White Racial Prejudice and their
Effect on Japan
Paul Claudel, celebrated poet,writer and French Ambassador to Japan
from 1921 to 1927, wrote in a letter on April 24,1924 that the news
of mounting discrimination against Japanese immigrants and their descendants
were being received with shock in Japan, and perceived as humiliating,
especially since the country had made concerted efforts politically
to convince the USA that it was a friendly nation.
Claudel predicted that the Anglo-Saxon prejudice againt the color of
skin, and hostility against Japan, will have the following effects:
1)
potential anger will surface in areas of politics,diplomacy and industry.
2)
a sense of solidarity between different classes,particularly between
students, laborers, and socialist organizations which are most ardent
in their protests against the USA, will increase.
3)
a feeling of solidarity with Asians, particularly the Chinese, will
increase, and Japan will gradually turn its eyes towards China.
|
1870
|
Amendment
to Naturalization Act : Asians
were referred to as "aliens ineligible to citizenship" |
|
1907
|
San
Francisco Earthquake : Japan
sends money equivalent to one-thousandth of the national budget
to San Francisco city San Francisco: segregates Japanese and Korean
children from public schools |
|
1908
|
Gentleman's
Agreement :
forbade
Japanese laborers to enter the USA |
|
1913
& 1920
|
Alien
Land Law : in California Aliens
(Asian immigrants) could not purchase or lease land |
|
1922
|
US
Supreme Court rules in "Ozawa v. United
States" that first-generation
Japanese immigrants were not eligible to citizenship |
|
1924
|
Exclusion
Act :
halted Japanese immigration altogether, until 1965. |
|
1952
|
Antimiscegenation
Law : forbade
marriage between "whites" and "non-whites" In
1952, 29 of then 48 states had such laws. |
|
1988
|
Formal
apology from US Congress
to wartime internees of Japanese ancestry |
Nihonshi
kara mita Nihonjin : Showa hen
(Looking at Japanese in Japanese History: Showa era)
by WATANABE Shoichi, Tokyo: Shodensha 1989, pp128- 176
Dai Toa Sensou he no Michi
(Path to the Great East Asian War)
by NAKAMURA Akira, Tentensha: Tokyo, 1990, pp.174-175 |
League of Nations Racial Equality Clause Refused
Proposition for
Racial Equality Refused, 1919: the making of the League of Nations
Charter
Before WWII, in Asia, only Japan and Thailand
could be considered independent, and mostly free from Western colonial
rule. When the Charter for the League of Nations was debated in 1919
in Versailles, Japan proposed that a clause stating "the eqality of
all nations and fair treatment of all peoples" be included in the
Charter.
This proposition received 11 votes in favor out of 17 member votes
of the League of Nations Committee. However, the proposition met fierce
opposition from the USA. Britain opposed it also. Woodrow Wilson,
who was Chairman of the Committee, refused the proposition on the
grounds that such an important decision should have unanimous support.
Other clauses in the Charter were adopted on the principle of majority
vote.
This was one of the turning points in
modern Japanese history when public opinion went sour against the
USA, confirming the increasing suspicion that there was much racism
in the USA (discrimination against Japanese immigrants mainly in California
had become quite blatant by then), and citizens began to rally support
for the military.
by WATANABE Shoichi,
Tokyo: Shodensha 1989, pp128- 176
by NAKAMURA Akira,
Tentensha: Tokyo, 1990, pp.174-175
