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Trans-Pacific localism: emigration, adaptation, and nationalism among Japanese immigrants in California, 1890-1940

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Trans-Pacific localism: emigration, adaptation, and nationalism among Japanese immigrants in California, 1890-1940

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TRANS-PACIFIC LOCALISM:
EMIGRATION, ADAPTATION, AND NATIONALISM AMONG JAPANESE
IMMIGRANTS IN CALIFORNIA, 1890-1940

by

Yuko Konno

A Dissertation presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(HISTORY)

AUGUST 2012

Copyright 2012 Yuko Konno
ii

Acknowledgements

I benefited from the support and guidance of numerous people in the course of
writing this dissertation. I would like to express my highest gratitude especially to the
following people: my advisor Lon Kurashige at the University of Southern California for
his excellent guidance, feedback and inspiration; my committee members George J.
Sánchez and Saori N. Katada at the University of Southern California, and Samuel
Yamashita at Pomona College for their insightful comments and advice; the librarians
and archivists at the Japanese American National Museum, San Pedro Bay Historical
Society, and Charles E. Young Library at the University of California in Los Angeles,
Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Diet Library in
Tōkyō, Wakayama Civic Library and Wakayama Prefectural Library in the City of
Wakayama, and Taijichō Kōminkan (Taiji Town Community Center) in Taiji, Wakayama
Prefecture, for their assistance with archival materials; the Institute of American and
Canadian Studies at Sophia University for their help in photocopying and scanning
materials; the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, Historical Society of
Southern California, and USC’s East Asian Studies Center, Department of History and
Graduate School for their financial support; my undergraduate advisor at Sophia
University, Kazuyuki Matsuo, for teaching me to appreciate social history; Eiichiro
Azuma at the University of Pennsylvania, Yujin Yaguchi at the University of Tokyo,
Hiroshi Yonemaya and Fuminori Minamikawa at Ritsumeikan University, Gordon M.
Berger, Carole Shammas and Philip Ethington at USC for their help in nourishing my
ideas; William A. Bowen at California State University, Northridge, for allowing me to
iii

use his maps; David Levitus, Barbara Soliz, Curtis Fletcher, Michael Block, Matthew
Amato, Mark Padoongpatt, Marie Sato and Go Oyagi for reading and commenting on my
drafts; Yukio Tatsumi, Gary Seko, Hayato Sakurai, Akio Usagawa and Takashi Ezaki for
sharing their insights and experiences with me; Mariko Iijima, Luman Wang and Yuko
Itatsu for their friendship; and my mother Terue, my brother Takanobu and my sister-in-
law Takako for their unconditional love and emotional support.
All mistakes are the sole responsibility of the author.
iv

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ii
List of Tables v
List of Figures vii
Abstract x
Introduction 1
Chapter One: Modernization: Japan’s Nation-making in Progress 17
Chapter Two: Emigration: Local Variation 54
Macro-level Factors of Overseas Emigration 58
The Significance of Localism for Migration 62
To the Continental United States, 1899, 1904 and 1906 76
To Hawaii, 1899, 1904 and 1906 90
To Mexico, 1904 and 1906 102
To the Philippines, 1904 107
To Other Major Destinations 111
Chapter Three: Adaptation: Residential and Occupational Patterns 120
Translocal Migration: Early Japanese Settlement in California 123
The Japanese Concentration in Southern California, Early 1920s 131
Sustaining Translocality –Marriage Patterns 157
Chapter Four: Home: A Trans-Pacific Community 162
Chapter Five: Nationalism: Love of a Nation, Love of a Hometown 213
Conclusion 243
Bibliography 249
v

List of Tables

Table 1: School Enrollment Rates in Wakayama and Hiroshima, 1875-1885 29
Table 2: Changes in the Conscription Law, 1873-1889 38
Table 3: Number of Passports Issued in Wakayama Prefecture by County, 1899, 1904
and 1906 67
Table 4: Distribution of Japanese Farmers from Wakayama, Kumamoto, Hiroshima
and Yamaguchi in Vacaville, Florin and Moneta, 1905 125
Table 5: Distribution of Japanese Farmers from Wakayama, Kumamoto, Hiroshima
and Yamaguchi in Vacaville, Florin and Moneta-Gardena, 1910 126
Table 6: Number of Japanese in Selected Cities in California, 1910 and 1920 131
Table 7: Population Distribution of the Japanese in Southern California, 1920-24 132
Table 8: Distribution of the Japanese in the City of Los Angeles by Prefecture of
Origin, 1920-24 134
Table 9: Distribution of Japanese Immigrants in Farming Communities of Southern
California by Place of Origin, 1920-24 152
Table 10: Distribution of Japanese Immigrants in Fishing Communities of Southern
California by Place of Origin, 1920-24 156
Table 11: Marriage Patterns among Japanese Emigrants from Selected Prefectures,
Coming to the United States between 1890 and 1924 159
Table 12: Overseas Emigration from Families of Students at Taiji Elementary School,
1904-06 170
vi

Table 13: Racial Composition of the Population on Terminal Island (under the
Jurisdiction of Los Angeles), 1930 185
Table 14: Occupational Composition of the Population in East San Pedro, 1930 186
Table 15: Occupational Composition of the Population in Terminal and Other, 1930 186
Table 16: Racial and Class Composition of Fishermen in East San Pedro, 1930 187
Table 17: Racial and Gender Composition of Cannery Workers in East San Pedro,
1930 187
Table 18: Racial Composition of Lumber Mill Workers in Terminal, 1930 188
Table 19: Racial and Gender Composition of Cannery Workers in Terminal, 1930 189
Table 20: Native Prefectures of Pre-World War II Japanese Residents in Terminal
Island 190
Table 21: Top 7 Villages where Japanese Residents in Terminal Island Originated 190
Table 22: Nisei Educated in Japan by Father’s Occupation in the United States 194
Table 23: Percentage of Japanese Graduates of Richard Henry Dana Junior High
School, 1930-39 205
Table 24: Percentage of Japanese Graduates of San Pedro High School, 1920-41 206
Table 25: Native Prefectures of the Members of the Japanese Association of Los
Angeles, January, 1916-February, 1918 218

vii

List of Figures

Figure 1: Map of Japan and Wakayama Counties, 1896 64
Figure 2: Number of Overseas Emigrants from Wakayama Prefecture, 1897-1910 66
Figure 3: Wakayama Villages with Overseas Emigrants, 1899 70
Figure 4: Wakayama Villages with Overseas Emigrants, 1904 72
Figure 5: Wakayama Villages with Overseas Emigrants, 1906 74
Figure 6: Wakayama Villages with U.S.-bound Emigrants, 1899 78
Figure 7: Wakayama Villages with U.S.-bound Emigrants, 1904 85
Figure 8: Wakayama Villages with U.S.-bound Emigrants, 1906 88
Figure 9: Wakayama Villages with Hawaii-bound Emigrants, 1899 93
Figure 10: Wakayama Villages with Hawaii-bound Emigrants, 1904 98
Figure 11: Wakayama Villages with Hawaii-bound Emigrants, 1906 101
Figure 12: Wakayama Villages with Mexico-bound Emigrants, 1904 104
Figure 13: Wakayama Villages with Mexico-bound Emigrants, 1906 106
Figure 14: Wakayama Villages with Philippines-bound Emigrants, 1904 109
Figure 15: Comparison of Figures 10 and 14 110
viii

Figure 16: Wakayama Villages that Sent Emigrants to Canada, Australia and China 112
Figure 17: Distribution of the Japanese in the City of Los Angeles, 1920-24 137
Figure 18: Distribution of Emigrants from Hiroshima Prefecture in the City of Los
Angeles, 1920-24 138
Figure 19: Distribution of Emigrants from Wakayama Prefecture in the City of Los
Angeles, 1920-24 139
Figure 20: Distribution of Emigrants from Tottori Prefecture in the City of Los
Angeles, 1920-24 140
Figure 21: Distribution of Japanese Farmers in the City of Los Angeles, 1920-24 143
Figure 22: Distribution of Japanese Grocers in the City of Los Angeles, 1920-24 144
Figure 23: Distribution of Japanese Gardeners in the City of Los Angeles, 1920-24 145
Figure 24: Tameno Hamaguchi’s Passport, 1919 172
Figure 25: Terminal Island, 1938 184
Figure 26: An Inkstone Case and a Certificate of Merit Given to Wataru Kohama,
Winner of the San Pīdoro Taijijin-kai Shō (San Pedro Taiji Village
Association Prize), 1938 193
Figure 27: Ōrin or the Great Bell at Tawara Elementary School 196
Figure 28: Another Great Bell from San Pedro? (At Taiji Elementary School) 197
Figure 29: Mildred O. Walizer and U.S.-born Children at Tawara Elementary School,
1930 211
ix

Figure 30: Mildred O. Walizer and Children at Taiji Elementary School, 1930 211
Figure 31: Testimonial Sent from Minister of War Hata to Tetsunosuke Koiso, 1940 238
Figure 32: Receipt of Fees Paid to the Navy Association of Japan, 1940 239

x

Abstract

This dissertation examines pre-World War II Japanese migration to the United States,
particularly focusing on the role of local identities in the process of emigration,
immigration, and settlement. It highlights the case of migrants from Wakayama
Prefecture, arguing that “translocalism” played a central role in their migration and
overseas adaptation despite the increasing significance of Japanese and American
nationalisms. Village circumstances and identities in Japan were major influences for
patterns of emigration, chain migration, and overseas immigrant settlement. In this way,
Japanese migrants brought over village mentalities to places where they settled and
created communities based on real and imagined ties to their native villages. When they
spoke of bridging the United States and Japan, they did not simply think of themselves as
representing nations. Rather, what first came to mind was being a bridge between their
hometowns on each side of the Pacific. As global actors, their identity remained
decidedly local.
1

Introduction

Our country is famous for tangerines
Our old parents are waiting eagerly
For our return, la la

Our country is famous for tangerines
Let’s make a big profit quickly
And let’s go together to the hometown, la la

Our country is famous for tangerines
To us currently on the move in America
Having this meeting is delightful, la la

Our country is famous for tangerines
Here [Southern California] in America is also famous for tangerines
Home is where you make it and you can’t find a difference, la la

“An Encouraging Song for Wakayama Immigrants in Southern California,” 1927 or
earlier, translated by the author
1

The above lyrics demonstrate the double meaning of “home” to Japanese immigrants.
On one hand, emigrants from Wakayama longed for their place of origin, dreaming of
getting rich quickly and returning to their waiting parents. On the other, “home is where
you make it,” and they found a joy in getting together with their comrades in America.
Most studies of Japanese immigrants focus on this second meaning of “home” by
examining the process and pitfalls to their becoming American. This dissertation,
however, concentrates on the first meaning of “home” by viewing the Issei experience as
a process in which ties to Japanese prefectures and local communities were not uprooted

1
Nanka Wakayama Kenjin-kai, ed., Nanka Wakayama kenjin [Wakayama people in Southern
California] (Los Angeles: Nanka Wakayama Kenjin-kai, 1927), 162.
2

but transplanted. Even as they made a new home in the United States, the Wakayama
immigrant song reveals that Issei never lost sight of their real hometowns in Japan.
Japanese immigrants brought their local identities to localities where they settled,
using their memberships to particular communities in the process of emigration,
immigration and adaptation. Scholars have not necessarily neglected those aspects of
localism that affected migration: they have either studied peculiar local emigration
contexts or noted the significance of kenjin-kai (prefectural association) activities in
receiving countries. On the other hand, they have not sufficiently asked how local
peculiarities made a difference across various emigrant villages or to what extent
immigrants utilized ties of localism beyond initial settlement. The reason that the full
history of local identity has been overlooked is because the field is divided by emigration
studies (mostly in Japanese) and immigration studies (mostly in English). Emigration
studies have fixated on the local communities and circumstances that sent emigrants
abroad but have rarely explored local differences after emigration. Immigration studies
have focused essentially on the community development of the Japanese as an ethnic
group, and in that process, have slighted the continued significance of local variations
among immigrants. The limitations of emigration and immigration studies have
historiographical roots.
Twentieth-century American immigration historiography developed from
assimilation-oriented scholarship to a pluralist approach that runs counter to it. Recent
works emphasize immigrant participation in American nation-making. More recently,
immigration historians have focused on transnational aspects of immigrant lives,
3

experiences, social relations, ideas, and practices.
2
Overall, American immigration
history has dealt with the question of nations within a nation. Whether taking an
assimilationist, pluralist, nation-making, or transnational approach, what scholars deem
as an ethnic community is actually a group of people that shares a link to the same

2
A good example of works that are influenced by the assimilationist-paradigm is The Uprooted
(1951) by Oscar Handlin. While Handlin does not laud assimilation in any way, he no doubt believes
that it is an inevitable process, as shown in his account of nineteenth-century European peasants
“uprooted” from their native places and traditional values (Oscar Handlin, The Uprooted: The Epic
Story of the Great Migrations That Made the American People, 2nd ed. [Boston: Little, Brown and
Company, 1951; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002]). The 1960s and 1970s saw an
emergence of scholarship that attacks the assimilationist paradigm; in its stead, scholars writing from
the 1960s on have emphasized the cultural distinctiveness of ethnic groups. The Transplanted (1985)
by John E. Bodnar poses a counterargument to the assimilationist premise that immigrants
transformed from a pre-modern peasant community to a modern industrial one (John E. Bodnar, The
Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America [Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1985]). While the pluralist resistance to the assimilationist paradigm recovered immigrant agency,
however, they are still not free from the assimilationist assumption that immigrants made little impact
on national life. As if to correct such shortcomings, some works written in the 1980s and 1990s stress
how immigrant communities were integrated into national life and played an important role in the
making of America. Instead of focusing exclusively on ethnic communities, Lizabeth Cohen, in
Making a New Deal (1990), looks at how different groups overcame racial, ethnic, and geographical
differences and forged a new identity as working-class Americans during the 1930s (Lizabeth Cohen,
Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939 [New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1990]). Influenced by the expansion of global capitalism in recent years, immigration history
today increasingly focus on connections of immigrant communities in the United States to their
homeland, not only in physical and material terms as exemplified by the back-and-forth movement of
migrants or by exchanges of goods, but also in a cultural and psychological sense as seen in the
manifestation of immigrant nationalism. Dino Cinel, for example, in From Italy to San Francisco
(1982) reiterates his point that Italians who had immigrated to the United States never lost their ties to
the homeland, with a strong desire to return home someday (Dino Cinel, From Italy to San Francisco:
The Immigrant Experience [Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1982]). In Becoming Mexican
American (1993) that examines Mexican immigration and community formation in Los Angeles,
George J. Sánchez shows how the community in the United States culturally and ideologically sought
to remain Mexican while subscribing to American values and practices (George J. Sánchez, Becoming
Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 [New York:
Oxford University Press, 1993]). Yong Chen’s Chinese San Francisco, 1850-1943 (2000) seeks to
capture the worldview of immigrants by examining Chinese contexts that set the stage for emigration,
how Chinese in San Francisco retained their distinctive cultural identity, and how international events
kindled their nationalism and motivated them to participate in the Chinese nation-building (Yong
Chen, Chinese San Francisco, 1850-1943: A Trans-Pacific Community [Stanford, Calif.: Stanford
University Press, 2000]). For a concise overview of American immigration historiography, see
Kathleen Neils Conzen, “Thomas and Znaniecki and the Historiography of American Immigration,”
Journal of American Ethnic History 16, no. 1 (1996): 16-25.
4

nation-state. Thus, immigrants are Poles, Italians, Irish, Germans, Czechoslovaks, or
Chinese, but seldom Masurians, Corkonians, Apulians, Bohemians, Bavarians, or
Taishanese. While immigration scholars understand that immigrants hailed from a
variety of places within the same nation-state, only a few have viewed the question of
regional variation and identity as central to immigrant experiences.
A similar negligence of localism in migration can be also found in the study of
Japanese immigrants. Japanese American historiography followed a pattern that was
similar to what was happening in American immigration historiography in general. The
field changed from assimilation-oriented history to a pluralist, and then a transnational
one. Moreover, it shares the same problem with American immigration historiography in
general: Japanese American history has rarely focused on regional variations in
immigrants’ places of origin or their local identities.
3
Some pioneering studies in the
field, such as Yamato Ichihashi’s Japanese in the United States (1932) and Hilary
Conroy’s The Japanese Frontier in Hawaii, 1868-1898 (1953), present their findings in
the least polemical tone unlike anti-Asian writers from the late nineteenth on (although
Ichihashi apparently had a political agenda to dispute bad images of the Japanese). Not
necessarily concerned with portraying the lives of immigrants, these scholars described
political and international developments that influenced immigration. Naturally, their

3
I owe certain terminology as well as knowledge about Asian American historiography to Gary Y.
Okihiro. See Gary Y. Okihiro, The Columbia Guide to Asian American History (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2001).
5

frame of reference was the nation-state.
4
Other scholars writing from the 1930s up until
the 1960s were more interested in Japanese American community formation and heavily
influenced by sociological theories and methodologies of the Chicago School. S. Frank
Miyamoto’s Social Solidarity among the Japanese in Seattle (1939) and Harry H. L.
Kitano’s

Japanese Americans: Evolution of a Subculture (1969) follow this line.
5
Since
such assimilation-oriented approach compares “Japanese” with “American” as well as
“minority” with “majority,” it rarely recognizes the significance of regional variations
within Japanese communities.
In the social and political context supportive of liberal standpoints and New Left
critique of American society, scholars especially writing from the 1960s to the early
1980s showed sympathy to the suffering of Japanese Americans, calling for social justice
while not completely abandoning assimilationist interests. Roger Daniels’s The Politics
of Prejudice (1962) and East to America (1980) by Robert A. Wilson and Bill Hosokawa

fall into this category.
6
Concerned with the brutality of the state that affected the

4
Yamato Ichihashi, Japanese in the United States: A Critical Study of the Problems of the Japanese
Immigrants and Their Children (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1932; New York: Arno
Press, 1969); and Hilary Conroy, The Japanese Frontier in Hawaii, 1868-1898, repr. ed. (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1953; New York: Arno Press, 1978).
5
S. Frank Miyamoto, Social Solidarity among the Japanese in Seattle (1939; repr., Seattle: University
of Washington Press, 1984); and Harry H. L. Kitano, Japanese Americans: Evolution of a Subculture
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969).
6
Roger Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice: The Anti-Japanese Movement in California and the
Struggle for Japanese Exclusion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962); and Robert A.
Wilson and Bill Hosokawa, East to America: A History of the Japanese in the United States (New
York: William Morrow, 1980).
6

Japanese collectively, or with the suffering of an immigrant group as a whole, their focus
is not on regional variations among Japanese immigrants. In Asian American
communities, the pluralist call manifested itself in the Asian American Movement, which
brought over another important shift in historiography. A new generation of scholars
publishing their works from the late 1980s through the 1990s, most of whom Asian
Americans themselves, was more concerned about doing history for their own
communities than liberals like Daniels. The Issei (1988) by Yuji Ichioka and Strangers
from a Different Shore (1989) by Ronald Takaki are prime examples of this line of
scholarship.
7
Scholars that took such a stand—a group called Asian Americanists by
Gary Okihiro—essentially posed a pluralist challenge to assimilationist assumptions and
emphasized the contribution of Japanese and other Asian Americans to national history.
They note internal differences within the Japanese American community, but not
necessarily the ones based on places of origin.
The post-1990s scholarship has just begun to pay special attention to transnationalism.
A good model in Japanese American history is Eiichiro Azuma’s Between Two Empires
(2005). Azuma looks at the community formation of Japanese immigrants on the West
Coast of the United States. Azuma’s account eloquently tells the story of immigrants that
did not choose between assimilation and rejection of it; their survival strategy was more
complicated, as they eclectically adopted American ways while retaining ethnic

7
Yuji Ichioka, The Issei: The World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885-1924 (New
York: Free Press, 1988); and Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian
Americans. Updated and rev. ed. (1989; repr., Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1998).
7

nationalism. Since Azuma is more concerned with the manifestation of “nationalism”
among Japanese immigrants than localism, he does not discuss regional variations among
the Japanese.
8
Although Fuminori Minamikawa, a specialist in historical sociology,
notes the “translocal” nature of early Japanese society in Los Angeles, even in his
account, immigrant localism disappears after the 1910s.
9
Thus, in the field of Japanese
American studies, strong emphasis has been put on the community formation based on
nationality. Their story is basically one on “what happened after settlement,” and
therefore, Japanese local contexts for emigration and migration processes are essentially
“preludes” to the real story. Other scholars have shown less interest in the factor of
localism in the immigrant community and identity formation. Although they all
recognize regional variations among Japanese immigrants, none of their works focus
exclusively on local identities.
On the other side of the Pacific, Japanese emigration studies focus so much on local
communities and peculiar circumstances that scholars tend to overlook what happened to
local identities after emigrants left Japan. While some researchers are attentive to the
effects of local ties on the immigrant experiences in host societies, such studies are still
exceptions rather than the norm. Emigration studies in Japan developed from
community-centered approaches to recent attempts at synthesis, along with emigration

8
Eiichiro Azuma, Between Two Empires: Race, History, and Transnationalism in Japanese America
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
9
Fuminori Minamikawa, “Nikkei Amerika-jin” no rekishishakaigaku: esunishitī, jinshu,
nashonarizumu [Historical sociology of “Japanese Americans”: ethnicity, race and nationalism]
(Tōkyō: Sairyūsha, 2007).
8

histories published on individual prefectures. These studies are concerned with why
certain localities sent more emigrants than others and how migration transformed local
communities. Scholars interested in such questions have provided meticulous studies
examining emigrant communities from geographical, economic, sociological and
demographic perspectives.
10
I would call their research collectively imin boson kenkyū or
the study of the native village of emigrants. While some scholars attempted to look at
what happened to immigrants from certain localities after their settlement, this topic
remains understudied.

10
For example, Yoshiji Takemi, “Okinawa tō shutsu imin no keizai chirigaku teki kōsatsu (jō)” [An
economic and geographical examination of emigration from Okinawa Islands (1)], Chirigaku hyōron 4,
no. 2 (1928): 1-22; Takemi, “Okinawa tō shutsu imin no keizai chirigaku teki kōsatsu (ge)” [An
economic and geographical examination of emigration from Okinawa Islands (2)], Chirigaku Hyōron
4, no. 3 (1928): 12-47; Kenkichi Iwasaki, “Kii-hantou minami kaigan ni okeru kaigai dekasegi imin
no kenkyū (dai 1 pō)” [A study of emigrants to foreign countries from the south coast of Kii-Peninsula
(1st report)], Chirigaku hyōron 12, no. 7 (1936), 1-23 ; Iwasaki, “Kii-hantou minami kaigan ni okeru
kaigai dekasegi imin no kenkyū (dai 2 hō)” [A study of emigrants to foreign countries from the south
coast of Kii-Peninsula (2nd report)], Chirigaku hyōron 13, no. 3 (1937), 1-18; Iwasaki, “Kii-hantou
minami kaigan ni okeru kaigai dekasegi imin no kenkyū (dai 3 pō)” [A study of emigrants to foreign
countries from the south coast of Kii-Peninsula (3rd report)], Chirigaku hyōron 14, no. 4 (1938), 28-
46; Iwasaki, “Kii-hantou minami kaigan ni okeru kaigai dekasegi imin no kenkyū (dai 4 hō)” [A study
of emigrants to foreign countries from the south coast of Kii-Peninsula (4th report)], Chirigaku hyōron
14, no. 6 (1938), 76-77; Tadashi Fukutake, ed., Kaigai imin ga boson ni oyoboshita eikyō: Wakayama-
ken Hidaka-gun Mio-mura jittai chōsa [Influences of emigrants on their home village: report of a
survey of “Amerika-mura”] (Tōkyō: Mainichi Shimbunsha Jinkō Mondai Chōsakai, 1953); Yatarō
Doi, Yamaguchi-ken Ōshima-gun Hawai iminshi [History of Emigration from Ōshima County,
Yamaguchi Prefecture] (Tokuyama: Matsuno Shoten, 1980); Ryōhei Ichihara, “Imin boson no gyogyō
kōzō to jinkō mondai: Wakayama-ken Higashimuro-gun Taiji-chō no jittai chōsa hōkoku (1)”
[Emigrants’ home village], Kansai daigaku keizai ronshū 8, no. 6 (1959): 28-50; Ichihara, “Imin
boson no gyogyō kōzō to jinkō mondai: Wakayama-ken Higashimuro-gun Taiji-chō no jittai chōsa
hōkoku (2)” [Emigrants’ home village (2)], Kansai daigaku keizai ronshū 10, no. 2 (1960): 1-26;
Ichihara, “Imin boson no gyogyō kōzō to jinkō mondai: Wakayama-ken Higashimuro-gun Taiji-chō
no jittai chōsa hōkoku (3)” [Emigrants’ home village (3)], Kansai daigaku keizai ronshū 10, no. 4
(1960): 30-67; and Ritsumeikan Daigaku Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyūjo, “Kotō imin mura no kenkyū”
[The study of an emigrant village of Kotō], Ritsumeikan daigaku jinbun kagaku kenkyūjo kiyō 14
(March 1964).
9

Another group of emigration studies scholars, instead of looking at one specific
village as community studies do, pay special attention to prefectures and ask why some
sent overwhelmingly large numbers of emigrants while others did not.
11
While these
studies suggest some possibilities for future research, their unit of analysis is often
limited to a prefecture, and few have done research at the county or village levels. In
addition to scholarly studies of Japanese emigration, prefectures have published official
overseas emigration histories. The focus of this research is on local contexts for
emigration rather than national. The dates of publication, approaches, and styles vary:
some offer more numbers than others; others place stronger emphasis on biographies of
successful emigrants. These studies pay greater attention to local circumstances than to
the lives of immigrants; even when they do focus on the latter, they fall short of giving a
detailed analysis by, for example, tracing certain communities from their native villages
to settlements.
More recently, emigration studies scholars have begun to acknowledge the need for a
synthesis. Those publishing in the 1990s, namely Masaaki Kodama and Tomonori

11
For example, Yasuo Wakatsuki, “Amerika imin tashutsu chiku no yōin bunseki” [The analysis of
primary factors in the regions with high emigration levels to the United States], Tamagawa daigaku
nōgakubu kenkyū 19 (1979): 106-122; Hiroshi Shimaoka, “Dai hakkai Taiheiyō gakkai kenkyū taikai
ni okeru kōjutsu: Hawaii kan’yaku imin no shusshinchi: Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Kumamoto, Fukuoka
no yon-ken ni shūchū no youin” [On home prefectures of Hawaii kan’yaku imin], Taiheiyō gakkaishi
30 (April 1986): 83-91; Yasuo Sakata, “Nihon-jin Amerika dekasegi no ‘chiiki-sei’ no ichi kōsatsu
(I)” [The geographic origin of the cross-Pacific migration of Japanese laborers: an analysis part I],
Ōsaka gakuin daigaku kokusaigaku ronshū 1, no. 1 (1990): 59-84; Sakata, “Nihon-jin Amerika
dekasegi no ‘chiiki-sei’ no ichi kōsatsu (II)” [The geographic origin of the cross-Pacific migration of
Japanese laborers: an analysis part II], Ōsaka gakuin daigaku kokusaigaku ronshū 1, no. 2 (1991):
149-171; and Sakata, “Nihon-jin Amerika dekasegi no ‘chiiki-sei’ no ichi kōsatsu (III)” [The
geographic origin of the cross-Pacific migration of Japanese laborers: an analysis part III], Ōsaka
gakuin daigaku kokusaigaku ronshū 2, no. 1 (1991): 77-111.
10

Ishikawa, make connections between national and local developments that influenced
Japanese emigration. While they stand in the tradition of community-centered studies,
they synthesize different local contexts and succeed in presenting emigration as a national
phenomenon. Although we have much to learn from their meticulous research, however,
they could have gone further into details about the workings of local identities in the
places of destination.
12
Collectively, Japanese emigration scholars rarely focus on what
happened to local identities of immigrants after they had left their home villages.
Notwithstanding the lack of dialogue between Japanese and American migration
studies, some scholars have actually made attempts to bridge the divide between the two.
Some American scholars provide more details about local contexts for emigration or
regional differences among Japanese immigrants than others.
13
Collectively, however,
these studies still fall short of examining the issue of local identities and circumstances in
Japan thoroughly—more than at the prefectural level. Similarly, some studies in
Japanese emigration scholarship look at what happened to immigrants in host societies.
14

12
Masaaki Kodama, Nihon iminshi kenkyū josetsu [An introduction to the study of Japanese
immigration history] (Hiroshima: Keisuisha, 1992); and Tomonori Ishikawa, Nihon imin no
chirigakuteki kenkyū: Okinawa, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi [A geographical study of Japanese
immigration: Okinawa, Hiroshima and Yamaguchi] (Okinawa-ken, Ginowan-shi: Yōju Shorin, 1997).
13
For example, Yosaburo Yoshida, “Sources and Causes of Japanese Emigration,” Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science 34, no. 2 (1909): 157-167; Edward K. Strong,
Japanese in California: Based on a Ten Per Cent Survey of Japanese in California and Documentary
Evidence from Many Sources (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1933); and Alan Takeo
Moriyama, Imingaisha: Japanese Emigration Companies and Hawaii, 1894-1908 (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 1985).
14
For example, Doi, Yamaguchi-ken Ōshima-gun Hawai iminshi; and Ritsumeikan Daigaku Jinbun
Kagaku Kenkyūjo, “Kotō imin mura no kenkyū”; Ishikawa, Nihon imin no chirigakuteki kenkyū,
chaps. 13-17; Chikako Yamada, Kanada Nikkei shakai no bunka hen’yō: ‘umi wo watatta Nihon no
11

While these studies present interesting findings about Japanese immigrant regionalism,
there are still areas that are not covered fully. For example, it would be interesting to see
quantitative research on how emigrants from various villages in Japan adapted to host
societies differently.

Independent developments of Japanese emigration studies and Asian American
studies created a distance between these two fields, despite the fact that emigration and
immigration were one process. In light of these considerations, a key solution that I
propose to the gap between the nationalist paradigm in American scholarship and the
particularistic approach in Japanese scholarship is to recognize what I call the “trans-
Pacific localism” of Japanese migrants. This approach takes seriously the multiple and
contested meanings of local identity, studies their formation across space and time, and
considers the implications for “transnational” historical experiences that are not bounded
by one nation-state. The trans-localism approach offers a new window through which to
look at immigrant transnationalism in greater detail than a nation-based analysis;
moreover, it makes clear the diversity and differences within an immigrant community
and expands the terrain of immigration scholarship.
Some immigration historians have already done research focusing on the aspect of
migration from a local perspective, albeit their works are not in Japanese emigration or

mura’ san-sedai no hensen [The cultural transformation of the Nikkei society in Canada: three-
generational changes in “the Japanese village that crossed the ocean”] (Tōkyō: Ochanomizu Shobō,
2000); and Kōjiro Iida, Hawai Nikkei-jin no rekishichiri [Historical geography of Japanese immigrants
in Hawaii] (Kyōto: Nakanishiya Shuppan, 2003).
12

Japanese American immigration studies. They focus on certain localities within an
emigrant-sending nation-state. They examine not only local contexts for emigration but
also the significance of regionalism for immigrants in the host society.
15
As noted by
Oscar Handlin in 1951, the worldview of immigrants was essentially that of the native
village:

Always, the start was the village. “I was born in such a village in such a
parish”—so the peasant invariably began the account of himself. Thereby he
indicated the importance of the village in his being; this was the fixed point by
which he knew his position in the world and his relationship with all humanity.
16

While Handlin is primarily concerned with nineteenth-century European immigrants,
what he discusses here is applicable to any immigrant groups from parts of the world
where nationalism, or the sense of belonging to a unified, homogenous nation, was quite
new.
We need to put early Japanese immigration to North America—and to elsewhere—in
proper historical context to reconstruct their worldview: those who migrated in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries held on strongly to the identity based on
particular villages or towns they came from, rather than to the one based on an abstract,

15
For example, Cinel, From Italy to San Francisco; Jon Gjerde, From Peasants to Farmers: The
Migration from Balestrand, Norway, to the Upper Middle West (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1985); Jose C. Moya, Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850-1930
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); and Madeline Y. Hsu, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming
of Home: Transnationalism and Migration Between the United States and South China, 1882-1943
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000).
16
Handlin, The Uprooted, 8.
13

new, and “imagined” community, that is, a Japanese nation. It is important to note,
however, that the question of identity was either local or national; while no doubt the
local identity was persistent among immigrants, we also witness a manifestation of strong
Japanese nationalism among first-generation immigrants once they encountered racism in
the United States.
My strong emphasis on local identities does not mean, therefore, that I insist that
immigrants never viewed themselves as part of a nation. The local identity was not
necessarily the only way of identification, or not even the primary one. As immigrants
were exposed to a new nation, that is the United States, they began to intensify their sense
of belonging to a nation themselves. According to Handlin,

in deceptive retrospect, a man might tell his children, Why, we were Poles and
stayed that way—or Italians, or Irish or Germans or Czechoslovaks. The
memories were in error. These people had arrived in the New World with no such
identification. The terms referred to national states not yet in existence or just
come into being. The immigrants defined themselves rather by the place of their
birth, the village, or else by the provincial region that shared dialect and custom;
they were Masurians or Corkonians or Apulians or Bohemians or Bavarians.
17

As Handlin suggests, immigrants eventually adapted themselves to groupings based on
the nation. It was also in the early twentieth century, as George J. Sánchez points out,
that the rise of national identity among immigrants was a global phenomenon.
18
Such

17
Handlin, The Uprooted, 166. See also Stephen S. Fujita and David J. O’Brien. Japanese American
Ethnicity: The Persistence of Community (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991), 20-21.
18
George J. Sánchez, in discussion with the author, October 14, 2009, Los Angeles.
14

consciousness manifested itself in efforts to educate the second generation and to create
institutions and organizations based on nationality, as demonstrated in the cases of
Mexicans and Italians.
19
Therefore, I will also address the issue of Japanese immigrant
nationalism that was not necessarily in conflict with local identities.
Thus the large questions studied in this dissertation are these: What did meanings of
local identity do in the process of migration and adaptation of Japanese immigrants in
California, particularly around Los Angeles areas, between the late nineteenth century
and the eve of the Pacific War? And what was the relationship between these local
identities and emerging Japanese immigrant nationalism?
What follows is a story of how Japanese localism transcended national borders and, at
least in one particular case, created a trans-Pacific community consisting of villagers of
Taiji, Wakayama, and immigrants in San Pedro, California. Chapter 1 contextualizes
Japan’s modernization in the nineteenth century, in order to address its aspects related to
overseas emigration and to discuss how its attendant nation-making processes created
tensions between the state and Japanese villages. In the realms of education and military
conscription, Japanese villagers protested the brutal power of the new nation-state,
sometimes turning to uprisings. Early Japanese emigrants who departed in the 1880s had
village mentalities, and brought over such identities to overseas communities where they
settled. Chapter 2 provides a detailed case study of Wakayama Prefecture, an important
emigration context from the late 1890s to the eve of the Gentlemen’s Agreement in 1908.

19
George J. Sánchez, Becoming Mexican American, chap. 5; and Dino Cinel, From Italy to San
Francisco, chap. 9.
15

This chapter offers a quantitative analysis of records of passports issued by the
prefectural government, in order to prove that the “emigration fever” traveled regionally,
and that different villages produced diverse types of migrants in terms of destinations.
Chapter 3 shifts the focus from emigration to immigration by studying the Japanese
settlement patterns in Southern California. The main source for this chapter is a set of
registration cards that Japanese residents filed with the consulate in Los Angeles in the
early 1920s. The extensive use of this data allows the mapping out of Japanese
immigrants in Los Angeles and helps clarifying the relationship between settlement and
local ties as well as occupational patterns in Southern California. A case study of these
larger settlement patterns is provided in Chapter 4 through an analysis of the Japanese
community on Terminal Island, Los Angeles. Terminal Islanders created a trans-Pacific
community by maintaining strong linkages to the village of Taiji in Wakayama Prefecture.
In this particular case where the Japanese, especially those from Southern Wakayama,
enjoyed a numerical supremacy over other ethnic groups, immigrant localism manifested
itself strongly and made it possible for immigrants to create another “home” while they
actively participated in the affairs of their home villages in Japan.
Finally, Chapter 5 examines the relationship between localism and nationalism to
show that immigrants’ feelings for native villages or prefectures created fissures within
the Japanese society, but that they also functioned in a way to strengthen immigrant
nationalism in ceremonies, wars and disasters. Relying heavily on newspaper articles,
the chapter makes clear how Japanese immigrant nationalism served as an extension of
16

localism based on prefectures or villages, despite the fact that prefectures, and even some
villages, were modern constructs.
Looking at both emigration and immigration contexts for the Japanese from a local
perspective makes it possible to suggest a new way of approaching immigration studies.
It will allow scholars to pay a close attention to multiple identifications of immigrants,
and to understand the worldviews of immigrants as expressed in “An Encouraging Song
for Wakayama Immigrants in Southern California.”
17

Chapter One: Modernization: Japan’s Nation-making in Progress

kuni: 1. a state or country.
2. a region.
3. a province in old Japan.
4. a domain or territory.
5. the land where one is born and raised; one’s hometown.

Iwanami kokugo jiten, 5th ed., s.v. “kuni,” translated by the author.

