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Japanese-Americans

Japanese Americans (日系米国人 Nikkei Beikokujin) are American people of Japanese heritage. Japanese Americans have historically been among the three largest Asian American communities, but in recent decades have become the sixth largest group at roughly 1,204,205, including those of mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity. […] Each year, about 7,000 new Japanese immigrants enter United States ports, making up about 4% of immigration from Asia

Cultural Profile

Generations

The nomenclature for each of their generations who are citizens or long-term residents of countries other than Japan, used by Japanese Americans and other nationals of Japanese descent are explained here; they are formed by combining one of the Japanese numbers corresponding to the generation with the Japanese word for generation (sei 世). The Japanese-American communities have themselves distinguished their members with terms like Issei, Nisei, and Sansei which describe the first, second and third generation of immigrants. The fourth generation is called Yonsei (四世) and the fifth is called Gosei (五世). The term Nikkei (日系) was coined by Japanese American sociologists and encompasses Japanese immigrants in all countries and of all generations.

Generation	Summary
Issei (一世)	The generation of people born in Japan who later immigrated to another country.
Nisei (二世)	The generation of people born in North America, Latin America, Hawaii, or any country outside of Japan either to at least one Issei or one non-immigrant Japanese parent.
Sansei (三世)	The generation of people born in North America, Latin America, Hawaii, or any country outside of Japan to at least one Nisei parent.
Yonsei (四世)	The generation of people born in North America, Latin America, Hawaii, or any country outside of Japan to at least one Sansei parent.
Gosei (五世)	The generation of people born in North America, Latin America, Hawaii, or any country outside of Japan to at least one Yonsei parent.

Languages

Issei and many Nisei speak Japanese in addition to English as a second language. In general, later generations of Japanese Americans speak English as their first language, though some do learn Japanese later as a second language. InHawaii however, where Nisei are about one-fifth of the whole population, Japanese is a major language, spoken and studied by many of the state’s residents across ethnicities. […] To show their allegiance to the U.S., many Nisei and Sansei intentionally avoided learning Japanese. But as many of the later generations find their identities in both Japan and America, studying Japanese is becoming more popular than it once was.

Religion

Japanese Americans practice a wide range of religions, including Mahayana Buddhism (Jodo Shinshu, Jodo Shu, Nichiren, Shingon and Zen forms being most prominent) their majority faith, Shinto, and Christianity. In many ways, due to the longstanding nature of Buddhist and Shinto practices in Japanese society, many of the cultural values and traditions commonly associated with Japanese tradition have been strongly influenced by these religious forms. […] It should be noted however, that a reasonable number of Japanese people both in and out of Japan are secular as Shinto and Buddhism is most often practiced by rituals such as marriages or funerals, and not through faithful worship, as defines religion for many Americans.

Celebrations

Japanese American celebrations tend to be more sectarian in nature and focus on the community-sharing aspects. An important annual festival for Japanese Americans is the Obon Festival, which happens in July or August of each year. Across the country, Japanese Americans gather on fair grounds, churches and large civic parking lots and commemorate the memory of their ancestors and their families through folk dances and food. Carnival booths are usually set up so Japanese American children have the opportunity to play together.

History

Main Article: Japanese-American History

Although Japanese castaways such as Oguri Jukichi[4] and Otokichi[5] are known to have reached the Americas by at least the early 19th century, the history of Japanese Americans begins in the mid nineteenth century.

