Under these more relaxed conditions, Japanese Hawaiians were able to move into middle class occupations and, by 1941, establish themselves economically. The extreme levels of anti-Japanese sentiment on the West Coast that produced discriminatory laws that forbade Japanese immigrants from owning property on the mainland did not exist in Hawaii. While Japanese easily filled a need for agricultural labor on the plantations and did not come into direct economic competition with White political elites, merchants, or other white collar laborers, Japanese on the West Coast quickly established themselves as successful farmers-competing with White farmers for land and access to local and regional markets. Japanese immigrants also came to the mainland West Coast during the early twentieth century, but the reception and experiences of the two groups were different. Thousands of Japanese took advantage of this change in policy and came to Hawaii to work on the plantations. Under the Meiji Restoration (or a return to rule of the emperor rather than the warrior shogunate) during the late nineteenth century, the Japanese government loosened restrictions on migration to the United States. Japanese immigrants were also part of this wave of migration to the islands. Puerto Ricans, Chinese, Portuguese, Filipinos, and some African Americans arrived in Hawaii to harvest the sugar crops alongside many of the idegenous Hawaiians and Samoans, leading to an ethnically and racially diverse population. These vast, agricultural operations required an enormous amount of physical labor, and the planters turned to importing workers from around the world to meet demands. Following an overthrow of the Hawaiian royal kingdom, orchestrated by wealthy Whites interested in lowered tariffs, and the United States’ annexation of the islands in 1900, sugar cane became a key crop for White plantation owners. The answer to this question is complex and rooted in Hawaii’s unique racial and ethnic demographics, cultural history, and the implementation of martial law during the war.īeginning in the mid to late nineteenth century, Hawaii underwent dramatic political and economic shifts. Hawaii was initially considered a war zone following Pearl Harbor, yet why were the majority of Japanese Americans there-though subject to heavier surveillance than their White neighbors and, consequently, civil rights violations-not detained long term? Why were the experiences of Japanese Americans in Hawaii different from those like Miné and her family? Japanese Americans made up nearly 30 percent of the population on the islands. While Ariyoshi was eventually released from detention following questioning by FBI agents, Japanese Americans like Miné Okubo and her family were held in the Topaz incarceration camp in Utah for two years, only to be released to discover that they had nothing to return to at home in San Francisco her father had lost his job and their house had been sold as they could not maintain mortgage payments while they were imprisoned. In comparison to the few thousand Japanese Americans detained in Hawaii, after Executive Order 9066 issued by President Roosevelt in 1942 the military removed 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent-most American-born citizens-from their West Coast homes and incarcerated them. Over 2,000 Japanese Americans spent time in detention because of suspected disloyalty (often with little proof) before their release, while others were rounded up and shipped to the mainland to be held in one of 10 incarceration camps along with the other imprisoned Japanese Americans from the West Coast. His family tried to contact him or at least ask for updates on his condition with no luck.Īriyoshi was not the only Japanese American on the islands who faced these circumstances following Pearl Harbor. Agents informed Ariyoshi that he would be held for approximately a day or two but ended up spending nearly three weeks in an Army internment detention center on Sand Island. Ariyoshi was held in custody at a local jail while law officials confiscated guns, flashlights, radios, and other instruments that he could potentially use to assist Japanese forces in coordinating a second air attack. Agents suspected him of being a “fifth-columnist,” or subversive operative of Japan, because he was not born in Hawaii nor the United States and, according to popular prejudices of the day, was therefore more loyal to the Japanese emperor than to America. But Japanese Americans in Hawaii lived under significantly different circumstances than those on the mainland.įormer first lady of Hawaii, Jean Ariyoshi, remembered living in fear after the FBI removed her uncle from his house on December 12. The lives of Japanese Americans living in Hawaii and along the US West Coast changed following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
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