Kuni, as it appears in a modern Japanese dictionary, has several meanings just like an
English word country does. Its concept relates to a place with geographical boundaries,
but depending on contexts, the meaning of kuni changes. If the reference is to something
national, whether it is an event, policy, organization, or holiday, the word is
interchangeable with “Japan,” a name of a sovereign state. If a person brings up
somewhat outdated expressions such as kuni e kaeru (“to return to one’s country”) or o-
kuni jiman (“boasting of one’s country”), what he or she has in mind is most likely a
hometown, not a state. A simple word with only two syllables contains competing and
alternative notions about one’s belonging. Kuni could be either national or local.
The fuzziness about the word kuni is a good example to showcase the contention
between nationalism and localism in modern Japan. The country launched the project of
modern nation-making following the Meiji Restoration of 1868. It had been previously
subjected to samurai rule for 265 years, with loosely federated autonomous provinces—
each controlled by feudal lords—and a central government run by the Tokugawa
shogunate. The overthrow of the shogunate, justified by a call for “restoring” imperial
authority back to a rightful place in politics, was led by the lower samurai of the powerful
18

southwestern clans. But this restoration meant more than a simple regime change: it gave
birth to a completely new state with a strong central government. Former provinces,
replaced by modern prefectures, now came under the control of centrally appointed
governors. The new Meiji regime embarked on the project of nation-building through
industrialization and militarization under the slogan of fukoku kyōhei or “enrich the
country, strengthen the military,” because the impetus for ending the old rule came from
Western imperialism that threatened Japanese independence. In order to survive in an
uncertain world by catching up with the West, Japan advanced the program of rapid
modernization, which often occurred at the expense of ordinary citizens. From the
perspective of state officials, commoners were slow in acknowledging the birth of the
new nation. A strong state required the ideal citizenry who would actively participate in
programs planned by the central government. Therefore, it became imperative to
inculcate in commoners “what makes an ideal Japanese subject”. It took propaganda,
spread by government agents and intellectuals, for commoners to learn “a sense of
nation.”
Nonetheless the creation of modern Japanese citizens never proceeded in a smooth
manner. Ordinary people responded to the imposition of national identity in various
ways, sometimes openly rebelling against national policy, but in many cases shrewdly
negotiating their way out of national intrusion into their daily lives. People understood
national symbols in familiar local terms, stuck to old practices in the increasingly
modernizing world, and took advantage of inadequate law enforcement to avoid national
duties. Just as the French Revolution failed to change rural peasants into Frenchmen in a
19

stride, the making of the unified Japanese citizenry progressed leisurely and with trial and
error. Thus national unity was not given during the Meiji period (1868-1912), especially
in its early part. This perspective is important in understanding the worldview of the
Meiji Japanese.
20

It has been rare for historians of Japan to explore the concept of “Japan” because it
“seems real and self-explanatory,” states Tessa Morris-Suzuki, a specialist in national
identity and ethnic minorities in Japan. Only recently have some historians begun to take
seriously those examples that unsettle the assumptions about national cohesiveness.
21

While Morris-Suzuki particularly focuses on the process by which the Japanese state
incorporated frontier societies of Hokkaidō and Okinawa into the nation, many other
regional communities on the islands of Honshū, Kyushū and Shikoku also forged a new
relationship to the central government.
Since the national integration never proceeded without challenges from the periphery,
state officials sought to implant a sense of peoplehood by inventing “traditions,” using
symbols, and instilling national ideology in the masses. Stephen Vlastos argues that Eric
Hobsbawm’s thesis about the invented nature of modern tradition holds true for Japan’s
familiar cultural emblems, rituals and ideas. Japan’s “old” traditions, such as the unique
style of labor management, an icon of communal harmony, and the rules of Sumō all date
back before World War II, but none are as traditional as they seem. Rather, they are

20
See Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1976).
21
Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Re-Inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1998), 9.
20

modern inventions to serve the myth of historical continuity from ancient Japan. “Most
(though not all) traditions are produced by elites,” Vlastos claims, “and some are
consciously fashioned as instruments of control.” The idea of a unified collectivity called
“the nation” was “the mega invented tradition of the modern era” that the state sought to
inculcate into its citizens as means to contain dissent.
22

One of these invented traditions was the emperor-centered nationalism that state
officials taught the masses through symbols and rituals. Takashi Fujitani demonstrates
that the Japanese people under the Tokugawa rule did not have a shared cultural identity
because they were scattered geographically and also because the rigid social structure that
separated one class from another precluded such a development. If any groups of the
commoners had a sense of national identity, these were limited to people in the cities of
Kyōto and Ōsaka, an area near the imperial court. Moreover, most people lacked
knowledge of the emperor, associating his image “with folk beliefs in deities who might
grant worldly benefits but who had little to do with the nation.”
23
The leaders of the
Meiji regime found it imperative to educate the masses to become Japanese subjects,
using the powerful national symbol. Government agents called senkyōshi (state
propagandists) and later kyōdōshoku (national priests) preached patriotism and

22
Steven Vlastos, ed., Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1998), 1-3 and 8-9.
23
Takashi Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1996), 6 and 9.
21

encouraged the worship of the emperor.
24
The emperor himself toured the countryside in
a series of spectacular progresses, integrating regionally dispersed onlookers into the
nation-state not in the same time but gradually.
25
On the other hand, people did not
necessarily embrace a new nation as the leaders wished, but added local twists to national
symbols and rituals. For example, not until the late 1880s did schoolchildren observe
national holidays in accordance with nationwide standards of ceremonies; prior to that, a
few schools that “acknowledged these holidays” “did so based on local initiative and
usually did no more than allow their pupils to take a day off from school.” On occasions
of national communion such as the Meiji Constitution’s promulgation (1889), a great
number of people “participat[ed] in local observances that coincided with and mimicked
those at the nation’s centers.”
26

Carol Gluck’s study of the late Meiji ideology formation equally confirms the point
about the elusiveness of messages delivered from the center. Ideology never functioned
as a static inculcation of state doctrines. On the contrary, it was prescribed and
disseminated by multiple sources that had a variety of interests and agenda that did not
always match the vision promoted by the central government. The government sought to
create the ideal and modern citizenry out of the rural Japanese (thus neglecting the urban
working-class) through education, media, military conscription, and local and quasi-

24
Ibid., 10.
25
Ibid., 54.
26
Ibid., 84 and 207.
22

public organizations, but in the process, different channels made use of a set of loosely
defined state orthodoxies to their own benefit. Moreover, the abundance of ideological
discourses is no proof of its swift and complete acceptance. Gluck stresses the need to
contextualize ideology in its “social environment” because the receiving end of ideology
was influenced by a host of other factors, of which ideology was merely one. She offers
a perspective to look at ideology not as a unified dogma that was created and effectively
disseminated by the central government from the start, but as a group of many
orthodoxies in which “hegemony arose,” with overlaps and tensions existing between
different ideological versions.
27
If the creation of national ideology itself was such a
messy process, then it was not surprising if the receiving end was confused about how to
think about a nation.
Another means of educating the masses to become proper kinds of Japanese was what
Sheldon Garon calls “social management.” Pre-World War II Japanese officials
determined what was acceptable and what was not in the realm of popular activity, not by
way of rigid social control that became obvious in the 1930s but by acknowledging
certain groups and activities—whether they involved religion or prostitution—and
holding them under surveillance. The authority further dictated appropriate values that
the masses should internalize firstly by teaching peasants and the urban poor “a
commitment to diligence, thrift, and other good habits” so that these people would not
end up being public charges, and later by turning to moral suasion to manage society as a

27
Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton
University Press, 1985), 3-16.
23

whole so that the general populace would sacrifice their labor to the prosperity of the
nation.
28

The reason that the authority had to teach the masses over and over again what a
nation was and how responsible citizens should behave is evident. The Meiji
Restoration involved groups of people concerned about the fate of the entity called Japan
somewhere distantly from most of the ordinary Japanese. As E. H. Norman notes in his
classical study of Japanese political history, the change was essentially not “a social
transformation taking place from below through democratic or mass revolutionary
process, but only from above, autocratically.”
29
In order words, a shift from feudal
provinces to a modern nation-state demanded top-down decisions at the center
irrespective of whether common Japanese people wanted such a change.
Despite the fact that the Restoration was not a kind of revolution that involved the
majority, some scholars argue that the process of integration proceeded smoothly with
minimum resistance. Focusing on the unification process in Ishikawa Prefecture located
in the central region and facing the Sea of Japan, James C. Baxter maintains that, during
the years between 1871 and 1888, “identification with, and integration into, a modern
state occurred rapidly and rather smoothly in Ishikawa, as in most of the rest of Japan,
despite separatist traditions and feelings of loyalty to the old local lords.” He further

28
Sheldon Garon, Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1997), 6-7 and 44-45.
29
E. Herbert Norman, Japan’s Emergence as a Modern State: Political and Economic Problems of
the Meiji Period, 60th anniversary ed. (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1940; Vancouver:
UBC Press, 2000), 102.
24

contends that local people willingly participated in this new enterprise, claiming that the
state “won active cooperation and voluntary compliance of people who had acquired a
new sense of national identity that transcended old localisms.”
30
While such an
assessment of the degree of success in national integration sounds contradictory to an
argument about the slow process by which people learned a sense of nation, it should not
be necessarily so. Baxter was able to conclude that integration had been successful
because he essentially examined the political and administrative aspect of it, not society
or culture. The chief object of his study is the bureaucracy and people concerned with
politics, many of whom came from the samurai background, rather than the masses.
31

Additionally, it is also true that the creation of the new nation-state did not bring about
serious fissures to the degree that different regional commanders claimed separate
governments.
Seen from the perspective of the ruled, however, a different picture emerges. In spite
of fundamental changes in the political and administrative system, the peasants who
made up 80 percent of the population
32
remained the ones to be ruled, not to rule. At the
village level, the same community heads called shōya, nanushi, or toshiyori—the name
changes depending on the region—retained leadership; in many cases they were

30
James C. Baxter, The Meiji Unification through the Lens of Ishikawa Prefecture (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994), 3.
31
Ibid., 116.
32
Mikiso Hane, Peasants, Rebels, Women, and Outcastes: The Underside of Modern Japan, 2nd ed.
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1982; Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 11.
25

appointed to the post of kochō (“chief magistrate”) when the new office was created in
1872, or were chosen as sonchō (“village heads”) when a system of local self-government
was introduced in 1888.
33
Frequently, people directed their grievances at local elites,
even if the source of their discontent concerned national policy. On the other hand,
seldom did protesters rationalize their resistance as people’s attack on the national
government.
34
This suggests that people reacted against the nation without realizing that
they did, or wrapped their grievances against the center in blankets of local protest.
Michael Lewis explores the tension between the national and local by examining the
case of Toyama, a prefecture adjacent to Ishikawa. Lewis demonstrates how the central
government “manipulate[ed]” the periphery to achieve its national goals, arguing that
“the state attempted to exhort, persuade, and forcibly compel local people to accept
policies to create ‘local autonomy’ along lines drafted in Tokyo’s ministries,” but that
local people did not easily acquiesce. Moreover, official complaints about inappropriate
local habits such as “too much drinking, too much gift-giving, too many celebrations of
local festivals, and frequent tardiness in paying taxes” testify the contradiction between
the ideal model citizenry and the actual people.
35

33
Ibid., 13.
34
Michael Lewis, Becoming Apart: National Power and Local Politics in Toyama, 1868-1945
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000), 119-120.
35
Ibid., 2, 12 and 13.
26

The contradiction, at its extreme, found expression in popular protest or even in
violent revolts. Agrarian revolts reached its zenith in frequency and violence in 1873.
According to one estimate, the number of revolts in the 265 years of Tokugawa rule was
under 600 while the first decade of the Meiji period (1868-78) witnessed 190 revolts.
36

The causes of revolts were various, but one of the major sources of grievance was the
new land tax. The Meiji government recognized private ownership of land, turning over
the lands that used to belong to feudal lords to the peasants. The state accompanied the
recognition with a new system of taxation in 1873. The tax, previously paid in crops,
was now collected in money at the rate of 3 percent of the estimated value of the land,
without regard to fluctuations in the crop yield. While the government turned to the land
tax as its chief source of revenue (80.5 percent came from the land tax during the years
between 1875 and 1879, and 85.6 percent between 1882 and 1892), the fluctuation in the
price of rice turned many small landowners into debtors. The burden of industrialization
essentially fell on the shoulders of the peasants, who increasingly had no choice but to
sell their land and become tenants.
37
Other grievances included objections to the new
school system, to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, to the emancipation decree
abolishing legal discrimination against the burakumin or outcastes, and to the

36
Norman, Japan’s Emergence as a Modern State, 72.
37
Hane, Peasants, Rebels, Women, and Outcastes, 17.
27

conscription system. Local uprisings against new systems and institutions took place all
over Japan.
38

Resistance to the centralized educational system posed a serious challenge to the
national project of creating the ideal citizenry fit to serve the interests of the state. The
Ministry of Education promulgated the Fundamental Code of Education (Gakusei) in
1872, creating the standardized school system for universal education. Despite the
tradition of rural schooling under the prior regime, the new system met strong opposition
from the beginning. People literally damaged or destroyed nearly 200 schools; in three
instances teachers or teachers’ homes became targets.
39
Brian Platt explains that these
uprisings occurred in two waves, for two distinct reasons. The first wave came in 1872-
73, around the time when a variety of reforms were implemented, including “the
Fundamental Code, the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, the Conscription Law, and
the liberation of burakumin.” This indicates that people did not essentially react against
schooling per se. “The popular association of the schools with objectionable policies
(conscription, land reform, and so on) as well as with traditional bogeymen (foreigners,
burakumin) suggests that the new school served as a symbol of all things different and
foreign and threatening,” Platt argues.
40
The second wave of uprisings came in 1876-77,

38
Kunisaku Kikuchi, Chōhei kihi no kenkyū [The study of draft evasion] (Tōkyō: Rippū Shobō, 1977),
112-176.
39
Brian Platt, Burning and Building: Schooling and State Formation in Japan, 1750-1890 (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004), 191-192.
40
Ibid., 186 and 193.
28

“during the wide spread opposition to the implementation of the new tax law adopted in
1873.” This time, the protesters’ demands were clear: they hoped to rid themselves of
financial liability to support new schools. Platt points out “the contradictions inherent in
early Meiji educational policy.” The Fundamental Code was created on the premise that
centralizing education would serve the interests of the state. Nevertheless, it “stipulated
that most of the costs relating to education would be borne not by the state but by the
people.” It was this hypocrisy of “local funding and central control” that protesters
reacted against.
41

People did not always need to rely on violence to have their voice heard by the
authority. Rural families responded to the new school system by not sending their
children to these schools. School attendance was poor especially in agrarian areas where
children contributed to the household labor force.
42
Table 1 shows school enrollment
rates in the prefectures of Wakayama (in the southern-central region of Honshū, Japan’s
main island) and Hiroshima (in southwestern Japan):

41
Ibid., 186 and 193-194.
42
Ibid., 219. The rate of school enrollment was probably poor in fishing communities as well. In
1879, the fishing village of Taiji had 451 children of school age, but only 103, or 22.8% of them,
enrolled. The average number of children attending school daily was 88, making the overall
attendance rate 19.5%. See Taiji Chōshi Kanshū Iinkai, ed., Taiji chōshi [The history of Taiji town]
(Taiji-chō: Taiji-chō Yakuba, 1979), 623.
29

Table 1: School Enrollment Rates in Wakayama and Hiroshima, 1875-1885
Year
Wakayama Hiroshima National
Average Male Female Average Male Female Average
1875 34.2% 9.2% 22.0% 44.0% 14.0% 29.4% 35.4%
1876 36.4% 10.8% 23.9% 42.4% 14.2% 28.9% 38.3%
1877 39.7% 11.7% 26.0% 39.3% 12.3% 26.1% 39.9%
1878 - - - 42.8% 12.7% 28.2% 41.3%
1879 48.7% 14.9% 32.3% 46.6% 14.4% 31.1% 41.2%
1880 - - 33.9% 52.0% 15.3% 34.3% 41.1%
1881 54.2% 18.7% 37.4% 55.5% 21.1% 38.6% 45.5%
1882 62.0% 25.4% 44.6% 62.9% 27.1% 45.6% 50.7%
1883 57.4% 22.6% 40.5% 72.6% 42.4% 58.1% 53.1%
1884 62.5% 25.7% 44.3% 73.2% 46.4% 60.4% 52.9%
1885 58.8% 22.5% 41.4% 68.3% 43.0% 56.2% 49.6%
Source: Wakayama Kenshi Hensan Iinkai, ed., Wakayama kenshi: kin-gendai I [The history of
Wakayama prefecture: modern and contemporary I] (Wakayama-shi: Wakayama-ken, 1989),
298; and Hiroshima-ken, ed., Hiroshima kenshi: kindai I [The history of Hiroshima prefecture:
modern I] (Hiroshima-shi: Hiroshima-ken, 1980), 536 and 550, compiled by the author.

While enrollment rates significantly increased in a decade in both prefectures, both of
their rates remained lower than the national average in the 1870s. The fact that these
prefectures were essentially rural probably accounts for this. The reason that enrollment
rates took off in the early 1880s for these prefectures may have to do with the fact that the
new law, the Educational Ordinance (Kyōikurei) of 1879, amended many of the
shortcomings in the Fundamental Code, although the impact was somewhat milder at the
national level (Wakayama experienced a 19.3% increase in 1882 while Hiroshima saw a
27.4% increase in 1883).
43

Wakayama and Hiroshima were also major sources of overseas emigrants in the late
nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Hiroshima started to supply a large

43
Ibid., 219.
30

number of emigrants to Hawaii as contract laborers on sugar plantations in 1885, which
indicates that these early emigrants grew up in the era when school enrollment was not
common or even before the creation of the school system. Moreover, enrollment was not
the same with actual attendance. In 1873, the rate of school attendance was merely
14.3% in the prefecture; ten years later, it reached 37.5%. Prior to that point, the school
attendance rate never exceeded 30%.
44
The number of emigrants from Wakayama began
to increase significantly in 1892-93.
45
The average age of emigrants who obtained
passports through the Wakayama authority in the year 1899 was 25.
46
This indicates that
many of these people had been born around 1874 and reached the age at which they could
enroll in school around 1880—the year in which the enrollment rate was 33.9% in that
prefecture (see Table 1). The average age of emigrants from Wakayama in 1904 was
26,
47
which suggests that many people from this group reached the school age in 1884,
when the enrollment rate was much higher than in 1880 at 44.3% (see Table 1). Since

44
Hiroshima-ken, ed., Hiroshima kenshi: kindai I [The history of Hiroshima prefecture: modern I]
(Hiroshima-shi: Hiroshima-ken, 1980), 536 and 550.
45
Wakayama-ken, ed., Wakayama-ken iminshi [The history of emigration from Wakayama
prefecture] (Wakayama: Wakayama-ken, 1957), 104.
46
The calculation is based on the following archival material: “Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō
shintatsu ikken (fukumu fuyo meisaihyō)” [Documents and tables on passports issued or returned],
microform, 1899, reels 17-19, Record Group (hereafter, RG) 3.8.5.8., Diplomatic Archives, Ministry
of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Tōkyō. Emigrants from Wakayama who applied for passports outside
their home prefecture as well as illegal emigrants without passports are not included in the calculation.
47
Ibid., 1904, reels 35-38. Emigrants from Wakayama who applied for passports outside their home
prefecture as well as illegal emigrants without passports are not included in the calculation.
31

emigrants were predominantly male in both years, enrollment rates might have been even
higher. However, similar to the case of Hiroshima, the enrollment rate was unlikely to
reflect the actual state of attendance. Additionally, both in Wakayama and Hiroshima,
enrollment and attendance rates for emigrants may have been poorer than the average
percentages for the entire populations in these prefectures as shown in Table 1 if the class
factor is taken into consideration, on the assumption that the elites, who were more likely
to have attended school in Japan, were less likely to emigrate.
48
If spotty school
attendance or a low rate of enrollment is any indication that many rural Japanese missed a
chance to learn about their nation through standardized education, overseas emigrants
brought their limited understanding of their nation to their destinations, even while being
collectively treated as Japanese subjects by host societies.
If school enrollment is one measure, another way to gauge the degree of shared
national consciousness is to pay attention to the media, through which news about local
as well as national and international incidents was spread. If one follows Benedict
Anderson’s thesis about the role of print capitalism in creating “the possibility of a new
form of imagined community,” it is possible to maintain that, by reading in a “national
print-language,” regionally scattered Japanese people were able to relate to invisible

48
It is true that student-laborers were one of the first groups to immigrate to the continental United
States, and they included highly educated people such as college graduates. Despite their enormous
contribution to the immigrant society as pioneers, however, they were not the largest or the most
representative group, surpassed in number by labor migrants who followed. See Ichioka, The Issei, 7-
16.
32

members who belonged to the same community known as a nation.
49
In Wakayama
Prefecture, only one daily was being published in 1890 with a circulation of 263,285
copies.
50
By 1911, five dailies were in circulation, all of which were published in the
City of Wakayama, the capital located in the northern part of the prefecture. The
combined total of copies sold was approximately 4.7 million a year—about 15,000 copies
a day. Compared to other regional newspapers, this number was not surprising. The
dailies in Wakayama probably lost readership to two Ōsaka-based newspapers that had
advanced into the Wakayama market at the time of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05).
A typical paper included the editorial column, international and national news,
introductions of new books, fictions, coverage of politics, economy, and public
enterprises, police news, the arts section, and a full-page advertisement.
51
While the
content of these newspapers appeared suitable to encourage a feeling of connection to the
nation, it is safe to say that the circulation of print media was quite limited in Wakayama,
in light of the fact that the resident population in the prefecture in 1911 was 739,230.
52

49
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism,
rev. ed. (1983; repr., London; New York: Verso, 2006), 46.
50
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken tōkeisho [Statistical periodical of Wakayama prefecture], 1890
(Wakayama: Wakayama-ken, 1891), 208.
51
Wakayama Kenshi Hensan Iinkai, ed., Wakayama kenshi: kin-gendai I [The history of Wakayama
prefecture: modern and contemporary I] (Wakayama-shi: Wakayama-ken, 1989), 645-647.
52
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken tōkeisho, 1911 (published in 1913), 15.
33

A possible factor that precluded a wide circulation of newspapers was the low rate of
literacy. Examining the conscript examination data in the 1890s and 1900s, Richard
Rubinger finds that the regional difference in illiteracy rates was huge, particularly in the
year 1899. He describes the general tendency as “Higher levels of illiteracy . . . in the
western part of the country, lower levels in the eastern.”
53
From 1899 to 1937,
Rikugunshō tōkei nenpō (The annual statistical report of the ministry of the army) carried
data on conscription tests given to all the males in Japan at the age of 20, that is, an age at
which men were conscripted. Aside from physical examinations, the test-takers were
evaluated on the skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Rubinger defines illiterate
people as those ranked at the bottom in the level of education as a result of the test, who
were judged to be “those totally unable to read or write” (mattaku yomi-kaki o nasazaru
mono), although other scholars additionally include people in the second worst category
of “those with some ability to read and write” (yaya yomi-kaki o nasu mono). No
consistent nationwide data regarding illiteracy is available from years prior to 1899.
Surveys of women’s illiteracy around the turn of the century simply do not exist; their
degree of literacy is usually explained in association with school attendance.
54
According
to the 1899 Rikugunshō tōkei nenpō, the number of “those totally unable to read or write”
in the military district of Hiroshima (within Hiroshima Prefecture) was 2,419 out of 8,237,
making up 29.4% of all the male test-takers in that area. In Yamaguchi, 1,501 out of

53
Richard Rubinger, Popular Literacy in Early Modern Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press,
2007), 182.
54
Ibid., 172-173.
34

7,148 (21.0%) people were illiterate; Kumamoto had 2,536 such people out of 9,157
(27.7%); in Okinawa 2,962 out of 3,884 (76.3%) were illiterate; in Kokura (part of
Fukuoka Prefecture) the number was 2,150 out of 6,657 (32.3%); and Wakayama had
2,203 such people out of 9,803 (24.3%).
55
These districts were all in the western part of
Japan, as Rubinger points out, and had relatively high rates of illiteracy compared to the
eastern half. Moreover, these were also the regions that provided large numbers of
overseas emigrants. While there were generally more literate than illiterate 20 year olds
at the turn of the century, the rate of illiteracy was still quite high from today’s standards
and possibly served as a contributing factor to limited circulation of newspapers. It is
still possible that illiterate people “heard” stories about national events from literate
readers of newspapers, and it is highly unlikely that they did not know anything about
their nation just because they were illiterate. Nonetheless, the situation in which 20 to 30
percent or more of the 20-year-old male population in some parts of Japan remained
unable to read or write as late as 1899 was far from ideal and contradictory to the Meiji
state’s vision of the model citizenry that would contribute to strengthening the nation.
Rural Japanese adamantly refused to be modernized and made into ideal national subjects
without much realization on their part. It was from these groups that overseas labor
emigrants emerged.

55
Rikugunshō, Rikugunshō tōkei nenpō [The annual statistical report of the ministry of the army]
(Tōkyō: Rikugunshō, 1899), 123-137. On “military districts,” see Rubinger, Popular Literacy in
Early Modern Japan, 173-174 and 175.
35

While universal education, one of the two pillars of modern nation-making, met both
violent and passive resistance in the form of uprisings, spotty school attendance, and
widespread illiteracy, the other pillar did not do any better. Universal male conscription,
whose principle some viewed as complementary to civic instruction, received negative
reaction from commoners. They were unlikely to concur with Aritomo Yamagata, an
architect of the modern Japanese military, who stated his view of ideal male education as
follows: “When they [boys] reach the age of six, they will enter elementary schools. At
thirteen they will move to middle schools. At nineteen they will complete their studies.
At the age of twenty they will enter the military and spend several years there. Thus,
throughout the country there will be no one who is not a soldier, and everyone will be
literate.”
56
Seen from the perspective of the peasants, however, conscription was nothing
but another heavy burden imposed by the state, requiring several years’ service, and
reminiscent of “forced labor akin to the corvée” during the Tokugawa period.
57

Resistance to the draft took several forms. Kunisaku Kikuchi, in his study of draft
evasion in pre-World War II Japan, divides its history into three distinct periods,
depending on the types of resistance. The first period (1873-74) was the time when the
peasants confronted the authority by uprising, demonstrating their discontent with not
only the draft but also a host of other new systems and ideas including the land tax,

56
Quoted in Rubinger, Popular Literacy in Early Modern Japan, 170.
57
Hane, Peasants, Rebels, Women, and Outcastes, 19.
36

schooling, the Gregorian calendar, and the liberation of burakumin.
58
Kikuchi calls these
uprisings collectively ketsuzei sōdō or “blood tax riots.” Many of these disturbances
were caused by terror-struck people who failed to understand the figurative language in
the imperial edict on universal conscription. This 1872 edict stressed the importance of
contributing to the state with one’s blood, and those who read the phrase literally feared
that their blood would be actually extracted. Riots based on such misunderstandings
were easily subdued with local officials’ persuasion. On the other hand, other groups of
peasants rioted with full understanding of what conscription meant, but simply utilized
the term “blood tax” in showing objections to whatever national policy they found
unacceptable. The latter type of uprisings was violent and mobilized a large number of
people.
59
The second period (circa 1875-84) saw a shift to non-confrontational resistance,
when what Kikuchi calls “legal draft evasion” became a major way of resisting the draft.
Potential recruits took advantage of special clauses in the Conscription Law exempting
certain kinds of people from service or allowing postponement of enrollment. They paid
the “proxy-fee” of 270 yen (or 135 yen), or capitalized on the provisions designed to
protect the family system—through adoption or by trading names in family registers.
60

58
While Platt sees these uprisings as reaction against anything different and foreign, Kikuchi explains
that at the root of disturbances lay the anger of the peasants who felt betrayed by the new government
that they had helped establish. See Platt, Burning and Building, 193; and Kikuchi, Chōhei kihi no
kenkyū, 113.
59
Hane, Peasants, Rebels, Women, and Outcastes, 18; and Kikuchi, Chōhei Kihi no Kenkyū, 110-113.
60
Kikuchi, Chōhei kihi no kenkyū, 110; and Gotaro Ogawa, Conscription System in Japan (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1921), 65.
37

The third period (beginning circa 1885-89 and lasting until the end of World War II) was
the most difficult time for resisters, many of whom were forced to rely on illegal means.
Draft dodgers were not only chased by the military police but also criticized by the
government, the military, and ordinary citizens who regarded them as traitorous or
unpatriotic. Draft evasion during this period was dangerous as well as illegal. People ran
away, disappeared, injured themselves, or took unhealthy steps to get ill or weak—
literally risking their lives. Some went so far as to commit penal offenses.
61
Kikuchi’s
periodization makes clear that resistance that started out as collective challenges to
exploitation quickly evolved into the negotiation between the state and individual, until
finally the totalitarian state brutally but quite successfully solidified the nation. In the
first period, people violently reacted against the national government that encroached on
their local lives. In the second period, individuals were still able to avoid a national duty
and were not condemned. By the last period, however, draft evasion no longer ensured
safety, making “unpatriotic” evildoers out of solitary individuals who dared to challenge
the national authority.
Different forms of resistance to the draft were essentially shaped by legal changes.
The Conscription Law (Chōheirei), first promulgated in 1873, was revised in 1879, 1883,
and 1889 to narrow the circle of people eligible for exemption.
62
Table 2, partially

61
Kikuchi, Chōhei kihi no kenkyū, 110-111.
62
Rubinger, Popular Literacy in Early Modern Japan, 170-171. A dozen of other revisions followed,
but none of them revived provisions for exemption that had been removed from the law in 1889. See
Ogawa, Conscription System in Japan, 64; and Yōko Katō, Chōheisei to kindai Nihon, 1868-1945
[Conscription system and modern Japan, 1868-1945] (Tōkyō: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1996), 46-50.
38

replicated from Yōko Katō’s study, with additional specifics supplied by Gotaro Ogawa’s
work, summarizes the changes from 1873 to 1889 in the term of service and conditions of
exemption from, and postponement of, enrollment:

Table 2: Changes in the Conscription Law, 1873-1889
Year 1873 1879 1883 1889
Term of
service
Regular: 3 years
1st reserve: 2 years
2nd reserve: 2 years
Regular: 3 years
1st reserve: 3 years
2nd reserve: 4 years
Active: 3 years
Reserve: 4 years
2nd reserve: 5 years
Active:
- Army: 3 years
- Navy: 4 years
Reserve:
- Army: 4 years
- Navy: 3 years
2nd reserve: 5
years

Total: 7 years Total: 10 years Total: 12 years Total: 12 years
Militia 17-40 year olds 17-40 year olds 17-40 year olds 17-40 year olds
Rejection - Criminals
sentenced to
punishment above
penal labor
- Those sentenced to
a year or more of
punishment
- Those with
incurable diseases
or disabilities
- Those convicted
of grave offenses
- Those with
incurable diseases
or disabilities
- Those convicted
of grave
offenses
- Those with
incurable
diseases or
disabilities
39

Table 2 (Continued)
Year 1873 1879 1883 1889
Postpone-
ment
- Those who are
sick at the time of
physical
examination
(postponement for
a year)
- When either of the
parents died
(postponement for
a year) or is
seriously sick
Postponement for a
year:
- Those who are
sick on the
conscription day
- Those unable to
enter the barracks
due to sickness or
criminal offenses

Postponement for a
year in peacetime:
- When brothers are
called at the same
time
- Those who have
neither father nor
older brother
- Those who live
abroad
- Those who have
completed at least
one year’s course
in state schools
- One brother of the
military or navy
officers
etc.
Postponement:
- Teachers in state
or public schools
- Students taking
courses in the
main division of
state schools
- Military and naval
cadets
- Those unable to
serve due to
sickness
- Students studying
abroad
etc.

Postponement in
peacetime:
- Heirs or lineal
grandsons of those
who are sixty
years old or older
- Heirs or lineal
grandsons of those
unable to support
their families
- Heads of families
- One brother of
those who had
accidents while in
service
- When brothers are
called at the same
time
- Those unable to
enter the barracks
due to sickness or
criminal offenses
(postponement for
a year)
- Those too short
in stature or sick
at the time of
enrollment
(postponement
for a year)
- Those who are
in detention due
to criminal
offenses
- Those unable to
enter the
barracks due to
sickness or
criminal
offenses
- Those whose
families depend
on them for
support
- Those studying
abroad until they
reach the age of
twenty-six
- One-year
volunteers at
their own
request until
they reach the
age of twenty-
six

40

Table 2 (Continued)
Year 1873 1879 1883 1889
Exemp-
tion
- Those below 5
shaku 1 sun
(equivalent to 5
feet and 0.8 inches)
in height
- Those with
incurable diseases
or disabilities
- Government
officials
- Medical students
- Students in military
or navy schools
- Students in state or
public schools
- Students studying
abroad
- Heads of families
- Heirs or lineal
grandsons
- The only sons and
grandsons
- Adopted sons
- Those who take
charge of the
household, in
place of their sick
fathers or older
brothers
- Brothers of those in
service
- Those drawing
blank lots
Exemption except in
the militia:
- Heads of families
- The only sons and
grandsons
- Government
officials
- Members of
prefectural
assemblies
- Teachers in state or
public schools
- Heirs of those who
are fifty years old
or older
- Adopted sons who
are heirs to those
who are fifty years
old or older and
have no heirs
- Lineal grandsons
etc.

Exemption in
peacetime:
- Heirs of those who
are under fifty
years of age
- Those completing
courses in state or
public schools
- Those in military or
navy schools
- Doctors
- One brother of
those who had
accidents while in
service
- Students studying
abroad
- Those drawing
blank lots
etc.
- Those whose
conditions of
postponement
remain unchanged
for seven years
until they reach the
age of thirty-two
- Those drawing
blank lots
etc.

*No prescribed
rules; based on
inferences
- Those too short
in stature or still
sick the
following year
at the time of
enrollment
- Those whose
families still
depend on them
for support after
three years of
postponement

41

Table 2 (Continued)
Year 1873 1879 1883 1889
Proxy-
fee
270 yen - 270 yen (exempted
except in the
militia)
- 135 yen (exempted
except in the
militia in
peacetime)
Abolished Abolished
Source: Yōko Katō, Chōheisei to kindai Nihon, 1868-1945 [Conscription system and modern
Japan, 1868-1945] (Tōkyō: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1996), 46-47; and Gotaro Ogawa,
Conscription System in Japan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1921), 10-15, 19-36, and 58,
compiled by the author.

The lists of excuses for exemption and postponement from year to year in Table 2 ignore
a few provisions, but nonetheless the fact remains that the state, over time, reduced
privileges as well as extended years of service so that it could mobilize almost the entire
adult male population. Before 1883, draft dodgers could get completely free from service
by taking advantage of conditions of exemption. In 1883, these conditions worked no
more for the purpose of exemption, but at least they could be used for requesting
postponement. But after 1889, it became hard even to claim qualifications for
postponement, because those conditions based on the family system or one’s special
status were no longer appropriate for the purpose.
The Conscription Law in its early phases made it easier for the wealthy to escape
enrollment than the poor. In the 1873 and 1879 versions, eligible conscripts who paid the
sum of either 270 or 135 yen were excused from service. It was difficult for the majority
of Japanese people to afford such a fee. In 1885, the average day laborer earned less than
5 yen in a month.
63
Even a skilled industrial worker was paid modestly: a day wage for

63
Moriyama, Imingaisha, 19.
42

the top supervisor at the Yokosuka Naval Yard in 1873 was 50 sen, which amounted to
merely 13 yen in a month if the number of working days was 26.
64
In reality, only a
small minority paid the proxy fee, with 11 people in 1875 and, even at its peak, 562
people in 1883.
65
The Conscription Law was favorable to the wealthy class in another
way: it exempted students in state-run or public schools, trainees in military and navy
schools, and government officials from enrollment. These conditions were meant for the
upper class that could afford higher education and would produce the elite to lead the
country.
On the other hand, those unable to pay the proxy fee or afford higher education were
still left with another option technically open to all classes: they could move into other
families, have their fathers retire, or even ask for fraudulent rewriting of their records in
the family registry, so that they could claim their status as adopted sons, heads of families,
heirs and lineal grandsons. The family system in Meiji Japan was an important tool as
means of control. The family constituted the most fundamental base of the nation-state,
with the emperor at its top as a patriarch. The rhetoric of the state as one family and the
emperor as the father was instrumental in perpetuating the emperor-centered nationalism.
Therefore, the regime encouraged the masses to protect their families in the form of
patriarchal social units. Early versions of the Conscription Law, in accordance with such

64
Andrew Gordon, The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan: Heavy Industry, 1853-1955 (1985;
repr., Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1988), 43-44. Citations
refer to the 1988 edition.
65
Kikuchi, Chōhei kihi no kenkyū, 181.
43

emphasis on the family system, exempted from service those qualified as heads of
families, heirs and lineal grandsons, the only sons and grandsons, and adopted sons. As a
result, the number of adoptions increased. In 1876, 155,659 adoptions took place,
followed by 161,012 in 1877, 188,264 in 1878, and 186,879 in 1879.
66
The trend for
adoptions was soon known to the national government. As if to counter popular
resistance utilizing the family system, the 1879 Conscription Law added new
prescriptions for exemption. For example, heads of families still qualified, but those
were excluded who had established a branch family prior to conscription, revived an
extinct family, or become an heir to a man who had retired before turning fifty years
old.
67
Possibly reflecting such restrictions, the number of adoptions dropped dramatically,
with only 59,664 in 1880.
68
The qualifications based on the family system became only
adequate for postponement in the succeeding version, and finally they were removed
from the law in 1889.
One of the most outstanding aspects of the change in the 1889 law, aside from its
dropping of many qualifications for exemption and postponement, was its addition of a
new provision favoring the poor. Unlike earlier versions that fundamentally protected the
wealthy class, the new law stipulated that people whose families were helpless without
their support might request postponement, and even exemption from service if the

66
Ibid., 36-38 and 235.
67
Ogawa, Conscription System in Japan, 24.
68
Kikuchi, Chōhei kihi no kenkyū, 235.
44

conditions remained the same after three years. This seemingly generous offer was a
ploy on the part of the regime to satisfy the masses, Katō points out. To the eyes of
ordinary citizens, it appeared that the military was working hard to reduce inequality in
recruitment by removing those provisions meant for the privileged and instead showing
sympathy for the poor. In reality, however, the military only maximized the number of
potential conscripts. It merely “equalized the burden without reducing it,” to borrow
Katō’s words.
69
Moreover, the provision for excusing the poor was not strictly enforced.
Those wishing to claim their qualification needed to request postponement on their own,
with “proper confirmation” of the fact that their families were unable to survive without
their help. The state subtly discouraged people from making such a request by
insinuating the virtue of perseverance.
70

As the family system and the special status as students and officials became less and
less meaningful for potential draft dodgers, one condition remained almost intact
throughout all the revisions: a person was exempted from service or his enrollment
postponed if he was abroad for studying. The original intent of such a provision was
clear: the country desperately needed skills, technology, and knowledge originating in the
West for the purpose of modernization, and therefore the state excused students studying
abroad, who could benefit the nation in another way. In the 1873 law, these students
were free from service along with others who attended public schools for service in the

69
Katō, Chōheisei to kindai Nihon, 132-133.
70
Kikuchi, Chōhei kihi no kenkyū, 258; and Ogawa, Conscription System in Japan, 36.
45

educational, engineering, and colonial departments. In the 1879 amendments, those who
lived abroad either for study or business were entitled to postponement of enrollment, but
if they proved themselves to be students with a certificate of a two years’ course, they
could even be exempted. After 1883, students studying abroad were no longer exempted,
but they could request postponement. Finally in the 1889 revision, studying abroad
became practically the only option that allowed potential recruits to delay enrollment
without bringing shame to themselves or their families. Those studying abroad were
permitted to request postponement until they reached the age of twenty-six; if they
returned to Japan before or after reaching that age, they would be enlisted.
71
Interestingly,
the government further privileged those living abroad in the 1895 revision by extending
the age limit on postponement to thirty-two and also by dropping “students” from the
clause, with the implication that even laborers living abroad were entitled to
postponement. The government was able to show such leniency only because the new
law, incorporating lessons from the experience of the Sino-Japanese War, specified other
ways of enlarging force of arms: it created new supplementary armies as well as extended
the term of service for the active reserve.
72
Whatever the rationale behind the relatively
loose grip on people living abroad, leaving Japan remained an attractive option for those
considering draft evasion—a point noted by immigration scholars. Yuji Ichioka claims
that, to some indigent student-laborers bound for the continental United States, the 1889

71
Kikuchi, Chōhei kihi no kenkyū, 214; and Ogawa, Conscription System in Japan, 14, 23, 25, 30 and
36.
72
Katō, Chōheisei to kindai Nihon, 140-143; and Ogawa, Conscription System in Japan, 58.
46

amendments “became . . . an added reason to emigrate.”
73
Those students who landed in
San Francisco from the mid-1880s were not of the wealthy sort marked out by the 1873
Conscription Law but people with inadequate financial means and yet determined to learn
English and acquire skills while working as laborers.
74
Going abroad for study not only
became a means to realize one’s dream but also provided a chance for males with limited
resources to escape from a national duty. Masaaki Kodama verifies the correlation
between emigration and draft evasion particularly by examining data after 1895. He
demonstrates that, in 1930, the prefectures with significant numbers of emigrants such as
Hiroshima, Okinawa, Kumamoto, Yamaguchi, Fukuoka and Wakayama ranked higher
than others in the number of people requesting postponement on account of their foreign
residency.
75
The association of draft evasion with emigration poses “the chicken or the
egg” causality question: did people emigrate in order to avoid conscription, or did they
end up evading the draft because they wanted to emigrate? It is difficult to decide which
explanation is right. Nonetheless, the truth remains that, by the last decade of the
nineteenth century, going abroad became one of the few means of resisting the draft
legally and with a degree of decency; those who did not choose this alternative
increasingly turned to illegal means.

73
Ichioka, The Issei, 13-14.
74
Ibid., 7-8.
75
Kodama, Nihon iminshi kenkyū josetsu, 529.
47

While resistance to new systems such as schooling and conscription frequently
entailed violent eruptions, recourse to illicit means, and expressions of overt discontent,
subtle but no less tenacious manifestations in everyday practices could often indicate
people’s minor discomfort or inexperience with the standards imposed by the state’s new
modernization programs. Andrew Gordon, in his study of the development of Japanese
labor relations, demonstrates that the work culture in heavy industry in the latter part of
the nineteenth century was essentially built upon the world of preindustrial artisans. “The
advent of Western industry did not bring an immediate, sharp social discontinuity,” he
argues, partly because, despite the novelty of Western technology, “the skills demanded
by modern heavy industry overlapped with indigenous craft skills in wood and metal
work.”
76
At the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal in 1878, for example, only 17.2 percent of the
workforce engaged in a kind of work that demanded new skills while the rest (82.8
percent) were able to use indigenous skills; as late as 1901, at the Ōmiya Factory of the
Japan Railway Company, 71.8 percent of the workers put traditional skills to use.
77

Moreover, with their skills, traditional artisans brought over their preindustrial work
attitudes and habits to the modern factory. The lack of discipline and diligence on the
part of workers contradicts the myth of hardworking Japanese laborers contributing to the
country’s successful modernization. They did not care much about hours or rules, and
took holidays irrespective of factory routines. They were also poor savers, spending their

76
Gordon, The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan, 17-18 and 19.
77
Ibid., 20-21.
48

money on drinking, gambling, and women.
78
Aside from discipline, another major
problem from the management perspective was high mobility among workers. Most
workers changed jobs not merely in search of higher wages, but because it was customary
for them to do so. They were following the preindustrial ideal of a worker traveling
broadly so that he could accumulate greater skills.
79
The fluid nature of the workplace
necessitated an intermediary called oyakata, who stood between the worker and the
manager, and held authority over waging and hiring decisions. The oyakata, a traditional
term for “master,” served large companies in various capacities, as machine shop owners,
as independent labor bosses under contract to one or several companies, as suppliers of
workers for a factory, or as powerful foremen. They trained apprentices, occasionally
lodged and fed their workers, and paid wages out of the sum they had received from the
company, taking aside a commission for themselves. Companies still employed the
strategy of indirect labor management at the turn of the twentieth century; by this time,
however, it was already clear that this policy was inefficient in coping with the
introduction of sophisticated technology.
80
The Meiji working-class society, as Gordon’s
examples shows, was not yet up to complying with strict work regimen of the modern
factory. While their adamant adherence to old work practices does not necessarily
signify their outright negation of the nation or the state, such behavior itself was a

78
Ibid., 27-29.
79
Ibid., 33 and 36.
80
Ibid., 36-37 and 46.
49

challenge to the new regime’s scheme of successful industrialization, shaped and
supervised by national government officials. The government was not certainly satisfied
with workers’ attitudes: bureaucrats concerned for “social and political order in factories
and in societies at large” pushed for a factory law from the 1890s.
81

If the work behavior shown by the industrial laborer was a manifestation of his
incongruence with the national vision, more persistent example can be found in the
difficulty of imposing the national language on regionally scattered people. Provincial
plurality in speech did not endanger national unity in a way uprisings did, but nonetheless
posed a serious challenge to it from the perspective of national leaders. As Hiraku
Shimoda points out, the close relationship between language and the nation-state was
observed in Japan as well as everywhere else in the world.
82
No linguistic absolutism
existed in premodern Japan because most commentators accepted “the situationality and
relativity of speech.”
83
Such tolerance was inimical to national unity under the new
regime that associated language with polity. By the 1880s, intellectuals pushed for
linguistic unity avidly, telling “a now-national people” to “speak as one.”
84
On the other
hand, there was no such thing as a correct and unified national language yet in the late

81
Ibid., 65.
82
Hiraku Shimoda, “Tongues-Tied: The Making of a ‘National Language’ and the Discovery of
Dialects in Meiji Japan,” American Historical Review 115, no. 3 (2010): 715.
83
Ibid., 719.
84
Ibid., 721.
50

nineteenth century, leading scholar-officials to consult dialects in order to come up with a
new standardized language. Their work of defining a national language based on the
study of dialects continued into the early twentieth century.
85
In reality, however, rural
people did not easily accept the idea that their vernacular was somehow wrong. Even
schoolteachers, who were supposed to inculcate national values into their pupils, objected
to the complete dismissal of dialects as “vulgar speech.”
86
Strong attachment to the local
vernacular was even brought over to places outside Japan, creating confusion but
eventually giving birth to a new standard of Japanese used in their particular societies.
Yukiko Kimura points out that, in the pre-World War II Japanese immigrant community
in Hawaii, the dialects spoken in the prefectures of Hiroshima and Yamaguchi in
southwestern Japan became standard Japanese, because the majority of the immigrants
came from these areas. Speakers of other dialects were ridiculed or ostracized. A
woman coming to Hawaii from Wakayama Prefecture to join her parents in 1923 felt
isolated because she failed to understand what other Japanese were saying. In such a
peculiar circumstance, the standard Japanese was no help; on the contrary, it could
alienate some people. A wife of a Methodist minister made some women uncomfortable
and caused them to stop attending the church, because she spoke the standard Japanese;
after that, she made efforts to communicate in their dialects.
87
The difficulty of imposing

85
Ibid., 725.
86
Ibid., 726.
87
Yukiko Kimura, Issei: Japanese Immigrants in Hawaii (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
1988), 30-32.
51

a national standard of spoken language on the masses demonstrates the tension between
localism and nationalism, although the contemporary Japanese probably never perceived
their linguistic practices in such a way: to them, speaking in the vernacular was simply
natural while the standard Japanese represented something artificial, upper-class, and
detached from their daily lives. Moreover, localism was magnified in communities
where people from different parts of Japan came into close contact, engendering a unique
situation in which distinct localisms vied for hegemony while ignoring the potential for
complete unity based on nationhood. While it is highly likely that the overseas Japanese
shared a sense of community based on nationality, their common identification had its
limits; and their distinction was more visible, as their dissonance was more audible, than
the national authority would have liked or the receiving society noted.

