Japanese American

Japanese Americans
Ellison OnizukaPatsymink.jpgEric Shinseki
Norman MinetaSadao Munemori.jpgDaniel Inouye official photo.jpg
Total population

1,220,922
0.4% of the US population (2007)[1]
Regions with significant populations
West Coast, Hawaii, Northeast
Languages
American English, Japanese
Religion
Mahayana Buddhism, Shinto, Christianity

Japanese Americans (日系アメリカ人 Nikkei Amerikajin?) are Americans 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. In the 2000 census, the largest Japanese American communities were in California with 394,896, Hawaii with 296,674, Washington with 56,210, New York with 45,237, and Illinois with 27,702. Each year, about 7,000 new Japanese immigrants enter United States ports, making up about 4% of immigration from Asia; net migration, however, is significantly lower because some older Japanese Americans have been moving to Japan.

Contents

Cultural profile

Generations

Japanese Americans, Japanese Brazilians, Japanese Canadians, Japanese Mexicans, Japanese Peruvians, and other persons of Japanese descent have special names for each of their generations who are citizens or long-term residents of countries other than Japan. These 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 all of the world's Japanese immigrants across 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.

The kanreki (還暦), a pre-modern Japanese rite of passage to old age at 60, is now being celebrated by increasing numbers of Japanese-American Nisei. Rituals are enactments of shared meanings, norms, and values; and this traditional Japanese rite of passage highlights a collective response among the Nisei to the conventional dilemmas of growing older.[2]

Languages

See also: Japanese language education in the United States

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. In Hawaii 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. It is taught in private Japanese language schools as early as the second grade. As a courtesy to the large number of Japanese tourists (from Japan), Japanese subtexts are provided on place signs, public transportation, and civic facilities. The Hawaii media market has a few locally produced Japanese language newspapers and magazines, however these are on the verge of dying out, due to a lack of interest on the part of the local (Hawaii-born) Japanese population. Stores that cater to the tourist industry often have Japanese-speaking personnel. To show their allegiance to the U.S., many Niseis and Sanseis 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.

Education

Japanese American culture places great value on education. Across generations, parents tend to instill their children with a deep value for higher education. As a result of such cultural ambition, math and reading scores on standardized tests often exceed national averages. They fill gifted classrooms and have the largest showing of any ethnic group in nationwide Advanced Placement testing each year.

Most Japanese Americans obtain advanced college degrees. Japanese Americans once again face stereotyping as dominating the sciences in colleges and universities across the United States, while in reality, there is an equal distribution of Japanese Americans across academic disciplines in the arts and humanities in addition to the sciences.

Intermarriage

Before the 1960s, the trend of Japanese Americans marrying partners outside their racial or ethnic group was generally low, as well a great many traditional Issei parents encouraged Nisei to marry only within their ethnic/cultural group and arrangements to purchase and invite picture brides from Japan to relocate and marry Issei or Nisei males was commonplace.

In California and other western states until the end of World War II, there were attempts to make it illegal for Japanese and other Asian Americans to marry whites or Caucasians, but those laws were declared unconstitutional by the US supreme court, like the anti-miscegenation laws which prevented whites from marrying African-Americans in the 1960s.

According to a 1990 statistical survey by the Japan Society of America, the Sansei or third generations have an estimated 20 to 30 percent out-of-group marriage, while the 4th generation or Yonsei approaches nearly 50 percent. The rate for Japanese women to marry Caucasian and other Asian men is becoming more frequent, but lower rates for Hispanic and American Indian men (although the number of Cherokee Indians in California with Japanese ancestry is much reported), and with African-American men is even smaller.

During the WWII Internment era, the US Executive Order 9066 had an inclusion of orphaned infants with "one drop of Japanese blood" (as explained in a letter by one official) or the order stated anyone at least one eighth Japanese (descended from any intermarriage) lends credence to the argument that the measures were racially motivated, rather than a military necessity.

There were sizable numbers of Korean-Japanese, Chinese-Japanese, Filipino-Japanese, Mexican-Japanese, Native Hawaiian-Japanese and Cherokee-Japanese in California according to the 1940 US census who were eligible for internment as "Japanese" to indicate the first stage of widespread intermarriage of Japanese Americans, including those who passed as "white" or half-Asian/Caucasian.

