Dana Kato

July 5, 2008

Japanese Americans: A Model Minority Melting into Dominant Culture

In this second posting, I wanted to go back to Japanese American immigration and assimilation, the progress of which had been interrupted due to World War II and the subsequent internment of ethnic Japanese in the U.S.  How is it that the Japanese Americans seem so different (my personal perspective) from other Asian American groups and other minority groups in terms of their relationship with the dominant culture? How much did their immigration patterns and internment experience influence where they are at today?

I began my journey of discovery with the history of theirs.  Brought in to replace Chinese labor, male Japanese immigrant workers begin to arrive in California around 1870 (“Japanese Americans”). According to Easton and Ellington, the Japanese had already begun living in more of a nuclear “downsized extended” family unit long before their immigration to America, due to the nationalistic influences of Japan’s culture. This was distinctly different from the more “communal” Chinese culture where the concept of the family clan took precedence (Easton and Ellington 6). Eventually, more Japanese immigrants came with their families and later many young women arrived as “picture” brides from Hawaii and Japan (Easton and Ellington 3). Toyoko Kato remembers that her mother, Michie Honda Fukui, arrived in California as a teenage “picture” bride around 1927, the marriage arranged by her parents in Hawaii. With this arrangement, the bride and groom were married by a ceremony in the homeland (or Hawaii) and then the bride arrived to meet her new husband for the first time, using a picture to identify him. “This wave of immigration,” according the Easton and Ellington, “changed the nature of the Japanese American community … to a family-oriented people seeking permanent settlement” (4). [This quote reminded me of “In the Land of the Free” where a better future for the family was so closely identified with the concept of the American Dream. And of course, many Japanese immigrants also arrived in that same harbor…] Despite this “change,” from 1908-1924, political pressure brought on by “union groups… and California agricultural groups” led the U.S. government to adopt an “unofficial” immigration policy (referred to as a “Gentleman’s Agreement”) which greatly limited Japanese immigration (Easton and Ellington 3). Immigration restrictions essentially were not lifted until 1952, and even then the quotas allowed were very limited (Easton and Ellington 4). [Again, I thought of “In the Land of the Free” and the government bureaucracy (which surely was racially motivated), making immigration as difficult as possible, even for wives and children.]

The Japanese American experience followed the pattern of the immigrant narrative in that it involved a journey from a traditional homeland into an environment which was often hostile...  Like the Chinese immigrant, they suffered the effects of racial (color code) and economic discrimination during the years prior to World War II. For example, first generation Japanese (Issei) were not allowed to own property and could not become U.S. citizens (Easton and Ellington 5). Despite social and legal obstacles, the Issei encouraged their children to assimilate, with the result being that Japanese Americans did improve economically. Evidence of assimilation was apparent in that many second-generation Japanese Americans (Nisei) spoke English and attended predominantly white schools. Ironically, these better educated Nisei often found work difficult to find.  By the 1930’s “… a dismal situation of overeducated and underemployed Japanese Americans …existed…” (Easton and Ellington 4) [This information was a little surprising to me, and reminded me of the narrator in “Soap and Water,” an “overeducated” immigrant who could not find a job.  Is the message here that the social contract which whispers that literacy and hard work will get you places has not always been valid?] But in spite of the educational and economic successes encouraged by the Issei, cultural resistance to the “dominant culture” was evident in the Japanese community’s efforts to maintain a sense of ethnic identity. For example, most Japanese-American children (as was the case with my mother-in-law, Toyoko Kato), had to attend Saturday school to study the Japanese language and culture. Many young men were sent to Japan for their formal education and most Japanese, either by choice, or segregation, lived in predominantly Japanese neighborhoods (Easton and Ellington 6).

In 1941, the bombing of Pearl Harbor would change the lives of many.  For the Japanese-Americans, the change came quickly.  Eventually, all ethnic Japanese in the U.S., two-thirds of them citizens, were forced into relocation or internment camps, often located, ironically, on lands held by Native Americans (“Japanese American”).  The reaction of the Japanese community was almost surprising. According to Lance Izumi, “…immigrant Japanese and their children were expected to become mainstream Americans. Japanese-American community leaders emphasized this goal…The result of this assimilation process was a sincere and deep patriotism on the part of most Japanese Americans” (Izumi 1).  Many went into internment camps with the view that this was a way to prove their patriotism (Izumzi 1). In my own family, one of the effects of the “camp” years was a feeling of great embarrassment by the Issei and Nisei generations, which led to my husband and his brothers not being taught Japanese by their parents and being encouraged early on to be “American.”   

