A New Home
After Shinji and Tomomi had farmed the rented land for six years,
a Nisei (second-generation Japanese in the United States) friend
organized a company in his name. Unlike the Issei, the Nisei were
American citizens and could own land legally. The friend purchased
Rampant Racism
Early in the twentieth century, about 275,000 Japanese people
emigrated from their ancestral homes in Japan to the West Coast
of the United States. Like other newcomers, they were looking for a
better life with more economic and educational opportunities than
they had in Japan. The majority of Japanese immigrants settled in
California. At that time, millions of eastern and southern Europeans
were immigrating to the East Coast and midwestern parts of the
United States. These newcomers had risked everything for a new life
in America, which they thought of as a golden land of opportunity.
When they arrived, however, many of the immigrants faced
prejudice, rampant racism, and discrimination. Their cultures,
languages, and physical appearance were very different from those
of the Irish and German immigrants who had come before them.
Japanese culture and language were especially unfamiliar, and
many Americans expressed hatred toward Japanese immigrants. For
example, in 1900 San Francisco mayor James D. Phelan claimed that
Japanese people “are not the stuff of which American citizens can be
made.”
He warned of what many Americans referred to at the time as the
“yellow peril”—a racist phrase reflecting the fear that Japanese were
dangerous because they were, Phelan said, “capable of taking the
place of the White man.” During his successful run for the US Senate
in 1919, Phelan touted the openly racist campaign slogan, “Keep
America White”—and won.
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