Religion

Japanese Americans (commonly) practice a wide range of religions, including Mahayana Buddhism (Jodo Shinshu, Jodo Shu, Nichiren, and Zen forms being most prominent) which is the majority, 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.

A large number of the Japanese American community continue to practice Buddhism in some form, and a number of community traditions and festivals continue to center around Buddhist institutions. For example, one of the most popular community festivals is the annual Obon Festival, which occurs in the summer, and provides an opportunity to reconnect with their customs and traditions and to pass these traditions and customs to the young. These kinds of festivals are most popular in communities with large populations of Japanese Americans, such as in southern California or Hawaiʻi. It should be noted however, that many 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.

For Japanese American Christians, the church is one of the most important cultural foundations. In California, Hawaiʻi and Washington, congregations can be composed entirely of Japanese Americans. In the rest of the country they tend to be accepted in predominately white churches.

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.

Major Celebrations in the United States
Date Name Region
January 1 Shōgatsu New Year's Celebration nationwide
February Japanese Heritage Fair Honolulu, HI
February to March Cherry Blossom Festival Honolulu, HI
March 3 Hina Matsuri (Girls' Day) nationwide
March Honolulu Festival Honolulu, HI
March Hawaiʻi International Taiko Festival Honolulu, HI
March International Cherry Blossom Festival Macon, GA
March to April National Cherry Blossom Festival Washington, DC
April Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival San Francisco, CA
April Pasadena Cherry Blossom Festival Pasadena, CA
April Seattle Cherry Blossom Festival Seattle, WA
May 5 Tango no Sekku (Boys' Day) nationwide
May Shinnyo-En Toro-Nagashi (Memorial Day Floating Lantern Ceremony) Honolulu, HI
June Pan-Pacific Festival Matsuri in Hawaiʻi Honolulu, HI
July 7 Tanabata Festival nationwide
July-August Obon Festival nationwide
August Nihonmachi Street Fair San Francisco, CA
August Nisei Week / Tofu Festival Los Angeles, CA

History

Main article: Japanese American history

The history of Japanese Americans begins in the mid nineteenth century.

Immigration

People from Japan began migrating to the U.S. in significant numbers following the political, cultural, and social changes stemming from the 1868 Meiji Restoration. Particularly after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Japanese immigrants were sought by industrialists to replace the Chinese immigrants. In 1907, the "Gentlemen's Agreement" between the governments of Japan and the U.S. ended immigration of Japanese workers (i.e., men), but permitted the immigration of spouses of Japanese immigrants already in the U.S. The Immigration Act of 1924 banned the immigration of all but a token few Japanese.

The ban on immigration produced unusually well-defined generational groups within the Japanese American community. Initially, there was an immigrant generation, the Issei, and their U.S.-born children, the Nisei Japanese American. The Issei were exclusively those who had immigrated before 1924. Because no new immigrants were permitted, all Japanese Americans born after 1924 were--by definition--born in the U.S. This generation, the Nisei, became a distinct cohort from the Issei generation in terms of age, citizenship, and English language ability, in addition to the usual generational differences. Institutional and interpersonal racism led many of the Nisei to marry other Nisei, resulting in a third distinct generation of Japanese Americans, the Sansei. Significant Japanese immigration did not occur until the Immigration Act of 1965 ended 40 years of bans against immigration from Japan and other countries.

The Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted naturalized U.S. citizenship to "free white persons," which excluded the Issei from citizenship. As a result, the Issei were unable to vote, and faced additional restrictions such as the inability to own land under many state laws.

Japanese Americans were parties in several important Supreme Court decisions, including Ozawa v. United States (1922) and Korematsu v. United States (1943). Korematsu is the origin of the "strict scrutiny" standard, which is applied, with great controversy, in government considerations of race since the 1989 Adarand Constructors v. Peña decision.