Immigration restrictions prior to World War II created a situation in which very little new Japanese immigration occurred from the 1920s until the 1950s.  Little or no travel to and from Japan occurred, especially from 1941 to 1952.  In addition, due to the rise of Communism in China and the close U.S military-Japanese connection during the post-war rebuilding of Japan, the public perception of the Japanese became more positive (with the Chinese becoming the “bad guys.”) The improvement of the post-war economy in Japan also decreased the economic need to immigrate to the U.S. This makes the Japanese immigrant experience somewhat unique among Asian groups in that these circumstances virtually isolated them in the U.S., accelerating the assimilation process (despite World War II) and leading to dominant culture attributes such as higher education, economic success, and political activism (Easton and Ellington 6) . 

Today, the ethnic Japanese population in the U.S. is diminishing. While Chinese Americans may look at changes in immigration in terms of generational waves which continue to grow, the Japanese have seen a significant decrease in terms of the Asian American population in the U.S.  For example, “In 1960, 52 percent of the Asian American populations were Japanese American. In 1985, only 15 percent of Asian Americans were Japanese” (Easton and Ellington 4). But as was the case of another American minority group, the Native American, one of the key reasons for this decrease is intermarriage, mainly with Caucasians. Census results from 2006 indicate that approximately 50 percent of Japanese Americans had nonJapanese spouses (Le). The effects of intermarriage and the “Diaspora” of Japanese Americans following World War II (before the war about 30 percent of Japanese Americans lived in ethnically Japanese neighborhoods; in 1967, it was down to 4 percent) and a more nuclear American culture (and lower birth rates) may mean that Japanese Americans may have achieved assimilation as a model minority group, but at the cost of their cultural identity. According to Easton and Ellington, “What the future holds for fourth-generation Japanese Americans (the Yonsei) is unclear. The Japanese American ethnic community may disappear in that generation, or complete assimilation may bring about the demise of the values that pushed Japanese Americans to socioeconomic success” (5). Perhaps in reaction to this possible loss of cultural identity many elderly Japanese Nisei in recent years have brought more attention nationally and within the Japanese community to issues related to the effects of the internment years and also to a celebration of Japanese culture.  Many Japanese Americans born after World War II have found what Dr. C.N. Le calls “a resurgent sense of Japanese American identity after learning about their parents’ imprisonment…” and according to Dr. Le, an idea best represented by the famous quote, “What the father wished to forge, the child wishes to remember.” For first and second generation Japanese immigrants, the effects of “almost” seeing themselves as Americans left painful scars which took decades to heal. [However, the American Dream can be very alluring, as the narrator reflects in “Soap and Water,” …”my faith in this so-called America was shattered, yet underneath…burned the deathless faith that America is, must be, somehow, somewhere” (IA 109).]

In the end, the research answered my original question, but also opened up many others.  I do believe that the Japanese American culture, due to many factors, both social and historical in nature, is a “model” of the model minority and the one most closely assimilated with the dominant culture.  But I am left thinking about a newer model minority- Indian Americans for example. In this New World of world globalization, free trade and the internet, will they blend into the fabric of the dominant culture much as Japanese Americans appear to be doing, or will they change the rules and rewrite the social contract offered to them by a dynamic dominant culture?

Works Cited

Brown, Wesley and Amy Ling, eds.  Imagining America. New York: Persea Books, 2002

Easton, Stanley E. and Lucien Ellington.  “Japanese Americans.” Multicultural America. 2006.             2 Jul 2008.          http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Ha-La/Japanese-Americans.html

Izumi, Lance. “December 7^th, September 11^th and Immigrant Assimilation.” 17 October 2001. Reprinted in VDARE.com. 1999-2001. 1 Jul 2008.   http://www.vdare.com/misc/izumi_assimilation.html

"Japanese American." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 2 Jul 2008, 16:55 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 3 Jul 2008.   http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Japanese_American&oldid=223111340

Kato, Toyoko Honda. Personal interview. 23 June 2008.

Le, C.N. Asian Nation: Asian History, Demographics & Issues. 2008. 1 Jul 2008. http://www.asian-nation.org/index.shtml

White, Craig. Lecture. Graduate course: LITR 5731. UHCL. July 1, 2008.

*VDARE is generally considered an anti-immigration website (supported financially by Peter Brimelow, a Canadian immigrant to the U.S. and former editor of Forbes Magazine, but I felt Izumi’s essay worth citing.