Open Access
American Research Journal of History and Culture
ISSN (Online): 2379-2914
DOI: 10.46568/arjhc
Deja Vu: Japanese Immigrant Experiences (1885-1924) Bolstered and Foretold by Chinese Exclusion
Abstract
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the United States enacted a series of Asian exclusion laws, from the Chinese
Exclusion Act of 1882 to the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act that disproportionately limited Japanese immigration. When
comparing the two nationalities’ path to elimination from American society, supposedly distinct due to the successive
nature of their arrival, a notable pattern emerges. The geopolitical, economic, and moral arguments that led to Chinese
exclusion initially presented first-generation Japanese immigrants (Issei), arriving in 1885, in a positive light. Yet, as
this article argues, the Issei, eventually receiving criticism in the same three realms as the Chinese did, fell from favor
following the very trajectory of their Asian predecessors, regardless of former goodwill. These comparably changing
sentiments underscorethe heavy influence that U.S. geopolitics and economy held over the nation’s foreign policy with politicians racializing the “immoral” Asian immigrants as a tool to garner support for legislations much more utilitarian
than, in the public’s eye, discriminatory.