The process of Japan’s modern nation-making was chaotic: national unification, as it
concerned the integration of the masses into the new polity, got off to an abrupt start,
bumping into constant resistance and challenges along the way, shifting its course,
modifying some earlier, more ambitious programs to moderate its overly scathing impact
on its people, and yet gradually seizing hold of their minds and bodies with force,
persuasion, and indoctrination. National unity was clearly a modern construct, and yet, at
least by the end of the nineteenth century, it was no longer possible for commoners to
reject membership in this community—many of whom may have even passionately
embraced the nation. The power of national symbols and ceremonials was strong enough
to grip the consciousness of people who, over time, began to see themselves as the
52

Japanese.
88
While the Meiji Constitution (1889) solidified the legal foundation of the
state, the Rescript on Education that was promulgated in 1890 epitomized the national
ideology built upon morality and patriotism.
89
The school attendance rate soared: in 1897,
it reached 66.7% nationwide; the percentage suddenly jumped to 93.2% in 1903, and then
increased to 98.2% in 1911.
90
The experience of two foreign wars—the Sino-Japanese
War of 1894-95 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05—marked the new height of
nationalism and produced mature and patriotic citizens. The former war took many
ordinary citizens by surprise, but nonetheless they showed support to the soldiers by
donating money and regional specialties such as plum pickles, straw sandals, dried bonito,
cotton flannel stomach bands, and refined sake. During the latter war, people
demonstrated further enthusiasm: they visited Shintō shrines and Buddhist temples to
pray for victories, gave magnificent send-off parties for the soldiers going to the front,
supported the families left behind through veterans’ associations, held celebrations at the
news of victories, donated money and comfort articles, and bought government bonds.
91

The Meiji Japanese of 1900 were hardly the same kind of people who had no idea about
what a nation was in 1868: the grip of the state on people’s hearts was already tight.

88
Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy, 200-201.
89
Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths, 102.
90
Hane, Peasants, Rebels, Women, and Outcastes, 322-323n42.
91
Wakayama Kenshi Hensan Iinkai, Wakayama kenshi: kin-gendai I, 390-391 and 397; and Taiji
Chōshi Kanshū Iinkai, Taiji chōshi, 869.
53

Nonetheless, the unification remained incomplete in some crucial ways, as shown in
repeated attempts at illegal draft evasion, the persistence of old customs, and
manifestations of strong localism. A shift to the unified collective occurred only slowly
and incrementally, yet never fully suppressing alternative identities.
92
As immigration
historian Eiichiro Azuma notes, the Japanese who came to the United States between the
1880s and the 1910s were only “inconsistently” “nationalized or ‘modernized,’” although
Azuma focuses on class distinctions among emigrants in explaining such inconsistency
rather than on the factor of localism that could have created inconsistency within an
individual.
93
From this chaos emerged Japanese overseas emigrants who brought over
localism to their destinations.

92
As Alon Confino argues, the sense of national belonging is malleable, and “people internalize the
nation” by process without necessarily breaking up with “a host of other identities.” See Alon
Confino, The Nation as a Local Metaphor: Württemberg, Imperial Germany, and National Memory,
1871-1918 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 4.
93
Azuma, Between Two Empires, 10.
54

Chapter Two: Emigration: Local Variation

Two small fishing villages in Wakayama Prefecture, 53 miles apart from each other,
both experienced a crisis after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Mio Village (currently in
the town of Mihama) on the west coast of the Kii Peninsula lost its dominance over
nearby fishing grounds as other coastal villages advanced into fishing with improved
methods and technology. In the village of Taiji in the east of the southern tip of the
peninsula, traditional whaling—already weakened by American ships’ overhunting—was
devastated by a disastrous shipwreck. Facing the decline of the local key industry, both
villages found a solution in overseas emigration. Mio people migrated to Steveston,
Canada, and dominated local fishery—so much so that residents of other ethnicities,
including both the Japanese and white, spoke in the dialect of Mio. Emigrants from Taiji
created a trans-Pacific Japanese village on Terminal Island, Los Angeles, in the United
States, contributing 150 fishermen or one-fourth of the local Japanese fishing population
in 1907.
94
While both villages coped with difficulties in a similar fashion, where their
emigrants ended up creating overseas communities was evident only in hindsight. It
could have been that Mio villagers established their fishing colony in the United States,
or that Taiji fishermen migrated predominantly to Canada. In reality, quite the opposite
happened.

94
Fukutake, Kaigai imin ga boson ni oyoboshita eikyō, 114; Yamada, Kanada Nikkei shakai no bunka
hen’yō, 122; Ichihara, “Imin boson no gyogyō kōzō to jinkō mondai . . . (1),” 37-45; and Kanichi
Kawasaki, “The Japanese Community of East San Pedro, Terminal Island, California” (master’s thesis,
University of Southern California, 1931), 43-44.
55

The difference in major destinations between Mio and Taiji in particular and among
emigrant villages in general had to do with local variation in emigration contexts and
migrant networks based on local ties. While circumstances at global, international and
national levels set the stage for mass emigration in Japan as well as elsewhere, it was the
local factor that influenced individual migrants’ decision, particularly concerning where
they were going. This point is often slighted in immigration scholarship that tends to
attribute causes of migration to what was happening at national and international levels,
such as the workings of policymakers and recruiters, the agricultural and industrial
developments in receiving societies, and economic hardships that prospective emigrants
suffered from. The macro-level factors such as structural changes occurring globally,
inter-country disparities between sending and receiving societies, international relations,
and domestic policy decisions explain why emigration started in the classical “push and
pull” terms, but they fail to offer a narrative of what cued prospective emigrants, how
information on receiving societies travelled from region to region, or how the migration
flow was maintained once the first impetus was lost. On the other hand, emigration
scholarship essentially pays attention to local particularities without fully exploring how
peculiar local circumstances related to emigrants’ choice of where they were actually
migrating to.
While theorists in a variety of disciplines have identified causes of international
migration at the macro and micro levels, recent scholarship argues for the need to
incorporate both approaches into the analysis of migration processes. For example,
sociologist Philip Q. Yang has proposed a synthetic theory of Asian immigration to the
56

United States that highlights intercountry disparities, multilevel connections, and
migration policies. Particularly regarding multilevel connections, Yang discusses the
significance of looking at cross-national connections as well as interpersonal relations.
95

In the field of history, Jose C. Moya takes into account both macrostructural and
microsocial dimensions of Spanish immigration to Buenos Aires. At the macro level,
modernization created contexts favorable for emigration all over the world but
particularly in Europe; and at the micro level, regional differences produced a variety of
“migration types” which determined the easiness with which emigrants adapted to the
receiving society. Essentially Moya brings up both structural transformations and social
networks as equally important in explaining mass migration.
96

Taking a similar approach of analyzing macro- and micro-level dimensions of
emigration, this chapter nonetheless pays greater attention to the latter and discusses how
local variation affected migration flows by taking up Wakayama Prefecture at the turn of
the twentieth century as a model. While macro-level circumstances created emigration-
prone contexts nationwide, a significant degree of local difference dictated whether mass
emigration really did occur, when it did, and where emigrants actually went. As the local
factor is the key to understanding migrants’ choice of destinations, it offers a critical link
between emigration and immigration. The local factor matters because it demonstrates
concretely how people moved from one locality to another; because it offers the evidence

95
Philip Q. Yang, “A Theory of Asian Immigration to the United States,” Journal of Asian American
Studies 13, no. 1 (2010): 1-34.
96
Moya, Cousins and Strangers.
57

that they migrated as communities; because it shows how the connection between places
of origin and destination developed over time; and because it continued to shape the lives
of immigrants as well as those left behind in the home community.
The analysis that follows owes much to Moya’s innovative scholarship, but instead of
naming different “migration types,” the chapter will highlight changes in the selection of
destination countries, in a short span of time between 1899 and 1906, to discuss how
emigrants’ choice of where to go was greatly influenced by their villages of origin. Such
variance not only shows the strength of local ties in the process of emigration but also
indicates the significance of localism in adapting to receiving societies. The chapter
avoids a close examination of only one village because such an approach would magnify
the peculiarity of one community independent of larger contexts. Instead, it analyzes
inter-village differences with destination places in focus. There were scholarly
precedents that examined regional variation in emigration contexts at the level of villages,
but this chapter’s analysis stresses the significance of destination places in shaping
migration flows to a greater extent than these previous examples.
97
Inter-village
differences elucidate the fact that communities responded to changes in international
relations and migration policy differently, and the extent to which sometimes personal
connections and mere contingencies determined how mass migration to certain countries
started. Local variation in emigration contexts indicates the significance of “culture of
migration”—peculiar to certain regions—that generated and sustained human flows.

97
For example, Iwasaki, “Kii-hantou minami kaigan ni okeru kaigai dekasegi imin no kenkyū”; and
Kodama, Nihon iminshi kenkyū josetsu.
58

After a brief discussion of global changes that influenced Japanese emigration, the
rest of the chapter offers an analysis of local variation in the pattern of overseas
emigration, interweaved with explanations of international and national contexts that
conditioned migration flows. The bond of the native village alone does not fully explain
how or why emigration started, but in conjunction with other factors both general and
particularistic, it functioned as a key apparatus to push people out.

Macro-level Factors of Overseas Emigration
The global forces of modernization changed the village life and induced people to
move in many countries. According to Moya, key transformations such as the population
explosion, the spread of liberalism, the introduction of absolute property rights, the
development of urban industrial centers, and the improvement of transoceanic vessels
worked together to create a context conducive to emigration. Regions that experienced
such revolutions earlier than others took the lead in sending the masses overseas, while
Spain did not see the exodus of people until the middle of the nineteenth century, much
later than England, as it was a latecomer to modernization.
98
Global changes set the stage
for mass emigration in Japan as well, which preceded the opening of the country coerced
by Western expansionism, and yet accelerated the pace after the consolidation of a
modern nation-state. Because the old Tokugawa regime banned overseas emigration, and
because the new Meiji government was reluctant to encourage labor emigration until the

98
Moya, Cousins and Strangers, chap. 1.
59

1880s, global transformations that affected Japanese villages did not necessarily lead to
the immediate exodus, but without important shifts in economic structures and ideas
about going abroad, mass emigration would not have been possible. In Japan, it was
essentially the spread of capitalism and liberalism that played a major role in creating
causes of emigration.
Modernization enhanced the penetration of the market into rural areas and increased
competition. A shift from subsistence to commercial agriculture led to regional
specialization in the cultivation of cash crops. While specialization increased
productivity, it entailed risks associated with fluctuations in yields of crops and the
competition in the market. After Japan dropped its seclusion policy in 1858, silk-
producing eastern Japan benefited from sudden Western demand of Japanese silk while
cotton-producing western Japan did not fare well because their staple was not competitive
in the world market. The decline of domestic cotton cultivation discouraged those in the
west from clinging to the land.
99
The great structural transformation also touched
Japanese fishing villages, as increased competitiveness weakened the significance of
traditional practices and organizations. The collapse of the Tokugawa government
caused confusion in the fishing administration, and the spread of liberalism contributed to
the breakup of feudalistic relations in production and distribution. In the transition from
Tokugawa to Meiji, inter-community territorial struggles were frequent as fishing

99
Thomas C. Smith, The Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University
Press, 1959), 97-98; and Osamu Saitō, “The Rural Economy: Commercial Agriculture, By-
employment, and Wage Work,” in Japan in Transition: From Tokugawa to Meiji, ed. Marius B.
Jansen and Gilbert Rozman (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), 416-419.
60

villages made new claims over fishing grounds. Within villages, newcomers to fishing
caused tension with an old class of fishermen. It is in this context that Mio lost the
competition with new fishing rivals; and Taiji’s feudalistic whaling gang was replaced by
the new system in which local fishermen failed to profit as much as outside capitalists
who controlled fixed netting.
100

Modernization also brought about new freedoms, with which Western liberal
philosophies came to shape intellectual discourses about emigration, with a Japanese
twist. Tied to liberalism was a belief in the individual’s capacity for social success, or
risshin-shusse, and one of the ways to achieve such success during the Meiji Period was
to study and absorb Western knowledge. The United States became a popular destination
among indigent students, as the advocates of studying abroad promoted the country as a
place where one could study without financial means. Young men influenced by
intellectuals such as Yukichi Fukuzawa—who informed the general public of conditions
in the West and recommended the youth a career in America—departed for the United
States to work and study there, and in some parts of Japan they became predecessors to
labor emigrants who would follow them from the same regions. On the other hand,
intellectual trends had nothing to do with the government-sponsored immigration to
Hawaii (1885-1894), which was essentially labor migration from the start, regarded by

100
Yūkichi Habara, Nihon kindai gyogyō keizaishi [The economic history of modern Japanese fishing]
(1957; repr., Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten, 1995), 1:4-5; Yasuhiro Itō, Chiiki gyogyōshi no kenkyū: kaiyō
shigen no riyō to kanri [The study of local fishing history: the use and management of marine
resources] (Tōkyō: Nō-san-gyoson Bunka Kyōkai, 1992), 142-147; and Ichihara, “Imin boson no
gyogyō kōzō to jinkō mondai . . . (1)”: 37-45.
61

the Japanese government as a convenient way to acquire foreign currency.
101
Thus,
liberal idealism had a limited impact on emigration, although it affected many pioneers
hoping to achieve success, whatever that term meant.
The forces of modernization that infiltrated into rural Japan as early as the eighteenth
century but more conspicuously after the Meiji Restoration changed the outlook of the
village life. The new economic system as well as new ideas created a context favorable
for overseas emigration. In that sense, Japan was closely following global trends just as
it strove to catch up with Western nations that preceded Japan in sending the masses
abroad.
If global modernization prepared preconditions for emigration, international and
national factors encouraged or discouraged migration. Inter-country disparities between
sending and receiving societies, particularly between Japan and the United States, created
push and pull factors. While migrants often brought up the wage difference as one of the
reasons of emigration, at times it was a yearning for a supposedly more “advanced”
civilization of the United States that attracted young men. Changes in international
relations directly influenced migration flows, as in the case of immigration restrictions
amidst anti-Japanese agitation in the receiving society. At a national level, policies made
at the center both opened up and closed possibilities for migration. The government

101
Mariko Tagawa, “‘Imin’ shichō no kiseki” [The trajectory of thoughts on “emigrants”] (PhD diss.,
Nagoya University, 2004), 32-34 and 65-66; and Yuji Ichioka, The Issei, 9-11. Nakamura Keiu,
although he did not directly advocate studying or working abroad, probably played a greater role than
Fukuzawa in making the idea of risshin shusse common among the Japanese youth through his
translation of Samuel Smiles’ Self-Help. See Tagawa, “‘Imin’ shichō no kiseki,” 33; and Earl H.
Kinmonth, “Nakamura Keiu and Samuel Smiles: A Victorian Confucian and a Confucian Victorian,”
American Historical Review 85, no. 3 (1980): 535-556.
62

particularly sought to control labor emigration, as it scrutinized the sponsored
immigration to Hawaii as well as restricted or banned emigration from time to time.
Unlike in the case of immigration to Latin America or to Japan’s colonial territories, the
government lacked any clear emigration policies concerning North America or Australia,
only playing a passive role in influencing migration flows. These national and
international contexts conditioned choices open to prospective emigrants who, with
triggers such as economic depressions and natural disasters, finally made up their mind to
go overseas.
If macro-level factors prepared preconditions for emigration, it was the ties of
localism that shaped individuals’ selection of destinations. The analysis of overseas
emigration from Wakayama Prefecture at the turn of the twentieth century demonstrates
this point.

The Significance of Localism for Migration
The factor of localism worked strongly in the process of emigration, as shown in the
existence of numerous Amerika-mura, or “American villages.” These places were known
not only for sending many immigrants to North America, but also for cultural, social, and
economic transformations that took place as a result: returnees came back better-off, built
Western-style houses, ate American meals at home, and recommended that others go as
well, while those still abroad sent remittances and made handsome donations to local
schools, shrines, and public facilities. Possibly the most famous Amerika-mura was the
village of Mio, a village that sent emigrants to Canada. While Mio was undoubtedly one
63

of the most outstanding Amerika-mura, it was not the only place: the phenomenon was
prevalent, particularly in, but not limited to, southwestern Japan, although that part of
history is already forgotten in many municipalities. The trend—in which some villages
produced a large number of overseas emigrants usually heading for the same destinations
while others did not—clearly shows that the village determined the possibility of a
person’s going abroad as well as his or her destination countries.
While macro-level factors at global, international and national levels set the stage for
mass emigration as explained in the previous section, without local factors prospective
emigrants would not have considered going abroad. Scholars in Japanese emigration
have often examined geographical and socioeconomic conditions in particular emigrant
districts. From that perspective, they have identified specific local circumstances such as
limited acreage of arable land, natural disasters, and the decline in the production of cash
crops. While these no doubt prepared contexts favorable for emigration, ultimately the
trend of going abroad owed its beginning to contingency. This chance factor usually
meant dedicated educators, adventurous pioneers, and agencies such as emigration
companies—actors that initiated a migration flow from one village.
Wakayama Prefecture in west-central Japan offers a good case to examine the pattern
of emigration at the level of villages. The choice of Wakayama for this purpose is
strategic: it is one of the most conspicuous emigrant prefectures in prewar Japan—it
ranks at the 5th among 47 prefectures in the proportion of the overseas population to the
resident population as of 1940 (2.57%), surpassed only by Okinawa, Kumamoto,
64

Hiroshima, and Yamaguchi.
102
More importantly, it has unique geographic features—
forming part of a peninsula and being stretched north and south—that make it easy to
observe the diversity of migration patterns within one prefecture (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Map of Japan and Wakayama Counties, 1896

Map Source: ESRI Japan; and “Sichōson hensen parapara chizu” [Historical maps of cities, towns
and villages], last modified June 4, 2012, http://mujina.sakura.ne.jp/history, compiled by the
author.
Note: Okinawa Prefecture and contested territories are not included.

102
Tomonori Ishikawa, Nihon imin no chirigaku-teki kenkyū, 131, Table 2-10.
P Pa ac ci if fi ic c O Oc ce ea an n
Kaisō
Naga
Ito
Arida
Hidaka
Nishimuro
Higashi-
muro
Wakayama City
65

In Wakayama, contingencies at local levels produced different types of emigrant
villages. In the north where emigrants essentially went to the United States or Hawaii,
those who led the way of overseas emigration were either young sons from relatively
wealthy families influenced by Yukichi Fukuzawa’s teachings or people well-respected
in communities—at least one pioneering emigrant was a policeman and another, a teacher.
The situation was quite different in Mio in Hidaka County, where the father of emigration
was neither wealthy nor inspired by liberal ideas; rather, the person gained information
from a sailor at a port town, and decided on Canada as his destination, which later
became a place to be for other villagers. In the southern coastal area where people
migrated to Australia, Hawaii, the United States, plus other destinations from time to time,
pioneering emigrants also gathered information at port towns and in Tōkyō, but they were
more flexible in selecting destinations than migrants from the north or from Mio. The
earliest to migrate originated in the southern tip of the peninsula, who accompanied
English engineers to Kōbe where they learned of Australia. Going to North America was
not necessarily their first priority unlike in the north or in the Mio area, although
southerners did not hesitate to switch destinations because travelling to Australia was not
as easy as making it to the United States or to Hawaii. Going abroad to make money was
appealing to migrants from the area, and that “abroad” did not have to be a single place or
country. Thus, pioneers’ attitudes toward going overseas determined migration patterns
in particular localities.
Details about major emigrant villages in Wakayama are well-documented in
Wakayama-ken iminshi (1957), a semi-official book on pre-World War II emigration
66

from the prefecture, but rarely were the villages analyzed systematically. The records of
passports issued by prefectural authorities in prewar Japan serve the purpose of making a
quantitative, village-level analysis of emigrants, as they list each individual applicant’s
information on the registered domicile, age, object of travel, and destination. Table 3
shows the number of passports issued in Wakayama Prefecture by county in peak years
of emigration at the turn of the twentieth century, that is, 1899, 1904 and 1906 (as shown
in Figure 2):

Figure 2: Number of Overseas Emigrants from Wakayama Prefecture, 1897-1910
Source: Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken tōkeisho [Statistical periodical of Wakayama prefecture],
1897-1910 (Wakayama: Wakayama-ken, 1898-1912), compiled by the author.

67

Table 3: Number of Passports Issued in Wakayama Prefecture by County, 1899,
1904 and 1906
City/county
Passports Issued
Registered
Population
1899 1904 1906 1907
N % N % N % N %
Wakayama City 95 3.8% 56 3.1% 69 2.9% 63,767 8.7%
Kaisō 935 37.7% 319 17.8% 414 17.1% 135,398 18.4%
Naga 693 27.9% 220 12.3% 288 11.9% 100,712 13.7%
Ito 57 2.3% 93 5.2% 67 2.8% 72,655 9.9%
Arida 161 6.5% 101 5.6% 85 3.5% 77,510 10.5%
Hidaka 208 8.4% 212 11.8% 461 19.0% 101,387 13.8%
Nishimuro 97 3.9% 375 20.9% 355 14.7% 100,709 13.7%
Higashimuro 233 9.4% 417 23.3% 681 28.1% 84,087 11.4%
Other/unknown 1 0.0% 0 0.0% 0 0.0% - -
Total 2,480 99.9%* 1,793 100.0% 2,420 100.0% 736,225 100.1%
Source: “Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken (fukumu fuyo meisaihyō)”
[Documents and tables on passports issued or returned], microform, 1899, 1904 and 1906, reels
17-19, 35-38 and 43-46, Record Group (hereafter, RG) 3.8.5.8., Diplomatic Records Office of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Tōkyō; and Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken tōkeisho, 1907
(Wakayama: Wakayama-ken, 1909), 17-22, compiled by the author.
Note: The number of applications does not necessarily equal that of actual emigrants: the same
person could apply multiple times within a short span of time; and infants accompanying their
parents did not hold their own passports. A slight variance in numbers between Figure 2 and
Table 3 are due to the difference of sources.
* The total does not add up to 100% due to rounding.
The total exceeds 100% due to rounding.

Passports were issued to any Japanese subjects travelling abroad, with exceptions of
infants and sometimes wives of male migrants. Those going abroad for the purpose of
labor were recognized in law as “emigrants (imin)” while merchants, students, tourists,
and those travelling in official capacities were deemed by officials to be “non-emigrants
(hiimin).” The distinction, made for the purpose of controlling labor emigration, did not
necessarily reflect the reality, as labor migrants to Australia apparently applied for
passports as businessmen, and possibly those going to the United States alleged their
objective of travel as business in face of the emigration restriction from 1902. To avoid
68

confusion, the analysis that follows uses the term “emigrants” to refer to both types of
migrants unless otherwise noted.
103

Table 3 demonstrates that the center of gravity in overseas emigration shifted from
the north to the south between 1899 and 1906. The very right column shows the
proportion of the registered population in each district to the entire Wakayama population
in 1907.
104
If that is compared with the breakdown of passports issued in each area, it is
clear that emigration was not a popular trend in Wakayama City and Ito and Arida
Counties. While a large portion of emigrants in 1899 originated in the northern counties
of Kaisō and Naga, southern counties of Nishimuro and Higashimuro came to greater

103
Law for the Protection of Imin, ch. I, art. I (1896-1907). An English translation can be found in
“Japanese Laws and Ordinances Relating to Emigration, Passports, and Registration,” June 1912, RG
3.8.5.11-1, “Ryoken hōki toriatsukai tetsuzuki ni kansuru kunrei narabi ryoken kafu torishimari
zakken, hōki no bu” [Instructions related to the handling and procedures of regulations on passports
and miscellaneous documents on the issuance and regulation of passports: section on laws and
regulations], Diplomatic Archives. While a good number of emigrants applied for passports outside
their prefectures of origin, thus their entries being included in other prefectures’ records, only passport
records submitted by the prefectural government of Wakayama are taken into consideration for the
purpose of analyzing an overall trend rather than trying to identify all individuals from Wakayama.
Although the central government made laws and policies on emigration, passport administration was
essentially left to each prefectural authority. Since some prefectures stringently regulated emigration
of their residents while others promoted it, it was not surprising if those seeking to go abroad moved
temporarily to prefectures with less regulation and applied for passports there. Wakayama emigrants’
favorite places for the purpose in the years between 1890 and 1892 were nearby prefectures of Ōsaka
and Hyōgo, followed by Kanagawa that had a port of departure, Yokohama. Around the turn of the
century, Niigata and Shizuoka also became popular. The former particularly encouraged emigration
as a way to support the victims of a natural disaster. Apparently, all these prefectures except Ōsaka
tightened control immediately afterwards, as one pamphlet published in 1902 names them among
prefectures with strict policies on the issuance of passports. See Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken
iminshi, 185, 212, and 303-304; and Imin Hogo Kyōkai, ed., Kaigai dekasegi annai [An introduction
to temporary work abroad] (Tōkyō: Naigai Shuppan Kyōkai; Bunmeidō, 1902), appendix, 13-14.
104
The proportion of each district’s registered population to the whole population in Wakayama was
essentially the same in 1899. The total population was 687,217. The breakdown is as follows:
Wakayama City, 58,565 (8.5%); Kaisō, 129,142 (18.8%); Naga, 95,041 (13.8%); Ito, 67,505 (9.8%);
Arida, 73,428 (10.7%); Hidaka, 95,690 (13.9%); Nishimuro, 91,402 (13.3%); and Higashimuro,
76,444 (11.1%). See Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken tōkeisho, 1899 (published in 1901), 50-62.
69

prominence in 1904 and 1906. Particularly Higashimuro produced 28.1% of the entire
Wakayama emigrants in 1906, despite its relatively small population. Nishimuro and
Higashimuro emigrants tended to apply for passports outside the prefecture in the early
1890s, and anecdotal evidence suggests that this practice was prevalent until around the
turn of the twentieth century—this is most likely the reason why emigrants from these
two counties only held a small proportion in 1899.
105
Hidaka emigrants increased
comparatively in 1906, due to the popularity of Canada-bound emigration characteristic
of this county. All in all, the decline of overseas emigration in the north was redeemed
by the rise in the center and south.
The geographic concentration of emigrants in particular counties at specific points in
time began in individual villages, as the village controlled where potential emigrants
were most likely to go and when. The next three maps provide overall pictures of what
villages contributed many emigrants. Firstly, Figure 3 visualizes the number of
emigrants (expressed in ranges) from each Wakayama village in 1899:

105
Most emigrants from the village of Taiji in Higashimuro County, for example, stayed in either
Kanagawa or Hyōgo to apply for passports until around 1900 (Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken
iminshi, 302). This was mostly due to the bureaucratic complexities of obtaining passports in
Wakayama. According to Wakayama-ken iminshi, the occupational backgrounds of applicants
determined the easiness with which they received passports. Those from northern Wakayama were
essentially farmers while the major occupation among those from the south was fishing. In
Wakayama, it was easy for someone with agricultural experience to get a passport, at least in the early
1890s, causing prospective emigrants from the south to move temporarily to other prefectures where
they could obtain passports with relative ease. See Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi, 304.
70

Figure 3: Wakayama Villages with Overseas Emigrants, 1899

Source: “Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1899, reels 17-19, compiled by
the author.
Map Source: “National Land Numerical Information Download Service,” Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, last modified June 4, 2012, http://nlftp.mlit.go.jp/ksj.
More than 90
A. 70 - 90
B. 50 - 69
C. 30 - 49
D. 10 - 29
E. 1 - 9
CAT CAT CAT CAT
Village names were
unknown for 2 emigrants
from Arida and 1 emigrant
from Hidaka; 1 emigrant
stayed only temporarily in
Wakayama.
A
B
C
Wakayama City
D
71

In 1899, areas where emigrants were concentrated were: Ikeda and Tanaka Villages
and their vicinity in the north-central (A) that sent emigrants primarily to the continental
United States; the northwest of the prefecture (B) from which people migrated to Hawaii;
the village of Mio in the western end of the peninsula (C), a well-known mother village
of those who went to Canada; and the village of Shimosato in the east of the southern tip
(D) that sent emigrants to the United States and Canada. The map shows that emigrants
were more concentrated in the north than in the south. By 1904, the situation had
changed considerably, as Figure 4 shows:

72

Figure 4: Wakayama Villages with Overseas Emigrants, 1904
Source: “Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1904, reels 35-38, compiled by
the author.
Map Source: “National Land Numerical Information Download Service.”

CAT CAT CAT CAT
A. 70 - 90
B. 50 - 69
C. 30 - 49
D. 10 - 29
E. 1 - 9
The village name was
unknown for 1 emigrant
from Nishimuro.
A
B
Wakayama City
73

Even though 1904 was one of the peak years of overseas emigration in Wakayama,
the total number of emigrants was smaller than that of 1899 or 1906—this is why each
village had relatively a small number of emigrants. Concentrations were found in Shingū,
a town located in the southeastern end of the prefecture (A), that sent emigrants
essentially to the Philippines; and Tanami in the west of the southern tip of the peninsula
(B), whose emigrants went to Hawaii and Australia. Even though Wakayama City, the
capital in the north, had a good number of emigrants who migrated to the United States,
Hawaii and the Philippines, proportionately there could have been many more emigrants
from this city with a large population. Despite the overall decline of overseas emigration
in 1904, many inland villages that had not produced any emigrants in 1899 did send a
very few people, sometimes only one or two, to destinations such as Hawaii, Mexico and
the Philippines. In sum, emigrants were dispersed in a wide area in 1904 with a few
small concentrations along the southern coast.
By 1906, the southern dominance in the number of emigrants had become clearer, as
Figure 5 shows:

74

Figure 5: Wakayama Villages with Overseas Emigrants, 1906
Source: “Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1906, reels 43-46, compiled by
the author.
Map Source: “National Land Numerical Information Download Service.”

A. 70 - 90
B. 50 - 69
C. 30 - 49
D. 10 - 29
E. 1 - 9
CAT CAT CAT CAT
A
B
D
C
E
Wakayama City
75

Clusters of villages with a significant number of emigrants appeared in 1906. Areas
where emigrants were concentrated were: Shingū (the United States and Hawaii)-Ugui
(Hawaii)-Nachi (Hawaii and Mexico)-Taiji (Hawaii and Mexico)-Shimosato (the United
States, Hawaii and Mexico) Area along the southeastern coast of the prefecture (A);
Shionomisaki (China) at the southern tip of the peninsula (B); Tanami (Hawaii and
Mexico)-Esumi (Hawaii)-Wabuka (Hawaii and Mexico) Area in the west of B (C), Mio
(Canada) (D) and Nishiwakino (Hawaii) in the northwestern corner of the prefecture (E).
As emigrants were again concentrated in some areas, those villages that had produced 1
to 9 emigrants in 1904 completely stopped sending people overseas in 1906—there is
more white space in Figure 5 than in Figure 4.
In very broad terms, emigrants were found close to the prefectural border or along
coastlines from 1899 through 1906. Rarely did they come from mountainous inland areas,
and when they did, they migrated in small numbers. According to Kenkichi Iwasaki, the
main reason that people did not emigrate was because they were fully occupied with their
jobs in agriculture or forestry, suggesting that these people had good alternatives to
overseas emigration.
106

Figures 3 through 5 have not only demonstrated how the center of gravity in
emigration moved from the north to the south, but also shown that villages in close
proximity influenced each other, as emigrant villages were usually clustered together.
This latter point has already been made a long time ago by Iwasaki. Examining some 80

106
Iwasaki, “Kii-hantou minami kaigan ni okeru kaigai dekasegi imin no kenkyū,” 2nd report, 14-15.
76

towns and villages along the southern coast of the Kii Peninsula in the late 1930s, he
identified Shionomisaki at the southern tip as one of the first villages to produce overseas
emigrants and discussed how the emigration craze spread from there to other coastal
towns and villages and then to the hinterland.
107
There is no reason to doubt this
tendency of the “emigration fever” to travel, as it was the common phenomenon
anywhere that experienced overseas emigration. On the other hand, the influence of
neighboring villages on overseas emigration does not fully explain why certain villages
sent emigrants to Australia while others to the United States.
In understanding how information on certain destinations travelled from one village
to another, it is then important to examine the distribution of emigrants by where they
went. The analysis that follows reveals how different villages coped with changes in
migration policies differently.

To the Continental United States, 1899, 1904 and 1906
The United States became popular among Japanese labor migrants from around 1890.
Hawaii could be another possibility, as a government-sponsored contract laborer on a
sugar plantation was able to earn 15 dollars a month in 1885, but the Japanese
government limited the number of sponsored emigrants. Those willing to make money
abroad headed for the United States in search of better opportunities.
108

107
Ibid., 3rd report, 39-40.
108
Kodama, Nihon iminshi kenkyū josetsu, 455; and Moriyama, Imingaisha, 18.
77

As the Japanese population in the United States expanded in the late 1890s, the
number of migrants from Wakayama Prefecture to the country also increased: it more
than doubled from 409 in 1898 to 945 (1,015 according to my count of passport records)
in 1899.
109
The major factor that contributed to such a sharp rise was the Spanish-
American War of 1898 that pushed up wages in the United States and created new
demands for cheap labor. Moreover, the opening of regular oceanic lines between Japan
and the United States—Nihon Yūsen Company’s Seattle line in 1896 and Tōyō Kisen
Company’s San Francisco line in 1898—had made trans-Pacific trips easier.
110

Figure 6 shows the distribution of America-bound emigrants from Wakayama
villages in 1899:

109
Kodama, Nihon iminshi kenkyū josetsu, 519, Table 3-29; Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken tōkeisho,
1898 (published in 1900), 60-61; and Ibid., 1899 (published in 1901), 75-76.
110
Kodama, Nihon iminshi kenkyū josetsu, 522-523; and Michio Yamada, Fune ni miru Nihonjin
iminshi: Kasato Maru kara kurūzu kyakusen e [Japanese immigration history as seen in ships: from
Kasato Maru to cruise ships] (Tōkyō: Chūōkōronsha, 1998), 36-39.
78

Figure 6: Wakayama Villages with U.S.-bound Emigrants, 1899
Source: “Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1899, reels 17-19, compiled by
the author.
Map Source: “National Land Numerical Information Download Service.”
A. 70 - 90
B. 50 - 69
C. 30 - 49
D. 10 - 29
E. 1 - 9
CAT CAT CAT CAT
Wakayama City
Ikeda Tanaka
Shimosato
Inahara
Kimiidera
A
B
C
79

The map shows that, in 1899, immigration to the United States was essentially a northern
phenomenon, with huge concentrations of emigrants in Ikeda and Tanaka Villages (A).
In the southeastern coastal area (C), only Shimosato contributed more than 30 emigrants
while the area around Inahara Village in Hidaka County (B) had a very small
concentration of U.S.-bound emigrants—38 in total.
Young and relatively well-off men in Ikeda and Tanaka Villages, influenced by
liberal idealism, led the way of migration from northern Wakayama to the United States.
One of the first to bring the news about the United States to his home village of Ikeda
was Tachū Date, who, having made friends with an American employed on his uncle’s
farm in the new northern territory of Hokkaidō, accompanied this man to the United
States in the early 1870s, and came back to Japan as a Christian minister.
111
A local
intellectual who encouraged the youth to go to the United States was Waichirō Honda of
Ikeda, who had been to Tōkyō and become Yukichi Fukuzawa’s student as a young man.
Greatly influenced by Fukuzawa’s thoughts, he later opened a private school named
Kyōshū Gakusha in his home village, inspired a spirit of enterprise in his young male
students, and established an information bureau within the school to encourage as well as
offer advice on going to America.
112
One of the most successful emigrants among
Honda’s students was Takanoshin Dōmoto. A relative of Honda, Dōmoto was from a
large landowning family in the neighboring village of Tanaka. Dōmoto went to the

111
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi, 148.
112
Ibid., 149; and Ichioka, The Issei, 11.
80

United States in 1884 and established, in San Francisco, a company importing Japanese
produce such as mandarin oranges, canned food, soybean paste and soy sauce. His three
brothers also migrated to the United States, became floriculturists in Oakland, and
recruited fellow emigrants from the same village. Hearing the word of their success,
many villagers wished to accompany Dōmoto on his return to the United States after his
temporary visit to Japan in 1895. His only brother who remained in the village paid for
their travel on the condition that they would repay the debt once they gained wages in the
United States. With the help from the Dōmoto family, 46 emigrants made their way to
the United States.
113

The popularity of America went hand in hand with the spread of Christianity in
northern Wakayama. A Presbyterian minister from the Cumberland Church named John
Baxter Hail came to Ōsaka in 1877, and together with his brother, began propagating
Christianity in adjacent Wakayama Prefecture in 1881. Among those baptized were
Honda and Dōmoto. In fact, many young men who went to the United States from
northern Wakayama in this early phase chose to become Christians. While Hail himself
did not personally encourage emigration, the local youth were greatly intrigued by his
talk of American civilization, eventually making up their mind to go to the country.
114

113
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi, 151-152; Uchita Chōshi Hensan Iinkai, ed., Uchita chōshi
[The history of the town of Uchita], vol. 3, Tsūshi-hen [Comprehensive history] (Uchita-chō: Uchita-
chō, 1986), 476-477; and Ichioka, The Issei, 11.
114
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi, 156-158; Uchita Chōshi Hensan Iinkai, Uchita chōshi,
vol. 2, Siryō-hen II [Primary sources II] (Uchita-chō: Uchita-chō, 1984), 614-615; Uchita chōshi, vol.
3, 482; and Motoko Tsuchida, “Wakayama-ken kihoku no Amerika imin: senkuchi Naga-gun no fūdo
to jinmyaku” [America-bound emigrants from Northern Wakayama: the climate and personal
connections in the pioneering emigrant district, Naga County], in Nichibei kiki no kigen to hainichi
81

The striking aspect of early emigration from the north-central region of Wakayama is
the extent to which ideas, rather than simple economic needs, motivated the youth.
Young men inspired by the idealism of risshin-shusse viewed the United States as a place
where they could achieve their dreams.
115
They intended to be either students or
businessmen, not laborers. These pioneers led the way of overseas emigration, and labor
emigrants followed suit. The movement that had begun in Ikeda and Tanaka soon spread
to nearby localities, as stories of success travelled from village to village, although there
is possibility that emigrants from the northwest learned of the United States through a
different channel as discussed later.
Informal communication networks sometimes extended far and wide, making stories
of success travel for a long distance. The pioneer from Inahara Village in Hidaka County
(in the area labeled B in Figure 6) was a man named Sahachi Miyatsukogi who migrated
to the United States in 1889 or 1890. Miyatsukogi heard rumors that one could easily
make money in the United States. Dreaming of striking it rich, he visited a former
policeman named Kamenosuke Nishi in Kimiidera (in the north near Wakayama City),
who had made success as a labor contractor in Northern California. Nishi’s fame had

imin hō [The origins of the U.S.-Japan crisis and the immigration act of 1924], ed. Kimitada Miwa
(Tōkyō: Ronsōsha, 1997), 105 and 107.
115
This initial drive for personal achievement was increasingly channeled into a national scheme of
expansionism by intellectuals. It was not enough anymore for the Japanese to learn from the West,
they would argue. The Japanese needed to extend their commercial interests abroad as a nation equal
to Western powers. Although this line of argument can be traced to Yukichi Fukuzawa, it particularly
became popular after Japan won the war with Russia. See Akira Iriye, Pacific Estrangement:
Japanese and American Expansion, 1897-1911 (Chicago: Imprint, 1994), 126-133; and Ichioka, The
Issei, 10.
82

wide-ranging implications, as Miyatsukogi was not the only outside visitor who called on
him when Nishi was back in Japan temporarily. In the United States, Miyatsukogi
worked on Nishi’s farm and sent 300 yen back home in his first year. Looking at his
success, even those who had been initially opposed to his going to America sent their
children to the country or immigrated themselves.
116
The example of Inahara shows that
personal connections could make a difference in a village, and that the lure of success
was an important factor in spreading an emigration craze.
What lied behind such “emigration fever” particularly as it related to the United
States were inter-country disparities. To ambitious young men with some resources, the
United States represented an advanced civilization from which Japan should learn as a
newcomer to modernization. For a majority of labor emigrants, the attraction was
simpler—the United States offered a chance to make money. Around 1900, a laborer
would earn 15 to 20 sen (or 0.15 to 0.20 yen) a day in Japan while he could receive a
dollar—equivalent to 2 yen—a day in the United States.
117
Japanese migration to North
America thus exemplified a flow from less developed to more advanced society and
economy.
The southern village of Shimosato (in the area labeled C in Figure 6) also had a few
pioneering emigrants. Saigorō Hashimoto went to Yokohama as a youth to be employed
by an Englishman and boarded on a ship to hunt sea otters near Russia. Warned against

116
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi, 168-170 and 177-178.
117
Ibid., 125.
83

this dangerous operation by the Japanese authority, Hashimoto then headed for San
Francisco in 1881 to engage in salmon fishing, switched to seal hunting in Victoria,
Canada, returned to Shimosato in 1901 and established a company specializing in sea
animal hunting.
118
Yūya Yamaguchi went to the United States in 1886 as a political exile,
published a weekly called Shin Nippon (New Japan) in Oakland, was arrested after his
return to Japan for slandering cabinet ministers and, when released, established an
emigration company called Kumamoto Imin Gōshigaisha as a strong advocate of
overseas emigration.
119
Yamaguchi had a good reason to go to the United States, as San
Francisco was a haven for Japanese political exiles craving for democracy in the
1880s,
120
but Hashimoto apparently determined his destinations on the spur of the
moment. To him, traveling to a port town was not so much the act of taking the first step
to a specific destination as that of visiting a place where information was accessible on
which foreign countries offered a good chance of making money. While such an attitude
toward going abroad was probably not necessarily characteristic of migrants from the
south, a few documented examples of “switching destinations” all pertain to emigrants
from this region.
121

118
Ibid., 208-210.
119
Ibid., 316-317; and Ichioka, The Issei, 19.
120
Ichioka, The Issei, 14-16.
121
For example, a group of emigrants from Kushimoto (near the southern tip of the peninsula) left
their hometown in 1890, intending to migrate to Australia. Migration to Australia from this town had
begun around 1884. Finding it difficult to make their way to the country for some reason, however,
they immediately changed their mind and went to the United States. In this way, these people
84

By 1904, the number of those going directly to the United States decreased
considerably, as Figure 7 shows:

accidentally became the pioneers going to North America (Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi,
191-192). Exactly the opposite also happened. Singapore used to be a place where migrants
intending to sneak illegally into the United States gathered, but some of them ended up landing in
Broome, Western Australia, after their hope of making it in America was dashed. See Taira Ogawa,
Arafura kai no shinju: Kinan no daibā hyakunen shi [Pearls of the Arafura Sea: A hundred-year
history of divers from Southern Wakayama] (Tōkyō: Ayumi Shuppan, 1976), 32.
85

Figure 7: Wakayama Villages with U.S.-bound Emigrants, 1904
Source: “Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1904, reels 35-38, compiled by
the author.
Map Source: “National Land Numerical Information Download Service.”
D. 10 - 29
E. 1 - 9
Wakayama City
86

There were only small concentrations of U.S.-bound emigrants in 1904, with each village
contributing fewer than 10 emigrants except Wakayama City and a village adjacent to it.
Most of these villages were concentrated in the same areas as where Amerika-mura were
in 1899, that is, in the north, the coastal area in the center, and southeastern coastal area.
A small change from 1899 was the disappearance, from the map, of inland villages that
had produced a few emigrants (in areas circled by dots).
The decline of immigration to the United States had to do with the Japanese
government’s policy change. Since the rapid increase in the number of Japanese laborers
provoked anti-Japanese agitation on the West Coast of the United States and Canada, the
government banned immigration to the former in 1900 and the latter in 1901. Although
the ban on United States-bound emigration was lifted in June, 1902, emigrants were
limited to those holding certificates of residence issued by Japanese consulates and their
wives and children.
122
As the ban and succeeding restrictions did not apply to “non-
emigrants,” that is, students and businessmen, many new labor emigrants no doubt tried
to obtain passports using that status after 1902, but the prefectural authorities gave them a
hard time. During one year beginning in September, 1902, the government of Wakayama
issued only 646 passports intended for those traveling as students or businessmen, even
though it received 2,033 applications—the rate of success was merely 31.8%.
123
More
practically, people used Hawaii as an entry point to the United States. Therefore, many

122
Kodama, Nihon iminshi kenkyū josetsu, 476 and 537-538; and Iino Masako, Nikkei Kanadajin no
rekishi [The history of Japanese Canadians] (Tōkyō: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 1997), 23.
123
Kodama, Nihon iminshi kenkyū josetsu, 525, Table 3-30.
87

immigrants to Hawaii in 1904 no doubt considered landing in the continent later. Those
international contexts and domestic emigration policy explain why the significance of the
United States appears to have decreased by 1904.
Overseas emigration from Wakayama, and in fact from other parts of Japan as well,
reached a high point again in 1906, due to the confusion caused by the Russo-Japanese
War (1904-05). In the midst of the postwar depression, soldiers returning from Korea
and Manchuria added to the problem of unemployment. Many of those soldiers made a
passage to the United States or Hawaii for temporary work.
124
Thus, migration to the
United States regained momentum somewhat, although it never reached the level of
1899:

124
Ibid., 467-468.
88

Figure 8: Wakayama Villages with U.S.-bound Emigrants, 1906
Source: “Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1906, reels 43-46, compiled by
the author.
Map Source: “National Land Numerical Information Download Service.”

