Editing Issei (section)

=== Generations ===
Japanese-Americans and Japanese-Canadians have specific names for each of their generations in North America. These are formed by combining one of the [[Japanese numbers]] corresponding to the [[generation]] with the Japanese word for {{nihongo|generation|世|sei}}. The Japanese-American and Japanese-Canadian communities have themselves distinguished their members with terms like {{transliteration|ja|issei}}, {{transliteration|ja|nisei}}, and {{transliteration|ja|sansei}}, which describe the first, second and third generation of immigrants.<ref name="IkawaFumiko" /> The fourth generation is called {{nihongo||四世|yonsei}} and the fifth is called {{nihongo||五世|gosei}}.

{{nihongo3|"first generation"|一世|'''Issei'''}} is a [[Japanese-language]] term used by ethnic Japanese in countries in North America and South America to specify the [[Japanese people]] who were the first generation to immigrate there.

Originally, as mentioned above, these words were themselves common nouns in Japan referred to [[generation]]s or [[reigns]]. So they are also still used in Japanese terms for [[personal names]], such as {{transliteration|ja|Erizabesu Nisei}} means Queen [[Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom|Elizabeth II]]. Within the ethnic Japanese immigrant community they had come to characterize their own generations.

The {{transliteration|ja|issei}}, {{transliteration|ja|nisei}}, and {{transliteration|ja|sansei}} generations reflect distinctly different attitudes to authority, gender, involvement with non-Japanese, religious belief and practice, and other matters.<ref>McLellan, [https://books.google.com/books?id=NMm024458s4C&dq=sansei+japanese+canadians&pg=PA66  p. 59.]</ref> The age when individuals faced the wartime evacuation and internment during World War II has been found to be the most significant factor that explains such variations in attitudes and behaviour patterns.<ref name="mclellan36"/>

The term {{nihongo||日系|[[Japanese diaspora|nikkei]]}} encompasses all of the world's Japanese immigrants across generations.<ref>[http://www.discovernikkei.org/en/what/ "What is Nikkei?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090503113652/http://www.discovernikkei.org/en/what/ |date=3 May 2009 }} Japanese American National Museum.</ref> The collective memory of the {{transliteration|ja|issei}} and older {{transliteration|ja|nisei}} was an image of [[Meiji Japan]] from 1870 through 1911. Newer immigrants carry very different memories of more recent Japan. These differing attitudes, social values and associations with Japan were often incompatible with each other.<ref name="mclellan37">McLellan, [https://books.google.com/books?id=NMm024458s4C&dq=sansei+japanese+canadians&pg=PA66  p. 37.]</ref> The significant differences in post-war experiences and opportunities did nothing to mitigate the gaps which separated generational perspectives.

{|class="wikitable "
! [[Generation]]!![[wikt:cohort|Cohort]] description
|-
|{{nihongo||一世|Issei}} || The generation of people born in Japan who later immigrated to another country.
|-
|{{nihongo||二世|Nisei}} ||The generation of people born in North America, Latin America, Australia, Hawaii, or any country outside Japan either to at least one {{transliteration|ja|issei}} or one non-immigrant Japanese parent.
|-
|{{nihongo||三世|Sansei}} ||The generation of people born to at least one {{transliteration|ja|nisei}} parent.
|-
|{{nihongo||四世|Yonsei}} || The generation of people born to at least one {{transliteration|ja|sansei}} parent.
|-
|{{nihongo||五世|Gosei}} || The generation of people born to at least one {{transliteration|ja|yonsei}} parent.<ref>Ikezoe-Halevi, Jean. [http://www.discovernikkei.org/en/journal/2006/10/31/voices-of-chicago/  "Voices of Chicago: Day of Remembrance 2006,"] ''Discover Nikkei'' (US). 31 October 2006.</ref>
|}

In North America, since the redress victory in 1988, a significant evolutionary change has occurred. The {{transliteration|ja|nisei}}, their parents and their children are changing the way they look at themselves and their pattern of accommodation to the non-Japanese majority.<ref>McLellan, [https://books.google.com/books?id=NMm024458s4C&dq=sansei+japanese+canadians&pg=PA66  p. 68.]</ref>

There are just over one hundred thousand [[Japanese community in the United Kingdom|British Japanese]], mostly in London. Unlike other {{transliteration|ja|[[Japanese diaspora|Nikkei]]}} communities in the world, these Britons do not identify themselves in such generational terms as {{transliteration|ja|issei}}, {{transliteration|ja|nisei}}, or {{transliteration|ja|sansei}}.<ref>Itoh, [https://books.google.com/books?id=VBijCPLvWyUC&dq=keiko+itoh++united+kingdom&pg=PA187  p. 7.]</ref>

