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The English-Only Effort, the Anti-Japanese Campaign, and Language Acquisition in the Education of Japanese Americans in Hawaii, 1915–40

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Eileen H. Tamura*
Affiliation:
Curriculum Research and Development Group, College of Education, University of Hawaii Manoa

Extract

The English-only effort was an integral part of the Americanization crusade that swept the nation during and after World War I. Underlying the crusade was the doctrine of Anglo-Saxon superiority—the conviction that American traits derived from the English, and that the future of American democracy depended upon the survival of the English language and the dominance of the Anglo-Saxon “race.”

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 by the History of Education Society 

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References

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6 Ibid., 49–53. Anxieties lessened because locally a 1920 sugar strike failed and the territorial legislature enacted laws to control foreign language schools and newspapers; nationally the Supreme Court, in a case involving Takao Ozawa, ruled in 1922 that Japanese aliens could not become American citizens, and Congress in 1924 passed an immigration law that excluded Japanese immigrants; and internationally Japan accepted a ratio of naval tonnage, worked out at the Washington Conference, that made it a secondary naval power.Google Scholar

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21 Among those who concluded that language schools interfered with learning English were Ross W. Bachman, “The Reading Program of a Small, Rural, Elementary School” (M.A. thesis, University of Hawaii, 1938), 203; Charles B. Barrett, “The Mathematical Achievement of Eighth Grade Pupils from the Standpoint of Racial Ancestry” (M.A. thesis, University of Hawaii, 1939), 73; Arthur L. Harris, “Reading Ability of Maui High School Students” (M.A. thesis, University of Hawaii, 1935), 61; and Madorah E. Smith, “The Direction of Reading and the Effect of Foreign Language School Attendance on Learning to Read,” Journal of Genetic Psychology 40 (June 1932): 422–51. Among those who concluded that language schools did not interfere with learning English were Percival M. Symonds, “The Effect of Attendance at Chinese Language Schools on Ability with the English Language,” Journal of Applied Psychology 8 (Dec. 1924): 411–23; Helen Marion Lewis, “A Study of the Speech Attitudes of the University of Hawaii Freshmen” (M.A. thesis, University of Hawaii, 1949), 8–9,34–35, 49; Reginald Bell, Public School Education of Second-Generation Japanese in California (Stanford, Calif., 1935), 98–103.Google Scholar

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