D. 10 - 29
E. 1 - 9
B. 50 - 69
Wakayama City
A
B
89

Those villages that sent 10 to 29 emigrants to the United States were concentrated in the
north, the western end of the peninsula, and the southeast close to the coast. The pattern
in which America-bound emigrants originated in the north, the west-central, or the
southeast did not seem to change much from 1899 to 1906, but in closer examination, it
becomes clear that some areas of concentration in 1906 did not have many America-
bound emigrants in 1899—those areas labeled A and B in Figure 8, for example.
Moreover, clusters of villages with 10 emigrants or over were dispersed. Some inland
villages that had fewer than 10 emigrants newly show up in Figure 8 (in areas circled by
dots), making a map in Figure 7 (1904) look blank in comparison.
While it is not entirely clear why the number of immigrants to the United States again
increased from 1904, apparently passport applicants found means to convince the
bureaucracy of their alleged objects of travel—113 received passports as students, 68 as
agriculturists, not to be confused with agricultural “laborers,” 274 as businessmen of
various kinds, and 107 as those who were summoned by family members.
125
In other
words, they were sucessful in making it to the United States as “non-emigrants.”
To sum up the trend of going to the United States from Wakayama from 1899 to 1906,
essentially the northern area close to the prectural border kept supplying emigrants,
followed by the southeastern coastal area with Shimosato at its center. The coastal area
in central Wakayama also produced a small number of emigrants. Few emigrants
originated in the hinterland, although even these inland villages had a very small numeber

125
“Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1906, reels 43-46.
90

of emigrants, sometimes 1 or 2, when the overall trend of immigration to the United
States gained momentum in 1899 or 1906.
While Figures 6 through 8 have shown what villages had emigrants who directly went
to the United States, they are not the accurate reflection of migration flows to the country.
After the turn of the century, people found out ways to evade restrictions to land in the
United States by way of other places, namely Hawaii and Mexcio. Therefore, many
Wakayma emigrants no doubt applied for passports to enter Hawaii or Mexico while their
real destination was the United States.

To Hawaii, 1899, 1904 and 1906
Emigrants from Wakayama were latecomers to Hawaii, essentially due to factors out
of their control. Japanese immigration to Hawaii became only possible after repeated
requests for Japanese workers from the Hawaiian government. A shortage of labor on
plantations despite the soaring production of sugar caused the Hawaiian government to
look for cheap labor in Asia. Japan was an ideal source, for its proximity to the islands,
independence from control by Western nations, cheap labor and the reputation of its
workers as industrious. On the other hand, Japan had strongly resisted sending its
laborers abroad, ever since the fiasco of 1868 when a group of Japanese immigrants not
experienced as farmers suffered harsh conditions on Hawaiian plantations, resulting in
the repatriation of many at the expense of the Japanese government. In the mid-1880s,
Japan finally permitted labor immigration to Hawaii, as Finance Minister Matsukata’s
deflationary policy led to a nationwide depression—but only reluctantly and on the
91

condition that both governments would supervise a convention under which Japanese
immigrants were assured of free passage and required to sign three-year contracts.
Between 1885 and 1894, a total of about 29,000 so-called government-sponsored
emigrants landed in Hawaii on 26 vessels.
126

The scrutiny over Japanese labor migration was extended to recruitment.
Government-sponsored emigrants were predominantly from four southwestern
prefectures of Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Fukuoka and Kumamoto. While these districts did
have particular socioeconomic conditions that created emigration-prone contexts, the
decisions made by policymakers, employers and recruiters primarily caused this unusual
concentration. The advice made by influential figures in Japan initially played a role—
Foreign Minister Kaoru Inoue is said to have recommended his native prefecture of
Yamaguchi along with Hiroshima and Kumamoto as sources of emigrants, and Takashi
Masuda, who handled practical matters related to emigration, also influenced the
selection of regions from which to recruit emigrants. Eventually sugar planters in Hawaii
came to favor emigrants from Hiroshima and Yamaguchi because they were particularly
satisfied with the diligence of these people. For recruiters, accepting only a small number
of applicants from each prefecture was uneconomical, and it was hard to guide emigrants
with diverse regional backgrounds. Once the pattern of recruiting emigrants from four
prefectures was established, applicants from other prefectures had a hard time getting

126
Kodama, Nihon iminshi kenkyū josetsu, 3-11 and 18-21; Moriyama, Imingaisha, 6-13; and Hyōgo-
ken Kaigai Hattenshi Henshū Iinkai, ed., Hyōgo-ken kaigai hattenshi [The history of Hyōgo
prefecture’s overseas development] (Kōbe: Hyōgo-ken, 1970), 61-64.
92

permission to migrate.
127
This explains why no government-sponsored emigrants
originated in Wakayama after the first three batches of laborers were sent to Hawaii.
128

The situation changed with the end of the government-sponsored emigration when the
government completely handed the business of emigration to imin geisha or emigration
companies. From 1894, these private companies recruited emigrants more widely and
exported them to more diverse destinations. Emigration companies brought to Hawaii
not only contract laborers but also those who wanted to travel there without signing
contracts. Some individuals even preferred using only personal connections without
getting any help from emigration companies.
129
It is in this phase that emigrants from
Wakayama began migrating to Hawaii in large numbers.
Eighteen ninety-nine was the peak year of Japanese immigration to Hawaii, and
emigrants from northwestern Wakayama were clearly following this trend:

127
Shimaoka, “Hawai kan’yaku imin no shusshinchi,” 85-88.
128
Wakayama Kenshi Hensan Iinkai, Wakayama kenshi: kin-gendai I, 956-958.
129
Moriyama, Imingaisha, 81-84.
93

Figure 9: Wakayama Villages with Hawaii-bound Emigrants, 1899
Source: “Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1899, reels 17-19, compiled by
the author.
Map Source: “National Land Numerical Information Download Service.”

CAT CAT CAT CAT
A. 70 - 90
B. 50 - 69
C. 30 - 49
D. 10 - 29
E. 1 - 9
Village names were unknown for
2 emigrants from Arida and 1
emigrant from Hidaka; 1 emigrant
stayed only temporarily in
Wakayama.
Wakayama City
Nishi-
wakino
Kimiidera
Kamo
94

As Figure 9 shows, going to Hawaii was essentially a northern trend, with heavy
concentrations of emigrants at the northwestern corner. Interestingly, a number of
villages in this area started out as Amerika-mura, that is, villages that sent emigrants
essentially to the continental United States. As early as 1877, a villager of Nishiwakino
in the very northwest of the prefecture immigrated to Los Angeles. Those who
succeeded him from one section of this village in the next 35 years tended to go to cities
and towns within the United States such as Sacramento, Stockton, San Francisco,
Vacaville, Fresno and Los Angeles.
130
While villagers of Nishiwakino may have
garnered information on the United States from the Ikeda-Tanaka area in the east, no
evidence exists to suggest a clear connection between these two localities (at least very
early migrants from the former preceded Takanoshin Dōmoto from the latter). This
suggests that emigration from the northwestern part of the prefecture possibly began in a
slightly different context than in the north-central. As Nishiwakino was closer to
Wakayama City than to Ikeda or Tanaka, its villagers may have gained information on
going overseas from this prefectural capital. Another early Amerika-mura was Kimiidera
in the south of Wakayama City. As discussed earlier, Kamenosuke Nishi was a very
influential pioneer, although he was not the first emigrant from the village. That Nishi
had a relative in Nishiwakino indicates that he probably gained information about
America from this line. Nishi migrated to the United States in 1888 and became the first

130
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi, 165-167. The list of destinations for emigrants from
Nishinoshō in Nishiwakino during the Meiji Period (1868-1912) here is not based on any official
documents but was created by an individual. While the possibility of source bias can never be denied,
the list at least shows that not a few people did go to the United States.
95

Japanese labor contractor to supply workers to orchards around Suisun and Vacaville. He
also became successful as an inn owner in San Francisco. As an old man, Nishi returned
to Japan and contributed to the development of his native village.
131
Further down south,
Kamo became another emigrant village because of Teiichiro Honda, who was a native of
Kimiidera but became a schoolteacher in Kamo. He not only advocated emigration but
immigrated himself to the United States in 1892, taking one of his students with him.
That student returned after 6 years, told stories of America to villagers and caused the
emigration boom. Teiichiro Honda’s influence spread to neighboring villages.
132
As
these examples show, a chain of human relations created numerous villages enthused
over the dream of making it in the United States from the late 1880s to the early 1890s in
northwestern Wakayama.
Why, then, did these Amerika-mura change into Hawai-mura by 1899? An important
actor in this shift was the emigration company. As the Japanese government banned
emigration companies from bringing immigrants to the United States or Canada in 1898,
their major targeted destinations shifted to places where contract labor was still
permitted.
133
Because American law prohibiting foreign contract labor was to be

131
Ibid., 168-170.
132
Ibid., 170-171.
133
Hiroshima-ken, ed., Hiroshima-ken ijūshi: tsūshi hen [The Hiroshima prefectural history of
emigration: an overview] (Hiroshima: Hiroshima-ken, 1993), 62. The last year company emigrants
were sent from Wakayama to the United States was 1898, but to Canada, it was 1900. See Wakayama
Kenshi Hensan Iinkai, Wakayama kenshi: kin-gendai I, 972-973, Table 207.
96

enforced in Hawaii from June, 1900, sugar planters asked for excessive labor before the
deadline, and the Japanese government complied by letting a large number of laborers go,
mistakenly assuming that contracts signed before a certain date would remain legal even
after 1900.
134
Under the circumstance, it seemed easier for potential emigrants to get
permission to go to Hawaii than the continental United States. Emigration companies did
not miss the opportunity, possibly concentrating their recruitment effort on villages that
already had a previous emigration history, particularly in northern Wakayama. Contract
laborers sent by these companies worked on sugar plantations as did government-
sponsored immigrants who preceded them—and suffered harsh living conditions. Forty
Wakayama laborers brought to Maui by Kumamoto Imin Gōshigaisha submitted to the
prefectural governor a petition dated December 6, 1899, stating that they were suffering
from disease due to bad water and dust, and wished to break contracts with Kumamoto so
that they could leave the island. Eleven of them were from Kaisō, 12 from Naga, and 13
were Arida emigrants.
135
Since the majority of government-sponsored Wakayama
emigrants—however small the number was—originated in these counties, it is likely that
emigration companies particularly recruited emigrants from villages in northern
Wakayama.
136

134
Kodama, Nihon iminshi kenkyū josetsu, 466-467; and Moriyama, Imingaisha, 147.
135
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi, 485-486; and “Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō
shintatsu ikken,” 1899, reel 19.
136
Wakayama Kenshi Hensan Iinkai, Wakayama kenshi: kin-gendai I, 957, Table 201.
97

By 1904, the meaning attached to going to Hawaii had changed. As discussed earlier,
immigration to the continental United States for the purpose of labor was practically
banned from June, 1902. Finding it difficult to receive passports as “non-emigrants,”
new labor emigrants came up with a way to get around the regulation—to enter Hawaii, a
territory of the United States, so as to re-migrate to the continent later. The Japanese
government had suspended migration to Hawaii by emigration companies in January,
1900—when the Hawaiian government, in an effort to stop a bubonic plague epidemic,
burned down the districts where the Japanese had been living—but permitted emigration
again in August, 1901.
137
Therefore, many among those who went to Hawaii in 1904
undoubtedly had the United States in mind when they left their villages.
That Hawaii became a stopover to the continental United States probably explains
why Hawaii-bound emigration from the north became less popular in 1904 than in 1899
while new emigrants originated in the south:

137
Kodama, Nihon iminshi kenkyū josetsu, 476; and Moriyama, Imingaisha, 51.
98

Figure 10: Wakayama Villages with Hawaii-bound Emigrants, 1904
Source: “Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1904, reels 35-38, compiled by
the author.
Map Source: “National Land Numerical Information Download Service.”
C. 30 - 49
D. 10 - 29
E. 1 - 9
Tanami
Wakayama City
99

When Figures 9 and 10 are compared, it becomes clear that the popularity of Hawaii
receded in the north, but that the number of emigrants increased in the south where few
had been to Hawaii in 1899. Particularly a cluster of villages along the southern coast
apparently influenced each other. While a greater number of villages sent emigrants in
the north than in the south, there were more “emigrant” villages, that is, villages with
some concentrations, in the south than in the north.
It is unclear why the popularity of Hawaii declined in northern Wakayama despite its
convenience as a stepping-stone to the United States, but historians can speculate about
the significance of Hawaii to northern people. The decline suggests that, for a large
number of those who had been to Hawaii in 1899 essentially from Kaisō, Naga and Arida
Counties, Hawaii remained the final destination, not a stopover. While even in 1899
there were migrants who left Hawaii within a year of immigration, those who stayed
worked on sugar plantations. With the prohibition of contract labor on the islands in
1900, however, Hawaii became a less attractive destination to those who wished to make
money as laborers. Thus, while changes in migration policy uniformly affected the entire
prefecture, how prospective emigrants reacted varied from one village to another.
On the other hand, not all new emigrants who went to Hawaii used the islands as a
stopover. Wakayama immigrants dominated the fishing industry in Hawaii side by side
with those from Hiroshima and Yamaguchi. As of 1924, there were 1,124 Wakayama
people in Hawaii, and 9 out of 10, they were fishermen. These fishermen mostly
originated in Nishimuro Country, and especially emigrants from the village of Tanami
contributed to the development of Hawaiian fishery. At least by 1899, a pioneering
100

villager was engaging in fishing.
138
The flow from southern Wakayama to Hawaii could
be, then, attributable to two different factors: one was the immigration restriction in the
United States; and another was the opportunity for fishermen to make money in Hawaii.
In 1906, as the post-Russo-Japanese War depression hit Japan, the number of those
going to Hawaii from northern Wakayama again increased, although not so dramatically
as in the south:

138
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi, 511-513 and 515.
101

Figure 11: Wakayama Villages with Hawaii-bound Emigrants, 1906
Source: “Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1906, reels 43-46, compiled by
the author.
Map Source: “National Land Numerical Information Download Service.”
B. 50 - 69
C. 30 - 49
D. 10 - 29
E. 1 - 9
Wakayama City
102

As Figure 11 shows, northern villages with 10 Hawaii-bound emigrants or more were
essentially concentrated in the west but not necessarily close to the coast. Inland areas in
the north (circled by dots) stopped sending emigrants completely. In the south,
concentrations are found along the coastline, with a few villages supplying more than 50
emigrants. Thus, the dominance of southern Wakayama in Hawaii-bound emigration was
complete by 1906.
To sum up the trend of going to Hawaii, people from northern Wakayama dominated
the flow to the islands at the first peak of emigration in 1899; with the change of
Hawaii’s status to the U.S. territory, and the succeeding ban on labor migration,
emigrants from the north somewhat lost their motivation to go to Hawaii and were
replaced by those from southern coastal villages willing to enter Hawaii either because of
its convenience as a stopover or because of its fishery that promised a lucrative business.
If Hawaii’s significance increased as a gateway to the United States, another country
that served the purpose was Mexico that became popular among Japanese immigrants
after the turn of the twentieth century.

To Mexico, 1904 and 1906
As an alternative to Hawaii, Mexico became a possible destination among Japanese
immigrants. Large-scale Japanese migration to Mexico began in 1901, just about the
time when Japanese immigration to the United States, Canada and Hawaii was prohibited.
Emigration companies provided laborers to Mexican coal, copper and gold mines,
railroads, and coffee and hemp plantations. Apparently many left the country without
103

fulfilling contracts—according to a 1908 report, out of 8,706 immigrants brought by
emigration companies to Mexico between 1901 and 1907, more than 5,000 escaped
possibly to the United States. Before 1907 a traveler could enter the United States from
Mexico by paying a poll tax of three dollars. While a significant number of Wakayama
emigrants were to be settled in Baja California as fishermen, it was going to be much
later, in the 1930s.
139

The geographic concentration was evident in the case of Mexico-bound emigrants
from Wakayama in 1904, although the number of emigrants was not large:

139
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi, 776-777 and 784-786; and Sumio Kawasaki,
“Kagoshima-ken Nansatsu chiiki kara no kaigai dekasegisha to kaigai imin: Beikoku Kariforunia e no
tokōsha o chūshin ni” [Emigrants and overseas workers from Nansatsu district in Kagoshima
prefecture], Kagoshima keizai daigaku shakaigakubu ronshū 3, no. 4 (1985): 66.
104

Figure 12: Wakayama Villages with Mexico-bound Emigrants, 1904
Source: “Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1904, reels 35-38, compiled by
the author.
Map Source: “National Land Numerical Information Download Service.”

D. 10 - 29
E. 1 - 9
The village name was
unknown for 1 emigrant
from Nishimuro.
Wakayama City
A
105

Emigrants were found in the northeastern part of the prefecture, the coastal area in the
middle and adjacent villages, and some other concentrations that were scattered about.
Particularly the very northeastern end (in the area labeled A) rarely had overseas
emigrants, but in this year produced a small number of Mexico-bound emigrants. On the
other hand, from the southeastern coastal area (circled by dots) that had some
concentration of Hawaii-bound emigrants in 1904, no one migrated to Mexico. What the
map suggests is that migration to Mexico was not necessarily popular in “traditional”
emigrant villages with previous records of sending people overseas. Those from old
emigrant villages chose Hawaii, directly migrated to the United States somehow, or gave
up the idea of going abroad.
The situation had changed by 1906, however, as Figure 13 demonstrates:

106

Figure 13: Wakayama Villages with Mexico-bound Emigrants, 1906
Source: “Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1906, reels 43-46, compiled by
the author.
Map Source: “National Land Numerical Information Download Service.”

D. 10 - 29
E. 1 - 9
Wakayama City
107

A major change from 1904, besides the increase of the total number that doubled from
254 to 499, was the number of emigrants in the south. Unlike in 1904, emigrants were
concentrated along the southern coast, with a few other concentrations in Hidaka County
in the middle, and villages that had a small number of emigrants in the northwest.
Interestingly, the northeast area (circled by dots) stopped sending people to Mexico.
The fact that southern emigrants from coastal villages produced many Hawaii-bound
emigrants besides those going to Mexico in 1906 suggests that, by this time, the south
came to lead the way of migration to the United States through these gateways.
Emigrants from the north also migrated through Hawaii or Mexico, but they never
regained the enthusiasm with which they went to the United States in 1899.

To the Philippines, 1904
Despite the decrease in the number of U.S.- and Hawaii-bound emigrants in 1904,
overseas emigration from Wakayama reached a high point particularly because of the
addition of new destinations. One was Mexico, and another war the Philippines.
Free migration to the Philippines by emigration companies became only possible in
1903. When the islands were under Spain’s control, few Japanese immigrated there
because the Spanish government did not let many foreigners in. After the United States
took over the Philippines in 1898, American law prohibiting foreign contract labor was
applied to the islands. The Japanese government voluntarily banned immigration—free
or not—to the Philippines by emigration companies, as it could be confused with the
importation of contract laborers. The situation changed with the colonial government’s
108

decision to establish a summer capital in Baguio. Americans planned to construct a road
leading to the capital, which created a huge demand for foreign labor, as there were not
enough native workers considered adequate for the job. This was when the Japanese
authorities solicited the help of emigration companies. The construction of the Banguet
Road from 1903 to 1905 attracted about 2,800 Japanese immigrants. A laborer employed
in the project was paid 62¢ a day while a section boss could earn as much as $1.25 per
day. A good pay was the primary reason why many Japanese engaged in the construction,
even though it was a dangerous job taking more than 300 Japanese lives. With the end of
the project in 1905, the number of immigrants immediately declined, even though a small
group continued to migrate as the market price for hemp went up with the coming of
World War I.
140

In 1904, 381 emigrants from Wakayama went to the Philippines. Figure 14 shows
where these emigrants originated:

140
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi, 636-638 and 643; and Shun Ohno, “The Intermarried
Issei and Mestizo Nisei in the Philippines: Reflections on the Origin of Philippine Nikkeijin
Problems,” in Japanese Diasporas: Unsung Pasts, Conflicting Presents, and Uncertain Futures, ed.
Nobuko Adachi (London; New York: Routeledge, 2006), 86.
109

Figure 14: Wakayama Villages with Philippines-bound Emigrants, 1904
Source: “Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1904, reels 35-38, compiled by
the author.
Map Source: “National Land Numerical Information Download Service.”

C. 30 - 49
D. 10 - 29
E. 1 - 9
Wakayama City
110

There does not seem to be a clear pattern on the map, except that emigrants tended to
come from the south than from the north. If the distribution of Philippine-bound
emigrants is compared with that of those who went to Hawaii, a major destination in the
same year (Figure 10), the characteristic of villages that sent emigrants to the Philippines
becomes clearer, as Figure 15 shows:

Figure 15: Comparison of Figures 10 and 14
To Hawaii, 1904 (Figure 10)

To the Philippines, 1904 (Figure 14)

While there are certainly overlaps in areas with concentrations of emigrants, a closer look
reveals that villages with a good number of Philippine-bound emigrants are distinct from
Hawai-mura. Especially inland areas that produced a small number of emigrants (circled
by dotts) were not traditional emigrant villages.
111

What laid behind the short-term migration boom with the Philippines as the
destination was the supply of labor from areas that did not send many people to Hawaii.
Emigration companies possibly played an important role in recruiting those who may not
have been previously interested in going overseas and sending them to new destinations
such as Mexico and the Philippines in 1904. That is why overseas emigration reached
one of its heights in Wakayama despite the decline of U.S.-bound or Hawaii-bound
emigration.

To Other Major Destinations
Compared to the United States, Hawaii, Mexico and the Philippines, the popularity of
other major destinations was regionally circumscribed, as the folliwing map shows:

112

Figure 16: Wakayama Villages that Sent Emigrants to Canada, Australia and China
Source: “Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1899, 1904 and 1906, reels 17-19,
35-38 and 43-46, compiled by the author.
Map Source: “National Land Numerical Information Download Service.”

To Canada:
68 (1899);
92 (1906)
To Canada:
43 (1899)
To Canada: 65 (1899)
Wakayama City
To
Canada:
68 (1899)
To Canada:
27 (1899)
To Australia:
86 (1904)
To
China:
58
(1904)
To
China:
54 (1906)
To
China:
13
(1906)
Mio
Villages with fewer than
10 migrants to any of the
destinations (Canada,
Australia or China) are
ignored.
Shionomisaki
Shimosato
113

Japanese immigration to Canada became popular around 1889, with many laborers
working in lumbermills and mines, but those from Wakayama established themselves in
fishery. Although Figure 16 gives the impression that immigrants to Canada hailed from
scores of villages in 1899, in reality the village of Mio at the western end of the peninsula
dominated the flow to Canada. In 1899, this village alone had 50 emigrants going to
Canada. The father of Canada-bound emigration was Gihē Kuno of Mio. Kuno, a
carpenter and farmer, illegally migrated to Canada in 1887 on the recommendation of his
cousin who was a sailor. Well-versed in the world outside of Japan, sailors themselves
became pioneers of overseas emigration, and Kuno’s cousin appeared to be one of these
people. Kuno, who became an inn owner in Vancouver, invited Mio villagers to engage
in salmon fishing in the country. The life in Mio was not easy particularly after the
village lost a fishing ground to its rivals, and young men departed on Kuno’s invitation.
Emigrants from Mio dominated the fishing industry in Steveston, as discussed earlier.
141

Although Shimosato along the southeastern coast also had an influential pioneer
142
as
well as a good number of emigrants in 1899, it somehow lost momentum afterwards. On
the other hand, Mio continued to supply emigrants even when immigration restrictions
affected migration flows to Canada from other villages.

141
Fukutake, Kaigai imin ga boson ni oyoboshita eikyō, 24-26; Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken
iminshi, 174, 179, 183-186 and 521-524.
142
Hatashita Isoji, who arrived in Victoria in 1895, took up miscellaneous jobs including domestic
labor, salmon fishing and exportation of salted salmon. After establishing himself firmly in the
community, he recruited fellow Japanese workers in his enterprises in ship carpentry and forestry. See
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi, 565-566.
114

Migration to Australia was more popular than passport records from Wakayama
suggest. Two southern counties of Nishimuro and Higashimuro led Australia-bound
emigration, but in 1899, only 44 migrants from Wakayama headed for Australia. Within
Australia, the majority of those who went to Queensland were from the northwestern
county of Kaisō while the majority of those going to Thursday Island were from
Higashimuro in the southeast; only 2 headed for Cossack, Western Australia.
143

Although all except one gave “business” as their object of travel in applying for passports,
it was most likely for convenience. Men from southern Wakayama who went to
Thursday Island essentially engaged in pearling while those from the north migrated as
contract laborers to be employed on sugar plantations in Queensland.
144
Forty-four—the
number of all Wakayama emigrants combined—may not be insignificant, but each
village had only a few Australia-bound emigrants in 1899. Besides, a greater number of
people used to migrate to Australia previously. According to the 1897 prefectural
statistics, there were 1,655 Wakayama people in the United States, but the number was
smaller than that of Wakayama immigrants in Australia: 1,663.
145
Oral history further
testifies that, from the village of Shionomisaki at the southern tip of the peninsula, more
than 100 people migrated to Western Australia around 1894, leaving behind only old

143
“Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1899, reels 17-19.
144
Wakayama Kenshi Hensan Iinkai, Wakayama kenshi: kin-gendai I, 986-991; and David C. S.
Sissons, “1871 – 1946 nen no Ōsutoraria no Nihonjin [The Japanese in Australia from 1871 to 1946],”
Ijūkenkyū 10 (March 1974): 28-29 and 32.
145
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken tōkeisho, 1898 (published in 1900), 33.
115

people, women and children.
146
In fact, it was Shionomisaki and the island of Ōshima in
the vicinity that supposedly became one of the earliest sources of migrants to Australia.
English engineers who had stayed in the area to help build lighthouses brought some
local young men to a port town of Kōbe, where these youth, while working for foreign
residents, learned of the possibility of making good money as pearlers in the South
Pacific. Unlike those going to North America, early migrants to Australia, particularly
pearl divers, were recruited and/or influenced by Englishmen.
147
The decline of
Australia-bound emigration had to do with anti-Japanese agitation in the country,
followed by the Japanese government’s ban on immigration to Thursday Island and
Queensland in 1897, although apparently the instructions were not completely
observed.
148
Additionally, emigrants from the south tended to apply for passports outside
Wakayama until around 1900.
149
Illegal migration was prevalent as well. All in all,
peculiar circumstances as well as international relations decimated the number of
Wakayama immigrants to Australia on record.
From 1902, the immigration exclusion based on White Australia policy directly
affected the flow from Japan. This racially discriminative devise nonetheless did not

146
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi, 191; and Wakayama Kenshi Hensan Iinkai, Wakayama
kenshi: kin-gendai I, 987.
147
Wakayama-ken ed., Wakayama-ken iminshi, 191; and Sissons, “1871 – 1946 nen no Ōsutoraria no
Nihonjin,” 29.
148
Wakayama Kenshi Hensan Iinkai, Wakayama kenshi: kin-gendai I, 991.
149
See note 105.
116

completely halt migration from Wakayama to the country, as the Australian government
allowed Japanese pearl divers to come and work with certain limitations.
150
That is why
there were 117 Australia-bound emigrants—out of which 86 originated in the four
villages at the southern tip—in 1904 as Figure 16 shows. The number declined again
afterwards, and did not really return to the previous level until the end of World War I
when the pearling business came back to full operation.
151

A significant number headed for China in 1904 and 1906, essentially from southern
coastal villages. In reality, these migrants most likely wished to reach Australia instead
of staying in China. Since direct immigration to certain parts of Australia was prohibited,
migrants first went to Hong Kong, a British territory, or Shanghai where the international
settlement was, and then entered Australia in two steps.
152
The number of those who
went to China may have been larger than the passport records suggest, as bringing

150
Although the “passport arrangement” allowed Japanese merchants, students and tourists to enter
Australia from 1904, 115 out of 117 Australia-bound emigrants from Wakayama in that year migrated
to engage in “fishing” or “pearling” (“Kaigai ryoken kafu [fuyo] hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1904,
reels 35-38). On the passport arrangement, see David Dutton, One of Us?: A Century of Australian
Citizenship (Sidney: University of New South Wales Press, 2002), 38.
151
Wakayama Kenshi Hensan Iinkai, Wakayama kenshi: kin-gendai I, 992; and Taiji Chōshi Kanshū
Iinkai, Taiji chōshi, 779-780. There were, on average, about 13 emigrants bound for Australia from
Wakayama each year from 1905 to 1917, according to the prefectural statistics. See Wakayama-ken,
Wakayama-ken tōkeisho, 1905- 1917 (published between 1907 and 1919).
152
The Japanese engaged in pearling not only on Thursday Island but also in Darwin in the Northern
Territory and Broome in Western Australia (Taiji Chōshi Kanshū Iinkai, Taiji chōshi, 778). Because
the prefectural government issued passports to those directly going to Thursday Island or Darwin for
pearling in 1904, it was those who intended to enter Western Australia that had to pass a British
territory. Some went to Australia by way of Singapore or British Malaya. See Wakayama-ken,
Wakayama-ken iminshi, 304-305.
117

passports to enter China (and Korea) became optional from 1904.
153
If the number of
China-bound emigrants was added to that of those going to Australia, migration from
southern Wakayama to Australia turns out to have been quite popular even under the
exclusion.
Compared to immigration to the United States, Hawaii, Mexico and the Philippines,
Canada-bound and Australia-bound emigration prevailed only narrowly in the geographic
sense. Migration to Canada became particularly popular in the village of Mio and its
vicinity while migration to Australia was essentially a southern phenomenon, in villages
along the southern coast, with Shionomisaki at the very south as one of the most
dominant sources of emigrants. Because Canada or Australia tended to attract people
willing to engage in a specific occupation, that is, fishing or pearling, it was not
surprising if northern emigrants, many of whom originated in farming villages, felt
reluctant to go to these countries. Once the pattern was created in which certain regions
contributed the majority of emigrants to a destination, a closely knit community of
immigrants was born in a receiving society, helping incoming immigrants from the same
region but not necessarily encouraging emigration from other areas. Localism worked
even more strongly in the case of migration to Canada or Australia from Wakayama.

The observation made so far reveals the extent to which villages reacted to changes in
international relations and migration policies differently. The “discovery” of certain

153
Kodama, Nihon iminshi kenkyū josetsu, 468.
118

destinations usually owed much to courageous pioneers who, gaining information from
the national center, from port towns, or from returnees in the vicinity, led the way of
overseas migration from the 1880s to early 1890s. Then stories of successful immigrants
and dreams of striking it rich invaded neighboring villages and towns. Usually
emigration companies helped make emigrants’ dream come true, at the same time trying
to develop a new market. While villages with immigrants to the same destination tended
to be clustered together, the pattern is not always consistent. Sometimes a village
neighboring a place that sent more than 50 emigrants had a very few emigrants of their
own. In a very broad sense, however, the north-south difference was distinct at the turn
of the century. While northern emigrants essentially went to the United States,
southerners had alternative places such as Australia and the Philippines. Even when they
migrated to the United States, more emigrants from the south came to choose Mexico or
Hawaii as a stopover than those from the north towards 1906. The diversification of
destination places contributed to the increase of emigrants in the south while emigrants
from old emigrant villages in the north essentially stuck to the United States and Hawaii.
Emigrants from Mio and around stuck to Canada. Since emigrants from the south held
multiple destination places as options, they were able to cope with changes in policies
with more flexibility than those from the north while northern emigrants (and Mio
emigrants), who had established strong foothold in California or Steveson, Canada,
earlier, were reluctant to diversify destination places.
What followed afterwards was essentially conditioned by the Gentlemen’s
Agreements with the United States and Canada. Because migration to Australia regained
119

popularity after World War I, and because mass migration to Brazil began around the
same time, overseas emigration did not end in 1908. Nonetheless, particularly as it
concerned North America, the pattern once established by 1906-07 set the terms of what
came after. Japanese labor immigration was prohibited in the United States, and entering
the country by way of Hawaii, Mexico or Canada was also banned. Except those who
had entered the United States before the agreement as well as so-called “non-emigrants,”
new immigrants came for family reunion, being summoned by bona-fide residents as
parents, wives or children. Such chain migration contributed to keeping the migration
flow from particular villages and continued until the halt of Japanese immigration to the
United States in 1924.
120

Chapter Three: Adaptation: Residential and Occupational Patterns

Using local ties to learn about opportunities to work abroad, Japanese immigrants
migrated in groups from particular villages in Japan to certain destinations in Australia,
Hawaii, Mexico, the continental United States and elsewhere. They moved from one
place to another in search of jobs and created communities where demands for Japanese
labor were high. While peculiar circumstances made migration to Hawaii a possibility
open almost exclusively to four southwestern prefectures, immigrants originating in these
districts later found better opportunities to make money in the continental United States
and headed for San Francisco. From the late 1890s, those from other areas of Japan also
came to Hawaii, but especially after the turn of the century, these people simply skipped
the islands and entered the continental United States where they could earn good money.
Still others used Mexico or Canada as a backdoor to the United States. Why Japanese
immigrants were attracted to the West Coast of the United States after the turn of the
century was relevant to labor demands in mines, railroads and agriculture. Labor
contractors recruited Japanese workers from Hawaii and supplied labor to American
companies and farms. The Japanese particularly found a niche in agricultural labor,
replacing old and declining Chinese labor as Chinese immigrants had been prohibited
from entering the country since 1882. The Japanese thus advanced into the Sacramento
River Delta, initially as migrant laborers, then eventually as share and cash tenants and
landowners. At the same time, San Francisco remained a port of entry and commercial
center for Japanese immigrants, until the earthquake of 1906 pushed many toward
Southern California, particularly to Los Angeles as a new, expanding city with
121

employment opportunities. A brief history of Japanese migration from Japan to the
continental United States and settlement patterns within California shows that immigrants
moved from place to place following labor demands.
This chapter adds a new dimension to the understanding of Japanese immigration
history by stressing the significance of ties based on immigrants’ places of origin in the
process of settlement. While labor demands were the chief “pull” factor to attract
Japanese immigrants, this cause alone cannot explain the concentration of the Japanese
from particular districts within Japan in certain parts of California. Indeed, scholars have
noted an aspect of Japanese settlement in California shaped by prefectures of origin.
Edward K. Strong, for example, was one of the first to analyze the population distribution
of the Japanese in California according to their prefectures of origin. Showing how the
Japanese from certain prefectures were overrepresented in specific communities, Strong
attributes such geographic concentrations of the Japanese to their “clannishness,”
mentioning that the equal representation of multiple kens (prefecture) in one locality
would result in considerable rivalry. John Modell in further detail shows how such
rivalry created fissures within the Japanese Association of Los Angeles, but he also
points out important roles played by prefectural associations in helping new immigrants
adapt to American society. Fuminori Minamikawa emphasizes the aspect of native
prefectures as social capital that Los Angeles Japanese in the 1900s and 1910s utilized in
the process of accommodation, arguing that the early Japanese society was built upon
translocal networks, where the identity based on “prefectures” rather than a simple
category based on nationality functioned better for immigrants in accessing resources
122

necessary to survive in unfamiliar environments.
154
Building upon the previous
scholarship, this chapter quantifies such dimensions of immigrant localism in the process
of adaptation and settlement, to show that not simply prefectures but smaller areas like
villages supplied Japanese migrants with connections and resources necessary to establish
themselves in California.
The first part of this chapter offers evidence of immigrant localism by examining the
distributions of Japanese farmers in California from 1905 to 1910 as well as biographies
of Wakayama immigrants published in 1915. The data shows that early Japanese
settlement in California was characterized by translocal migration of the Japanese.
Immigrants did not only come from specific prefectures within Japan but, furthermore,
they originated in particular counties within a prefecture. The second portion of the
chapter looks into more detailed data from the 1920s and shows how immigrants’ places
of origin—specific counties or villages—influenced residential and occupational patterns
among the Japanese in the City of Los Angeles and surrounding communities in Southern
California, namely counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San
Diego, Imperial, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. Finally, the last brief
section of the chapter discusses the marriage patterns among the Japanese who first came
to the United States between 1890 and 1924, in order to demonstrate that immigrant
marriages contributed to sustaining the translocal nature of Japanese communities.

154
Strong, Japanese in California, 51-55; John Modell, The Economics and Politics of Racial
Accommodation: The Japanese of Los Angeles, 1900-1942 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1977), 87-92; and Minamikawa, “Nikkei Amerika-jin” no rekishishakaigaku, 60-63 and 70-72.
123

Based mostly on quantitative analyses, I argue that one of the most important factors
that sustained Japanese immigrant lives in California until the early 1920s was the home
community these immigrants apparently left behind. The home was important as long as
it provided immigrants with nostalgic memories, but this chapter particularly looks at
concrete gains that immigrants acquired from their membership to villages, counties or
prefectures of origin. Residential and occupational patterns among the Japanese suggest
that immigrants turned to fellows from nearby areas in Japan for resources necessary to
survive in California. Additionally, their marriage patterns show that immigrants
maintained the translocal nature of their lives in America. When a series of
discriminatory laws and prohibitions denied migration and citizenship to the Japanese
from 1908 to 1924, they struggled to establish a solid base in California using whatever
connections they carried over from home, taking advantage of the entitlement to benefits
given naturally by their membership to particular communities well into the 1920s.

Translocal Migration: Early Japanese Settlement in California
As the continental United States offered opportunities to earn higher wages than in
Hawaii, the number of Japanese immigrants in the former increased dramatically from
the late nineteenth century. These immigrants used local ties in choosing places of
settlement, just as they did in the process of emigration. Ties of native prefectures were
important for labor emigrants from Japan in California at the turn of the twentieth century,
which is verified by demographic data. According to a list of Japanese farmers in
California included in a 1905 yearbook, of 581 individuals or associations whose
124

prefectures of origin were known, 150 (25.8%) came from Wakayama, 142 (24.4%) from
Hiroshima, and 114 (19.6%) from Kumamoto.

Other prefectures contributed much
smaller numbers of emigrants, with Aichi sending 36 (6.2%), Yamaguchi 35 (6.0%) and
Fukuoka 34 (5.9%) farmers.
155
Where in California these immigrants settled depended
on their places of origin. Table 4 shows the distribution of Japanese farmers in three
communities of California by prefecture of origin (Wakayama, Kumamoto, Hiroshima
and Yamaguchi).
156
The geographic concentration of those sharing the same prefecture is
clear. More than 80 percent of Japanese farmers in Vacaville came from Wakayama
Prefecture while no farmers from Hiroshima settled in that area. Florin attracted
emigrants from both Wakayama and Hiroshima: the former made up 28% and the latter
37.3% of the entire Japanese population in that area. One farming community in
Southern California, namely Moneta, was particularly popular among Kumamoto farmers,
who comprised 45.9% of the Japanese population in that area. Five years later, the
predominance of one prefecture in a particular community was still evident (see Table 5).
While the percentage of Wakayama farmers in Vacaville declined, they still made up
more than half the Japanese farming populations in the area. The percentage of

155
Nichi-Bei Henshū Kyoku, ed., Zaibei Nihonjin nenkan [The yearbook of the Japanese in America],
vol. 1 (San Francisco: Nichi-Bei Shimbunsha, 1905; Tōkyō: Nihon Tosho Sentā, 2001), 177-192.
156
Communities where native prefectures of more than 30 farmers/associations were recorded have
been initially selected, from which only three communities have been re-selected for the purpose of
comparison with the 1910 data (due to an internal inconsistency in data entries, comparing the 1905
and 1910 data is difficult for some communities). Wakayama, Kumamoto and Hiroshima Prefectures
appear in the column for outstanding numbers of immigrants in these communities while the number
of Yamaguchi immigrants is also shown in Table 4 to compare with the 1910 data in Table 5 (their
presence becomes larger in the latter year).
125

Hiroshima farmers in Florin increased in five years, accounting for 53% of the Japanese
farmers. In the Moneta-Gardena district, Kumamoto farmers made up 38.5% of the
Japanese farming population in 1910, a percentage lower than in 1905 Moneta as
Yamaguchi farmers had advanced into the area, although Kumamoto immigrants still
formed the largest group. Even this partial evidence suggests a strong influence of
prefectural ties on Japanese settlement in farming communities of California.

Table 4: Distribution of Japanese Farmers from Wakayama, Kumamoto,
Hiroshima and Yamaguchi in Vacaville, Florin and Moneta, 1905
Wakayama Kumamoto Hiroshima Yamaguchi Other Unknown All
Vacaville 61 7 0 1 7 0 76
80.3% 9.2% 0.0% 1.3% 9.2% 0.0% 100.0%
Florin 21 4 28 4 18 0 75
28.0% 5.3% 37.3% 5.3% 24.0% 0.0% 99.9%*
Moneta 2 17 5 2 5 6 37
5.4% 45.9% 13.5% 5.4% 13.5% 16.2% 99.9%*
* The total does not add up to 100% due to rounding.
126

Table 5: Distribution of Japanese Farmers from Wakayama, Kumamoto,
Hiroshima and Yamaguchi in Vacaville, Florin and Moneta-Gardena, 1910
Wakayama Kumamoto Hiroshima Yamaguchi Other Unknown All
Vacaville 78 1 4 3 23 35 144
54.2% 0.7% 2.8% 2.1% 16.0% 24.3% 100.1%*
Florin 26 4 79 12 28 0 149
17.4% 2.7% 53.0% 8.1% 18.8% 0.0% 100.0%
Moneta, 10 50 15 19 36 0 130
Gardena 7.7% 38.5% 11.5% 14.6% 27.7% 0.0% 100.0%
Source: Nichi-Bei Henshū Kyoku, ed., Zaibei Nihonjin nenkan [The yearbook of the Japanese in
America], vol. 1 (San Francisco: Nichi-Bei Shimbunsha, 1905; Tōkyō: Nihon Tosho Sentā, 2001),
177-178, 183-185 and 191; and ibid., vol. 6 (San Francisco: Nichi-Bei Shimbunsha, 1910; Tōkyō:
Nihon Tosho Sentā, 2001), 101-107, 111, 126, and 128-129, compiled by the author.
Note: The numbers represent individuals, although in some cases, an association/couple/sibling
sharing the same prefectural identity is counted as one.
* The total exceeds 100% due to rounding.

