"Japanese Trimmings on Our American Catholicity": Contested Ministry to Japanese Immigrants in Los Angeles, 1912-1925

Catholic ministry to the Japanese in California began with a layman's letter. Early in 1912, a Japanese immigrant wrote from Los Angeles to the bishop in his hometown in Japan to request the sacrament of confession. With no local priest able to speak his language, might the young man send a statement of his sins to Japan via registered mail, and receive absolution in a similar fashion? Within the year, the bishop's response brought a Japanese-speaking missionary to Los Angeles. With the priest's arrival in 1912, ministry to Japanese Catholics commenced on the West Coast of the United States and continued for a century in what was euphemistically termed "a harmony in faith."¹

Close inspection reveals a more complex and contested history not always harmonious. The author of the 1912 letter, Leo Kumataro Hatakeyama, wrote to his hometown bishop, Alexandre Berlioz, a French-born member of the Paris Foreign Mission Society. Berlioz contacted Bishop Thomas J. Conaty of Los Angeles, himself an immigrant from Ireland, who welcomed the priest provided by Berlioz and the Paris Foreign Mission Society. Reverend Albert Breton (1882-1954) labored in Los Angeles until his vision of ministry to Japanese Catholic immigrants conflicted with the Americanization program of Conaty's successor, Irish-born John J. Cantwell. Seeking to assimilate the Japanese more rapidly, Cantwell recruited locally-trained agents of Americanization and the distinctly American religious orders, the Maryknoll fathers and brothers, and the Maryknoll sisters.²

In an era of forced cultural conformity, conflict inevitably developed in Los Angeles. The Japanese laity, Irish and French bishops and priests, and the American-born Maryknoll priests, brothers, and sisters struggled through disagreements, changes in episcopal leadership, and misunderstandings of cultural sensitivities. Without positive models of intercultural respect, unconscious racism emerged in ministerial activities. Prevailing American attitudes of superiority over Asians manifested itself in the assumptions of who was best suited to lead and to make decisions, as well as what activities constituted a "truly American Catholic church."³

These events occurred amidst the dramatic rise of Japanese immigration to California, particularly to Los Angeles. Numbering a few hundred residents in the 1890s, by 1920 the city counted more than 11,000 Japanese, with an almost equal number living in Los Angeles County.⁴ The first generation immigrants, the Issei, perceived the state's Southland as more tolerant than San Francisco and found plentiful job opportunities there. By 1920, the Los Angeles metropolitan area was home to the largest Japanese population in the United States.⁵

For the Catholic Church in the United States, the arrival of peoples from Asia coincided with massive immigration from southern and eastern Europe, as well as from Mexico. The growth in eastern and mid-western cities forced unprepared bishops to provide religious and other services to increasingly polyglot populations. Bishops recruited foreign-born priests, brothers, and sisters and founded national parishes to serve Catholics from distinct countries. In these national churches and schools, immigrants could hear sermons in their native language and conduct familiar Old World devotions, while their children were instructed in their mother tongue and, to some extent, in the English language in the parish school. Given the enormous numbers involved, bishops faced the challenge of creating an American Catholic church from their diverse flocks.⁶

Japanese Catholics posed a distinct challenge for Bishop Conaty. Few in number, they were scattered across his vast diocese stretching from Monterey Bay to the Mexican border, and from the Pacific Ocean to the Nevada state line. As Conaty knew, many Californians considered Japanese immigrants reclusive, resistant to assimilation, heathen, and a threat to employment of native-born Americans. Japanese newcomers inherited the anti-Asian prejudice endured earlier by the Chinese, barred since 1882 from entry into the United States. In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt negotiated restrictions on immigration from Japan in the so-called "Gentleman's Agreement." Unsatisfied, California state government enacted laws in 1913 and 1920 denying Japanese immigrants the right to own land in the Golden State. By 1924 federal...