After the Immigration Law established in 1952, there are quite amount of
Japanese chose to go to Hawaii and earn money. This type of Japanese at that
time have some common points: they are likely to be young people from 20~30;
they were not born in rich or famous families, normally in farmer’s families;
however they were passion and ambitious young men, in that case they could let
their parents or local celebrities to be their guarantor and pay their travel
expense. After they went to America they tried very hard to fit in this society
and been a good citizen. Although it was harder for Japanese Immigrants because
after WW2 the estrangement between them and Native American is more serious
than any other countries’ immigrants, they still achieve better success in economic,
social and political status. Also they worked very hard in order to save every
penny and pay back their families. At that period the money that Japanese
immigrants mailed back to their hometown is far more than the average salary
the local Japanese earned. This phenomenon
was very common in many part of Japan at that time.
However, the conflict between Japanese immigrant and local Hawaii
residents still existed. The local
residents might not satisfied with all this immigrant came in and seize their
jobs and profits, they in many ways tried to suppress them. On the other hand
Japanese immigrants wanted to have a equal social status and rights as those
residents. The conflict was so irreconcilable that the Japanese government had
to step out that time and sent some of works home to protect them. Even though
those immigrants were far over the sea the Japanese government still care about
them much. The Japanese government acted very outstanding in this aspect than
other countries at that time.
--- By Zhaoya Zhang
Thomas Sowell, “Ethnic America”, Perseus Books Group, 1983.
“Early Japanese Immigrants to Hawaii”, Photograph, hawaiihistory.org.
Web. 9 Feb 2013.
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