American Life in Japan's First Generation of Immigrants: An EthnicIty Determined and Persistent to Be a Model Citizen

Wen | Yan Bin

The Japanese arrived in the United States about 30 years later than the Chinese, and unlike the Chinese laborers of their time, who were usually sold to the United States in the form of contracts, these Japanese immigrants were mostly young people who went to the United States out of their own pockets, were ambitious, and eager to work hard to change their destiny in the New World.

They are not at the bottom of Japanese society, those people have no money to go overseas; they are not the social elite, the elite class has no incentive to emigrate. These young people are usually a little educated, literate and mostly have a little expertise and can quickly find work on farms, fisheries, mines or horticulture.

Japanese immigrants, who liked to hug together, were self-disciplined, accepted low-wage, long-term, and difficult-to-term jobs without complaint, and they carried forward the momentum of what later generations called "workaholics," earning nearly twice as much money as workers of other ethnicities when they worked piece-time jobs on farms. When the Japanese used to be assistants to white people, they often not only consciously did their own work, but also often took the initiative to share some responsibilities for their white companions, and they were also thrifty and diligent pacesetters.

In July 1920, three Japanese children stood on the Shinyo Maru deck, which had just arrived in San Francisco

These young people gradually learned more advanced skills in the United States or gained the necessary work experience to obtain qualifications that could work in better conditions. With the arrival of female Japanese immigrants, they gradually began to buy properties and start families in Hawaii and the United States. By the beginning of the 20th century, Japanese immigrants were more than twice the annual net income of a Japanese person with the same conditions every year, which reflected both the economic gap between Japan and the United States and the hardships and gains of Japanese immigrants in the United States.

The people who moved to the United States in the Meiji era and their descendants brought the Japanese culture and values of the Meiji era to the United States and preserved them for a long time. They have always made winning the acceptance, acceptance, and respect of Americans the main goal of their struggle. Even long after the major changes in the collective mentality of the Japanese public due to repeated foreign aggressions, they retained the open, enterprising, and positive atmosphere of the Meiji era, as depicted in the TV series "Sakaue No Cloud".

As more and more Japanese immigrants on the West Coast, the United States became increasingly wary of Japanese immigrants. In 1908, Japan and the United States reached a gentleman's agreement on immigration, in which Japan promised to strictly limit the number of immigrants to the United States, and the United States promised Japanese wives who were already in the United States to go to the United States to reunite with their husbands, and allowed their parents and children to come to the United States for reunion.

By 1930, the second and third generations of Japanese immigrants had been born on American soil, and the second generation of Japanese Americans (Nisei) made up half of the entire Japanese population at that time. Most first-generation Japanese americans speak only Japanese and rarely Speak English, while most second-generation Japanese only speak English and do not speak Japanese. Three-quarters of the first generation are Buddhists, but half of the second generation of Japanese are already Christians. The second generation has formed its own values in the American culture of school and society, and they often have a sharp conflict with the values of the previous generation.