In recent years, immigration from Japan has been more like that from Western Europe: low and usually related to marriages between U.S. citizens and Japanese (usually Japanese women), with some via employment preferences. The number is on average 5 to 10 thousand per year, and is similar to the amount of immigration to the U.S. from Germany. This is in stark contrast to the rest of Asia, where family reunification is the primary impetus for immigration. Japanese Americans also have the oldest demographic structure of any non-white ethnic group in the U.S.; in addition, in the younger generations, due to intermarriage with whites, non-whites, and other Asian groups, part-Japanese are more common than full Japanese, and it appears as if this physical assimilation will continue at a rapid rate.

Internment

Main article: Japanese American internment
JA internment.JPG

During WWII, 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.

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 in the West Coast. Several Japanese Americans have started lawsuits against the U.S. government regarding what they perceive as a wrongful internment. The lawsuits have dragged on for decades.

World War II Service

Main article: Japanese American service in World War II

Many Japanese Americans served with great distinction during World War II in the American forces. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team/100th Infantry Battalion is one of the most highly decorated unit in U.S. military history. Composed of Japanese Americans, the 442nd/100th fought valiantly in the European Theater. The 522nd Nisei Field Artillery Battalion was one of the first units to liberate the prisoners of the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. Hawaiʻi Senator Daniel K. Inouye is a veteran of the 442nd. Additionally the Military Intelligence Service consisted of Japanese Americans who served in the Pacific Front.

Redress

Main article: Japanese American redress and court cases

In the U.S., the right to redress is defined as a constitutional right, as it is decreed in the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Redress may be defined as follows:

Reparation is defined as:

The campaign for redress against internment was launched by Japanese Americans in 1978. The Japanese American Citizens’ League (JACL) asked for three measures to be taken as redress: $25,000 to be awarded to each person who was detained, an apology from Congress acknowledging publicly that the U.S. government had been wrong, and the release of funds to set up an educational foundation for the children of Japanese American families. Under the 2001 budget of the United States, it was also decreed that the ten sites on which the detainee camps were set up are to be preserved as historical landmarks: “places like Manzanar, Tule Lake, Heart Mountain, Topaz, Amache, Jerome, and Rohwer will forever stand as reminders that this nation failed in its most sacred duty to protect its citizens against prejudice, greed, and political expediency” (Tateishi and Yoshino 2000). Each of these concentration camps was surrounded by barbed wire and contained at least ten thousand forced detainees.

Life under United States policies before and after World War II

Main articles: Japanese American life pre-World War II and Japanese American life post-World War II

Like most of the American population, Japanese immigrants came to the U.S. in search of a better life. Some planned to stay and build families in the United States, while others wanted to save money from working stateside to better themselves in the country from which they had come. Before the Attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese residents experienced a moderate level of hardship that was pretty typical for any minority group at the time.

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 nearby the 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.

Politics

See also: Anti-Japanese sentiment

Japanese Americans have shown strong support for candidates in both political parties. Leading up to the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election, Japanese Americans narrowly favored Democrat John Kerry by a 42% to 38% margin over Republican George W. Bush. With the remaining 19% undecided or voting for other candidates, once the margin of error is taken into effect, a mere 4% lead is statistically insignificant. [3]

Neighborhoods and communities

See also: Japantown

The US west coast

Outside the US west coast

Notable individuals

See also: List of Japanese Americans

After the Territory of Hawaiʻi's statehood in 1959, Japanese American political empowerment took a step forward with the election of Daniel K. Inouye to Congress. Inouye's success led to the gradual acceptance of Japanese American leadership on the national stage, culminating in the appointments of Eric Shinseki and Norman Y. Mineta, the first Japanese American military chief of staff and federal cabinet secretary, respectively.

Many Japanese Americans have also gained prominence in the arts and sciences. These include Minoru Yamasaki, architect of the World Trade Center, and Ellison Onizuka, the first Asian American astronaut and the mission specialist aboard Challenger at the time of its explosion. Poet laureate of San Francisco Janice Mirikitani has published three volumes of poems. Artist Sueo Serisawa helped establish the California Impressionist style of painting.

