Japanese immigration in USA before WWII

STANFORD UNIVERSITY THE JAPANESE QUESTION: SAN …

The Rise of Anti-Japanese Sentiment and School Segregation in San
Francisco
“The Gentlemen’s Agreements illustrate the corrosive effects of racism
and discrimination on both foreign and domestic policy and support the arguments
of some legal scholars that racial bias has long affected American immigration and
naturalization rules.
It is not clear, however, that he thought the Japanese were “the wrong sort.” His
notion of the “right sort” and “wrong sort” of immigrant was tied to character and
motivation, and reflective of his own concepts of rugged individualism. Thus, he
argued that we should not “discriminate for or against any man who desires to come
here and become a citizen, save on the ground of that man’s fitness for
citizenship.”74) The nation had a “right and duty to consider his moral and social
quality,”75) but Roosevelt asserted that the nation should:
Pay no heed to whether he is of one creed or another, of one nation,
or another. We cannot afford to consider whether he is Catholic or
Protestant, Jew or Gentile; whether he is Englishman or Irishman,
Frenchman or German, Japanese, Italian, Scandinavian, Slav, or
Magyar.76)
Roosevelt then went on, at some length, to explain why the “questions arising in
connection with Chinese immigration stand by themselves.”77) He endorsed “the
policy of excluding Chinese laborers, Chinese coolies,” but declared that “Chinese
students, business and professional men of all kinds” including “merchants” and
“bankers, doctors, manufacturers, professors, travelers, and the like—should be
encouraged to come here.”78) Thus it seems that the President favored an
immigration policy based on class and moral stature rather than race. Significantly,
he listed the Japanese along with Europeans as the kind of people who should be
allowed into the nation and only singled out the Chinese for special consideration.
Interning Japanese
However, in 1941-42 Japanese-Americans were politically weak and
economically vulnerable. When the war began, California’s leaders defended the
loyalty of the much larger Italian-American community in California and
elsewhere, and successfully opposed interning Italian nationals – such as the
parents of Joe DiMaggio who lived in San Francisco but had never bothered to
learn much English or become citizens. Similarly, no one considered incarcerating
the Italian-American mayor of New York, Fiorello LaGuardia, or his counterpart in
San Francisco, Angelo J. Rossi.137) Nor did anyone imagine the government should
monitor such German-Americans as General Dwight D. Eisenhower or Admiral
Chester A. Nimitz. But, reaching back to a long tradition of hostility to the Japanese
in California, the Congressional delegation from that state was able to push through
legislation that led to the internment of some 120,000 elderly Japanese aliens and
their American born children, who were citizens of the nation.”

Real Americans, Please Stand Up

“I had a 6th grade teacher who referred to American Indians as “sneaky redskins” and our enemies in the Pacific as “dirty Japs.” This abated somewhat after I asked one day in class, “Mrs. G., do you think our parents would like to know that you teach race prejudice?” She faded three shades.”

“I remain amazed and really, sincerely, want to understand this. What can it be that is faulty in so many people’s thought processes, their ethics, their education, their experience of life, their understanding of their country, their what-have-you that blinds them to the fact that you can’t simultaneously maintain that you have nothing against members of any religion but are willing to penalize members of this one? Can you help me with this?

Set aside for the moment that we are handing such a lethal propaganda grenade to our detractors around the world.

You can’t eat this particular cake and have it, too. The true calamity, of course, is that behavior of this kind allows the enemy to win.”