Strong ties of native prefectures were also evident in the way immigrants managed
farmlands as contract laborers, share and cash tenants, or landowners. Many Japanese
farmers cultivated, leased, or owned land together with partners from the same
prefectures. This pattern was particularly obvious among emigrants from Wakayama. Of
150 entries relevant to Wakayama in the 1905 list of farmers in California, 16 are
associations, not individuals. Another 71 are listed as individuals, but in partnership with
other farmers, and except for one case, they are all in alliance with emigrants from
Wakayama.
157
Immigrants formed associations or companies to share the lease or
ownership of land they cultivated, and in some cases siblings joined forces for that
purpose. In other cases, they apparently turned to local connections. Wakayama
immigrants particularly preferred creating associations, each named after a representative

157
Nichi-Bei Henshū Kyoku, Zaibei Nihonjin nenkan, vol. 1, 177-192.
127

farmer. Compared to 16 associations with Wakayama connections, there were at least 7
other regional associations, each of which represented a different prefecture. Immigrants
from other prefectures preferred less official partnerships, although the rate of their
cooperation was smaller than Wakayama immigrants’. Thirty-one individuals from
Kumamoto and 24 from Hiroshima formed alliances with other individual farmers, much
smaller numbers compared to 71 from Wakayama.
Anecdotal evidence further corroborates this tendency of Wakayama farmers to
cooperate. A book that narrates the history of immigrants from Wakayama in the United
States was published in 1915. Mixing the languages of local pride and strong nationalism,
one of the contributors proclaims that the book was compiled specifically to show how
Wakayama immigrants contributed to “the Japanese overseas development” as well as
how the United States owed its development to the Japanese in America.
158
While much
of the book presents the achievements made by Wakayama immigrants as evidence of the
Japanese overseas development, the book’s main editor also stresses the peculiarity of
Wakayama immigrants. He proudly claims, for example, that Wakayama immigrants are
peculiar in that they have a cooperative spirit that other Japanese lack.
159
The book
contains short biographies of successful immigrants who made it as farmers or
businesspeople. Some of these tales offer evidence of strong immigrant localism.

158
Ryōtaro Kodama, introduction to Zaibei Wakayamakenjin hattenshi [History of the development of
people from Wakayama prefecture in North America], by Iwao Tomimoto (Susamemura [sic]:
Tomitomo Iwao, 1915).
159
Tomimoto, Zaibei Wakayamakenjin hattenshi, 296.
128

Kaichirō Uchihara, who managed several orchards, testifies that, when he came to the
United States in 1899, he entered into a labor contract with 21 others from the same
prefecture.
160
Yūsuke Yamamoto, who had originally migrated to Canada to engage in
fishing, moved to Vacaville and Guinda, California, because he knew people from
Wakayama in those areas.
161
Although it is unclear whether the Japanese from all
prefectures and in any occupations behaved in the same manner, cases of farmers in
California at the turn of the twentieth century indicate that the immigrant’s “prefecture of
origin” functioned as important capital to which the Japanese could turn in the process of
adaptation.
Such ties of prefectures boiled down to connections based on smaller administrative
units such as counties and villages. As shown in Chapter 2, immigrants were greatly
influenced by their fellow villagers in selecting countries where they intended to migrate.
While the sample is too small to make a comprehensive analysis, even partial evidence
from the same 1915 book on Wakayama immigrants suggests the tendency among these
villagers to choose particular districts within the country where they settled. The
biographies of successful Wakayama businessmen, farmers and fishermen in California
in the book show that, out of 49 immigrants in Los Angeles, 19 (38.8%, including 3
blood relatives) were from Kaisō County and 14 (28.6%, including one pair of brothers
and another pair suspected of brothers) were from Higashimuro County; that, out of 22 in

160
Ibid., 381.
161
Ibid., 389.
129

Vacaville, 19 (86.4%) were from Kaisō; that, out of 19 in San Jose, 12 (63.2%) were
from Naga (2 were brothers); and that, out of 19 in Winters, 17 (89.5%) were from Kaisō
(including 2 pairs of brothers). While the exact street addresses of most of these
immigrants are not clear, at least the examination of biographies partly corroborates the
tendency of Wakayama immigrants from nearby localities to concentrate in specific
communities within California.
162

Such geographic concentrations of emigrants from nearby areas in Japan related to
the workings of local connections in the processes of emigration and settlement. In many
cases, people simply moved to places where their blood relatives were. In other cases,
they turned to ties of localism. If these immigrants landed in the United States before
1908, that is, before the Gentlemen’s Agreement completely halted labor migration,
many of them possibly relied on Japanese labor contractors for employment in
miscellaneous industries including railroad, mining and agriculture. It is not surprising if
these contractors turned to their native villages or counties for the supply of laborers.
Prospective emigrants possibly learned about famous labor contractors such as
Kamenosuke Nishi (see Chapter 2) while in Japan, and decided to migrate with people
from nearby villages, as in the case of Kaichirō Uchihara. There are no statistics about
how many labor contractors relied on their native villages or counties for recruitment, but
a local factor in employment itself was not unusual. Martin Dusinberre, in his study of
the impact of overseas emigration on Kaminoseki Town in Yamaguchi, shows how

162
Ibid., 257-458, 475-668, 689-800 and 869-988.
130

networks in the home community pertained to business connections abroad, by bringing
up an example of a sake brewery in Karafuto that employed young people from the
owner’s hometown.
163
What was peculiar to the Japanese in the United States was,
though, the fact that most immigrants rarely remained where they first set foot in, moving
from a community where they started out as laborers to another where they became
farmers, sometimes changing places of settlement several times. Despite this migratory
nature of lives, however, emigrants from Wakayama somehow ended up in areas where
people from nearby towns in Japan also stayed. This suggests the strong workings of
local ties not only in the process of initial settlement but also in secondary and tertiary
domestic movements and beyond within the host country.
The findings so far indicate that Japanese immigrants who came to California from
the late nineteenth century to the 1910s took advantage of their bonds of native
counties/villages in locating suitable places for settlement. On the other hand, it is still
unclear how prevalent this pattern of settlement was. More extensive data about the
Japanese who lived in Southern California during the 1920s allows a detailed analysis of
the Japanese across native prefectures and occupations. It shows the degree to which the
Japanese migration was not simply a transnational movement but a movement connecting
particular localities in two countries.

163
Martin Dusinberre, “Unread Relics of a Transnational ‘Hometown’ in Rural Western Japan,”
Japan Forum 20, no. 3 (2008): 319-320.
131

The Japanese Concentration in Southern California, Early 1920s
The Japanese maintained their pattern of settlement, in which they relied on local ties
carried over from home, well into the 1920s. By that time, Japanese immigrants have
been widely scattered in the American West. The number of those in Southern California
in particular increased dramatically in the decade between 1910 and 1920, as the table
below shows:
Table 6: Number of Japanese in Selected Cities in California, 1910 and 1920

1910 1920
Increased by
XX times
San Diego 159 772 4.86
Long Beach 127 375 2.95
Los Angeles 4,238 11,618 2.74
Oakland 1,520 2,709 1.78
Fresno 629 1,119 1.78
Stockton 475 840 1.77
Pasadena 253 383 1.51
Sacramento 1,437 1,976 1.38
Alameda 499 644 1.29
Berkeley 710 911 1.28
San Francisco 4,518 5,358 1.19
San Jose 321 345 1.07
Source: Koyoshi Uono, “The Factors Affecting the Geographical Aggregation and Dispersion of
the Japanese Residences in the City of Los Angeles” (master’s thesis, University of Southern
California, 1927), 18. The very right column was added by the author.

From 1910 to 1920, the Japanese population rose significantly in cities in Southern
California such as San Diego, Long Beach and Los Angeles. Particularly, the City of Los
Angeles had the largest concentration of Japanese in California in 1920.
164

164
Koyoshi Uono, “The Factors Affecting the Geographical Aggregation and Dispersion of the
Japanese Residences in the City of Los Angeles” (master’s thesis, University of Southern California,
1927), 17-19.
132

While railroads began attracting drifting Japanese laborers around Los Angeles since
the turn of the twentieth century, the Japanese society in the city experienced the real
takeoff in 1906, when Los Angeles became a haven for those who escaped the
consequences of the earthquake and great fire in San Francisco. It was around this time
that the ratio of Japanese women to men began to increase. Until the Gentlemen’s
Agreement went into effect in 1908, the majority of Japanese immigrants were men who,
expecting a quick return home, pursued short-term economic gains. The ban on labor
immigration paved the way for permanent settlement for many Japanese men who sent
for their wives in increasing numbers. Thus, the population explosion in Southern
California was not only caused by the influx from the north but also by the addition of
family members including second-generation Japanese Americans.
165

By the middle of the 1920s, more than 40,000 Japanese had moved to Southern
California, out of whom over 40% made their living in Los Angeles. Table 7 shows the
distribution of the Japanese according to areas where they settled:

Table 7: Population Distribution of the Japanese in Southern California, 1920-24
City / district N* % Estimated population**
Los Angeles*** 1,326 42.3% 16,987
East San Pedro 131 4.2% 1,678
Moneta 87 2.8% 1,115
San Diego 86 2.7% 1,102
Brawley 85 2.7% 1,089
Long Beach 74 2.4% 948
San Gabriel 63 2.0% 807
El Monte 60 1.9% 769

165
Uono, “The Factors,” 12-14; and Modell, The Economics and Politics of Racial Accommodation,
18-20.
133

Table 7 (Continued)
City / district N* % Estimated population**
Gardena 55 1.8% 705
Guadalupe 50 1.6% 641
San Pedro 49 1.6% 628
Hollywood 45 1.4% 576
Oxnard 45 1.4% 576
Riverside 45 1.4% 576
Pasadena 39 1.2% 500
Torrance 35 1.1% 448
Santa Barbara 34 1.1% 436
Palms 33 1.1% 423
Santa Ana 31 1.0% 397
El Centro 30 1.0% 384
San Fernando 28 0.9% 359
Compton 28 0.9% 359
San Bernardino 26 0.8% 333
Anaheim 24 0.8% 307
Garden Grove 23 0.7% 295
Inglewood 23 0.7% 295
Redondo Beach 21 0.7% 269
Puente 17 0.5% 218
Calexico 15 0.5% 192
Other 524 16.7% 6,713
Total 3,132 99.9% 40,124
Source: “Tōrokusha kādo” [Registrants’ cards], 1909-1941, Boxes 164-225, Japanese American
Research Project [hereafter JARP], Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California,
Los Angeles, compiled by the author.
166

The total does not add up to 100% due to rounding.

166
*A random sample was taken from approximately 50,350 registration cards (excluding about 70
cards with Korean surnames) that the Japanese filed with the consulate in Los Angeles from the late
1910s to the early 1940s. The majority of these cards date back to the early 1920s. Four thousand one
hundred and four or 8.2% of these cards have been selected initially, out of which 3,132 cards—filed
between 1920 and 1924 by family heads born in Japan and living in California—are re-selected for the
purpose of analysis.
**The estimated population of the Japanese in each city/district/neighborhood has been calculated
from the total number of Japanese residents, including the second generation, in Southern California
as of 1925 (40,124). See Riichirō Yatsu, Zaibei Miyagi kenjinshi [History of the development of the
people in North America from Miyagi prefecture] (Los Angeles: Zaibei Miyagi Kenjinshi Hensan
Jimusho, 1933; Tōkyō: Bunsei Shoin, 2003), 44-45.
*** “Los Angeles” does not include newly incorporated areas such as San Pedro, Wilmington,
Hollywood, Sawtelle and Venice.
134

As shown in the table, most Japanese in Southern California lived in the urban center of
Los Angeles, with small concentrations of their comrades in surrounding farming and
fishing communities.
Despite the fact that the Japanese often moved from place to place in search of jobs
before settling in particular districts, ties of native places continued to shape their
residential patterns in the first half of the 1920s. An analysis of registration cards that
Japanese residents filed with the consulate in Los Angeles makes clear that emigrants
from particular districts within Japan migrated to areas where their fellow villagers had
gained a foothold. These cards give information on individual registrants’ home
addresses in Japan, and addresses and occupations in the United States. A sample of
3,132 cards filed between 1920 and 1924 by Japan-born family heads in Southern
California is used for the examination that follows.
In the City of Los Angeles not including newly incorporated areas, emigrants from
southwestern Japan predominated in number, as the next table shows:

Table 8: Distribution of the Japanese in the City of Los Angeles by Prefecture of
Origin, 1920-24
Prefecture N % All Southern CA
Hiroshima 261 19.7% 19.3% (606)
Wakayama 111 8.4% 14.0% (438)
Fukuoka 98 7.4% 8.1% (254)
Okayama 78 5.9% 4.7% (148)
Yamaguchi 75 5.7% 5.3% (166)
Kagoshima 72 5.4% 4.7% (146)
Kumamoto 71 5.4% 8.1% (253)
Tottori 49 3.7% 2.7% (84)
Mie 48 3.6% 2.8% (89)

135

Table 8 (Continued)
Prefecture N % All Southern CA
Fukushima 46 3.5% 3.1% (98)
Other/unknown 417 31.4% 27.1% (850)
Total 1,326 100.1%* 99.9% (3,132)
Source: “Tōrokusha kādo,” compiled by the author.
* The total exceeds 100% due to rounding.
The total does not add up to 100% due to rounding.

Out of top 10 home prefectures whose emigrants ended up in Los Angeles in the early
1920s, only Fukushima Prefecture is located in northeastern Japan. The over-presence of
Japanese from the southwest itself was predictable, in light of the fact that four
prefectures in the area, namely Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Fukuoka and Kumamoto, had
begun sending early migrants to Hawaii as contract laborers in the 1880s and 1890s.
Additionally, farmers from these four prefectures plus Wakayama had been already
present all over California in the 1900s. The predominance of emigrants from
southwestern Japan was not peculiar to Los Angeles, as Hiroshima and Wakayama
immigrants also predominated in San Francisco, with each male population comprising
13.0% and 13.8% respectively of the entire Japanese population in the city in the early
1930s, followed by 4.7% each of Kumamoto, Fukuoka and Yamaguchi immigrants,
while emigrants from Yamanashi (4.7%), Tōkyō (4.0%), Shizuoka and Mie (3.6% each)
had also advanced to the city by then.
167
Los Angeles had a similar pattern of heavily
concentrated emigrants coming from Wakayama and four southwestern prefectures with

167
Strong, Japanese in California, 53.
136

the history of migration to Hawaii, accompanied by an increasing presence of emigrants
from other parts of Japan.
In closer examination, it becomes clearer that Los Angeles particularly attracted
newcomers by the early 1920s. The very right column shows the proportion of emigrants
from each prefecture to the whole Japanese population in Southern California. It
demonstrates that emigrants from especially Okayama, Kagoshima, Mie and Tottori
occupied a larger proportion in Los Angeles than in entire Southern California. While
Hiroshima, Yamaguchi and Fukushima immigrants also gathered more in Los Angeles
than outside, the difference was small—less than 0.5%. Those from Wakayama,
Fukuoka, and Kumamoto clearly held a greater proportion outside Los Angeles. These
immigrants had found a niche in rural communities—places where it was more
challenging for newcomers to establish a stronghold. Thus, the timing of migration had a
significant impact on the concentration of Japanese from particular districts.
Japanese immigrants did not simply originate in specific areas in their home country;
prefectural ties continued to shape their residential pattern in Los Angeles. Figures 17
though 20 show the distributions of the Japanese in Los Angeles between 1920 and 1924,
and of those from particularly three prefectures of Hiroshima, Wakayama and Tottori:

137

Figure 17: Distribution of the Japanese in the City of Los Angeles, 1920-24

Source: “Tōrokusha kādo,” compiled by the author.
Map Source: “Los Angeles County Historical Topographical Maps,” California Geographical
Survey, accessed November 6, 2011, http://130.166.124.2/latopoh.htm.
Note: Each dot represents an Issei family head. Out of a sample of 3,132 cases, 1,030 with street
addresses in Los Angeles are selected; 296 cases with only PO Box numbers, not street names, in
Los Angeles are ignored on this and all the maps that follow, although in the main text, all 3,132
cases are taken into account.
*1 = around the corner of San Pedro and 9th Sts

East 1st St
Central Ave
Boyle
Heights
Little
Tokyo
36th St
District
10th St
District
Madison
Ave District
*1
138

Figure 18: Distribution of Emigrants from Hiroshima Prefecture in the City of Los
Angeles, 1920-24

139

Figure 19: Distribution of Emigrants from Wakayama Prefecture in the City of Los
Angeles, 1920-24

140

Figure 20: Distribution of Emigrants from Tottori Prefecture in the City of Los
Angeles, 1920-24

Source: “Tōrokusha kādo,” compiled by the author.
Map Source: “Los Angeles County Historical Topographical Maps.”

First, Figure 17 shows the general residential pattern of the Japanese in the urban district
of Los Angeles. Because of racial restrictive covenants that white homeowners
141

employed to exclude people of color from certain areas, the Japanese lived in
“segregated” communities, although they were rarely in the majority in these apparently
segregated areas, usually living next to whites, Mexicans and African Americans. Areas
of heavy Japanese concentration were the commercial district along East First Street
known as Little Tokyo, further down south in Downtown along San Pedro Street, and the
Tenth Street District surrounded by Vermont Avenue, Oxford Avenue, San Marino Street
and Pico Street. A group of Japanese also appeared in the Madison Avenue District
located between Vermont Avenue and Hoover Avenue, and Melrose Avenue and Beverly
Boulevard as well as in the heavily nonwhite Thirty-Six Street District that extended
from Budlong Avenue to St. Andrews Place, from Jefferson Street to Exposition
Boulevard. Overall, however, in the early 1920s the Japanese were essentially
concentrated in Little Tokyo, the Downtown area along San Pedro Street and the Tenth
Street District.
168

The Japanese in Los Angles did not only live close to the fellow Japanese; they also
congregated in areas where emigrants from their home prefectures were. Emigrants from
Hiroshima Prefecture, for example, especially settled into Little Tokyo and Downtown
areas while those from Wakayama essentially gathered in Little Tokyo along the First
Street with comparatively a small number of residents in Downtown. Several Wakayama
emigrants, on the other hand, lived further down south along the Central Avenue where

168
Scott Kurashige, The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of
Multiethnic Los Angeles (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008), 26-27; Modell, The
Economics and Politics of Racial Accommodation, 70-71; and Uono, “The Factors,” 104, 124-125,
and 129.
142

few Hiroshima emigrants were. Tottori emigrants showed a more peculiar residential
pattern, preferring the Tenth Street District to Little Tokyo (see Figures 18, 19 and 20).
Thus, residential patterns of three groups from different prefectures suggest that
immigrants’ prefectures of origin had an impact on places of settlement well into the
1920s.
It may be too simplistic, however, to conclude that the prefecture of origin alone
predetermined immigrants’ residential places. In fact, the choice of occupation had a
close relationship to the Japanese residential pattern, as Figures 21, 22 and 23
demonstrate:

143

Figure 21: Distribution of Japanese Farmers in the City of Los Angeles, 1920-24

Note: Although here designated as “farmers” for convenience, most of these immigrants were
agricultural laborers, with no ownership or lease of land, rather than independent farmers. There
were other farmers who lived in Los Angeles, but used rural route codes or PO Box numbers
instead of street names as part of their addresses. These people (192 out of 335 cases of all the
farmers in Los Angeles) are not represented on this map.
144

Figure 22: Distribution of Japanese Grocers in the City of Los Angeles, 1920-24

Note: Seventy-four cases whose occupation was “trade” (unspecified) are not included.
145

Figure 23: Distribution of Japanese Gardeners in the City of Los Angeles, 1920-24

Source: “Tōrokusha kādo,” compiled by the author.
Map Source: “Los Angeles County Historical Topographical Maps.”

Although Los Angeles was not a rural community, a surprisingly large proportion of
Japanese immigrants engaged in farming in the early 1920s (25.3% or 335 persons out of
a sample of 1,326), and they were clustered in Little Tokyo as agricultural laborers.
146

Grocers (51 or 3.8%) were found both in Little Tokyo and along the Central Avenue,
while gardeners (109 or 8.2%) were concentrated heavily in the Tenth Street and Thirty-
Six Street Districts. Those in other occupations also showed particular residential
patterns, although they basically centered on Little Tokyo and Downtown, with some
laborers, service workers and store clerks in Boyle Heights, and some in wholesale/retail
trade as well as in unspecified trade scattered about in the west.
Immigrants’ occupations were correlated to their prefectures of origin. Out of a
sample of 335 farmers, 94 (28.1%) were from Hiroshima (despite the fact that their
proportion to the Japanese population in Los Angeles was 19.7%), and 34 (10.1%) were
from Wakayama while only 9 (2.7%) were from Tottori. This partially explains why the
number of Tottori residents in Little Tokyo was small. Wakayama emigrants scattered
along the Central Avenue were grocers, and indeed, 15.7% of grocers (8 out of a sample
of 51) were from Wakayama despite the fact that Wakayama emigrants constituted only
8.4% of the entire Japanese population in Los Angeles. Hiroshima emigrants also had a
group of grocers who made up 25.5% (13 out of 51) of all Japanese grocers. Tottori
emigrants overwhelmingly chose to become gardeners, comprising 19.3% (21 out of 109)
of all the Japanese gardeners (even though their proportion to the Japanese population in
Los Angeles was merely 3.7%), followed by Fukuoka emigrants (15.6% or 17; their
proportion to the Japanese population was 7.4%) and those from Hiroshima (12.8% or
14). In fact, 42.9% of all Tottori emigrants were gardeners. Even though gardeners were
concentrated in both the Tenth Street and Thirty-Six Districts, Tottori gardeners
predominantly preferred the former. In sum, the difference in occupational choices
147

among emigrants from Hiroshima, Wakayama and Tottori had a great impact on their
choice of residence.
The evidence presented so far reveals that Japanese immigrants’ native prefectures
combined with their occupations significantly affected their residential patterns. This
finding points to the fact that immigrants’ occupational choices had a close relationship
to their native prefectures. Put another way, the Japanese probably chose their
occupations based on specific job qualifications and personal connections carried over
from home and settled into places most convenient for the work.
Some immigrants no doubt used semi-official organizations, namely prefectural
associations (kenjin-kai), in seeking employment. The Japanese formed a prefectural
association when a group of fellows sharing the same home prefecture gathered in a
particular location apart from home. Such an organization helped immigrants adapt to
new environments by offering assistance in employment, housing and finance as well as
giving welfare and legal services. Members of prefectural associations cultivated
friendship through regularly held special events such as picnics and parties as well as
confirmed ties to their home prefectures by making donations and welcoming dignitaries
from home. Between 1904 and 1909, at least 16 prefectural associations were formed in
Los Angeles. By 1940, there were no fewer than 40 such associations. As these
associations became hubs of personal relations and functioned as employment agencies, it
was not surprising if they reproduced patterns in which a member referred another to a
148

job he was familiar with, creating a situation where a group from particular prefectures
were concentrated in certain occupations.
169

Others utilized more personal connections based on local ties of native villages,
towns and counties. It is unclear whether village associations or sonjin-kai played a role
similar to that of kenjin-kai in this regard, by offering assistance in employment and
housing. Some documented activities of sonjin-kai concerned helping members in times
of need, encouraging savings, cultivating friendly relationships among members and
maintaining ties to home villages. Although it is possible that some immigrants turned to
sonjin-kai for help in finding jobs and residences, without further documental evidence, it
is safe to say that a pattern in which people from the same village ended up in a particular
community of Southern California was reproduced by personal relationships carried over
from home, with or without the help from village associations.
170

Many Japanese immigrants selected their places of settlement using their local
connections. While the sample from the registration cards is too small to come up with a
definite conclusion, some localities of origin for immigrants were overrepresented in the
Japanese society. Among Hiroshima immigrants in Los Angeles, those from Hiroshima
City composed 9.6% (25 out of a sample of 261), while in entire Southern California, the
proportion declines to 6.4% (39 out of 606). One in 5 Tottori immigrants was from the

169
Minamikawa, “Nikkei Amerika-jin” no rekishishakaigaku, 58-60; and Modell, The Economics and
Politics of Racial Accommodation, 89.
170
Kōsuke Takeuchi, ed., San Pīdro dōhō hattenroku [Records of the development of the comrades in
San Pedro] (Los Angeles: Kōsuke Takeuchi, 1937), 169-192.
149

village of Wada (22.4% or 11 out of 49) in the City despite the fact that Wada immigrants
made up 15.5% (13 out of 84) of the Tottori immigrant population in entire Southern
California. Other villagers such as Kaseda immigrants from Kagoshima Prefecture and
Ichinomiya and Katada immigrants from Mie Prefecture congregated conspicuously in
the City, although they were also scattered widely in Southern California. Few among
those who used local connections to settle in Los Angeles chose to become farmers.
Those Japanese who aspired to become farmers as late as the 1920s were hampered by
the Alien Land Laws while older immigrants, who already had a foothold in agriculture,
were able to eschew the most damaging consequences of these laws prohibiting the
Japanese from owning or leasing land in California—by turning firstly to cropping
contracts and then to proxies and foremanship.
171
Later immigrants with few resources
necessary to start out as farmers, therefore, drifted to the big city in search of jobs. One
study indeed points out that most Issei gardeners were latecomers to America, who had
agricultural experiences in Japan but stood less chance of making it as farmers in the
United States than older immigrants.
172
When these newcomers came to Los Angeles, if
they had connections and contacts from their home villages, they were more likely to end
up engaging in occupations other than agricultural labor. To put it another way,
agricultural labor was possibly readily available to Japanese immigrants without good

171
Azuma, Between Two Empires, 65, 68 and 73-74; and Ichioka, The Issei, 227 and 237-240.
172
Nobuya Tsuchida, “Japanese Gardeners in Southern California, 1900-1941,” in Labor Immigration
Under Capitalism: Asian Workers in the United States Before World War II, ed. Lucie Cheng and
Edna Bonacich (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 444.
150

village connections while other occupations such as gardening and commercial
engagements required personal introductions, and were comparatively closed to specific
groups of people. This explains why emigrants from particular villages in Japan
congregated in Los Angeles and selected non-agricultural occupations.
In areas out of Los Angeles in Southern California, most Japanese immigrants
essentially engaged in farming. In fact, out of a sample of 1,806 Issei residents in
Southern California excluding Los Angeles, 1,093 or 60.5% were in agriculture. The
majority were laborers just like their counterparts in Los Angeles, although the
proportion of farmers other than laborers was slightly higher, with17 to 22% of them
being either farm owners or tenants, compared to 8 to 13% in Los Angeles.
173

Emigrants from particular districts in Japan were again concentrated in these farming
communities (for a summary, see Table 9). In Moneta in the south of Los Angeles,
where 85.1% of the Japanese were farmers, Hiroshima and Kumamoto immigrants
comprised 23% and 20.7% of the Japanese population, respectively. Half of Hiroshima
immigrants in Moneta (10 out of a sample of 20) were from Aki County even though
their proportion to Hiroshima immigrant population in entire Southern California was
merely 19.8% (120 out of 606), while half of Kumamoto immigrants (9 out of 18) were
from Shimomashiki County despite the fact that Shimomashiki immigrants made up only

173
One hundred and eighty-two out of 1,093 Japanese who engaged in agriculture in Southern
California excluding Los Angeles owned farmland or worked as share and cash tenants. If those who
came to own land or became tenants later at some unknown points are also included, the number
increases to 244. Only 28 out of 335 Los Angeles Japanese in agriculture owned farmland or worked
as share and cash tenants. If those who came to own land or became tenants later at some unknown
points are also included, the number increases to 43.
151

19.4% (49 out of 253) of Kumamoto immigrants in Southern California. In Gardena in
the vicinity of Moneta, where 74.5% of the Japanese were in agriculture, emigrants from
Hiroshima made up 29.1% of the Japanese population, and out of a sample of 16
Hiroshima immigrants, 9 (56.3%) were from Aki County, compared to 19.8% in entire
Southern California. Further down south close to the national border, Brawley in
Imperial County had Japanese farmers comprising 82.4% of the total Japanese population,
and there those from Hiroshima made up 23.5%. Out of a sample of 20 Hiroshima
immigrants, 7 (35%) were from Aki County while 5 (25%) originated in Saeki County
(Saeki immigrants comprised merely 13.5% or 82 out of 606 in all Southern California).
As these examples show, emigrants from Hiroshima Prefecture and particularly from Aki
County dominated in agricultural districts.
In some communities, on the other hand, neither Hiroshima immigrants nor Aki
County farmers formed the largest group. In San Gabriel in the east of the City of Los
Angeles, where 85.7% of the Japanese were farmers, Hiroshima and Kumamoto
immigrants constituted 28.6 % each of the whole Japanese population. Here Hiroshima
immigrants from Asa County replaced emigrants from Aki County as a dominant group,
while out of 18 Kumamoto immigrants, 10 (55.6%) were from Shimomashiki County and
5 (27.8%) were from Yatsushiro County (those from Yatsushiro made up merely 8.3% of
Kumamoto immigrants all over Southern California). In El Monte in the neighborhood
of San Gabriel, where 76.7% were in agriculture, those from Fukuoka, Wakayama and
Hiroshima each comprised 18.3% of the Japanese population. Of a sample of 11
Fukuoka emigrants, 4 (36.4%) were from Yame County (7.9% in all Southern
152

California); of 11 Hiroshima immigrants, 3 (27.3%) were from Asa (24.4% in Southern
California); and of 11 Wakayama immigrants, 5 (45.5%) were from Hidaka (14.6% in
Southern California). In Guadalupe in Santa Barbara County, Wakayama immigrants (12
persons or 24%) outnumbered Hiroshima emigrants (9 persons or 18%), and among a
sample of 12 emigrants from Wakayama, 5 (41.7%) were from Nishimuro County
(14.4% in Southern California), of which 4 were from the village of Esumi. Thus, each
Japanese farming community in Southern California had distinctively local colors in
terms of immigrants’ places of origin, although connections at the level of villages or
towns were hard to find from the existing data.

Table 9: Distribution of Japanese Immigrants in Farming Communities of Southern
California by Place of Origin, 1920-24
District Prefecture %
County or Village Overrepresented within a
Prefecture
Moneta
Hiroshima 23.0%
Aki County (50%) – 19.8% (120 / 606) in all
Southern California
Kumamoto 20.7%
Shimomashiki County (50%) – 19.4% (49 / 253) in
all Southern California
Yamaguchi 13.8%

Wakayama 10.3%
Other 32.2%
Gardena
Hiroshima 29.1%
Aki County (56.3%) – 19.8% in all Southern
California
Kagoshima 12.7%

Kumamoto 12.7%
Fukuoka 9.1%
Other 36.4%
153

Table 9 (Continued)
District Prefecture %
County or Village Overrepresented within a
Prefecture
Brawley
Hiroshima 23.5%
Aki County (35%) – 19.8% in all Southern
California; Saeki County (25%) – 13.5% (82 / 606)
in all Southern California
Okinawa 11.8%

Shizuoka 11.8%
Fukuoka 8.2%
Other 44.7%
San
Gabriel
Hiroshima 28.6%
Asa County (22.2%) – 24.4% (148 / 606) in all
Southern California
Kumamoto 28.6%
Shimomashiki County (55.6%) – 19.4% in all
Southern California; Yatsushiro County (27.8%) –
8.3% (21/ 253) in all Southern California
Fukuoka 14.3%
Other 28.6%
El Monte
Fukuoka 18.3%
Yame County (36.4%) – 7.9% (20 / 254) in all
Southern California
Wakayama 18.3%
Hidaka County (45.5%) – 14.6% (64 / 438) in all
Southern California
Hiroshima 18.3%
Asa County (27.3%) – 24.4% (148 / 606) in all
Southern California
Yamaguchi 8.3%
Other 36.7%
Guadalupe
Wakayama 24.0%
Nishimuro County (41.7%) – 14.4% (63 / 438) in
all Southern California
Hiroshima 18.0%

Kumamoto 10.0%
Kagoshima 8.0%
Okayama 8.0%
Other 32.0%
Source: “Tōrokusha kādo,” compiled by the author.

Unlike in farming communities, in fishing towns Wakayama immigrants
predominated over emigrants from other prefectures (for a summary, see Table 10). The
western end of Terminal Island called “East San Pedro” especially attracted Japanese
154

fishermen before World War II.
174
While the district belonged to the City of Los Angeles,
it was miles apart from the center of the city. In addition, it functioned as an almost
completely segregated Japanese community in which about 97% of the population was
Japanese in the 1930 census.
175
Of a sample of 131 Japanese immigrants who lived in
this district between 1920 and 1924, 96 (73.3%) were fishermen, and 95 (72.5%) were
from Wakayama Prefecture. Of 95 persons from Wakayama, 21 (22.1%) were from the
village of Taiji (6.6% in entire Southern California), followed by 15 Shimosato (15.8%,
compared to 7.3% in Southern California) and 13 Esumi (13.7%, compared to 6.2% in
Southern California) villagers. East San Pedro was essentially a place for emigrants from
Southern Wakayama.
While many Japanese immigrant fishermen in North America hailed from the
southern coastal area of Wakayama, not all of them ended up in the same community. In
San Diego where 29.1% of the Japanese were in fishing and 26.7% in agriculture,
emigrants from Wakayama made up 37.2% (32 out of 86) of the whole Japanese
population. Among Wakayama emigrants, 21.9% (7 out of 32) came from the town of
Miwasaki (who made up merely 3.0% of Wakayama immigrant population in entire
Southern California) while no one came from Taiji or Esumi. In Long Beach in the south
of the City of Los Angeles, where 51.4% of the Japanese were farmers and 12.2% were

174
While East San Pedro was administratively part of the district of San Pedro, here it is counted as a
separate community for its distinctive features—heavily Japanese and depending mostly on fishing.
175
1930 U.S. census, Los Angeles County, California, population schedule, San Pedro district,
Ancestry Library Edition (accessed from the Los Angeles Public Library).
155

fishermen, emigrants from Fukuoka constituted 17.6% (13 out of 74) while Wakayama
immigrants comprised 14.9% (11 persons) of the Japanese population. Fukuoka
immigrants essentially became farmers while those from Wakayama chose to become
fishermen: 28.9% (11 out of 38) of Japanese farmers in Long Beach were from Fukuoka
and 77.8% (7 out of 9) of Japanese fishermen were from Wakayama. Of 13 Fukuoka
immigrants 7 (53.8%) were from Mii County (12.6% in Southern California) while 8 out
of 11 Wakayama immigrants (72.7%, compared to 42.0% in entire Southern California)
were from Higashimuro County. Of these 8, one was from Taiji and another was from
Esumi. Unlike in East San Pedro, Taiji or Esumi villagers did not dominate over other
Japanese fishermen.
Even in a place adjacent to East San Pedro, residential and occupational patterns were
different. In the district of San Pedro excluding “East San Pedro,” where 49% of the
Japanese engaged in farming and 24.5% in fishing, Wakayama immigrants comprised
34.7% of the Japanese. Out of 17 people from Wakayama, 13 (76.5%) originated in
Higashimuro County, 5 of whom came from the village of Shimosato. Curiously, no one
of 3 persons from Taiji in San Pedro became fishermen, even though fishing was the
main occupation among emigrants from the village in East San Pedro—81% (17 out of
21) of Taiji emigrants in East San Pedro chose that occupation. These examples
demonstrate that, while emigrants from Wakayama in general formed the largest group
among Japanese fishermen, places where they settled varied from village to village, just
as in the case of farmers. Moreover, connections at the level of villages or towns were
evident in fishing communities. This suggests that fishing migrants came from
156

geographically circumscribed areas within Japan, namely Southern Wakayama in the
case of Southern California.

Table 10: Distribution of Japanese Immigrants in Fishing Communities of Southern
California by Place of Origin, 1920-24
District Prefecture %
County or Village Overrepresented within a
Prefecture
East San
Pedro
Wakayama 72.5%
Taiji Village (22.1%) – 6.6% (29 / 438) in all
Southern California; Shimosato Village (15.8%) –
7.3% (32 / 438) in all Southern California; and
Esumi Village (13.7%) – 6.2% (27 / 438) in all
Southern California
Mie 6.1%

Shizuoka 3.8%
Other 17.6%
San Diego
Wakayama 37.2%
Miwasaki Town (21.9%) – 3.0% (13 / 438) in all
Southern California
Hiroshima 10.5%

Fukuoka 9.3%
Other 43.0%
Long
Beach
Fukuoka 17.6%
Mii County (53.8%) – 12.6% (32 / 254) in all
Southern California
Wakayama 14.9%
Higashimuro County (72.7%) – 42.0% (184 / 438)
in all Southern California
Kagoshima 13.5%

Hiroshima 12.2%
Other 41.9%
San Pedro
Wakayama 34.7%
Higashimuro County (76.5%) – 42.0% in all
Southern California
Tottori 12.2%

Kagoshima 10.2%
Hiroshima 8.2%
Other 34.7%
Source: “Tōrokusha kādo,” compiled by the author.

The residential and occupational patterns among the Japanese in Southern California
during the early half of the 1920s show that the immigrant’s place of origin had a
157

significant impact on his/her life after settlement. The point has not been completely
ignored in the literature on Japanese immigration, but a closer examination has
demonstrated that not simply the prefecture of origin but an even smaller administrative
unit called the “village,” a community that had dictated the pre-migration life of an
immigrant, continued to help him/her adjust to the new land. The City of Los Angeles
particularly attracted newcomers to America, many of whom took advantage of their
local connections in finding jobs. Similar patterns were also found in farming and fishing
communities surrounding Los Angeles. That even emigrants from the same prefecture
holding the same occupation ended up in different communities if they were from
different villages particularly demonstrates the significance of local ties of villages
among the Japanese in the early 1920s. Japanese immigrants migrated and then adapted
to America in such community-based groups, making a translocal move from a village in
Japan to a particular district in America. To them, emigration and settlement meant
crossing the border of cultures and nations as much as going beyond the boundary of
their native villages.

Sustaining Translocality –Marriage Patterns
The Japanese repeated the same pattern of securing familiarity in their private lives,
namely in their selection of spouses. Before the Gentlemen’s Agreement went into effect,
the Japanese society in the United States was heavily male (7:1 before 1908), as most
immigrants were dekasegi laborers with an eye toward recreating their lives in Japan.
When the Agreement banned labor immigration of the Japanese in 1908, new waves of
158

immigrants—wives and children of bona fide residents—replaced these male immigrants,
as if to offset the unequal male-female ratio in Japanese America. When Japanese men
sent for their wives in Japan, including so-called “picture brides” whom they had only
seen in photographs, they had no other practical options for marriage. Any women in the
pioneering Japanese society were probably not in “respectable” occupations. Interracial
marriage posed cultural challenges, and especially the union between white Americans
and people of color remained illegal in many states until the Supreme Court declared
such codes unconstitutional in the 1967 ruling (Loving v. Virginia). In California
specifically, marriage between white Americans and Asians was banned in 1905.
Marriage between people of color was possible, but such unions were frowned upon in
Japanese communities. In the early 1930s, for example, a Nisei woman who married a
Filipino was practically vanished from San Luis Obispo Japanese community after she
had ignored the “advice” given by a group of concerned Japanese. These Japanese had
been too much exposed to the racial reality of California, where they learned to position
themselves below white Americans but above other peoples of color. Legal barriers
along with cultural reasons forced many Japanese men to seek their partners in their
homeland, usually using intermediaries who picked up brides for them. Although a lack
of sources makes it difficult to judge whether immigrants married women from their
home villages, at least they tended to get united with partners from their home prefectures
(see Table 11)
176
:

176
Modell, The Economics and Politics of Racial Accommodation, 18; Megumi Dick Osumi, “Asians
and California’s Anti-Miscegenation Laws,” in Asian and Pacific American Experiences: Women’s
Perspectives, ed. Nobuya Tsuchida (Minneapolis: Asian/Pacific American Learning Resource Center,
159

Table 11: Marriage Patterns among Japanese Emigrants from Selected Prefectures,
Coming to the United States between 1890 and 1924

Native Prefecture
Spouse’s Native
Prefecture
Hiroshima Wakayama Fukuoka Kumamoto Okayama Yamaguchi
Hiroshima 169 4 1 1 1 1
76.5% 4.2% 1.1% 1.1% 1.6% 2.1%
Wakayama 0 62 1 1 1 0
0.0% 65.3% 1.1% 1.1% 1.6% 0.0%
Fukuoka 0 2 60 1 2 0
0.0% 2.1% 66.7% 1.1% 3.1% 0.0%
Kumamoto 2 0 2 71 0 1
0.9% 0.0% 2.2% 80.7% 0.0% 2.1%
Okayama 2 0 0 0 49 0
0.9% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 76.6% 0.0%
Yamaguchi 3 0 2 1 0 38
1.4% 0.0% 2.2% 1.1% 0.0% 79.2%
Other 12 7 8 2 4 6
5.4% 7.4% 8.9% 2.3% 6.2% 12.5%
Hawaii 7 0 1 2 0 0
3.2% 0.0% 1.1% 2.3% 0.0% 0.0%
Other U.S. 19 15 13 6 6 1
8.6% 15.8% 14.4% 6.8% 9.4% 2.1%
DNA, never
married
3 1 1 1 0 1
1.4% 1.1% 1.1% 1.1% 0.0% 2.1%
NA 4 4 1 2 1 0
1.8% 4.2% 1.1% 2.3% 1.6% 0.0%
Total 221 95 90 88 64 48
100.1%* 100.1%* 99.9% 99.9% 100.1%* 100.1%*
Source: Gene N. Levine, Japanese-American Research Project (JARP): A Three-Generation
Study, 1890-1966 [Computer file] (2nd ICPSR version. Los Angeles, CA: University of
California, Institute for Social Science Research/Chicago, IL: National Opinion Research Center
[producers], 1985. Ann Arbor, MI: Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research
[distributor], 1997), compiled by the author.
Note: Only respondents who first came to the United States between 1890 and 1924 have been
selected. Selected prefectures are those in which at least 40 respondents originated.
* The total exceeds 100% due to rounding.
The total does not add up to 100% due to rounding.