Japanese Americans first made an impact in Olympic sports in the late 1940s and in the 1950s. Harold Sakata won a weightlifting silver medal in the 1948 Olympics, while Japanese Americans Tommy Kono (weightlifting), Yoshinobu Oyakawa (100-meter backstroke), and Ford Konno (1500-meter freestyle) each won gold and set Olympic records in the 1952 Olympics. Konno won another gold and silver swimming medal at the same Olympics and added a silver medal in 1956, while Kono set another Olympic weightlifting record in 1956. Also at the 1952 Olympics, Evelyn Kawamoto won two bronze medals in swimming.

More recently, Eric Sato won gold (1988) and bronze (1992) medals in volleyball, while his sister Liane Sato won bronze in the same sport in 1992. Hapa Bryan Clay won the decathlon gold medal in the 2008 Olympics, the silver medal in the 2004 Olympics, and was the sport's 2005 world champion. Apolo Anton Ohno won five Olympic medals in short-track speed skating (two gold) in 2002 and 2006, as well as a world cup championship.

In figure skating, Kristi Yamaguchi won three national championships (one individual, two in pairs), two world titles, and the 1992 Olympic Gold medal. Rena Inoue took first place in the 2004 and 2006 U.S. Figure Skating Championships Pairs competition. Mirai Nagasu won the 2008 U.S. national championship at the age of 14.

In distance running, Miki (Michiko) Gorman won the Boston and New York City marathons twice in the 1970s. A former American record holder at the distance, she is the only woman to win both races twice, and is the only woman to win both marathons in the same year.

In professional sports, Wataru Misaka broke the NBA color barrier in the 1947-48 season, when he played for the New York Knicks. Misaka also played a key role in Utah's NCAA and NIT basketball championships in 1944 and 1947. Lindsey Yamasaki was the first Asian American to play in the WNBA and finished off her NCAA career with the third-highest career 3-pointers at Stanford University.

Hikaru Nakamura became the youngest American ever to earn the titles of National Master (age 10) and International Grandmaster (age 15) in chess. In 2004, at the age of 16, he won the U.S. Chess Championship.

Japanese Americans now anchor TV newscasts in markets all over the country. Notable anchors include Tritia Toyota, Adele Arakawa, David Ono, Kent Ninomiya, and Lori Matsukawa.

George Takei (of Star Trek fame) and Pat Morita (Happy Days) helped pioneer acting roles for Asian Americans while playing secondary roles on the small screen during the 1960s and 1970s.

Today, Shin Koyamada launched a leading role in the Warner Bros. epic movie The Last Samurai and Disney Channel movie franchise Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior and TV series Disney Channel Games. Masi Oka plays a prominent role in the NBC series Heroes and Grant Imahara appears on the Discovery Channel series MythBusters.

Notable Japanese American musicians include singer, actress and Broadway star Pat Suzuki; rapper Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park and Fort Minor, guitarist James Iha of Smashing Pumpkins fame; world-renowned violinist Anne Akiko Meyers; singer & songwriter, composer and Japanese expatriate Mari Iijima; Shodo Artist, J-Poet, Gravure Idols and BURN Flame Miki Ariyama; ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro and famous J-pop superstar Hikaru Utada.

See also

  • Asian American
  • Asian Canadian
  • Hyphenated American
  • Japanese American Citizens League
  • Japanese American National Library
  • Japanese American National Museum
  • Japanese Canadian
  • Japanese Brazilian
  • Japanese British
  • Japanese people
  • list of Japanese Americans
  • model minority
  • Nisei Baseball Research Project
  • Pacific Movement of the Eastern World

Notes and references

  1. ↑ "US Census Bureau, Japanese alone or in combination in 2007". Retrieved on 2008-10-26.
  2. ↑ Doi, Mary L. "A Transformation of Ritual: The Nisei 60th Birthday." Journal Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology. Vol. 6, No. 2 (April, 1991).
  3. ↑ Lobe, Jim (September 16, 2004), "Asian-Americans lean toward Kerry", AsiaTimes, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FI16Aa01.html 
  • Lai, Eric, and Dennis Arguelles, eds. "The New Face of Asian Pacific America: Numbers, Diversity, and Change in the 21st Century." San Francisco, CA: Asian Week, 2003.
  • Kikumura-Yano, Akemi, ed. "Encyclopedia of Japanese Descendants in the Americas." Walnut Creek, CA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002.

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