• 1841, June 27 Captain Whitfield, commanding a New England sailing vessel, rescues five shipwrecked Japanese sailors. Four disembark at Honolulu, however Manjiro Nakahama stays on board returning with Whitfield to Fairhaven,Massachusetts. After attending school in New England and adopting the name John Manjiro, he later became an interpreter for Commodore Matthew Perry.
• 1850. Seventeen survivors of a Japanese shipwreck are saved by the American freighter Auckland off the coast of California. In 1852, the group is sent to Macau to join Commodore Matthew C. Perry as a gesture to help open diplomatic relations with Japan. One of them, Joseph Heco (Hikozo Hamada), goes on to become the first Japanese person to become a naturalized American citizen.
• 1869: A group of Japanese people arrive at Gold Hills, California and build the Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Colony. Okei becomes the first recorded Japanese woman to die and be buried in the United States.
• 1893: The San Francisco Board of Education attempts to introduce segregation for Japanese American children, but withdraws the measure following protests by the Japanese government.
• 1902: Yone Noguchi publishes The American Diary of a Japanese Girl, the first Japanese American novel.
• 1906: The San Francisco Board of Education successfully implements segregation for Asian students in public schools.[citation needed
• 1908: Japanese “picture brides” enter the United States.
• 1913: The California Alien Land Law of 1913 bans Japanese from purchasing land; whites threatened by Japanese success in independent farming ventures.
• 1930s: Issei become economically stable for the first time in California and Hawaiʻi.
• 1941: Attack on Pearl Harbor: Japanese forces attack the United States Navy base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu. Japanese community leaders are arrested and detained by federal authorities.
• 1942: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 on February 19, beginning Japanese-American internment. Over the course of the war, approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived on theWest Coast of the United States are uprooted from their homes and interned.
• 1943: Japanese American soldiers from Hawaiʻi join the 100th Infantry Battalion of the United States Army. The battalion fights in Europe.
• 1944: Ben Kuroki became the only Japanese-American in the U.S. Army Air Force to serve in combat operations in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II.
• 1945: By war’s end, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team is awarded 18,143 decorations, including 9,486 Purple Hearts, becoming the most decorated military unit in United States history.
• 1959: Daniel K. Inouye is elected to the United States House of Representatives, becoming becomes the first Japanese American to serve in Congress.
• 1962: Minoru Yamasaki is awarded the contract to design the World Trade Center, becoming the first Japanese American architect to design a supertall skyscraper in the United States.
• 1963: Daniel K. Inouye becomes the first Japanese American in the United States Senate.
• 1965: Patsy T. Mink becomes the first woman of color in Congress.
• 1971: Norman Y. Mineta is elected mayor of San Jose, California, becoming the first Asian American mayor of a major U.S. city.
• 1972: Robert A. Nakamura produces Manzanar, the first personal documentary about internment.
• 1978: Ellison S. Onizuka becomes the first Asian American astronaut. Onizuka was one of the seven astronauts to die in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986.
• 1983: The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians reports that Japanese-American internment was not justified by military necessity and that internment was based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” The Commission recommends an official Government apology; redress payments of $20,000 to each of the survivors; and a public education fund to help ensure that this would not happen again.
• 1988: President Ronald Reagan signs the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, apologizing for Japanese-American internment and providing reparations of $20,000 to each victim.
• 1994: Mazie K. Hirono is elected Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii, becoming the first Japanese immigrant elected state lieutenant governor of a state. Hirono later is elected in the U.S. House of Representatives.
• 1998: Chris Tashima becomes the first U.S.-born Japanese American actor to win an Academy Award for his role in the film Visas and Virtue.
• 2010: Daniel K. Inouye becomes the highest ranking Asian American politician in U.S. history when he succeeds Robert Byrd as President pro tempore of the United States Senate.

Internment

Main article: Japanese-American Internment

During World War II, an estimated 120,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese residing in the United States were forcibly interned in ten different camps across the US, mostly in the west. The internments were based on the race or ancestry rather than activities of the interned. Families, including children, were interned together. Each member of the family was allowed to bring two suitcases of their belongings. Each family, regardless of its size, was given one room to live in. The camps were fenced in and patrolled by armed guards.

For the most part, the internees remained in the camps until the end of the war, when they left the camps to rebuild their lives. Several Japanese Americans began lawsuits against the U.S. government for wrongful internment, which culminated, decades later, in the 1980s, in official apologies and reparations of over $1.2 billion. Because many of the internees were no longer alive to receive those reparations, the money was paid to their heirs. To commemorate the life of Fred Korematsu, a civil rights activist, most known for the United States Supreme Court case, Korematsu v. United States (1944), which challenged the order sending Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II, the “Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution” was observed for first time on January 30, 2011, by the state of California, and first such commemoration for an Asian American in the US.[6][7][8]

Farming

Japanese Americans have made significant contributions to the agriculture of the western United States, particularly in California and Hawaii. Nineteenth century Japanese immigrants introduced sophisticated irrigation methods that enabled the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, and flowers on previously marginal lands.

While the Issei (1st generation Japanese Americans) prospered in the early 20th century, most lost their farms during the internment. Although this was the case, Japanese Americans remain involved in these industries today, particularly in southern California and to some extent, Arizona by the areas’ year-round agricultural economy, and descendants of Japanese pickers who adapted farming in Oregon and Washington state.

Japanese American detainees irrigated and cultivated lands near World War II internment camps, which were located in desolate spots such as Poston, in the Arizona desert, and Tule Lake, California, at a dry mountain lake bed. Due to their tenacious efforts, these farm lands remain productive today.