1982), 1-2 and 13; and “Ni-ppi no hiren: ai no tameni kokyō wo suteta Nisei jō: shōrai wo omou
yūshi” [Tragic love between a Japanese and a Filipino: a Nisei girl abandons her home for love:
interested persons worry about her future], Kashū Mainichi Shimbun [Japan-California Daily News]
(Los Angeles), November 11, 1931. The Japanese adherence to the “racial purity” ideal as well as the
racial and class hierarchy that dictated the relationship among whites, the Japanese and Filipinos in the
San Joaquin delta are discussed in Azuma, Between Two Empires, chap. 8.
160

The data for Table 11 is a survey of the Issei all over the United States conducted during
the 1960s, and the timing of marriage varied, but they all first landed in America before
the 1924 immigration act completely prohibited “aliens ineligible for citizenship” from
immigrating to the States.
In all 6 groups of Japanese emigrants from different prefectures, the majority of
spouses originated in the same prefectures as respondents’, while if they did not pick
spouses from their home prefectures, the Japanese, except those from Yamaguchi, tended
to choose partners among those born in the United States. All the latter kind of Issei who
married Americans, apparently the Nisei, in the table (those whose spouses’ native
prefecture is “Other U.S.”) are men. Such findings point to two distinctive marriage
patterns among Japanese immigrants. The majority of men possibly turned to their
relatives or acquaintances in their hometowns for prospective marriage partners, whether
they went back to Japan in person to get married there or they found spouses through
“picture marriage” until it was banned in 1920. These intermediaries most likely chose
marriageable candidates conveniently from immigrants’ hometowns or nearby. This, in
turn, produced a wave of female immigrants who entered the United States to get united
with men from their home prefectures. A minority of men who did not rely on hometown
connections, on the other hand, married those born in the United States, either by choice
or by necessity, as any women from Japan were already wives of men who used local
connections. Thus, Japanese men either married partners from well-known areas in Japan
or found women born in America, and it was rare for them to seek spouses from
161

somewhere in Japan distant from their hometowns; and most Japanese women entering
the States came as brides of men from their home prefectures.
By marrying women from their hometowns or nearby areas, Japanese men who
entered the United States before 1924 contributed to maintaining the translocal nature of
Japanese communities in California. Although they had an option of choosing partners
among American-born women, the Issei who did marry the Nisei were a minority.
Particularly in the early 1920s, it should have been even more difficult for Japanese
immigrants to find spouses among second-generation Japanese Americans, as most of the
Nisei were still too young to get married.
Residential, occupational and marriage patterns among the Japanese in California
show that the bonds of native villages continued to shape immigrant lives in the process
of adaptation, as these immigrants took advantage of the resources offered by the
relationships brought over from home. That this pattern was still evident as late as the
1920s indicates that, despite the formation of various organizations based on nation or
prefectures of origin, the “village” still catered to immigrants’ necessities. Furthermore,
the “village” possibly continued to constitute the basis of immigrants’ self-identification,
in spite of American prejudices that collapsed all the Japanese, regardless of their origin,
into one simple category of “Japs.”
162

Chapter Four: Home: A Trans-Pacific Community

On February 27, 2011, about 120 people attended Taiji-jinkei Club (Taiji People’s
Club) New Year’s Party and Reunion held in Torrance, California. Six officials from
Taiji, Wakayama, also attended the event, to renew their ties with Taiji immigrants and
their descendents in the United States. The small town close to the southern tip of the Kii
Peninsula, with the population of about 3,500 in 2009, played a central role in making
this occasion happen. The old Taiji Club, which was formed in 1915, disappeared in
2006 after older generations of members passed away or lost energy in club activities.
However, ever since the town of Taiji began digging into its emigration history earnestly
around 2008, its passion crossed the Pacific Ocean to ignite a new interest in forming the
new Taiji club in Southern California.
The participants, including young people and even a few children, were excited about
this event and their relationship to the town. These people not only included descendents
of the first generation who came to the United States before World War II but also those
who immigrated after the war. Some of them were even third- or fourth-generation
Japanese Americans, and a few did not look Japanese ethnically. People made exchanges
in both English and Japanese. While most of the participants came from nearby towns
and cities, some came from San Diego and others from San Francisco. One participant
came all the way from Australia. They had lunch together, enjoyed some singing
performances, and listened to young people present on their trip to Japan. They also
cheered over video messages sent from current residents in Taiji, some of whom were
apparently relatives and acquaintances of the participants.
163

The “discovery” of this new relationship between the hometown and its diaspora
came out of a tangle of coincidental circumstances. A curator recruited by the Taiji
Whale Museum in 2006 had connections with the New Bedford Whaling Museum in
Massachusetts, where he used to work. The mayor of Taiji, who had a policy of exposing
the youth to experiences abroad, asked this curator to take some young people to New
Bedford once a year. Since New Bedford was located on the East Coast of the United
States, an area in the West Coast (either San Francisco or Los Angeles) initially served
only as a convenient entry point to the United States. However, it did not take long for
the curator to discover that the West Coast meant much more than just a stopover—it was
a place where once a large community of townspeople existed. On Terminal Island in the
district of San Pedro, Los Angeles, there once was a thriving town of fishermen and
cannery workers, the majority of whom were Japanese. Today no remnants of that
community exist, except a memorial dedicated to fishermen and a replica of a Shintō
shrine’s gate, but there are still some people who remember or have heard about the lives
there. As Taiji’s community center took the initiative in collecting any materials related
to e/immigration, the town renewed their relationship with people who knew old-time
San Pedro as well as with Taiji people currently living in Southern California. It was at
the town’s prodding that the youngest member of the old, now disbanded, Taiji Club
organized a new association and planned this reunion.
177

177
Participant observation, Taiji-jinkei Club New Year’s Party, February 27, 2011, Torrance,
California; and Hayato Sakurai, in discussion with the author, February 27, 2011, Torrance, California.
The most recent population of Taiji is found at the town’s website (Taiji-chō Yakuba, “Tōkei siryō”
[Statistics], accessed March 15, 2012, http://www.town.taiji.wakayama.jp/tyousei/sub_02.html).
164

Although it may be quite rare to find a renewed enthusiasm over old connections such
as the one between Taiji and San Pedro in the 2010s, pre-World War II Terminal Island
was founded on many of these relationships. By 1940 there were at least 8 sonjin-kai or
village associations. The fact that the majority of the residents originated in a handful of
towns and villages in Southern Wakayama made them feel psychologically close to each
other. As much as they made Terminal Island their home, however, they kept close
relationships with their towns and villages of origin in Japan by various means including
going back frequently, sending remittances and donations and having their children get
education there. In a sense, the “home” had a double meaning to these immigrants—one
attached to the notion of the community left behind in Japan and another having to do
with the devastated community in San Pedro as a consequence of the war. Even though
these two “homes” were physically separate, as long as money, goods, and people moved
back and forth between them, they formed a kind of fluid community that tied together
distant localities across the Pacific culturally, socially and imaginatively, just like a
“mobile” community that Taishan immigrants from South China created by going to the
United States, as narrated in Madeline Hsu’s work.
178

This chapter offers a case study of trans-Pacific relationships, namely the one
between Taiji, Wakayama, and Terminal Island, Los Angeles, California, in order to
demonstrate the ways in which pre-World War II Japanese immigrants and their children
embraced localism rooted in Japan at the same time contributing to the community

178
Hsu, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home.
165

development in the United States. Just like people from Mio, Wakayama, in Steveston,
Canada, immigrants on Terminal Island established an “isolated” community where the
Japanese were the majority, although their apparent isolation did not mean that they were
detached from the outside world. As much as their attention was directed inwardly, they
also looked beyond the ocean to another “home.” While Japanese communities in other
areas of America may have also maintained tight relationships with their hometowns in
Japan, the case of Terminal Island was an exception rather than the norm in a sense, as
the majority of the population in one section of the island was the Japanese who
originated in relatively limited areas of Japan. Such a degree of concentration made it
easier for residents not only to retain “village” mentalities brought over from Japan but
also to recreate a sense of home in the new community, than other Japanese who
congregated in particular areas close to their comrades from the same prefecture but not
necessarily from the same town. It is then difficult to make generalizations about
immigrant localism in Southern California based only on a case study of Terminal Island.
Rather, the purpose of the chapter is to demonstrate a type of localism that suggests one
way of understanding the immigrant mentality. As recent studies have shown,
immigrants were not simply nationals of the country of origin or residents completely
assimilated into American society—they were “transnational” migrants and residents
who frequently crossed borders physically and psychologically.
179
Beyond “nations” that
they moved back and forth between, however, immigrants had in mind concrete localities,

179
Examples include: Chen, Chinese San Francisco and Azuma, Between Two Empires.
166

places, towns and neighborhoods where they felt they belonged. The case of Taiji-
Terminal Island relationship exemplifies a close connection between such two localities
and shows one way of looking at immigrants as creators of the fluid community as
“translocal” migrants and residents.

The beginning of the relationship between Taiji and San Pedro is not as clear as Mio
people’s exodus to Steveston, as discussed in Chapter 2. Taiji had no pioneers like Gihē
Kuno, the father of emigration. An indirect factor contributing to mass emigration was
the decline of traditional whaling in the late nineteenth century. One reason why the
tradition failed to survive was the feudal feature of a whaling band, composed of a
dominant head from the Wada clan and the rest of the crew organized hierarchically on
ships and in village lives. The spread of capitalism coupled with a disastrous shipwreck
dealt a critical blow to Taiji’s whaling. Although new whaling bands replacing the Wada
clan’s appeared, they did not survive the shortage of funds and the competition with each
other. By 1905, as a number of companies adopting the Norwegian style of whaling
emerged, the demise of Taiji’s traditional whaling became unavoidable. Although some
had switched to fishing with fixed nets by then, these fishermen failed to make good
money because the control over fixed nets were at the hands of outside capitalists. It is in
this context that those people who sought an opportunity to raise their incomes found a
hope in overseas emigration.
180

180
Ichihara, “Imin boson no gyogyō kōzō to jinkō mondai . . . (1),” 38-45.
167

The United States was not the only destination for potential emigrants from Taiji.
Australia was popular along the southern coast of the Kii Peninsula, as pearling required
special skills as well as perseverance but offered good money. A group of pioneers from
Taiji reportedly migrated to Australia in 1891 or 1892, around the same time when
another group went to the United States in 1892 or 1893. While details are unknown
about how they “discovered” the possibilities of going abroad, apparently they gained
information from nearby towns. According to Kenkichi Iwasaki, the initiation of mass
migration had to do with economic needs and a factor of “chance,” while the spread of
emigration was due to customs and neighboring effects. It was probably this neighboring
effect that induced mass migration from Taiji, whose people heard stories of successful
emigrants from Kushimoto. Attracted by possibilities of success abroad, Taiji people
chose either Australia or the United States as their chief destination from the 1890s. With
the implementation of White Australia policy from 1902, however, many emigrants were
forced to shift their main focus to the United States, even though migration to Australia
was not completely banned.
181

Passport records corroborate the switch from Australia to America. According to
Wakayama prefectural records, 41 people from Taiji went overseas in 1904. Because
some people may have applied for passports outside Wakayama or migrated illegally
without documents, the data is not necessarily accurate, but it still shows some tendencies.
Out of these 41, 19 went to China, 18 to Hawaii and 4 to the continental United States.

181
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi, 198-199 and 202; and Iwasaki, “Kii-hantou minami
kaigan ni okeru kaigai dekasegi imin no kenkyū,” 4th report, 77.
168

No passports were issued to prospective emigrants going directly to Australia, because in
those days the Japanese needed to stop over at Shanghai or Hong Kong in order to enter
Western Australia. Although many emigrants from Southern Wakayama landed in
Thursday Island in Queensland to work as pearl divers, the destination more popular
among emigrants from Taiji was Broome in Western Australia—a current sister city of
Taiji.
182
The reason behind a small number of those going to the continental United
States was the anti-Japanese movement. Sensitized to the hostility toward the Japanese in
the American West, the government of Japan voluntarily prohibited labor migration to
North America in 1900. Even though the ban was lifted in 1902, those able to enter the
continental United States were restricted to people carrying certificates of residence
issued by consulates in America and/or their wives and children. If prospective
emigrants did not fall under these categories and still hoped to enter the mainland, they
could either apply for passports as non-emigrants such as students and merchants or use
Hawaii as an entry point, as it was less difficult to enter the islands. In 1904, if 18 people
allegedly going to Hawaii were added to 4 going to the mainland, then a total of 22
wished to enter the continental United States, compared to 19 going to Australia by way
of China. The numbers were about the same.
By 1906, the popularity of Australia had significantly declined among emigrants from
Taiji. In that year, 70 passports were issued by the government of Wakayama, of which
only 1 was intended for a person going to Thursday Island and another one for China. Of

182
Taiji Chōshi Kanshū Iinkai, Taiji chōshi, 782.
169

the rest, 4 were for the continental United States, 1 for Canada, 53 for Hawaii and 10 for
Mexico. In addition to 53 immigrants to Hawaii, 10 going to Mexico possibly intended
to cross the border to enter the United States. As briefly mentioned in Chapter 2, more
than half the immigrants who entered Mexico ended up escaping on the eve of the
Gentlemen’s Agreement. Even though a few immigrants may have remained in Hawaii
or Mexico, it was quite clear that Taiji migrants had replaced Australia with the United
States as the chief destination by 1906.
183

Exactly how many people from Taiji ended up in the United States is unclear,
although overseas emigration was a familiar phenomenon in the village. The official
book on Taiji’s history lists more than 600 names of individual emigrants who went to
the continental United States, including those who entered America through Mexico as
well as second-generation Japanese Americans who had been in Japan and returned to the
States. Since the list does not include illegal migrants as well as women who married
men from other villages, the actual number of emigrants must have been much larger.
The culture of overseas emigration, specifically referred to as dekasegi (working away
from home), became prevalent by the turn of the twentieth century, as records of Taiji
Elementary School show (see Table 12). Among children who entered school in 1904,
27.0% had family members abroad. For children who began schooling the next year, the
percentage was larger (35.7%) while among students entering school in 1906, a slightly
smaller percentage (32.7%) had family members abroad for work. All in all, about 3 out

183
“Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1904 and 1906, reels 35-38 and 43-46; and
Kodama, Nihon iminshi kenkyū josetsu, 476 and 537-538.
170

of 10 new pupils had family members abroad between 1904 and 1906. The United States
was the most popular destination, particularly in the latter two years, followed by
Australia. Even this partial data demonstrates that overseas migration was quite common
among the villagers.
184

Table 12: Overseas Emigration from Families of Students at Taiji Elementary
School, 1904-06
Year of Entrance – 1904: 10 out of 37 children (27.0%) had family members abroad

Who:
- Parents: 7
- Siblings: 2
- Unknown: 1

Where:
- The United States: 5
- Australia: 4
- Unknown (could be within Japan): 1
Year of Entrance – 1905: 15 out of 42 children (35.7%) had family members abroad

Who:
- Parents: 8
- Siblings: 7
- Unknown: 1
* One family had both a parent and a sibling abroad.

Where:
- The United States: 11
- Australia: 4

184
Taiji Chōshi Kanshū Iinkai, Taiji chōshi, 795-796, 801-803 and 807-808; and Taiji Jinjō Kōtō
Shōgakkō, “Seikōroku” [Records of characters and behaviors], ca. 1902-1914, Taijichō Kōminkan
(Taiji Town Community Center), Wakayama.
171

Table 12 (Continued)
Year of Entrance – 1906: 18 out of 55 children (32.7%) had family members abroad

Who:
- Parents: 10
- Siblings: 6
- Unknown: 3
* One family had both a parent and a person with an unknown relationship abroad.

Where:
- The United States: 10
- Australia: 3
- Unspecified foreign country: 3
- Canada: 1
- Unknown (could be within Japan): 1
Source: Taiji Jinjō Kōtō Shōgakkō, “Seikōroku” [Records of characters and behaviors], ca. 1902-
1914, Taijichō Kōminkan (Taiji Town Community Center), Wakayama, compiled by the author.
Note: Detailed records on every schoolchild’s character, behavior and family background were
kept by teachers at Taiji Elementary School. The data here is taken from entries between 1904
and 1906, because of the consistency of the content as well as special emphasis on family
backgrounds as they pertained to overseas emigration.

Since the Gentlemen’s Agreements of 1907-08 banned labor migration of the
Japanese to the United States as well as prohibited the Japanese from entering the country
by way of Hawaii, Canada or Mexico, the majority of new immigrants to America
afterwards were bona fide residents of wives, children and/or parents of such immigrants.
So-called yobiyose (summoning someone) migration became popular, as those who had
entered the United States prior to the Gentlemen’s Agreements sent for their spouses and
children (see Figure 24). Immigrants who lacked the time to go back to Japan to find
wives used the system of “picture marriage” and sent for brides they had never met
before except in pictures. Husbands were required to fulfill certain financial
requirements to summon picture brides, and they also needed to apply for specific
certificates issued by Japanese consulates. These applications were handled by Japanese
172

Associations. This practice unknown to Americans was much frowned upon and made
into a diplomatic issue by anti-Japanese agitators, and finally it was banned in 1920.
Even though the practice was tinged with accusations of immorality and responsible for
some unhappy marriages, it was an ingenious way on the side of Japanese male
immigrants to cope with discriminatory laws and oppressive states, born out of
necessity.
185

Figure 24: Tameno Hamaguchi’s Passport, 1919

This passport issued to Tameno Hamaguchi of Taiji ensured that she could travel freely to the
United States as a wife summoned by her husband, Kakuzō Hamaguchi. It is folded in two, and
an English translation is on another half. Tameno’s photo is attached to the back. Courtesy of
Taijichō Kōminkan, Wakayama.

185
Kei Tanaka, “Japanese Picture Marriage in 1900-1924 California: Construction of Japanese Race
and Gender” (Ph.D. diss., Rutgers University, 2002), 253, 258-259, 280 and 292.
173

Despite both governments’ effort to control Japanese migration, Japanese immigrants
came up with ways to evade laws or even broke them to enter the United States. Under
the Gentlemen’s Agreement, bona fide residents could summon only their wives, children
under the age of 20, and parents, but in reality they also sent for their siblings. One
specific example of abusing the emigration law, which led to the so-called Kotsubo
Incident, raised a great outcry in Taiji. Because it was legal for bona fide residents to
send for their children, some prospective emigrants had their names entered in the family
register of those already in America and became their adopted children—a practice very
similar to “paper sons.” Before applying for passports, these prospective emigrants
needed to have their documentation verified by the local police. Police Officer Kotsubo,
knowing that these applicants abused the system of family registration, looked the other
way as he knew what overseas emigration meant to local people. Tetsunosuke Koiso was
one of the beneficiaries of Kotsubo’s generosity. He went to the United States in 1915 as
a yobiyose immigrant summoned by his “father,” who was in reality a friend of his
biological father. Because his surrogate father was working under Takanoshin Dōmoto
as a gardener in Oakland (see Chapter 2), Koiso first stayed in nearby San Francisco and
worked as a porter at a trading company run by a businessman from Ikeda Village. After
two or three months, he moved to his real destination, San Pedro. When interviewed
about his experience in the 1970s, Koiso had only a vague memory of his surrogate
father’s name. About 80 Taiji people reportedly immigrated to the United States in this
way between 1912 and 1915. When one villager, having trouble with the procedure,
reported this “crime” to the authority, Kotsubo and one registrar at the village office were
174

caught and put into jail. Feeling deeply grateful to Kotsubo, many villagers pleaded for
mercy in his behalf, to no avail. Concerned villagers, together with immigrants in the
United States, gave financial assistance to Kotsubo and his family after he was removed
from office. In order to gain the wealth that America promised them, prospective
emigrants did not hesitate to challenge laws and states. On the contrary, they even
praised people who helped them with fraudulent means to enter the United States.
186

Illegal migration was prevalent, and Mexico remained a convenient entry point
despite the Gentlemen’s Agreement. Japanese migrants could particularly rely on ties of
localism when attempting to cross the border. Many Taiji immigrants already in the
States made a living by fishing in San Pedro (or rather, East San Pedro) or San Diego. As
these fishermen sailed as far as the coast of Mexico, emigrants from Taiji staying
temporarily in Mexico contacted them beforehand so that these fishing boats could safely
pick up and take them to the shores of Southern California in secrecy. Asking for help
from fellow villagers in America was not unique to Taiji people, as illegal migrants from
the southern area of Kagoshima Prefecture took similar means, using village or regional
associations in order to escape from immigration officials. When entering the States on
fishing boats became increasingly difficult, immigrants turned to professional brokers

186
Keiko Yoshida, “Higashi Nihon ni okeru Meijiki shutsuimin no jittai: Meiji 31 nen – 45 nen no
Fukushima-ken shutsuimin dēta kara” [The reality of emigration from Eastern Japan during the Meiji
period: based on the data about emigration from Fukushima prefecture from 1898 to 1912], Ijūkenkyū
29 (March 1992): 82; Ichihara, “Imin boson no gyogyō kōzō to jinkō mondai . . . (1),” 50; Taiji
Chōshi Kanshū Iinkai, Taiji chōshi, 799-801; and Akira Shimizu, ed., Kinan no hitobito no kaigai
taiken kiroku: shuzai tēpu kara [2] [Records of overseas experiences of people in Southern
Wakayama: based on recorded interviews (2)], Kinanchihō imin shiryōshū 10 (Ageo: Akira Shimizu,
1993), 10-11.
175

who handled illegal migration. Immigrants waited in Ensenada, Mexico, until brokers
came and contracted with a group of 4 or 5 migrants, or sometimes 10 of them, charging
each person 300 dollars. Then immigrants received information about the date and place
of departure so that they could take a ship that would bring them to designated
destinations in America. Whether they used local connections or professionals, illegal
immigrants contributed to sustaining the migration flow from Taiji, albeit secretly.
187

Because of a kind of migration designed for family union and because of audacious
lawbreakers taking advantage of local connections, overseas migration continued as if
nothing had happened despite the Gentlemen’s Agreements and immigration regulations
in Canada and Australia. Although the 1924 Immigration Act enforced in the United
States completely halted Japanese immigration, by then, those who had already entered
the country were determined to stay. In 1930, there were 335 Taiji immigrants living in
the continental United States, 74 in Australia, 66 in Mexico and 19 in Canada. If the
numbers of all overseas residents were combined, a total of 516 Taiji people lived abroad.
According to the 1930 Japanese census, the population of Taiji was 3,693. This means
that approximately 14.0% of the population was in foreign countries. The popularity of
overseas emigration was again evident in school records. Of 58 female students enrolled
in Taiji Elementary School during the 1930s, 26 had family members abroad (or 27, if
one father who constantly sailed to the South Pole for whaling is counted). Of these 26,
16 had family members in America. Three students were born in San Pedro, of whom 2,

187
Taiji Chōshi Kanshū Iinkai, Taiji chōshi, 804-805; and Sumio Kawasaki, “Kagoshima-ken
Nansatsuchiiki kara no kaigai dekasegisha to kaigai imin,” 71-72.
176

together with other 4, migrated to San Pedro, and another one went to Monterey—a
fishing community in Northern California—after graduating from high school.
188
Sixteen
families out of 58 sent dekasegi workers to cities and towns within Japan, of whom 5
families had members also working abroad. For example, one family, who had lost the
family head already, had the oldest son working at a trading company in Hyōgo, the
second son as a mechanic in an unspecified mine, the third son as a pearler in Australia,
the fourth son as a mechanic at a steeling factory in Ōsaka, and two sisters working
somewhere else, most likely as maids in other households. Another deprived family had
to rely on remittances sent from the United States by a student’s uncle while her brother
worked with a painting manufacturer in Ōsaka. Of all the 58 families, only 20 had no
one working outside of Taiji when these records were taken. Thus, even during the
1930s after a series of immigration regulations were implemented, overseas emigration
had a significant impact on the lives of people left in Taiji.
189

One of the reasons why Taiji people stuck to overseas emigration was the money it
brought to families and to the entire community. In 1931, a total sum of 206,102.12 yen
was remitted or brought by hand to Taiji by 282 immigrants in the United States, Canada,

188
From 1924, it became impossible for bona fide residents in America to summon their Japan-born
children. Therefore, these students who went to the United States despite their registered domiciles in
Japan may have been actually born in the United States. Or, if they had been admitted into American
universities, they would have been able to enter the United States as students.
189
Taijikō Takushokubu, “Taijichō kaigai hatten jōkyō shirabe” [Survey of the overseas development
of Taiji town], ca. 1931-1933, Taijichō Kōminkan; Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken tōkeisho, 1931
(published in 1933), 21-30; and Taiji Jinjō Kōtō Shōgakkō, “Kosei chōsabo” [Records of characters],
ca. 1936-1940, Taijichō Kōminkan.
177

Australia and Singapore. This means that each person contributed more than 730 yen. In
the same year, a total amount sent to Wakayama Prefecture as a whole from 3,175
remitters in these four countries was 1,876,327 yen, which means that each person
contributed an average of over 590 yen. Thus, Taiji immigrants brought greater wealth to
the community than the average immigrant from other areas of Wakayama. Indeed, the
remittance of 206,102 yen was comparable to the value of all the fish caught in 1932
(204,778 yen) by members of Taiji Suisan Kyōdō Kumiai (Taiji Fisheries Cooperative).
Money brought by overseas residents could have supported local economy if fishermen
had gone bankrupt in Taiji.
190

Other than giving financial assistance to their own families to rebuild houses, to buy
land, or simply to supplement incomes, immigrants also made donations to local facilities.
The phenomenon—where successful immigrants and returnees donated money to local
schools, temples, shrines, and other public facilities—was not unique to Taiji but
commonly observed in any localities with a significant number of emigrants. As Martin
Dusinberre has shown in his study of Kaminoseki in Yamaguchi Prefecture, overseas
emigration had a transformative effect on the community left behind, and especially
donations made by immigrants contributed to local modernization. In Taiji, out of 78
individuals and associations that made contributions to Taiji Elementary School between
1910 and 1918, at least 52 were abroad—or had been in the past. Each person

190
Taijikō Takushokubu, “Taijichō kaigai hatten jōkyō shirabe”; “Imin ni kansuru tōkei oyobi chōsa
kankei zakken: zaigai honpōjin jin’in narabi sōkingaku chōsa” [Miscellaneous records on statistics
and surveys about emigrants: surveys of the number of, and the amount of remittances sent by, the
overseas Japanese], vol. 4, 1931, RG J.1.2.0.J8-2, Diplomatic Archives; and Taiji Chōshi Kanshū
Iinkai, Taiji chōshi, 526-527.
178

contributed about 10 yen. While the amount itself was not large, the predominance of
immigrants and returnees among contributors indicate the degree to which they hoped to
impact the public life of the community. As will be discussed later, San Pedro Japanese
particularly showed their devotion to the community by making donations meant for
schoolchildren.
191

Overseas emigration from Taiji brought not only money but new ideas to the
community. Returnees particularly deplored the local situation where outside capitalists
controlled fishing grounds for fixed nets. Those who led the movement to regain fishing
grounds for local people included a returnee from Australia who had made it in mining
business as well as individuals with experiences of working in America. These people,
who had absorbed liberal ideologies in Western societies, cooperated with a few local
socialists and friends of Sen Katayama, a well-known socialist and immigrant to the
United States. Embracing socialist ideals, liberal-minded returnees contributed to the
foundation of Taiji Suisan Kyōdō Kumiai (Taiji Fisheries Cooperative) in 1916, Suikyō
for short. The purposes of Suikyō were to make fixed nets Taiji’s public property and to
distribute profits equally among its members. Fishermen all over the village invested
equivalently in the means of production and received profits accordingly. In other words,
all the fishermen belonging to Suikyō became investors, managers and laborers at the

191
Dusinberre, “Unread Relics,” 305-335; and Taiji Shōgakkō, “Kihonkin kifusha jinmeibo” [Records
on names of those who donated to an endowment], ca. 1910-1918, Taijichō Kōminkan. The following
material is consulted to identify the names of immigrants: Daikichi Torii, Taijichō kaigaihattenshi-kō
[Thoughts about the history of the overseas development of Taiji town] (Tōkyō: Tatsuya Torii, 1956);
Taiji Chōshi Kanshū Iinkai, Taiji chōshi; “Kaigai ryoken kafu (fuyo) hennōhyō shintatsu ikken,” 1899,
1904 and 1906, reels 17-19, 35-38 and 43-46; and Taiji shōgakkō dōsōkai kaishi [Bulletin of the Taiji
elementary school reunion] 1 (September 1908).
179

same time. The foundation of this organization helped oust a fishing “conglomerate”
from Taiji and alleviate class tensions among villagers. The example of Suikyō
demonstrates a great role played by returnees from abroad in fundamentally changing the
social lives of Taiji people.
192

Since overseas emigration was so important to the community in social and economic
terms, some educators seriously thought about giving practical instructions on emigration
to the youth. In order to educate those who would go abroad after graduating from
school, a supplementary school attached to Taiji Elementary School created the
Ishokumin-ka or the Department of Emigration and Colonization in 1931. The
department offered a one-hour course once a week, in which students learned the
procedures and laws related to going overseas as well as the history of emigration and
colonization. They also received practical training in driving cars and handling fishing
boats. Since going to America as a new emigrant had become already impossible by this
time, those who took the course may have had other regions of the world in mind, such as
countries in South America or in Asia including territories colonized by the Japanese
Empire. At any rate, the establishment of a department specializing in emigrant
education symbolized the local emigration fever as well as the community’s sober
reflection about its dependency on “overseas development” to support and sustain
itself.
193

192
Ichihara, “Imin boson no gyogyō kōzō to jinkō mondai . . . (2),” 6-9 and 13; and Taiji Chōshi
Kanshū Iinkai, Taiji chōshi, 514-516.
193
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi, 203-204.
180

The “dependency” was not one-sided. Immigrants not only retained emotional ties to
their native village but also sent their children back home for an educational purpose.
Going overseas, getting settled, and sending money was not the end of the connection
between home and the diaspora. While immigrants created their new home in places
where they settled, they never forgot the village they left behind. Such behavior of
immigrants ultimately helped connect two distant localities separated by the Pacific,
making a fluid community where money, goods and people were constantly on the move,
overseas residents could participate in the public lives of Taiji, and people left behind
could imagine the lives in distant foreign localities, such as Terminal Island in San Pedro,
California.

Terminal Island is a small island of 4.46 square miles located approximately 25 miles
south of Downtown Los Angeles. Administratively, the eastern half of the island belongs
to the city of Long Beach and the western half to the city of Los Angeles. The latter, the
western part of the island, used to be under the jurisdiction of the city of San Pedro across
the Main Channel to the west of the island. In 1909, however, San Pedro was
incorporated into the city of Los Angeles that needed a safe and spacious commercial
port, which the city created in San Pedro Bay and named Port of Los Angeles. Since then,
Terminal Island as well as San Pedro has been a part of Los Angeles, although a slight
181

distance between the center of the city and Terminal Island made the latter an almost
independent community with peculiar culture of its own.
194

Nonetheless, the urban center initially supplied Japanese labor to areas around San
Pedro. In 1901, a group of 12 to 15 Japanese discovered abalones in San Pedro.
Originally employed by the Southern Pacific Railroad, these people worked as car
cleaners and repairers in Los Angeles, although they used to be fishermen in Japan.
Feeling that the fisherman’s life was more fun than working as a cleaner or repairer, the
Japanese men embarked on the business of catching, processing and selling abalones at
White Point, about 4 miles west of San Pedro. At first they sold dried abalones to a
Japanese-run trading company in Los Angeles, but after 1903 when a Japanese man built
a canning company, they shipped dried abalones and shrimps to San Francisco. The
business appeared to be going well, when an unexpected hostility put an end to the
enterprise at White Point. Catchers of abalones had to dive deeply into water, but such an
action aroused suspicion among Americans. One newspaper reported that the Japanese
were “spying the coast line of Southern California.” Some Americans turned to violent
means after the appearance of this article, throwing stones on the sheds in which the
Japanese lived. Finally in 1905, the State of California ordered an end to the enterprise.
Forced to disband their company, Japanese pioneers moved out of White Point to other
communities nearby, such as San Pedro, Terminal Island, and Wilmington. In addition,

194
Robert M. Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles, 1850-1930 (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1967; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 108-117. Citations refer to
the 1993 edition; and Mary Zangs, “Terminal Island History,” Shoreline 19, no. 1, 2nd ed. (1991; repr.,
1999): 6 and 11.
182

in 1906, other Japanese working in and around Los Angeles began to gather in San Pedro
to fish albacore. They knew each other and had been fishermen in Japan. One Japanese
candy store owner confessed that he was waiting for an opportunity to become a
fisherman, having been born as a son of a fishing family and trained as such. Although
white Americans had not eaten albacore, the invention of canned albacore named the
“Chicken of the Sea” dramatically changed their diet and led to a rapid increase in the
demand for albacore. This fortune attracted to San Pedro fishermen of other ethnicities,
such as Italians, Austrians and Scandinavians. It was around this time that Japanese
fishermen began living in sheds built on Terminal Island. The beginning of the Japanese
community on the island, then, owed much to Los Angeles that had originally attracted
Japanese labor. It did not take long for these laborers with connections and past
experiences to find out about San Pedro and Terminal Island.
195

The emergence of a Japanese village on Terminal Island was quick. In 1907, there
were already around 600 Japanese fishermen, of which a quarter or 150 were from Taiji
alone. A Japanese fishermen’s association was established in the same year, although
disbanded three years later. Three canning companies were built around this time. Most
of the Japanese were concentrated in the western end of the island called “East San
Pedro,” to the south of which was located Fish Harbor. It is in Fish Harbor that more

195
Kanichi Kawasaki, “The Japanese Community of East San Pedro,” 31-43; C. Robert Ryono,
Although Patriotic, We Were Drydocked (n.p.: n. p., 1994), 3 (The material is held at the Japanese
American National Museum [hereafter JANM], Los Angeles); Charles F. Queenan, The Port of Los
Angeles: From Wilderness to World Port (Los Angeles: Los Angeles Harbor Department, 1983), 59-
62; Takeuchi, San Pīdro dōhō hattenroku, 27-29 and 58; and Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi,
381-382.
183

canning companies were built and fishing boats were kept. The number of Japanese
residents in East San Pedro increased particularly in the early 1920s, after fishermen’s
camps were destroyed by a great fire in Port Los Angeles (at Santa Monica, not to be
confused with the Port of Los Angeles) in 1918. It also attracted fishermen who lost
opportunities in Monterey in Northern California, as well as farmers driven out of
business due to the Alien Land Laws. The degree of Japanese-ness in this portion of the
island was such that the author of a master’s thesis published in 1931 describes the
community as follows:

The social behavior patterns in this community are mainly Japanese, because the
Japanese are the main inhabitants and only a small number of other races are
represented in the community. I observed on many occasions that small white
children spoke Japanese, sang the Japanese songs, and played some of the
Japanese games. The reason for this is that all the children here attend the
Japanese Christian Mission and play with groups of Japanese children.

And yet, there was another major community under the jurisdiction of San Pedro, usually
forgotten in the literature on Japanese immigration. One mile east of East San Pedro was
located a district called “Terminal” where the Japanese were not the majority and
surrounded by whites, Mexicans and Filipinos. Whenever the “Japanese” village on
Terminal Island is referred to, then, it is, nine out of ten, East San Pedro and not Terminal
(see Figure 25).
196

196
Kanichi Kawasaki, “The Japanese Community of East San Pedro,” 8, 16, 43-46, and 52-53.
Quotes are from 5-6.
184

Figure 25: Terminal Island, 1938

Source: Mary Zangs, “Terminal Island History,” Shoreline 19, no. 1, 2nd ed (1991; repr., 1999):
24.

An analysis of the island’s demography makes clear the differnece between East San
Pedro and Terminal in terms of ethnic and occupational composisitons. As Table 13
shows, close to 97% of the population in East San Pedro were Japanese while only 5.3%
of those in Terminal and other areas of the western part of the island were Japanese in the
1930 census. Unlike an almost completely “Japanese” village in East San Pedro,
Terminal was predominatnly occupied by white Americans, with Mexicans composing
the second largest group. In 1930, a single-ethinic community, almost like a village
transplanted from Japan, thrived in close proximity to a multiethic/racial society where
the Japanese were a small minority.
Under the jurisdiction
of Long Beach

San Pedro
East San
Pedro
Terminal
Fish Harbor
185

Table 13: Racial Composition of the Population on Terminal Island (under the
Jurisdiction of Los Angeles), 1930

Race
East San Pedro Terminal and Other
Blank/unclear
N % N %
Japanese 1,850 96.8% 58 5.3%
Mexican 5 0.3% 349 31.7%
White 56 2.9% 632 57.4%
Filipino 0 0.0% 56 5.1%
Other 0 0.0% 7 0.6%
Subtotal 1,911 1,102 19
Total 3,032
Source: 1930 U.S. census, Los Angeles County, California, population schedule, San Pedro
district (hereafter cited as 1930 U.S. Census, Los Angeles County, Cal., pop. sch., San Pedro dis.),
Ancestry Library Edition (accessed from the Los Angeles Public Library), compiled by the author.
Note: As no maps exist to show exact locations of East San Pedro or Terminal, street names are
used to distinguish the former from the latter (plus potentially unnamed areas). Respondents
whose addresses are on the following streets are identified as residents of East San Pedro:
Albicore St, Cannery St, Fish Harbor Wharf, Pilchard St, S Seaside Ave, Terminal Way, Tuna St,
Ways St and Wharf St.

Occupationally, East San Pedro residents heavily depended on the fisheries industry
while residents in Terminal worked as miscellaneous laborers in lumber mills, canneries,
railroads, oil refineries, docks and shipyards (see Tables 14 and 15). In the former
community, about 70% of the working population engaged in fishing and more than 15%
were employed by fish canneries. In the latter, while there were fishermen, their
presence in the community was comparatively insignificant, as lumber mills and fish
canneries were the major employers. Since most of the Japanese lived in East San Pedro,
naturally the “Japanese village” on Terminal Island is recognized in the immigration
literature as a fishing community.

186

Table 14: Occupational Composition of the Population in East San Pedro, 1930
Occupation N %
Fisherman 571 69.1%
Cannery worker 128 15.5%
Proprietor 27 3.3%
Clerk 13 1.6%
Other 87 10.5%
Total 826 100.0%

Table 15: Occupational Composition of the Population in Terminal and Other, 1930
Occupation N %
Lumber mill worker 148 29.0%
Cannery worker 144 28.2%
Railroad worker 22 4.3%
Fisherman 20 3.9%
Oil industry worker 18 3.5%
Dock worker 15 2.9%
Shipyard worker 12 2.4%
Other 131 25.7%
Total 510 99.9%*
Source: 1930 U.S. Census, Los Angeles County, Cal., pop. sch., San Pedro dis., compiled by the
author.
Note: While they reported their occupations, many respondents were actually jobless at the time
the census was taken, possibly as a consequence of the Great Depression.
* The total does not add up to 100% due to rounding.

The relationship between race and occupation is clear from a further examination of
the 1930 census. Almost 99% of fishermen in East San Pedro were Japanese, and about a
third of these fishermen employed other fishing laborers. There were only 6 white
fishermen in the district, among whom only one was an employer (see Table 16). The
Japanese in East San Pedro also dominated canneries, as 85.2% of the workers from the
district were Japanese. Interestingly, the meaning attached to cannery work was different
by race. To the Japanese in East San Pedro, it was women’s job rather than men’s, while
the gender reversed for whites—and potentially for Mexicans, although the number is too
187

small to give a solid conclusion (see Table 17). The actual percentage of the Japanese in
fishing and canning may have been lower than the statistics suggest, as the data omits
fishermen living in San Pedro or commuters to Terminal Island.
197
Nevertheless, it does
not change the fact that, as far as East San Pedro was concerned, both occupations were
essentially meant for the Japanese living there.

Table 16: Racial and Class Composition of Fishermen in East San Pedro, 1930
Race Class (N) Subtotal %
Japanese
Employer 186
565 98.9%
Worker 379
White
Employer 1
6 1.1%
Worker 5
Total 571 100.0%
Source: 1930 U.S. Census, Los Angeles County, Cal., pop. sch., San Pedro dis., compiled by the
author.
Note: Among Japanese fishermen, there were 6 Nisei. Among White fishermen, 2 were Russian
immigrants and 2 were Russian Americans.

Table 17: Racial and Gender Composition of Cannery Workers in East San Pedro,
1930
Race Gender (N) Subtotal %
Japanese
M 23
109 85.2%
F 86
White
M 12
17 13.3%
F 5
Mexican M 2 2 1.6%
Total 128 100.1%*
Source: 1930 U.S. Census, Los Angeles County, Cal., pop. sch., San Pedro dis., compiled by the
author.
Note: Among Japanese cannery workers, 2 were Nisei. Among whites, 4 were immigrants and
none were born in California. One Mexican was born in the United States.
* The total exceeds 100% due to rounding.

197
Ibid., 63.
188

In Terminal, Japanese were clearly a minority in both of the two major sources of
employment, that is, the lumber mill and the cannery (see Tables 18 and 19).
Considering the Japanese population in this section of the island, this is not surprising.
While the lumber mill was popular among white Americans, Mexicans and Filipinos
composed the majority in canneries. Cannery workers from Terminal were also
essentially males. These statistical findings indicate that race predetermined occupational
choices to a certain degree on Terminal Island in 1930. The Japanese who were
concentrated in East San Pedro predominantly engaged in fishing and canning, making
that portion of the island a community thriving on fisheries industries. Since Terminal
depended less on fishing than on lumbering, it attracted other races, which made the
Japanese living in that section a minority. Although cannery work was also a popular
option in Terminal, few Japanese from the area chose that occupation—in their place
Mexicans and Filipinos did.

Table 18: Racial Composition of Lumber Mill Workers in Terminal, 1930
Race N %
White 92 62.2%
Mexican 47 31.8%
Japanese 9 6.1%
Total 148 100.1%*
Source: 1930 U.S. Census, Los Angeles County, Cal., pop. sch., San Pedro dis., compiled by the
author.
Note: Among whites, 17 were immigrants mostly from Western Europe and only 5 were born in
California. Among Mexicans, 4 were born in the United States. All the Japanese lumber mill
workers were immigrants.
* The total exceeds 100% due to rounding.
189

Table 19: Racial and Gender Composition of Cannery Workers in Terminal, 1930
Race Gender (N) Subtotal %
Mexican
M 58
68 47.1%
F 10
Filipino M 37 37 25.7%
White
M 32
36 25.0%
F 4
Japanese
M 2
3 2.1%
F 1
Total 144 100.0%
Source: 1930 U.S. Census, Los Angeles County, Cal., pop. sch., San Pedro dis., compiled by the
author.
Note: Among Mexicans, 12 were born in the United States. Among Filipinos, one was born in
the United States. Among whites, 7 were immigrants from Scotland, Portugal, Italy and Denmark,
and 2 others were born to Mexican parents but categorized as “whites.” All three Japanese
cannery workers were immigrants.

The peculiarity of Terminal Island Japanese was not only that they congregated in
East San Pedro in large numbers but also that they came from specific hometowns in
Japan. Table 20 shows that more than 70% of Japanese family heads who lived in pre-
World War II Terminal Island were from Wakayama Prefecture. Moreover, among those
who came from Wakayama, the majority originated in Nishimuro and Higashimuro
Counties. Table 21 lists top 7 villages/towns that had sent emigrants to Terminal Island
based on the same sample used for Table 20. All the 7 villages/towns were located in the
southern coastal area of Wakayama. Emigrants from Taiji formed the largest group,
making up 13.7% of the entire Japanese population on pre-World War II Terminal Island.
This peculiar situation—in which neighbors in the home country became new neighbors
in America—contributed to creating an atmosphere where immigrants could feel at home
even though they were physically apart from their native villages.

