Summary

In the early twentieth century, Japanese elites in the US believed that loyalty to their native land could best be demonstrated by adhering to American normative cultural practices. This counterintuitive stance was born of frustration at their inability to use cultural capital amassed in their homeland in the face of American ‘yellow peril’ sentiment, the hostility towards welcoming Japanese immigrants of an elite class or otherwise. The solution to this conundrum, according to the Japanese Association of America (JAA), was to increase the standing of Japanese emigrants collectively. To achieve this, they implemented a series of reform campaigns aimed at subduing vice and presenting a more acceptable community appearance for American consumption. These measures were overwhelmingly aimed at unskilled workers and were inseparable from Japanese feelings towards the native land. The JAA constructed a public discourse about ‘home’ which maintained that emigrants could be most valuable to Japan, and therefore most loyal, by remaining in the US and living as model residents rather than returning to the homeland with earnings accumulated from working abroad. In this way, engaging with the concept of Japan as ‘home’ while living in the US became a proxy for return migration, as well as an expression of love for Japan.

Introduction

As with other ‘poor, tired, huddled masses’ drawn to American shores in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many unskilled Japanese labourers arriving between the years 1890-1924 came as economically motivated sojourners. Yet, many of these immigrants ultimately decided to settle permanently in the US, and in doing so laid down roots for the tenacious Japanese-American population that would develop in subsequent generations. This chapter seeks to identify influences within the Japanese minority communities, which contributed to the rejection of return migration as well as the ways in which Japanese in the US engaged with the concept of ‘home.’

Central to this study is a group of elites known as the Japanese Association of America (JAA), who were greatly frustrated with the ill treatment of Japanese patriots in the US. This group fervently believed that the problem could be mitigated by altering the behaviour of the Japanese immigrant population; to this end, they mobilized their influence within communities to curb what they considered immoral activities, promote permanent settlement over return migration, and to push for cultural assimilation along American cultural normative lines.