Colorado's Japanese Americans: From 1886 to the Present

25: The Newcomers

T H E N E W C O M E R S P A G E 236 Before the end of World War II, no Japanese had been allowed to immigrate to the United States since March 1, 1925. That was the date the Asian Exclusion Act, barring immigration from all parts of Asia—but not Europe—went into effect. Bitter debate in Congress had preceded passage of that racist law. In hearings held by a Senate committee, V.S. McClatchy, the fulltime head of the pressure group that called itself the Japanese Exclusion League of California, testified: Of all the races ineligible to citizenship, the Japanese are the least assimilable and the most dangerous to this country. . . . With great pride of race, they have no idea of assimilating in the sense of amalgamation. They do not come to this country with any desire or any intent to lose their racial or national identity. They come here specifically and professedly for the purpose of colonizc h a p t e r t w e n t y - f i v e T H E N E W C O M E R S T H E N E W C O M E R S P A G E 237 ing and establishing here permanently the proud Yamato race. They never cease to be Japanese. . . . In pursuit of their intent to colonize this country with that race they seek to secure land and to found large families. . . . They have greater energy, greater determination, and greater ambition than the other yellow and brown races ineligible to citizenship, and with the same low standard of living, hours of labor, use of women and child labor, they naturally make more dangerous competitors in an economic way. Another witness, former U.S. senator James D. Phelan, told the committee , “The people of California object to the Japanese . . . because of racial and economic reasons.” The Asian Exclusion Act was bitterly resented in Japan for its racial discrimination, and many students of history contend that this insult led to the rise of the militarism that led ultimately to World War II. But the inevitability of human nature, if not a sense of fairness, first breached the law. Not a few American soldiers and sailors stationed in postwar Japan fell in love with and married Japanese girls. Then they discovered their country would not permit them to bring their brides home with them. At first members of Congress in their home districts introduced private bills for the benefit of specific individuals . Thus a few Japanese spouses and children of U.S. servicemen were permitted to enter the United States as exceptions to the 1924 Asian Exclusion Act. But that was a slow and laborious process, and there were many Americans who were concerned about the racism in the existing law. In 1952 Congress, after intense lobbying by the Japanese American Citizens League, passed what was known as the Walter-McCarran Immigration and Naturalization Act. It repealed the Asian Exclusion T H E N E W C O M E R S P A G E 238 Act of 1924 and extended to Japan and other Asian nations a token immigration quota. It also eliminated race as a bar to naturalization, a provision that was profoundly important to Issei who had spent two-thirds or more of their lives in a country that had discriminated against them as “aliens ineligible to citizenship.” In communities around the United States hundreds of elderly Japanese attended classes to learn about the three branches of government—executive, legislative , and judicial—the Constitution, and other facts necessary to pass naturalization examinations. In Denver, Harry Matoba, an Issei with an American college education, tutored scores of Issei in night classes. In Brighton, John Horie coached some sixty Issei seeking naturalization . (One war bride, who will remain nameless to avoid embarrassing her, was asked by a citizenship examiner testing her loyalty whether she would be willing to fight for her new country in case of war. “No,” she replied. The startled examiner asked why. “Because ladies don’t fight,” she said. She passed.) The change in the law, in addition to permitting Japanese war brides to enter the United States, enabled a few members of a new generation of Japanese to move to the United States and seek citizenship . In the Japanese American communities they were called the Shin-Issei, meaning “New Issei...