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Journal of Interdisciplinary History 33.2 (2002) 319-320



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Book Review

Japanese Pride, American Prejudice:
Modifying the Exclusion Clause of the 1924 Immigration Act


Japanese Pride, American Prejudice: Modifying the Exclusion Clause of the 1924 Immigration Act. By Izumi Hirobe (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2001) 344 pp. $49.50

The passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, with its clause barring all Japanese immigration to the United States, left a lasting scar on Japanese relations with America. The hostility that it aroused helped bring about World War II. Hirobe's Japanese Pride, American Prejudice tells the story of the movement that grew up in the years after 1924 to modify the law. The movement, led first by pro-Japanese clergymen and such former missionaries as Sidney L. Gulick and later by such business leaders as Wallace Alexander, sought to remove the insult of exclusion by granting Japan a token immigration quota. Its leaders were challenged by supporters of continued exclusion, led by Valentine S. McClatchey of the California Joint Immigration Committee, who argued that the American people supported absolute exclusion and that the entry of even a nominal number of Japanese immigrants would spell disaster. As Hirobe points out, the positions of the major parties involved, both official and unofficial, were extraordinarily complex. Stanley Hornbeck and other U.S. State Department officials recognized that exclusion was a chronic sore point in relations between the United States and Japan, but they feared alienating Congress by agreeing to discuss the possibility of revision. The Japanese government was incapable of dropping the immigration question due to Japanese public opinion. At the same time, officials in Tokyo, who feared aggravating anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States, sought to distance themselves from agitation for repeal. Japanese-Americans, the ostensible beneficiaries of pro-quota legislation, cared more about securing permission to bring over their family members [End Page 319] than about abstract issues of Japanese national pride, and were little involved in lobbying for an immigration quota.

Hirobe's work relies on an enormous body of research in both English and Japanese sources. He makes extensive use of unpublished papers, including Japanese and American (and some French) diplomatic documents, as well as the writings and correspondence of the activists, organizations, and politicians who participated in the debate. His account of the conversation on both sides of the Pacific regarding Japanese immigration gains particular depth and persuasiveness from his intelligent citation of newspaper and magazine articles, including not only the mainstream American and Japanese press but also Chinese, African-American, and Catholic journals. Hirobe also is skilled at describing the climate of opinion at given moments. He provides a particularly evocative depiction of the hostility in Japan engendered by the 1924 law's enactment.

The chief weakness of Hirobe's book is that his chosen subject does not match his brilliant research. The movement for modification of the Japanese exclusion clause was neither a widespread nor a particularly compelling one, and it did not come close to achieving its goals. Although a few of the individuals involved gradually shifted positions, by and large the debate over instituting a Japanese quota was dominated by Gulick, Alexander, and McClatchey, whose goals and language remained largely constant. It is hard to believe that the subject could not have been sufficiently covered in fewer than the 150 pages that Hirobe devotes to it. My other complaint about the book is that it fails to discuss at length pro-Japanese lobbying efforts before 1924, either by Japanese-Americans or by elite groups like the Japan society. As a result, Hirobe creates the mistaken impression that white American businessmen and internationalists did not attempt to solidify friendship between the United States and Japan or fight discrimination until after Japanese immigrants had been excluded.

 



Greg Robinson
Université du Québec à Montréal

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