too old for it to make any significant difference in lives that had been disrupted.
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