====Issei====
The first generation of immigrants, born in Japan before emigrating, is called ''Issei'' (一世).  In the 1930s, the term ''Issei'' came into common use, replacing the term "immigrant" (''ijusha'').  This new term illustrated a changed way of looking at themselves.  The term ''Issei'' represented the idea of beginning, a psychological transformation relating to being settled, having a distinctive community, and the idea of belonging to the new country.<ref name="mclellan36"/>

''Issei'' settled in close ethnic communities, and therefore did not learn English. They endured great economic and social losses during the early years of [[World War II]], and they were unable to rebuild their lost businesses and savings. The external circumstances tended to reinforce the pattern of ''Issei'' being predominantly friends with other ''Issei.''<ref name="mclellan36"/>

Unlike their children, they tend to rely primarily on Japanese-language media (newspapers, television, movies), and in some senses, they tend to think of themselves as more Japanese than Canadian or American.<ref name="mclellan36"/>

====''Issei'' women====
''Issei'' women's lives were somewhat similar, despite differences in context, because they were structured within interlocking webs of patriarchal relationships, and that consistent subordination was experienced both as oppressive and as a source of happiness.<ref>Kobayashi, Audrey Lynn. [https://books.google.com/books?id=NzwjB4j0iZQC&dq=issei+japanese+canadians&pg=PA70  ''Women, Work and Place,'' p. xxxiii.]</ref> The ''Issei'' women lived lives of transition which were affected by three common factors: the dominant ideology of late ''Meiji'' Japan, which advanced the economic objectives of the Japanese state; the patriarchal traditions of the agricultural village, which arose partly as a form of adjustment to national objectives and the adjustment to changes imposed by modernization; and the constraints which arose within a Canadian or American society dominated by racist ideology.<ref>Kobayashi, [https://books.google.com/books?id=NzwjB4j0iZQC&dq=issei+japanese+canadians&pg=PA70  p. 45.]</ref> Substantive evidence of the working lives of ''Issei'' women is very difficult to find, partly for lack of data and partly because the data that do exist are influenced by their implicit ideological definition of women.<ref>Kobayashi, [https://books.google.com/books?id=NzwjB4j0iZQC&dq=issei+japanese+canadians&pg=PA70  p. 58.]</ref> In Hawai‘i, ''Issei'' women worked as washerwomen, midwives, and barbers, providing essential services to the growing immigrant population.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Nakamura |first=Kelli Y. |date=2015 |title=Issei Women and Work: Washerwomen, Prostitutes, Midwives, and Barbers |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/600879 |journal=Hawaiian Journal of History |volume=49 |issue=1 |pages=119–148 |doi=10.1353/hjh.2015.0011 |hdl=10524/56609 |issn=2169-7639|hdl-access=free }}</ref> ''Issei'' women were instrumental in fostering social cohesion and preserving Japanese culture through the establishment of community organizations. [[Shizue Iwatsuki]] founded the Japanese Women’s Society in Hood River, Oregon, which provided a vital social network for Japanese immigrant women while ensuring the continuation of cultural traditions.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Shizue Iwatsuki (1897–1984) |url=https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/iwatsuki_shizue_1897_1984_/ |access-date=2025-01-22 |website=www.oregonencyclopedia.org |language=en}}</ref> 

''Issei'' women divided their time between working and keeping house. Many described their lives as a constant cycle of labor, balancing agricultural work with domestic responsibilities. They frequently referred to their husbands as "Meiji men," describing them as embodying the patriarchal ideals of late Meiji Japan. These men often avoided household or childcare duties, leaving Issei women to shoulder most of the physical and emotional labor.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Takaki |first=Ronald |title=Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans, Updated and Revised Edition |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |year=1998 |isbn=978-0316831307}}</ref>

====Aging====
The ''[[kanreki]]'' (還暦), a traditional, pre-modern Japanese [[rite of passage]] to old age at 60, was sometimes celebrated by the ''Issei'' and is now being celebrated by increasing numbers of ''Nisei.'' Rituals are enactments of shared meanings, norms, and values; and this Japanese rite of passage highlights a collective response among the Nisei to the conventional dilemmas of growing older.<ref>Doi, Mary L. [https://doi.org/10.1007%2FBF00056753  "A Transformation of Ritual: The Nisei 60th Birthday."] ''Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology.'' Vol. 6, No. 2 (April 1991).</ref>

Japanese-American photographer [[Mary Koga]] documented elderly first generation immigrants in her ''Portrait of the Issei in Illinois'', taken between 1986 and 1989.<ref>{{citation |url=https://www.mocp.org/detail.php?type=related&kv=7320&t=people |title=Koga, Mary |website=Museum of Contemporary Photography |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150910084008/https://www.mocp.org/detail.php?type=related&kv=7320&t=people |archive-date=2015-09-10 |access-date=2024-05-10 }}</ref>