190

Table 20: Native Prefectures of Pre-World War II Japanese Residents in Terminal
Island
Native Prefecture N (sample) %
Wakayama 113 70.2%
Mie 8 5.0%
Shizuoka 6 3.7%
Hiroshima 6 3.7%
Ehime 4 2.5%
Tōkyō 3 1.9%
Yamaguchi 3 1.9%
Ōsaka 2 1.2%
Kagoshima 2 1.2%
Kumamoto 2 1.2%
Other 12 7.5%
Total 161 100.0%
Source: “Tōrokusha kādo,” compiled by the author.
Note: A random sample of 4,104 cards of family heads was taken from approximately 50,350
registration cards that the Japanese filed with the consulate in Los Angeles. Among these cards,
161 with addresses in Terminal Island were specifically chosen for the analysis. While these
cards date back to years between 1919 and 1939, most of them are from the early 1920s. Since
some moved out of Terminal Island and others moved into the community later on, not all the 161
individuals lived in the island at the same time. Five individuals were Nisei, although they had
registered domiciles in Japan.

Table 21: Top 7 Villages where Japanese Residents in Terminal Island Originated
County* Village/town N (sample) % (100% = 161 residents)
Higashimuro Taiji 22 13.7%
Higashimuro Shimosato 18 11.2%
Nishimuro Esumi 16 9.9%
Nishimuro Tanami 10 6.2%
Higashimuro Ugui 8 5.0%
Higashimuro Tawara 8 5.0%
Nishimuro Wabuka 6 3.7%
Source: “Tōrokusha kādo,” compiled by the author.
* All in Wakayama Prefecture.

Because the Japanese on Terminal Island came from nearby towns and villages
sharing a similar climate and culture, it was quite easy and natural for them to recreate
their village identities in the new settlement. The village association or sonjin-kai played
191

a greater role on the island than the prefectural association. This was understandable,
considering the location of Terminal Island. A distance of about 25 miles separated the
island from the business center of the City. The Wakayama Prefectural Association of
Southern California, officially established in 1911, was based in Little Tokyo, the center
of Japanese commercial activities. Its board members were essentially composed of
businessmen in Downtown and Little Tokyo. In 1915, out of 22 officers whose
villages/towns of origin are identified, no one originated in Taiji or Esumi—two major
localities that sent emigrants to Terminal Island. Only one person from Terminal Island
served the board in that year. Because of the physical distance, in addition to difference
in interests, Terminal Island Japanese found it more convenient to establish organizations
fit to their needs. One such organization was the village association. In this self-
contained community where Wakayama people were in the majority from the beginning,
it did not make much sense to form an association that represented the interests of one
prefecture. Rather, they preferred holding on to their village/town identities as if to stress
the community’s internal diversity.
198

A village association brought the distant home close to immigrants and the diaspora
to the society left behind. Beginning with the oldest village association founded by
Tawara villagers in 1905, numerous sonjin-kai appeared on Terminal Island from the late
1910s to the early 1920s. By 1940, there were 8 such associations on the island in

198
Nanka Wakayama Kenjin-kai, Nanka Wakayama kenjin, 12-13; and “Wakayama kenjinkai shin
yakuin” [New officers of the Wakayama prefectural association], Rafu Shimpō [L.A. Japanese
American News], January 10, 1915. Following sources are consulted to identify board members’
localities of origin: Nanka Wakayama Kenjin-kai, Nanka Wakayama kenjin; and Iwao Tomimoto,
Zaibei Wakayama kenjin hattenshi.
192

addition to another composed of members sharing the same county of origin. The Taiji
Village Association or Taijijin-kai was created between 1914 and 1916, with about 130
members by 1937. The members cultivated friendships among themselves by holding
picnics and parties as well as expressed their nationalism by welcoming training
squadrons from Japan. One of the most important activities of the sonjin-kai was related
to giving monetary assistance to the home village. Members of the Taijijin-kai
financially supported the relocation of Taiji Elementary School, the purchase of fire
pumps, and the foundation of a local shrine. They particularly cared about the education
of local children and created an award called the “San Pīdoro Taijijin-kai Shō (San Pedro
Taiji Village Association Prize),” to be specifically given to good students at Taiji
Elementary School. Every year from 1923 to 1940, the school conferred gifts and
certificates to a pair of male and female students who performed well in each grade (see
Figure 26). The money the school spent on buying these gifts was sent from the Taijijin-
kai. The school purchased items in accordance with each student’s grade and gender.
For example, small schoolchildren would get study-aid books on writing and arithmetic
and older children would receive dictionaries while a boy and a girl in the upper class
would be awarded an abacus and a sewing box, respectively. While the amount of the
donation itself may not have been large, immigrants’ continuous support to Taiji children
signifies the diaspora’s strong commitment to the affairs of the home village.
199

199
Takeuchi, San Pīdro dōhō hattenroku, 169-192; Rafu Shimpo, Yearbook and Directory, 1940-1941
(Los Angeles: L.A. Japanese Daily News, 1941), 286 (held at JANM); and Taiji Jinjō Kōtō Shōgakkō,
“Kizōshōhin juyo meibo” [The list of donated gifts conferred], ca. 1923-1940, Taijichō Kominkan.
193

Figure 26: An Inkstone Case and a Certificate of Merit Given to Wataru Kohama,
Winner of the San Pīdoro Taijijin-kai Shō (San Pedro Taiji Village Association
Prize), 1938

Courtesy of Taijichō Kōminkan.

While emigrants from Taiji altruistically donated money hoping for young people’s
bright future, they also may have had a stake in the school. Many Japanese immigrants
sent their America-born children to their home villages for the purpose of education.
Yuji Ichioka estimates that, on the eve of the Pacific War, there were approximately
20,000 Nisei in Japan, including 2,000 to 2,500 adult Japanese Americans. While
Japanese Californians, who had a good chance of attending the language school, did not
necessarily have to go to Japan for schooling, the quantitative data on interned Japanese
Americans during World War II shows that fishermen particularly preferred sending their
children back home. As Table 22 shows, fishermen’s children made up 2.7% of the
interned Nisei who had education in Japan—a relatively large proportion considering that,
in general, fishermen’s children composed 1.8% of the Nisei. By 1930, there were at
194

least 30 U.S.-born children whose parents originated in Taiji. While how many of such
children actually went to Japan is unknown, it was not surprising if Taiji immigrants on
Terminal Island thought of investing in the school as their own children might attend it
someday in the future.
200

Table 22: Nisei Educated in Japan by Father’s Occupation in the United States
N = 63,063*
Not educated in
Japan
Educated in Japan Total
Professional & semi-
professional
3.2% 1.3%
1,900 (3.0%)
Managerial and official
(except farm)
18.4% 16.7%
11,479 (18.2%)
Clerical and sales
4.3% 1.9%
2,538 (4.0%)
Service 4.9% 7.6% 3,281 (5.2%)
Farm operators and
managers
43.5% 46.2% 27,656 (43.9%)
Farm laborers including
foremen
14.6% 11.6% 8,988 (14.3%)
Fishermen 1.7% 2.7% 1,144 (1.8%)
Skilled craftsmen and
foremen; semi-skilled
operators (except farm)
8.2% 9.2% 5,235 (8.3%)

200
Yuji Ichioka, “Beyond National Boundaries: The Complexity of Japanese-American History,”
Amerasia Journal 23, no. 3 (1997): viii; Yuko Konno, “Transnationalism in Education: The
Backgrounds, Motives, and Experiences of Nisei Students in Japan before World War II,” Journal of
American and Canadian Studies 27 (2009): 85, 87, and 91-93; and Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken
iminshi, 143-146.
195

Table 22 (Continued)
Not educated in
Japan
Educated in Japan Total
Unskilled laborers
(except farm)
1.2% 2.7% 842 (1.3%)
Total 55,695 (100.0%) 7,368 (99.9%) 63,063 (100.0%)
Source: War Relocation Authority, “Form 26: Evacuee Summary Data (‘Locator Index’),”
Electronic Records, RG 210, National Archives, Washington, D.C, compiled by the author.
Note: The computer file used for this analysis contains 98% of the original 1942 records. The
actual probability of .000 demonstrates strong association between the variables.
* The universe is those who were born in the United States, racially Japanese, and whose fathers’
occupations were known.
The total does not add up to 100% due to rounding.

Not only Taiji villagers but other immigrants on Terminal Island similarly expressed
their love of native villages and towns across the Pacific. One notable example was the
gift of Ōrin or the Great Bell sent by Seizō Tanishita to Tawara Elementary School in
1929. Tanishita, who was the head of the Tawara Village Association, used to be a board
member of the Japanese Association of San Pedro. Although no detailed records about
him exist today, he was apparently successful enough to be able to hold important
positions on Terminal Island and to send a valuable gift to his home village. The bell
served the needs of not only schoolchildren but the whole village by striking the hours. It
narrowly escaped the wartime confiscation due to Japan’s shortage of iron, but remained
dormant until July, 2010, when it was newly painted and put to use again (see Figure 27).
Neighboring Taiji was responsible for this rebirth, as Taiji’s sincere effort to dig into its
emigration history aroused Tawara people’s new interest in their emigration history.
Children of Tawara, now a part of Kushimoto Town, have lived with the legacy of Ōrin
even while it was in disuse—regularly printed collections of students’ compositions have
been titled Ōrin. A similar shaped but rusty bell is in the storage room of Taiji
196

Elementary School too, but no one knows anything about its history (see Figure 28). It
could have been sent from San Pedro by Taiji immigrants. The truth is lost now. At any
rate, Ōrin symbolized the significance of overseas communities in the home village. This
was one of many examples where immigrants contributed to the development of the local
society.
201

Figure 27: Ōrin or the Great Bell at Tawara Elementary School

Photographed by the author, June 30, 2010.

201
Wakayama Daigaku Kishū Keizaishi Bunkashi Kenkyūjo, ed., Kii hantō kara Kariforunia e no
imin: San Pīdoro no Nihonjin mura [Migrants from the Kii peninsula to California: the Japanese
village in San Pedro] (Wakayama: Wakayama Daigaku Kishū Keizaishi Bunkashi Kenkyūjo, 2009),
18; Akio Usagawa, in discussion with the author, June 30, 2010, Taiji, Wakayama; and “‘Ōrin’ no ne
ga fukkatsu: Tawara-shō” [The rebirth of the sound of ‘Ōrin’ – at Tawara elementary school], AGARA
Kii Minpō, July 2, 2010, accessed March 24, 2012,
http://www.agara.co.jp/modules/dailynews/article.php?storyid=192606.
197

Figure 28: Another Great Bell from San Pedro? (At Taiji Elementary School)

Photographed by the author, July 1, 2010.

One of the reasons why immigrants minded the business of their hometowns so much
was that they possibly thought about returning home someday. As Fuminori
Minamikawa has pointed out, Japanese immigrants in Los Angeles did not intend to stay
permanently in the United States from the beginning. They came to the States as
dekasegi laborers but ended up prolonging their stay while waiting for better
opportunities to succeed. Even at the phase of “permanent settlement,” many Japanese
potentially thought of going back to their native villages in the future. Immigrants in San
Pedro went back and forth between the United States and Japan frequently, although they
had secured their sources of income in America. Chiyomatsu Ryōno of Taiji, for
example, came to the United States in 1907, worked at a lumber mill in Seattle for 10
years, and became a fisherman in East San Pedro. He returned to Japan in 1915 as a
member of a tourist group and came back to the States with his wife next year. After
being an owner of a fishing boat for more than 10 years, he once again went back to
198

Japan in 1924 with his family, and left his two children there. From 1928, he embarked
on deep-sea fishing with a new boat. In October of 1935, he visited his parents in Japan
and did not come back to the States until March of the next year. Narratives of this kind
abound in biographies of immigrants. Such behaviors suggest that Japanese residents in
the United States were, to a certain degree, prepared for the day when they could be back
in Japan permanently. Frequent travels to Japan meant that they had somewhere to return
to if they so wished.
202

While many Japanese never let go the option of going back to their country, they at
the same time made every effort to make their lives in the United States better. While the
village association worked as a medium through which immigrants participated in the
affairs of the community over the Pacific, they created and utilized other kinds of
organizations to adapt to America and to solve local issues. One of such was an ethnic
organization established in 1919. The Japanese Association of San Pedro came into
existence just when Wakayama immigrants were retreating from the Japanese politics in
the center of Los Angeles (for details, see Chapter 5). It held jurisdiction over Japanese
residents in San Pedro including Terminal Island and the City of Wilmington. The
association handled issues affecting the entire Japanese population in those areas, hosted
events to welcome dignitaries from Japan, and collected donations to be sent to victims of
disasters in Japan, but its social power had considerably declined by the early 1930s. As
the Immigration Act of 1924 stopped an influx of new Japanese immigrants to the United

202
Minamikawa, “Nikkei Amerika-jin” no rekishishakaigaku, 67-70; and Takeuchi, San Pīdro dōhō
hattenroku, appendix (“Jimbutsu gaiden” [Brief biographies of people]), 12.
199

States, it became difficult for Japanese Associations to recruit new members. More
importantly, the immigration act stripped Japanese Associations of the “endorsement”
right. Under the Gentlemen’s Agreement in force until July of 1924, Japanese residents
in America hoping to go back to Japan and reenter the country were required to possess
certificates of registration issued by Japanese consulates. The consulates delegated the
authority to endorse applications for certificates to Japanese Associations, and the
associations made profits out of handling fees. The loss of this right directly affected the
finance of Japanese Associations. Ultimately, however, in San Pedro, alternative
organizations played the roles that the Japanese Association failed to fulfill. The decline
of the Japanese Association of San Pedro, therefore, did not indicate the collapse of the
community. The Japanese on Terminal Island simply chose to depend on those
organizations that were more directly relevant to their interests and specific needs.
203

Since the fishing industry occupied a large portion of Japanese lives as well as of the
local economy, a fishermen’s association played a greater role on Terminal Island than
the Japanese Association. Although the first such organization was short-lived, the
Southern California Japanese Fishermen’s Association, established in 1915, became a
central ethnic organization in the area, with 600 members in the late 1930s. The
association dealt with the conflict between the Japanese and individual white fishermen
and/or their associations. Essentially created to protect the interests of Japanese
fishermen, the association occasionally became a basis for interethnic solidarity. One of

203
Takeuchi, San Pīdro dōhō hattenroku, 34-44; Ichioka, The Issei, 161; and Kanichi Kawasaki, “The
Japanese Community of East San Pedro,” 139-140.
200

its most important tasks was to negotiate the prices for fish with canning companies, their
virtual employers. Fishermen were able to earn good money, and their mindset was
potentially different from that of the typical working class. In the 1900s when a farmer
could earn 1.50 dollars per day, a fisherman earned 3 to 4 dollars a day for his catch.
Nevertheless, fishermen were not free from the control of capitalists, namely canning
companies. Most of them lived in small houses rented by the canneries. Labor disputes
frequently occurred when fishermen were dissatisfied with the prices for fish suggested
by the canneries. On such occasions, the Japanese fishermen’s association joined hands
with their counterparts in San Diego and Monterey as well as with other ethnic groups,
mostly Europeans. When negotiations broke down, they even went on strikes. In July of
1925, for example, fishermen resented canning companies’ policy of reducing the prices,
and went on a strike together with Japanese and white fishermen in San Diego. The
strike lasted for two weeks and fishermen won. The confrontation did not mean, however,
that Japanese fishermen in San Pedro intended to become troublemakers. On the contrary,
they sought to adapt to American society as much as they could. The Fishermen’s Hall
completed in1918 served as a local community center that purported “to illuminate
fishermen’s intellect, to cultivate their character, and to have them learn a habit of
diligent work so that canneries and other white people in general could trust them much
more.” Nonetheless, the American society that Japanese fishermen hoped to assimilate
into did not welcome them wholeheartedly. Between 1919 and 1945, the Japanese
Fishermen’s Association had to tackle the problem of anti-Japanese fishing bills
submitted to the California State Legislature. Twenty-six bills were submitted during
201

those years. Because canning companies depended heavily on Japanese fishermen, and
especially because only the Japanese fished sardines around San Pedro, the bills were
naturally unpopular. The Fishermen’s Association led the movement against these bills
as well as pressured the Japanese Embassy and consulates to take action. In the end, only
3 bills passed the Legislature, and all of them were later ruled unconstitutional. Since the
Japanese Fishermen’s Association fulfilled the role of a broker going between the
Japanese and white Americans, few people would have turned to the Japanese
Association of San Pedro.
204

The Japanese on Terminal Island also created a community centering on the local
elementary school, as they were concerned about the Nisei who were born and raised not
simply as the Japanese but “Terminal Islanders.” To these U.S.-born children, home was
Terminal Island rather than their parents’ native villages in Japan. Although their parents
spoke in the dialects of Japanese villages, the Nisei used the dialect of Terminal Island, or
Tāminaru-ben, calling each other “yū-ra, mī-ra (you and us).”
205
While some parents
sent their children to Japanese schools in their home villages, not all of them did, as some
simply had their children go to a local Japanese language school in addition to public

204
Takeuchi, San Pīdro dōhō hattenroku, 48-54; Ryono, Although Patriotic, 7 and 10-11; Kanichi
Kawasaki, “The Japanese Community of East San Pedro,” 54-55 ; Frank F. Chuman, The Bamboo
People: Japanese-Americans, Their History and the Law (Del Mar, Calif.: Publisher’s Inc., 1976;
Chicago: Japanese American Research Project, Japanese American Citizens League, 1981), 227-231
and 365-366nn5-10 and 19. Citations refer to the JACL edition; and “Loss to Port Seen in Bill,” Los
Angeles Times, Feb. 20, 1927. Quotes are from Takeuchi, San Pīdro dōhō hattenroku, 51.
205
Yukio Tatsumi, interview by the author, March 4, 2011, Long Beach, California.
202

school. Creating an atmosphere where Japanese children could feel at ease and study
well was critical for Issei parents.
Pre-World War II Terminal Island had two elementary schools, one in East San Pedro
and another in Terminal. East San Pedro Public School, established in 1918, was a
branch of older Terminal Public School. Racial dynamics within these schools were
quite different. In East San Pedro School, later renamed Mildred O. Walizer Grammar
School, almost all the pupils were ethnically Japanese. According to a school paper
published in June, 1939, all 34 students in the graduating class were Japanese. Although
Mildred O. Walizer, a tireless and devoted principal, came to East San Pedro School to
“Americanize” Japanese children, those students who were constantly exposed to the
“Oriental atmosphere” of their parents carelessly spoke Japanese in class and got scolded
by a teacher who would shout, “This is America. Speak English!” On the other hand,
Walizer and the teaching staff respected Japanese culture and showed sympathy toward
Japanese immigrant families. On March 3 when a traditional Japanese feast to celebrate
girls’ growth was held, for example, East San Pedro School hosted a program in which
girls in costume appeared in procession and performed Japanese dances while guests
enjoyed the exhibit of special dolls as well as tea served by mothers of students. The
1937 program included a special play dedicated to the now deceased principal, in which a
mother tells her daughter: “I can never forget my teacher in America . . . . Mrs. Walizer
was so kind to all Japanese people, never too busy to help. I remember how happy we
were in school. We were always singing and waving to her on our way home.” Toward
the end of the program, an ensemble sang both Kimi ga yo (Japanese national anthem)
203

and America. The pamphlet of the program gives a brief explanation of the festival and
adds: “All this is planned to help preserve some of the fine customs these people brought
with them from Japan; to add to the children’s appreciation of their parents ways of life;
and to give guests a chance to share the good and beautiful values we who work here are
constantly enjoying.” As this example demonstrates, even though East San Pedro School
tried to teach American values to predominantly Japanese students, it also inculcated the
love and respect of their parents’ culture into the children under its care.
206

The situation was different in Terminal School where Japanese children were not in a
majority. In that school, out of 17 graduates in July, 1938, only 7 were Japanese.
Although no detailed records about the school exist today, partial evidence shows that the
school showed considerations for students with different cultural backgrounds. Around
1938, it hosted an open house program honoring International Goodwill Day. Students
sang songs from the British Isles, presented a play “incorporating folk dances and songs
of the various nationalities represented in the school,” read a Scotch poem, and
performed German, Mexican and Japanese songs and dances. Apparently folk songs and
dances were performed by students with corresponding ethnic backgrounds. The school
also planned events that targeted specific ethnic groups. On March 3, it hosted a program
to celebrate the “Doll Day” similar to the one held in East San Pedro School, and

206
Arthur A. Almeida, “Mildred O. Walizer Grammer [sic] School, East San Pedro, Calif., 1918-
1942,” Shoreline 6, no. 4 (1979): 4-5; MO Walizer School, Sunrise News 6, no. 4 (June 23, 1939): 2
(held at JANM); Kanichi Kawasaki, “The Japanese Community of East San Pedro,” 108; Tatsumi,
interview; “San Pīdoro (yokka): Nihon koten shōkai ni daiseikō wo osametaru kouritsu gakkō
hinamatsuri” [San Pedro (on the 4th): the public school’s doll day festival makes a great success in
introducing Japanese classics], Kashū Mainichi Simbun, March 5, 1932; and East San Pedro School,
“Ohinamatsuri” [Doll day], March 3, 1937, San Pedro Bay Historical Archives, Los Angeles.
204

distributed pamphlets written in Japanese. The school gave a program targeting
Mexicans as well, and it even hosted a combined Japanese and Mexican fete on Goodwill
Day (March 18). Because of students’ diverse backgrounds, Japanese pupils at Terminal
School had qualitatively different experiences than their counterparts at East San Pedro
School.
207

Since there were no junior high schools or high schools on Terminal Island, children
who sought education at a higher level needed to cross the Main Channel by ferry, to
attend schools in San Pedro. In these schools, Japanese students were clearly a minority.
Among the graduates of Richard Henry Dana Junior High School between 1930 and 1939,
an average of 8.5% was Japanese, as Table 23 demonstrates, even though the percentage
increased toward the late 1930s. Among the graduates of San Pedro High School
between 1920 and 1941, Japanese students averaged at merely 8.0%, although in winters
of 1940 and 1941, roughly 1 out of 5 graduates were Japanese (see Table 24). The shock
of discovery—that they were not the majority—was probably greater to the graduates of
East San Pedro School than to the graduates of Terminal School, as the latter had known
that they were not. One source from the early 1930s claims that Japanese children of the
upper classes in grammar schools and high schools were more Americanized than little

207
Terminal School, “Program Dedicated to A6 Class,” June 23, 1938; Terminal School, “Open
House Program Honoring International Goodwill Day,” May 18, 1938[?]; an undated newspaper
clipping in the folder containing materials on Terminal Island schools; and Terminal School,
“Hinamatsuri puroguramu” [The Doll day program], March 3, 1938, San Pedro Bay Historical
Archives.
205

children in East San Pedro. This most likely had to do with the loss of numerical
superiority as well as constant exposure to the culture of the majority.
208

Table 23: Percentage of Japanese Graduates of Richard Henry Dana Junior High
School, 1930-39
Semester /
Year
Number of
all graduates
Number of
Japanese
graduates
% of Japanese
graduates
W ’30 157 6 3.8%
Sp ’30 239 9 3.8%
S ’32 237 10 4.2%
W ’33 150 10 6.7%
W ’34 146 10 6.8%
S ’34 192 13 6.8%
W ’35 166 11 6.6%
S ’35 251 12 4.8%
? ’36 192 10 5.2%
W ’37 216 22 10.2%
S ’37 304 35 11.5%
W ’38 170 24 14.1%
S ’38 324 35 10.8%
W ’39 190 22 11.6%
S ’39 330 47 14.2%
Total 3,264 276 8.5%
Source: Richard Henry Dana Junior High School, Dana Log, January 1930, Spring 1930, June
1932, January 1933, Winter 1934, Summer 1934, Winter 1935, Summer 1935, and 1936, all
published by Richard Henry Dana Junior High School in Los Angeles, San Pedro Bay Historical
Archives, Los Angeles; Richard Henry Dana Junior High School, Mariner, January 27, 1937,
June 18, 1937, January 28, 1938, June 20, 1938, and January 27, 1939; and Commencement
Exercises, Summer 39, JANM, compiled by the author.
Note: W stands for winter, Sp stands for spring and S stands for summer.

208
Kanichi Kawasaki, “The Japanese Community of East San Pedro,” 99.
206

Table 24: Percentage of Japanese Graduates of San Pedro High School, 1920-41
Semester / Year Number of all graduates Number of Japanese
graduates
% of Japanese
graduates
’20 31 1 3.2%
’21 60 1 1.7%
’22 48 0 0.0%
’23 56 0 0.0%
’24 96 0 0.0%
W ’25 22 0 0.0%
S ’25 94 4 4.3%
W ’26 48 2 4.2%
S ’26 98 4 4.1%
W ’27 41 1 2.4%
S ’27 127 6 4.7%
’28 162 2 1.2%
’29 178 6 3.4%
W ’30 54 0 0.0%
S ’30 137 2 1.5%
W ’31 72 4 5.6%
S ’31 123 2 1.6%
W ’32 85 7 8.2%
S ’32 154 8 5.2%
W ’33 108 4 3.7%
S ’33 157 6 3.8%
W ’34 135 8 5.9%
S ’34 193 11 5.7%
S ’35 224 16 7.1%
W ’36 130 11 8.5%
S ’36 231 26 11.3%
W ’37 108 13 12.0%
S ’37 204 17 8.3%
W ’38 155 23 14.8%
S ’38 265 14 5.3%
W ’39 157 15 9.6%
S ’39 299 41 13.7%
W ’40 170 36 21.2%
S ’40 302 34 11.3%
W ’41 174 35 20.1%
S ’41 323 40 12.4%
Total 5,021 400 8.0%
Source: San Pedro High School, Black and Gold, 1920-1932, Summer 1934, Summer 1935,
Winter 1936, Summer 1936, Winter 1937, Summer 1937, Winter 1938, and 1941; Student
Memory Book, Winter 1933; Memory Book, Summer 1933 and Winter 1934; Harbor Light,
Summer 1938, Winter 1939, Summer 1939, Winter 1940, and Summer 1940, all published by
San Pedro High School in Los Angeles, San Pedro Bay Historical Archives, compiled by the
author.
Note: W stands for winter and S stands for summer.

207

Even though the Japanese were a minority, their parents kept participating in the
affairs of schools across the Main Channel. The Parent-Teacher Association at East San
Pedro School played a significant role in this. Since all the members of the PTA at East
San Pedro School were Japanese, their association was named in Japanese, Fukei-kai.
Although the Fukei-kai was essentially responsible for activities at East San Pedro School,
its members were also concerned about Japanese students at other schools in San Pedro.
The Fukei-kai, together with the Japanese Women’s Association called Fujin-kai and
Whittier College, worked to build a Japanese garden at San Pedro High School in 1939
under the leadership of the Japanese American Citizens League. Even though the
original suggestion was made by the JACL, whose then president was a graduate of San
Pedro High, the Fukei-kai and Fujin-kai were quick to cooperate. In building this garden,
a Japanese architect collaborated with a group from Whittier College called the
“Friends.” Materials for the purpose were purchased by the JACL, Fukei-kai, Fujin-kai
and Whittier College at no cost to San Pedro High. When it was not engaging in a big
project of this kind, the Fukei-kai frequently hosted a banquet to entertain teachers in
schools around San Pedro or gave them gifts. Students at San Pedro High School also
turned to their home, Terminal Island, on special occasions. In 1940, for example, the
Japanese Club founded in San Pedro High in 1938 held its annual banquet in Walizer
Grammar School (former East San Pedro Public School). The members invited teachers
and the club sponsor from San Pedro. All the Japanese Clubs in the Marine League were
also invited. Even after children on Terminal Island departed from their elementary
school, then, the island could serve as a center of activities for Japanese students. Their
208

parents not only supported them but also actively worked to maintain good relations with
schools and teachers across the Main Channel, beyond the chief school that they were
responsible for. Issei parents’ serious engagement with school affairs outside their
territory exemplifies the Japanese community’s hope to cultivate friendly relationships
with white Americans—so that the Nisei would receive good treatment at school and
successfully assimilate into American society without losing the Japanese pride.
209

Japanese parents’ passion for the Nisei education culminated in their strong feelings
of gratitude toward white American teachers committed to bridging the United States and
Japan, and their actions made clear the degree to which two separate localities across the
Pacific were united as one community. Japanese parents were particularly grateful to
Mildred Obarr Walizer, who served as the principal of East San Pedro School, showed a
deep affection and understanding to Japanese children, and instructed their parents, who
rarely spoke English, to form the Fukei-kai and Fujin-kai. To repay her kindness, the
Fukei-kai collected 3,700 dollars to sponsor her tour in Japan and especially her visit to
Southern Wakayama in 1930. Walizer had been interested in Wakayama even before the
trip was planned, as there were many among her students who had roots in the prefecture.
She visited towns and villages along the southern coast of Wakayama such as Shingū,

209
“Four Organizations Make Possible Japanese Garden: Miniature Beauty Spot Between New Wing
And Shops Landscaped During Summer By Their Work,” Fore ’N’ Aft, September 28, 1939, 1 and 4;
“Fukei Kai To Entertain At Banquet: Japanese Club Students Serve Dinner, Garden Dedication,
Program Auditorium Planned,” Fore ’N’ Aft, May 16, 1940, 1; “Fukei Kai Presents Instructors Gifts,”
Fore ’N’ Aft, January 2, 1941, 4; “Japanese Annual Banquet Saturday,” Fore ’N’ Aft, January 11,
1940, 4; and “Japanese P. T. A. Entertains Educators,” Mariner, May 6, 1938, 1 (held at JANM); San
Pedro High School, Harbor Light, Winter 1939 (Los Angeles: San Pedro High School, n.d.), 44 (held
at the San Pedro Bay Historical Archives); Takeuchi, San Pīdro dōhō hattenroku, 118; and Kanichi
Kawasaki, “The Japanese Community of East San Pedro,” 133, 136, and 146.
209

Ugui, Taiji, Tawara, Tanami and Esumi, to see her former students. Currently the
Tawara Elementary School holds a photograph of Walizer and U.S.-born children in the
schoolyard (see Figure 29). Sent by Seizō Tanishita, it was pasted on the poster of
Tsurumatsu Toma’s grocery store. Toma, a native of Taiji and a respected member of the
Terminal Island community, acted as a go-between for the teachers at East San Pedro
School and the parents of schoolchildren. In 2011, another photograph of Walizer and
children taken in Taiji was discovered in the United States, but for an unknown reason,
only girls appear in it (see Figure 30). Walizer set sail for America after visiting the
village of Mio, a famous Amerika-mura.
To the immigrants who donated money that could buy a house, sponsoring Walizer’s
trip was important because the visit might lead to her better understanding of Japan and
deeper sympathy toward the Nisei. In fact, when the Fukei-kai similarly funded the trip
of Dr. Davis, then principal of East San Pedro School, and his wife to Japan in 1936, one
Japanese newspaper presented a view that the good impressions that he gained from the
visit would have a positive impact on his education of the Nisei. More simply, however,
immigrants may have hoped to show Walizer where they came from and who they were,
so that she could understand the communities that nurtured Japanese migrants. These
communities, on the other hand, acted as one with Japanese immigrants over the Pacific,
welcoming Walizer wholeheartedly everywhere, “as if she was the President of the
United States.” Although Walizer was a famous figure on Terminal Island, it is difficult
to explain the passion with which Wakayama residents entertained her, without taking
into consideration the close connection between the home and diaspora. People left
210

behind in villages of Japan possibly heard about great contributions made by Walizer
from returnees and/or Nisei children from San Pedro. Or they may have learned of
Walizer through correspondence with immigrants. Either way, Wakayama people
enthusiastically welcomed a white woman who worked diligently for the friendship
between Japan and the United States, or more specifically in a translocal sense, between
Wakayama villages like Taiji and San Pedro.
210

210
Takeuchi, San Pīdro dōhō hattenroku, 72-74, 76, 118 and 134; Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken
iminshi, 456-460; and Ryono, Although Patriotic, 29; and “Debisu hakase no kibei wo mukau: Nihon
no shisatsu de shūkaku tadai” [Welcoming Dr. Davis returning to America: a great gain from his visit
to Japan], Southern Coast Herald, September 6, 1936 (held at JANM).
211

Figure 29: Mildred O. Walizer and U.S.-born Children at Tawara Elementary
School, 1930

Source: Wakayama Daigaku Kishū Keizaishi Bunkashi Kenkyūjo, ed., Kii hantō kara
Kariforunia e no imin: San Pīdoro no Nihonjin mura [Migrants from the Kii peninsula to
California: the Japanese village in San Pedro] (Wakayama: Wakayama Daigaku Kishū Keizaishi
Bunkashi Kenkyūjo, 2009), 11.

Figure 30: Mildred O. Walizer and Children at Taiji Elementary School, 1930

Courtesy of Taijichō Kōminkan.
212

Japanese immigrants on Terminal Island had their “home” in mind, a community that
was physically distant and yet close at heart as they engaged in trans-Pacific activities by
sending remittances, donations, children and dignitaries. Peculiar circumstances in one
section of the island where almost all the people were from a geographically limited area
within Japan contributed to creating an atmosphere of a Japanese village that was a
combination of small Wakayama villages. Such a condition made it easy for Japanese
immigrants to imagine their “real” home across the Pacific and to retain local identities
possibly more strongly than other Japanese immigrants in America. This translocality,
however, was not the sole basis of immigrants’ identification. As fishermen working
alongside, and competing with, European immigrant rivals, they were conscious of their
Japaneseness while having a sense of interethnic solidarity in cases where class
superseded race. As parents concerned about the Nisei education, these immigrants
worked diligently to make their children’s “home” a better place to live. While the home
meant Japanese villages to Issei parents, to most of the children it was Terminal Island,
even though many of them went to Japan for education. Thus, Japanese immigrants kept
participating in the public life of their “home” village as members of the fluid community,
with geographical but without psychological boundaries, while contributing to the
community development in San Pedro, another “home” where they had a basis for life
and their children naturally felt at ease.
213

Chapter Five: Nationalism: Love of a Nation, Love of a Hometown

Ties of localism entitled Japanese immigrants to concrete benefits, made accessible to
by their membership to the “imagined communities,” that is, prefectures. As shown in
Chapter 3, immigrants’ native prefectures played an important role in the process of
settlement. When a group of immigrants sharing a native prefecture aggregated in a
specific locality, they usually formed a prefectural association or kenjin-kai. The kenjin-
kai offered access to significant resources to its members, functioning as employment
agencies, providing financial and legal assistance, and catering to the welfare needs of
those in distress. The kenjin-kai was concerned with local politics among Japanese
immigrants than with politics at home in Japan. Numerous kenjin-kai served the needs of
Los Angeles Japanese before World War II, with 12 already established by 1909. By
1926 the number increased to 29, and there were no fewer than 40 by 1940.
211
The
Japanese in this way not only migrated in groups from specific localities but also
recreated their local identities in the society where they settled in order to survive and
help others survive in the new land.
While the kenjin-kai served the practical needs of its members, it also helped solidify
their friendships and personal relations by regularly holding picnics and parties. The
advertisements and reports of these events were frequently found in Japanese newspapers.
As one newspaper reported, the Associations of “Gansu Prefecture” and “Choru

211
Modell, The Economics and Politics of Racial Accommodation, 89-90; and Dōjun Ochi, ed.,
Minami Kashū Nihonjinshi: kōhen [The history of the Japanese in Southern California], vol. 2 (Los
Angeles: Nanka Nikkeijin Shōgyō Kaigisho, 1957), 85-86.
214

Prefecture” both planned to hold garden parties one day before Fourth of July in 1932.
The reporter apparently made fun of localism attached to these associations, since gansu
was supposedly a suffix in the dialect of Hiroshima and choru was its counterpart in the
Yamaguchi dialect. While events filled with such local colors excluded outsiders, they
helped insiders appreciate their ties of localism and love their native prefectures even
more.
212

Although strong immigrant localism expressed through activities of prefectural
associations sometimes worked negatively for ethnic unity, ultimately the love of native
prefectures/hometowns proved that many Japanese residents, regardless of their origins,
collectively hoped to strive for their country of origin at least until it went to war with the
United States. This chapter shows the unifying as well as dividing effects of immigrant
prefectural identities by examining the relationship between immigrant localism and
nationalism, particularly focusing on the activities of prefectural associations and the
Japanese Association of Los Angeles.
The nature of local identities will be revealed through two cases. The first part of this
chapter addresses the divisive nature of prefectural identities as seen in the elections for
board members in the Japanese Association of Los Angeles. Elections between 1915 and
1920 led to heated confrontations between Wakayama and Hiroshima immigrants, as
both sides fought for access to, and control over, limited resources. Although overt inter-

212
“Gansu to choru ken: onaji hi ni en’yūkai: Hiroshima ken wa Runā Pāk: Yamaguchi ken wa
Hakuten onsen” [Gansu and choru prefectures: holding garden parties on the same day: Hiroshima
prefecture at Luna Park; and Yamaguchi prefecture at the White Point hot spring], Kashū Mainichi
Simbun, June 19, 1932.
215

prefectural rivalry toned down after the decline of the Japanese Association, it never
disappeared and continued to affect Japanese politics in Los Angeles. The second part of
the chapter presents evidence of strong Japanese nationalism demonstrated through
immigrant local identities. By showing instances where localism intersected nationalism
in ceremonies, wars and disasters, it makes clear that Japanese localism worked as an
extension of nationalism, with the former intensifying the latter and vice versa.
Ultimately, these opposite features of immigrant localism were compatible, as
immigrants understood their devotion to Japan in relation to their love of the hometown.
As if to reflect prewar Japanese discourses about kokyō (hometown) that entailed the
notion of rural villages as an emblem of “true Japan,” migrants in overseas communities
saw their hometown identities as part of being loyal Japanese subjects. Just like Martin
Dusinberre has demonstrated in his study of a rural hometown in Yamaguchi Prefecture,
the chapter sheds light on the aspect of Japanese localism that transcended national
boundaries and worked as an important ingredient constituting Issei nationalism.
213

In cases where migrants from particular villages congregated in specific localities,
they organized associations called sonjin-kai or village associations, but their activities
have been less well documented than prefectural associations’. Except in a close-knit
community such as Terminal Island where those from certain villages were particularly
concentrated, it was unusual for immigrants to form village associations. Thus, the
chapter chiefly explores immigrant identities based on native prefectures with some

213
Dusinberre, “Unread Relics,” 308-310.
216

examples focusing more on village identities. Whether they positioned themselves in
relation to villages, cities, counties or prefectures, the Japanese in Southern California
retained and used their local identities as they saw fit to their needs, but in the end,
beyond practical motivations, they embraced localism so that they could behave as
subjects of the Japanese Empire and make contributions to better Japanese-American
relations.

Prefectural localism created fissures within the Japanese society in America, even
though geographical and political entities called “prefectures” were modern creations
based on traditional administrative units. The Japanese Association of Los Angeles, a
quasi-governmental ethnic organization, became a site where members vied for resources
and privileges based on their prefectural identities. While its counterpart in San
Francisco was formed as early as 1900 in response to the Japanese exclusion movement,
the Los Angeles group only came into existence 5 years later, at the prodding of San
Francisco Japanese. A lack of well-organized labor movement as well as the persistent
reliance of local Japanese on prefectural networks prohibited the spontaneous formation
of a nation-based organization in Los Angeles. A significant change in U.S.-Japan
relations reinvigorated the association only belatedly. As the Gentlemen’s Agreement
banned new labor immigration of the Japanese, those laborers who had entered the
United States prior to 1908 were required to possess certificates of registration issued by
Japanese consulates. Without this document verifying an owner’s status as bona fide
resident, a laborer who had been back to Japan temporarily would have been prevented
217

from re-entering the United States. The consulates delegated to local Japanese
Associations the bureaucratic authority of handling applications for certificates of
registration, in addition to other kinds necessary for a bearer to travel back and forth
between Japan and the United States and/or to summon spouses, children and/or parents.
The associations also took care of those certificates related to such matters as draft
deferments, business operations, births and deaths. This right to “endorse” certificate
applications brought a lucrative income to the association which collected fees to process
applications. Ample funds became a source of internal feud, however, as the members
representing different prefectures fought over seats in the board of officers.
214

A group representing Hiroshima Prefecture and another serving Wakayama
immigrants contested the right to control the Los Angeles Association, with each side
having allies from other prefectures. Occupational as well as inter-prefectural rivalry
shaped board member elections between 1915 and 1920. The election was held each year
in January, and 31 officers were selected by fee-paying members. Then the board elected
a president, a vice-president and a treasurer from among themselves by mutual vote. This
allegedly democratic process was only maintained by compromises between the

214
Modell, The Economics and Politics of Racial Accommodation, 33 and 79-80; Ichioka, The Issei,
156-164; Hiroshi Yoneyama, “Rafu Nihonjin-kai yakuinsenkyo to zai Rosuanzerusu Nihonjin shakai
no henyō, 1915 nen – 1921 nen” [The Japanese association of Los Angeles elections and the
transformation of Los Angeles Japanese society, 1915-1921], Ritsumeikanshigaku 21 (2000): 6-7;
Minamikawa, “Nikkei Amerika-jin” no Rekishishakaigaku, 47-48; and “Rafu Nihonjin-kai kiroku (1)”
[Los Angeles Japanese association minutes (1)], January 1919 (a list of financial sources), Box 237,
Japanese American Research Project [hereafter JARP], Charles E. Young Research Library,
University of California, Los Angeles.
218

Hiroshima and Wakayama factions.
215
While each faction represented a prefecture, it
also spoke for a group of people engaging in a specific occupation: the Hiroshima faction
attracted farmers around Los Angeles while the powerful members of the Wakayama
group were those who succeeded in the fishing industry in San Pedro, a port district apart
from the center of the city. The two factions apparently held behind-the-scenes
negotiations to maintain the balance of power, as seen in the election of 1917—although
the majority of elected officers belonged to the Hiroshima faction, a Wakayama
immigrant became a president and another man representing the interests of fishermen
was elected as vice-president. Such maneuverings disaffected many Hiroshima
immigrants, as the prefecture had sent the largest number of immigrants to Los Angeles.
In fact, 23.4% or 434 out of 1,855 association members in the roster dating from January,
1916 to February, 1918 were from Hiroshima, compared to 10.9% or 203 persons from
Wakayama, followed by Kumamoto (5.6% or 103), Okayama (5.3% or 98), Yamaguchi
(5.0% or 93) and Fukuoka immigrants (4.9% or 91) (see Table 25).

Table 25: Native Prefectures of the Members of the Japanese Association of Los
Angeles, January, 1916-February, 1918
Prefecture N %
Hiroshima 434 23.4%
Wakayama 203 10.9%
Kumamoto 103 5.6%
Okayama 98 5.3%
Yamaguchi 93 5.0%

215
Although I call these groups “Hiroshima faction” and “Wakayama faction” for convenience,
officially they had different names.
219

Table 25 (Continued)
Prefecture N %
Fukuoka 91 4.9%
Kagoshima 83 4.5%
Tottori 59 3.2%
Fukushima 51 2.7%
Yamanashi 50 2.7%
Mie 46 2.5%
Tōkyō 42 2.3%
Fukui 38 2.0%
Shizuoka 38 2.0%
Other 426 23.0%
Total 1,855 100.0%
Source: “Rafu Nihonjin-kai kaiin meibo (2)” [Japanese association of Los Angeles membership
roster (2)], January 1916 to February 1918, Box 232, JARP, compiled by the author.

In October 1919, Hiroshima immigrants organized a group to support their
representatives in the next year’s election, arguing that they had been slighted in the
association despite their number and ability, and had been disadvantaged in gaining
privileges especially related to certificates. The 1920 election made inner cleavages
decisive, as the Hiroshima faction ignored the Wakayama group’s suggestion to put off
the election after a fire had destroyed the building where the vote was to take place.
Because the Hiroshima group had invited fellow voters from distant farming
communities to the city, they had every reason to reject the postponement. The
Wakayama faction challenged the election’s validity in court, to no avail (Aochi v.
Japanese Association). The 1920 election became a turning point where the Hiroshima
faction finally took over the board of officials. Thereafter, the Wakayama group never
regained control over the Los Angeles Association. The election symbolized the decline
220

of fishery people as leaders in the Japanese society and, alternatively, the rise of farmers,
a large number of whom hailed from Hiroshima.
216

While a shift in power within the Los Angeles Association marked a change in the
leadership, immigrants from Wakayama may not have cared so much about their loss. In
1919 they established their own organization, the Japanese Association of San Pedro.
Exercising jurisdiction over the district of San Pedro including Terminal Island, and the
city of Wilmington, the association essentially served the needs of local Japanese
fishermen and cannery workers. Some former officials of the Los Angeles Association
became board members in the new organization. Thus, the establishment of a new
Japanese Association symbolized the retreat of Wakayama immigrants and fishermen
from politics in Downtown and Little Tokyo and encouraged a transition to politics
catering to a self-contained community detached from the center.
217

As the Japanese busied themselves with power struggles, new developments in the
middle of the 1920s fundamentally challenged the reason d’être of Japanese Associations.
The immigration act of 1924 made the Gentlemen’s Agreement void, completely halting
the flow of not just laborers but all new Japanese immigrants. At the same time, this
critical legislation made unnecessary the certificates that bona fide residents returning to

216
Yoneyama, “Rafu Nihonjin-kai yakuinsenkyo,” 1-22; Modell, The Economics and Politics of
Racial Accommodation, 87-88; “Rafu Nihonjin-kai kaiin meibo (2)” [Japanese association of Los
Angeles membership roster (2)], January 1916 to February 1918, Box 232, JARP; “Genron:
Hiroshima kenjin no katsudō” [Editorial: the activities of Hiroshima immigrants], Rafu Shimpō,
December 16, 1919; and “Rafu Nihonjin-kai kiroku (1),” January 9, 1919 (Regulations), Box 237,
JARP.
217
Takeuchi, San Pīdro dōhō hattenroku, 34-35.
221

Japan had to carry in order to re-enter America because the task of issuing permits of
reentry was now left to the Immigration Bureau. The loss of the endorsement right meant
a significant decrease of income to Japanese Associations. Rafu Shimpō (L.A. Japanese
American News), a leading Japanese newspaper published in Los Angeles, estimated that
the Los Angeles Association would have to give up 6,000 dollars it used to earn annually
from certificate fees. The association would be still supported by membership fees, but
without its service of handling certificates, members had little motivation to renew
membership. Something had to be done in order for Japanese Associations to become
appealing once again to the Japanese. Finally in 1931, the Los Angeles Association
consolidated with the Japanese Chamber of Commerce to alleviate financial difficulties.
The Japanese in San Pedro kept their association intact without organizational changes,
but by 1930, it had lost social control it once held over about 1,100 members. In this way,
Japanese Associations continued to exist having dealt with the crisis of 1924, albeit with
much decreased leverage and finance.
218

Despite its hardships, petty parochialism did not disappear from the Los Angeles
Association. What made the 1932 election so divisive were careless words uttered by the
incumbent president. A native of Fukuoka Prefecture, President Iku Akashi reportedly

218
“Iminhō no eikyō de Ra-nichikai no futokoroguai daibun henchō wo kitashite shūnyū wa jūrai no
san-bun-no-ichi ni gekigenshita ” [Immigration law greatly troubles the financial welfare of the Los
Angeles Japanese association whose income has declined to one third of what it used to be], Rafu
Shimpō, July 3, 1924; Yoneyama, “Rafu Nihonjin-kai yakuinsenkyo,” 17; Nanka Nikkeijin Shōgyō
Kaigisho, ed., Minami Kashū Nihonjin nanajūnenshi [The Seventy-year history of the Japanese in
Southern California] (Los Angeles: Nanka Nikkeijin Shōgyō Kaigisho, 1960), 399-400; Ochi, Minami
Kashū Nihonjinshi, 79; and Kanichi Kawasaki, “The Japanese Community of East San Pedro,” 139-
140.
222

grumbled about the relocation of the association’s office, putting the blame on “the noisy
Hiroshima party that occupies the room next door.” Infuriated, 14 officials of the
Hiroshima Prefectural Association or kenjin-kai held a special meeting and demanded
Akashi to withdraw his inappropriate remarks or to issue a statement of apology. The
Hiroshima group was even ready to mobilize the “Confederacy of Prefectural Groups”
(Rengō Kenjin Yūshi), an amalgam of prefectural associations that joined forces in
elections. Akashi immediately contacted the Rafu Hōchi Shimbun (Los Angeles Hōchi
Daily News) that had printed his “inappropriate” comments to ask for corrections, but the
newspaper company did not take back the article. Dissatisfied, the Hiroshima group
demanded an official statement from Akashi so that their honor could be restored.
Finally with the vice president’s mediation, Akashi handed a written statement in which
he expressed “regret” over the dispute caused by an inaccurate article that dishonored
Hiroshima people. The problem was solved but only tentatively.
219

Akashi’s blunder cost him dearly in the 1932 election. Intense confrontation between
the Akashi group and its opposition, namely the Confederacy, became unavoidable. The
main supporters of Akashi were those from Fukuoka and Wakayama Prefectures. Kashū
Mainichi Simbun (California Daily News) reported that the Akashi group turned to unfair
means during the campaign, putting pressure on voters, but the newspaper itself was by

219
“Hiroshima tō unnun de Rafu seikai ni doyomeku” [A stir in the Los Angeles political world due to
a statement about the Hiroshima party], Kashū Mainichi Simbun, December 14, 1931; “Akashi-san
tsuini ichirei: Hiroshimajin meiyo no tame hanahada ikan ni kanzu to” [Mr. Akashi finally bows: says
he feels much regret for dishonoring Hiroshima immigrants], Kashū Mainichi Simbun, December 15,
1931; Tsunegorō Hirohata, Zaibei Fukuoka kenjinshi [History of the development of the people in
North America from Fukuoka prefecture] (Los Angeles: Zaibei Fukuoka Kenjinshi Hensan Jumusho,
1931; Tōkyō: Bunsei Shoin, 2003), 168; and Yoneyama, “Rafu Nihonjin-kai yakuinsenkyo,” 7.
223

no means unbiased. The founder of Kashū Mainichi was Sei Fujii, an immigrant from
Yamaguchi Prefecture who had served the Los Angeles Association as president from
1921 to 1925 with Hiroshima immigrants’ support. Moreover, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi
and Kumamoto Prefectural Associations had openly backed Fujii when he was accused of
slandering an immigration officer. It was not surprising, then, that the newspaper
sounded more sympathetic to the Confederacy. Truth aside, the result of the election was
the Confederacy’s complete victory. By 1932 the full number of elected officials had
increased to 51, with one vacancy in this particular election, and out of 50 seats, 33 were
taken by candidates belonging to the Confederacy and 17 by the Akashi group. The pride
of native prefectures once again heated up the Los Angeles Association election, even
though the association itself lost the power it used to hold from the late 1910s to early
1920s.
220

Despite such heated power struggles among Los Angeles Japanese, inter-prefectural
rivalry did not necessarily mean that immigrants cared little about their ethnic unity as the

220
“Rengō kenjin yūshi sarani daidōdanketsu keikaku” [The confederacy of prefectural groups plans
further unity in the common interests], Kashū Mainichi Simbun, November 5, 1931; “Kōmushikkō wo
bōgai seba hyakumei no kankei mo shutsudō: Kā kyokuchō seimeisho happyō” [If the Japanese
obstruct the performance of official duties, a hundred policemen will be sent out: chief officer Carr (or
Karr) issues a statement], Kashū Mainichi Simbun, November 9, 1931; “Shōten wa kaichō sen: sanjiin
no kaobure de taisei wa kimaru” [Focus is on the presidential election: the lineup of board members
determines the general trend], Kashū Mainichi Simbun, January 20, 1932; “Rafu nikkai senkyosen no
ato: ikusa wa imakara! Shin sanjiin dakikomi undō: rengō-ha 33 – Akashi-ha 17: kaichō wa dareka?”
[In the wake of the Los Angeles association election: now begins the battle! A campaign to bring new
board members to each side: 33 in the confederacy of prefectural groups and 17 in the Akashi group:
who is going to be the president?], Kashū Mainichi Simbun, January 23, 1932; “Burisu iminkan ga
Fujii Sei-shi wo uttau: sakunen no jikyoku mondai tōji no enzetsu de songaiyōshōgaku 15man doru”
[Immigrant officer Bliss sues Mr. Sei Fujii: about the last year’s speech on current issues, requesting
150,000 dollars as compensation], Rafu Shimpō, October 13, 1931; and Yoneyama, “Rafu Nihonjin-
kai yakuinsenkyo,” 15-16.
224

Japanese. On the contrary, those loyal to prefectures were also patriots. In an
introduction to a book on the history of Wakayama immigrants in North America, a
contributor linked the development of Wakayama immigrants to the fate of the Japanese
Empire. “Ever since the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese have shown their true nature and
been active in commerce, navigation and emigration. Over the years, the Japanese have
made success many times across the ocean, and their forerunners were Wakayama
people,” he contends. He sees emigrants from Wakayama in North America as
representative of the nation.
221

Although their actions occasionally created fissures in the community, Hiroshima
immigrants in Los Angeles were concerned not only about their own interests but equally
about the development of the Japanese in the city. An editorial in the prefectural
association’s bulletin, referring to a view of prefectural identities as proof of
“insularism,” rejects this opinion by declaring that prefectures were critical to “the
collective development of the Japanese society in America.” “Just as there are villages,
towns, cities, states, the central government, platoons, companies, battalions, divisions,
and corps, a truly powerful unification materializes only when smaller pieces come
together to compose larger units,” it contends. In other words, prefectural associations
were not divisive as long as they worked together to support the unification of the
Japanese in America. The editorial further proposes an organizational change in the
current Japanese Association of Los Angeles, to make it a core body of prefectural

221
Kunisuke Okazaki, introduction to Zaibei Wakayamakenjin hattenshi.
225

associations. Then it will “become a truly powerful group with a firm basis, get more
members, and grow into a large organization that represents our residents both in name
and reality.”
222
The editor sees the problem of ethnic unity in terms of a lack of attention
to prefectures, not in terms of too much loyalty to them. If the Japanese Association had
been made into a central body of prefectural associations as this editor wished, Hiroshima
immigrants would have gained greater political power as the largest group within the new
organization. On the other hand, whoever wrote this editorial presented the issue as a
matter of national unity in a foreign land, likening a prefectural body to a small piece
composing a large unit, that is, the Japanese society in Los Angeles. Jun’ichi Takeda, an
official of the Hiroshima Prefectural Association, concurred by stating that “people
should have a love for their hometowns, just like they have a patriotic spirit. In short, I
would like to ask whether those who do not love their hometowns or prefectures of origin
can really love their nation.”
223
His language corresponded to the prewar hometown
ideology that identified a rural village as an idealized epitome of the nation. As these
examples demonstrate, localism often intersected nationalism in the language of
immigrant leaders and authors of emigration histories.
Likewise, many immigrants actively expressed their nationalism through the
framework of localism. They especially looked back on and materially supported their

222
“(Shasetsu) Nihonjin-kai wo rengō kenjin-kai to shitewa ikan” [Editorial: how about changing the
Japanese association to the confederacy of prefectural associations?], Geibijin 162 (January 1928): 5,
Box 357, Folder 1, JARP.
223
Jun’ichi Takeda, “Zaishoku jusshūnen wo mukaete” [Being in the position for ten years], Geibijin
162 (January 1928): 7.
226

native prefectures, hometowns and home villages in times of crisis, triumph, and war.
While Eiichiro Azuma traces the origin of modern Issei nationalism to Japan’s military
aggression in Manchuria during the 1930s, the Issei’s patriotic engagements with their
homeland began much earlier. Welcoming Japan’s imperial squadrons at American ports
with much fanfare was clearly a manifestation of nationalistic sentiments shared by
Japanese residents, and as early as 1880, the Japanese in San Francisco gave warm
hospitality to a crew of the warship Tsukuba. While Japanese Associations generally
coordinated the activities associated with entertaining crew members, other associations
with local identities based in Japan particularly hosted events welcoming officers sharing
the same hometowns or prefectures.
224

Examples of welcoming navy officers from immigrants’ home prefectures abounded.
What motivated Wakayama immigrants in Los Angeles to form their kenjin-kai in 1909
was the arrival of crew members from Wakayama on board the training warships Aso and
Sōya. In order to collect donations for a banquet, leaders among Wakayama immigrants
felt the need to organize their comrades. Such prefectural localism at times made some
people feel uneasy. When Commander Kuroi asked prefectural associations in San
Francisco not to host events in 1914, for example, it was rumored that Kuroi found it
unfair for one captain from Hiroshima to be greatly entertained and for another from
Akita not to be welcomed so much due to a small number of immigrants from the latter
prefecture. An incident of this kind did not dampen prefectural associations’ passion for

224
Azuma, Between Two Empires, 164.
227

welcoming guests sharing the home, although, at least once, associations in Los Angeles
worked together instead of hosing events individually. In March, 1933, prefectural
associations of Hiroshima, Ehime, Mie, Kagoshima, Chiba, Nagano, Fukushima, Fukui,
Kumamoto, Miyagi, Shizuoka, Okayama, Fukuoka and Tōkyō held a meeting to discuss
the preparation for welcoming a training squadron, together with the Japanese
Association and other organizations such as newspaper companies and a women’s
association. Curiously excluded from the meeting was the Wakayama kenjin-kai, as
expected if the politics related to the Japanese Association are taken into account. On
Terminal Island, the sonjin-kai functioned as an alternative organization to replace the
kenjin-kai, and according to one source, the Taiji-jin-kai (Taiji Village Association) gave
a pair of underpants to a sailor who was also a sumo wrestler—although it is not clear
whether the sailor was from Taiji. Giving hospitality to crew members of warships was,
therefore, a show of pride in strong imperial Japan as much as an act of experiencing that
sentiment through persons sharing the hometowns or prefectures of origin.
225

Japanese immigrants particularly demonstrated their strong patriotic feelings through
actions in times of war. While World War I offered the basis for intense Americanism to
follow in its aftermath, it also kindled Issei nationalism directed toward the Japanese
Empire. A public meeting planned for Los Angeles Japanese right after Japan had

225
Nanka Nikkeijin Shōgyō Kaigisho, Minami Kashū Nihonjinshi [The history of the Japanese in
Southern California] (Los Angeles: Nanka Nikkeijin Shōgyō Kaigisho, 1956), 15-16; Nanka
Wakayama Kenjin-kai, Nanka Wakayama kenjin, 12; “Zappō: fuhyōban naru Kuroi shireikan (4)
zuisho ni shittai wo enzu” [Miscellaneous: Commander Kuroi with a bad reputation (4) fails
everywhere], Rafu Shimpō, July 11, 1914; “Rafu Nihonjin-kai kiroku (4)” [Los Angeles Japanese
association minutes (4)], March 10, 1933, Box 238, JARP; and Takeuchi, San Pīdro dōhō hattenroku,
172.
228

entered the war attracted an audience of 1,200. The speakers not only gave information
on the military situation but also talked about the need to solve problems between Japan
and America on this occasion. Possibly hinting that Japan’s ambitions on China was
displeasing the United States, one speaker professed that Japan should solve diplomatic
issues with China and the United States to restore permanent peace in the East. All the
audience concurred, and he declared to telegraph his statement to the prime minister. To
support the cause of war, immigrants collected imon-bukuro or comfort bags containing
gifts and daily necessities to be distributed to Japanese soldiers in action. While some
donated these bags individually, many others sent them through prefectural associations
as well as women’s associations and religious organizations. The Hiroshima Prefectural
Association was especially active, promising the Rafu Shimpō newspaper company,
which offered to send the collected bags, to contribute 300 bags. Two days later, it
declared to add 500 more, because too many people wanted to donate comfort bags.
These people did not have to be members of the association, and those who lived away
from Los Angeles were allowed to substitute money for bags by sending 25 cents per bag
to the association. Hiroshima immigrants went so far as to have a feast to celebrate
Japan’s victory in the Battle of Qingdao, at the same time holding an inauguration of their
savings association. Immigrant nationalism manifested itself through localism so
naturally that these two isms were utterly compatible.
226

226
“Sakuya no enzetsukai seikyō: chōshū muryo sen-nihyaku mei” [Yesterday night’s meeting was
full of excitement: the audience of about 1,200 attended], Rafu Shimpō, August 16, 1914; “Hiroshima
kenjinkai to imon-bukuro” [The Hiroshima prefectural association and comfort bags], Rafu Shimpō,
October 23, 1914; “Sonogo no imon-bukuro: kinō wa nihyaku-niju-kko” [What happened to comfort
bags: 220 contributions yesterday], Rafu Shimpō, October 25, 1914; “Zairyūmin no giki zecchō ni
tassu: chūkun aikoku no sekisei imon-bukuro ni shūchūsu” [The feeling of justice among the Japanese
229

Issei nationalism did not conflict with Americanism either. In 1918, the Japanese
Association of Los Angeles asked immigrants to buy war bonds to support the
government of the United States. The “Fourth Liberty Loan Japanese Committee,”
established within the association, published a leaflet encouraging Japanese residents to
“fulfill our duty as the human race to support the United States and the Allies” because
World War I was “a war with humanistic and democratic causes, and fought for the sake
of us at the minimum and, at a higher level, for the entire humanity.” The committee
emphasized the role played by the Japanese in the United States but did not forget to
mention the concrete benefit the Japanese would enjoy by purchasing war bonds. It was
“the most natural way to prove the friendship between Japan and the United States” and
at the same time “the safest means of saving money.” “We are now facing the best
opportunity to demonstrate loyalty to the United States while contributing to the
friendship between two countries and saving money safely,” the committee contended.
Finally, it made clear that subscribing to liberty bonds was a way to show that the
Japanese were “model residents” in the United States. Despite the discriminatory
treatment that the Japanese received in the United States, the association instructed
Japanese residents to live up to Americanism so that they could make a good impression

in America reaches its height: the heartfelt loyalty to the emperor and patriotism converges on comfort
bags], Rafu Shimpō, October 29, 1914; and “Zappō: imon-bukuro honjitsu shimekiri: sōbako yonjūyo
ni noboru” [Miscellaneous: today is the deadline for comfort bags: the total number of boxes comes to
more than 40], Rafu Shimpō, November 12, 1914.
230

on whites and contribute to bettering U.S.-Japan relations. Loyalty to America thus
entailed international implications.
227

The Japanese Association of Los Angeles took actions to implement what they
preached. It divided the region it had jurisdiction over into 22 districts and assigned to
each district committee members responsible for persuading local Japanese residents to
buy liberty bonds. Three weeks of canvassing bore fruit, and the Rafu Shimpō proudly
announced the Japanese “victory”—the Japanese, among citizens and foreigners in Los
Angeles, contributed the largest sum of money to the liberty loan, amounting to 250,000
dollars. According to the consulate’s report, the final sum collected from Los Angeles
Japanese was 281,150 dollars, roughly a half of 556,400 dollars contributed by all the
Japanese in Southern California. Despite such a triumph, committee members directed
their anger at rich but stingy people who did not buy liberty bonds, even calling them “hi-
kokumin” or “un-Japanese.” Class tension contributed to disrupting ethnic unity at the
best moment to score points with Americans. Local identities or prefecturalism did not
interfere or contribute much this time, as the Japanese Association strove to present the
entire Japanese population of the city as model foreign residents fit to American
society.
228

227
“Rafu Nihonjin-kai kiroku (1),” September 10, 1918, Box 237, JARP.
228
“Dōhō bosaigaku” [The amount expected from our comrades], Rafu Shimpō, October 8, 1918;
“Zappō: Bosai daishōri: Chuō Kōen ni meiyo-ki hirugaeru: gaikokujin chū Nihonjin dai-ichii”
[Miscellaneous: a great victory in applications for bonds: a flag of honor flutters in the Central Park:
the Japanese wins the first place among foreigners], Rafu Shimpō, October 22, 1918; “Zappō: hi-
kokumin happyō: fu-ōbo no rinshoku kanemochi-ren: iin no hi-reigi mo aru” [Miscellaneous:
exposing un-Japanese people: rich but stingy people did not apply: committee members are also to
blame for their lack of manners], Rafu Shimpō, October 23, 1918; and “Dōhō ōbogaku: ryōjikan chōsa
231

Immigrants sometimes acted as nationals but turned to local ties in other occasions.
Their altruistic actions in supporting comrades suffering from disasters manifested their
localism, but when disasters were too great to ignore for anyone in the Japanese
community, immigrants acted as patriotic Japanese subjects regardless of their
hometowns. Prefectural and village associations gave monetary support to victims of
disasters, accidents and epidemics, whether these people in trouble were in Japan or in
the United States. When a fire struck Guadalupe, California, and burned down some
Wakayama immigrants’ houses and stores, the Wakayama Prefectural Association of
Guadalupe set aside 160 dollars from its funds to be paid to the victims. Sending relief to
native prefectures or villages hit by disasters was as common as helping fellow residents
in America. When a fire broke out in the town of Taiji, Wakayama, in 1915, the same
prefectural association in Guadalupe collected donations soon after receiving requests
from the leaders of Taiji. Although the exact date is unknown, an economic association
catering to the needs of Shizuoka immigrants on Terminal Island sent 559 dollars to the
prefecture suffering from an earthquake.
229

When a disaster was so large that it concerned the whole nation, however, helping the
victims went beyond a local matter. The Great Kantō Earthquake that devastated Tōkyō
and its vicinity in September, 1923, worried Japanese residents in America regardless of
their prefectures of origin. Prefectural Associations of Tōkyō, Hiroshima and Yamaguchi

shūryō” [The amount collected from our comrades: the consulate finishes research], Rafu Shimpō,
November 28, 1918.
229
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi, 426-427; and Takeuchi, San Pīdro dōhō hattenroku, 179.
232

in Los Angeles immediately took action to raise money, as well as various associations
and individuals in the city, Hollywood, San Pedro, San Luis Obispo, Riverside and
Brawley. Especially 14 to 15 members of the Tōkyō Prefectural Association swiftly
offered a total amount of 850 dollars prior to collecting donations from other members.
Although no record exists to show whether the Wakayama Prefectural Association in Los
Angeles collected donations, their counterpart in Guadalupe contributed 329 dollars
through the consulate. By November, a total of 500,000 yen (approximately 250,000
dollars) had been sent to Japan through a special committee named the Nanka Dōhō
Bokoku Kyūsaikai or the Committee of Comrades in Southern California to Help Our
Mother Country. Even during this crisis, some residents apparently did not forget about
the importance of acting as representatives of Japan. A writer of a letter sent to the Rafu
Shimpō called the current situation a “mercy” because the quake incurred Americans’
sympathy despite their past anti-Japanese sentiments. Therefore, the Japanese in
America should express their deep gratitude to Americans, the writer suggests, so that
they could not only convince Americans to offer more effective support but also help
promote Japanese-American friendship. The Great Kantō Earthquake mobilized
prefectural associations, but it also compelled individuals to act more as the “Japanese”
than as locals of such and such prefectures or villages. In this case, prefectural
associations functioned as a channel through which money was forwarded rather than as
a device to provoke emotions for specific hometowns.
230

230
“Shasetsu: kokoku shinsai ni taisuru zairyū dōhō no taido” [Editorial: our comrades’ attitude
toward the quake in our homeland], Rafu Shimpō, September 6, 1923; “Gikin kifu boshū undō furuu:
kakuchi zairyū dōhō kozotte funkisu” [Campaigns to collect donations are in full swing: the Japanese
233

Not only disasters but sports contributed to intensifying Issei nationalism veiled in
localism. In 1927, the baseball team of Wakayama Middle School, a winner of the
national tournament, made a trip around the American West. The Ōsaka Mainichi
Shimbun (Ōsaka Daily News) sponsored their trip so that young people could study the
climate of America. Japan and the United States had issues with each other, particularly
concerning the Japanese on the Pacific Coast, the newspaper suggests. While some
people travelled to America to study these problems, young people with a future had not
been given a chance to do so, and this was why it volunteered to send minors to the
country. The baseball team was expected to serve as a friendship ambassador and to
entertain Japanese residents in America. The team visited Vancouver, Seattle, Portland,
San Francisco, Sacramento, Fresno, Los Angeles and Hawaii, and they were warmly
welcomed by Wakayama Prefectural Associations everywhere. Having played exhibition
games with American teams, one student learned that there was not much difference
between Japanese and American baseball players in terms of ability. While the Issei gave
hospitality to baseball players as co-locals sharing the native prefecture, they were in a
sense also entertaining Japanese representatives who could match equally with
Americans in games.
231

all over America are all energized], Rafu Shimpō, September 6, 1923; and “Nanka karano kyūjutsukin:
gojūman-en no kanshajō kuru” [A letter comes appreciating the donation of 500,000 yen from
Southern California], Rafu Shimpō, November 6, 1923. One hundred yen equaled 48.15 dollars in
1921. See Naikaku Tōkeikyoku, ed., Nihon teikoku tōkei nenkan [Statistical yearbook of the empire
of Japan], vol. 42 (Tōkyō: Naikaku Tōkeikyoku, 1924), 319.
231
Wakayama-ken, Wakayama-ken iminshi, 449-452.
234

Ethnic pride reached its height at the 1932 Olympic Games held in Los Angeles,
enthusing Japanese residents regardless of their prefecture of origin, while immigrants
especially welcomed athletes who came from the same prefecture as theirs. As Eriko
Yamamoto has shown, the Japanese, both Issei and Nisei, openly affirmed “ethnic pride
that did not conflict with their Americanism” while they used kenjin-kai to entertain the
athletes. The Miyagi Prefectural Association invited an equestrian from their prefecture
and his colleagues to a banquet that attracted 50 people. The Kagoshima Prefectural
Association did the same for two equestrians from their prefecture. One columnist,
supposedly a native of Wakayama, contributed articles to the Rafu Shimpō, in which he
specifically focused on and cheered for 6 athletes from Wakayama. Several prefectural
associations cooperated with the Japanese Association in hosting a gorgeous ceremony to
welcome athletes, on which 1,300 dollars were spent. As the Olympic Games offered a
good opportunity for those born in America to appreciate their parents’ country, some
Nisei were chosen specifically to entertain athletes. The Japanese thus projected their
patriotism onto athletes representing their country, expecting the second generation to
share their pride in Japan, while they showered their co-locals with warm welcomes.
Immigrant localism permeated and even strengthened nationalism.
232

232
Eriko Yamamoto, “Cheers for Japanese Athletes: The 1932 Los Angeles Olympics and the
Japanese American Community,” Pacific Historical Review 69, no. 3 (2000): 399-430, esp. 401 and
407; “Miyagi kenjinkai no kangeikai: shukyaku kan wo gaishite hijōna seikai” [The Miyagi
prefectural association hosts a welcoming party: entertaining main guests and full of excitement], Rafu
Shimpō, June 13, 1932; “Yūshin, haki ni moetsutsu waga senshu Kashima tatsu!! Mezasu wa akaruki
Rafu no tenchi: Beikoku taishi no gekirei enzetsu” [Our athletes depart from Kashima, full of energy
and spirit!! Heading toward the bright land of Los Angeles: speeches encouraging athletes to achieve
success in America], Rafu Shimpō, June 21, 1932; and “Nihon senshu kangei no junyō totonou: yokyō
wa shutoshite Nisei wo dasu: yosan wa sensanbyaku-doru” [Arrangements for welcoming Japanese
235

Ultimately, Japan’s undeclared war with China in 1937 marked the height of Issei
nationalism before the Pacific War. As Yuji Ichioka has shown, Japanese Associations
took the lead in disseminating pro-Japanese propaganda and giving moral support to
Japan’s cause and material support to soldiers. The difference between this and previous
wars was that Japan was on a collision course with the United States, leading Japanese
residents in America to defend its cause all the more earnestly. In the early phase of war,
however, few recognized that their patriotism would never go hand in hand with their
feeling of appreciation toward America. Although the country had denied citizenship to
the Japanese and banned new Japanese immigration, the state-supported discrimination
on racial grounds did not embitter old immigrants completely. Some even brought up
their deep gratitude to America when talking about their devotion to Japan. A 72-year-
old male immigrant from Mie asked the Kashū Mainichi Simbun to send his contribution
of 500 yen to the Ministry of War of Japan. “I am already 72 years old, but luckily I am
leading a safe and happy life. This is all thanks to both Japan and the United States,” he
states. “Although I have never forgotten an obligation to the Emperor, at the same time I
think I must repay the kindness given by America. . . . Even though I am a 72-year-old
man, I am determined to keep working hard from now on and make contributions to
Japan.” A hotel owner in Little Tokyo also donated 500 yen, saying: “Thanks to the
governments of Japan and the United States, I have led a happy life in America for long
years. I think we should do something when soldiers are devoting themselves to Japan’s

athletes are in order: Nisei are chiefly responsible for the entertainment: the budget is 1,300 dollars],
Kashū Mainichi Simbun, June 29, 1932.
236

cause.” Loyalty to Japan was one thing while a sense of gratitude to America was quite
another.
233

Although some individuals expressed their support of Japan’s cause and made
donations on their own (see Figures 31 and 32), organizational fund-raising was effective
in collecting a large sum of money. So that the Japanese could show their “devotion to
their country at home front from abroad,” the Japanese Association of Los Angeles
decided to collect donations while the Women’s Association was assigned a task related
to comfort bags. Moreover, immigrants again expressed their nationalism through the
lens of local identities. The Bōchō Seinenkai (Bōchō Youth Club), an organization
whose members had roots in Yamaguchi Prefecture, took immediate action after the
outbreak of war, hosting a public meeting to discuss the “North China Incident” that
attracted an audience of more than 2,000. When one speaker criticized the Great
Britain’s and France’s intervention and praised Japan’s adamant attitude, a thunder of
applause filled the entire hall. Sei Fujii, a native of Yamaguchi and president of Kashū
Mainichi Shimbun also took the platform, discussing the Japanese Army’s sincerity,
shouting, “this is a Japanese spirit!,” and asking “who will defend the Orient?” to which
he answered, “I believe it is the Japanese spirit.” At the meeting the Bōchō Seinenkai
collected more than 202 dollars as donations, part of which they decided to forward to the

233
Yuji Ichioka, “Japanese Immigrant Nationalism: The Issei and the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-
1941,” California History 69, no. 3 (1990): 260-275; and “Mayumi Seijirō-shi ga gohyaku-en kenkin:
Mie kenjin de nanajūni no rōō” [Mr. Seijirō Mayumi donates 500 yen: an old man of age 72 from Mie
prefecture], Kashū Mainichi Simbun, August 3, 1937; and “Shimizu, Nitake, Hayashi no sanshi ga
gohyaku-en ate kennō: kono sanshi wa Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Saitama no hito” [Mrs. Shimizu,
Nitake and Hayashi, donate 500 yen: three are from Hiroshima, Yamaguchi and Saitama], Kashū
Mainichi Simbun, August 11, 1937.
237

Ministry of War of Japan. This was in addition to donations already made the previous
year by the Seinenkai, and because of such good deeds, it was recognized as a model
organization by Japanese residents in Los Angeles, according to the Kashū Mainichi
Shimbun. Other prefectural organizations, such as the Prefectural Associations of
Fukuoka and Kanagawa, followed suit by making contributions. Some people especially
cared about the consequences of war on their hometowns, like villagers of Tachibana in
Fukuoka who donated 1,600 yen and townspeople of Kuga in Yamaguchi who sent 600
yen back home to help families deprived of their husbands, fathers and sons. Immigrant
patriotism was particularly kindled by such concerns for hometowns while the prefectural
association served as a convenient medium through which people funneled money into
Japan’s war effort.
234

234
“Kaigai ni aroutomo warera ni jūgo no sekisei: sakuya no Rafu nichikai sanjiinkai: juppei kenkin
undō wo ketsugi” [Our devotion in the home front from abroad: the Los Angeles Japanese association
board meeting decides last night in favor of a campaign to collect donations to the war relief fund],
Rafu Shimpō, August 5, 1937; “Hokushi jihen enzetsukai: chōshū nisen yūyo: Bōchō seinenkai no
bikyo: gohyaku-en wo rikugunshō e” [A speech meeting to talk about the North China incident: an
audience of more than 2,000: an admirable feat achieved by the Bōchō youth club: sending 500 yen to
the ministry of war], Kashū Mainichi Simbun, July 24, 1937; “Fukuoka, Kanagawa ryō kenjinkai
kenkin” [Both Fukuoka and Kanagawa prefectural associations make donations], Kashū Mainichi
Simbun, August 13, 1937; “Kasuya-gun Tachibanasonjin ga senroppyaku-en kenkin” [People of
Tachibana village, Kasuga county, donate 1,600 yen], Kashū Mainichi Simbun, September 21, 1937;
and “Shussei gunjin kazoku no tameni chōchō ate roppyaku-en sōkin: Yamaguchi-ken Ōshima-gun
Kuka-chō shusshinsha” [Immigrants from Kuka town, Ōshima county, Yamaguchi prefecture, send
600 yen to the mayor for the families of soldiers in active service], Kashū Mainichi Simbun,
September 26, 1937.
238

Figure 31: Testimonial Sent from Minister of War Hata to Tetsunosuke Koiso, 1940

Testunosuke Koiso, who had migrated from Taiji to San Pedro by fraudulent means, contributed
to the community development on Terminal Island as a board member of the Japanese
Association of San Pedro and in various other capacities. The testimonial was sent from the War
Minister to Koiso to appreciate the latter’s donation to the Japanese Army. It roughly says: “We
feel deeply grateful for your donation of the war relief fund to the army sent out in this current
war.” Courtesy of Taijichō Kōminkan, Taiji, Wakayama.

239

Figure 32: Receipt of Fees Paid to the Navy Association of Japan, 1940

The receipt shows that Tetsunosuke Koiso paid 25 dollars to the Navy Association’s Los Angeles
office to become a regular member. Courtesy of Taijichō Kōminkan.

Ardent patriotism even overshadowed parochialism. Although the Kashū Mainichi
Simbun did not openly admit it, the president’s roots in Yamaguchi and its frequent
coverage of news about Yamaguchi-related organizations suggest that it was particularly
sympathetic to immigrants from the prefecture. When a group of Hiroshima immigrants
started publishing their own newspaper to “eradicate” the Kashū Mainichi, some rumored
that the majority of Hiroshima people were antagonistic to the Kashū Mainichi. “The
truth is exactly the opposite,” the paper declares. Actually, serious people from
Hiroshima were supporters of the paper, it states. Introducing one patriot from
Hiroshima named Oki, who left 100 dollars to the Kashū Mainichi to be sent to Japan, the
240

paper concludes that “Rai San’yō, a native of Hiroshima who inculcated the spirit of the
Meiji Restoration to the youth of Chōshū (part of Yamaguchi), would be pleased by a
patriot like Mr. Oki.” The Kashū Mainichi Simbun in a way utilized immigrant
patriotism to calm inter-prefectural rivalry and to promote ethnic unity.
235

Ethnic unity did not prevent immigrants from identifying with local heroes, however.
Ueda and Kawaguchi, both from Fukuoka, contributed 1,000 yen and 500 yen
respectively to Japan, because they were especially concerned about this crisis as persons
from the same prefecture as Foreign Minister Hirota. Moreover, Ueda was from the same
town with General Sugimoto and went to the same elementary school. “As a native of
Fukuoka that produced figures like Hirota and Sugimoto, I am naturally so proud,” says
Ueda. “I want to contribute to my country even if I have to withdraw all the money from
my savings account.” Kawaguchi admitted that Fukuoka people in Southern California
were proud because, according to him, only dignitaries from Fukuoka had done well for
Japan so far. The Buzenjin-kai, an association established for people from Buzen area
(part of Fukuoka and Ōita), also made donations. When founded in 1934, the association
had declared to especially tackle problems associated with the aging Issei generation as
well as issues surrounding the Nisei such as education, marriage and occupations. Its
prospectus reads: “Japan is now taking a great leap forward and strengthening its national
power. The imperial flag will shine in the world. On this occasion, we, Japanese

235
“Azusa no Oki Tsuneshirō-shi imonkin hyaku-doru kennō: kono aikokusha wa Hiroshimajin” [Mr.
Tsuneshirō Oki of Azusa donates a gift of 100 dollars: this patriot is a native of Hiroshima], Kashū
Mainichi Simbun, July 30, 1937.
241

residents abroad, have roused ourselves to change our mind, to deeply understand the
current position of the Japanese race, and to raise the Nisei to be proud Japanese, all
because of our love of the native land.” As if to embody such enthusiasm for their native
region and for the Japanese Empire at large, Buzenjin-kai forwarded 1,000 dollars to the
governor of Fukuoka. The fact that General Sugiyama was from the region particularly
overheated association members, who wanted to make a man of Sugiyama. Similarly,
immigrants from Fukui, who contributed more than 4,000 yen, took pride in a Saitō, a
sailor who had died with honor in the battlefield of Shanghai, and Admiral Hasegawa,
both from Fukui. Fukui immigrants were so proud of Petty Officer Saitō that they
decided to give 300 yen to his bereaved family. By identifying with heroes and soldiers
from the same prefecture, Japanese immigrants appreciated nationalism as something
familiar to them. They supported Japan’s cause all the more because they were proud of
their native prefectures, and they loved their prefectures all the more because they were
patriots.
236

From the late nineteenth century to the eve of the Pacific War, Japanese immigrants
in Southern California essentially behaved as natives of particular prefectures even after

236
“Sangeburu sangyō kumiai sei fuku kaichō ga sengohyaku-en kennō: Ueda-shi ga sen-en,
Kawaguchi-shi gohyaku-en” [The president and vice president of the San Gabriel industrial
association donate 1,500 yen: 1,000 yen from Mr. Ueda and 500 yen from Mr. Kawaguchi], Kashū
Mainichi Simbun, August 10, 1937; “Sugiyama taishō wo nakasu de arou Buzenjin no kimae” [Buzen
people’s generosity will make General Sugiyama cry], August 18, 1937; “Hasegawa shireikan wo
dashita Fukuikenjin ga yonsen-en kennō” [Immigrants from Fukui, Admiral Hasegawa’s native
prefecture, donate 4,000 yen], August 19, 1937; “Fukui kenjinkai Saitō heisō no izoku e sanbyaku-en
zōyo” [The Fukui prefectural association gives 300 yen to Petty Officer Saitō’s bereaved family],
August 27, 1937; and “Buzenjin dōshikai setsuritsu shuisho” [The association of Buzen people, the
prospectus], December 1934, Box 136, Folder 10, Shinkichiro Shima Papers, JARP.
242

they had lived in the United States for some time. Despite their diversity in roots,
however, American society lumped together all the Japanese and discriminated them
equally on racial grounds. Although occasionally class difference was taken into account,
ultimately the Japanese suffered from legal, social and cultural barriers that made them
non-citizens. Such contexts possibly affected immigrants’ identification to a
considerable degree, as they were expected by Americans to act as the “Japanese” as well
as compelled to cope with issues affecting their lives and their children’s as a unified
force. Nonetheless, immigrants continued to use local identities not only because they
loved their home but also because they saw nationalism as an extension of localism.
Although such feelings were possibly not unique to immigrants but shared also by the
Japanese in Japan, immigrant localism particularly intensified as prefectural rivalry made
people vie for power within a closed society. In a way, the Japanese in Southern
California reconstructed their prefectural identities so that they could get the most out of
limited privileges offered in America. Despite such practical attitudes, in the end the
Japanese wholeheartedly supported their comrades from the same prefecture as much as
they cheered for Japan’s victory in battles or shed tears over victims of disasters from
different prefectures. Nationalism comingled with localism and vice versa, but few
Americans would have understood the complexity of such relations.
243

Conclusion

While feeling a regret at parting with the hometown
In Wakayama tinged with the color of tangerines
We drifted with the waves
With a deep and shining hope
To cross over to Southern California in America
That is the location famous for tangerines likewise

The idea was deeply ingrained in the minds of Kishū-jin (people from Wakayama)
That this was the second home to us
As we picked golden tangerines in orchards
And fished plenty of tuna in the ocean
Our efforts were rewarded
And our prefecture has become unique among our comrades

So, keep working and do not stay lazy
We are proud Kishū-jin in Southern California
Even in the face of tremendous anti-Japanese attacks
Let’s go together, Kishū-jin
Let us be recognized as the flower
Among Yamato danshi (the ideal Japanese men), Kishū-jin

“An Encouraging Song for Wakayama Immigrants in Southern California,” 1927 or
earlier, translated by the author
237

Another “encouraging song” meant to be sung by Wakayama immigrants in Southern
California conveys the essence of immigrant localism. While the first song cited in the
Introduction illuminates the double meaning of “home” to immigrants, this song
addresses more complicated feelings of immigrants, manifested through the pride for a
prefectural identity, situated in the context of inter-prefectural rivalry and anti-Japanese
agitation. The first stanza makes an analogy between Wakayama and Southern

237
Nanka Wakayama Kenjin-kai, Nanka Wakayama kenjin, 162.
244

California from the perspective of the main staple, tangerines, so that anyone still with “a
regret” at leaving the home village would not feel sad. The second stanza refers to
primary occupations that Wakayama immigrants engaged in, namely, agricultural
laboring and fishing, as if to emphasize the degree to which they contributed to the
development of Japanese society as well as California. Their serious efforts bore fruit,
the anonymous writer continues, and made them an outstanding community rooted in
Wakayama—possibly more so than their archrival, Hiroshima immigrants (although the
writer does not say this). Finally, the last stanza advises fellow Wakayama immigrants to
be the model Japanese, by confronting the injustice of anti-Japanese movements and
conforming to the ideals of respectable Japanese men with ancient Japanese blood. By
repeatedly bringing up Kishū-jin, a name referring to people from Wakayama, the song
appeals to the sentiment of localism, and yet also reminds Wakayama immigrants that
they were Kishū-jin destined to live in their second home, California, and expected to
behave as the representative Japanese.
Translocalsim is a key to understanding the nature of pre-World War II Japanese
labor migration and settlement in California. As much as a nation-state was a modern
construct, the majority of people’s identities were still deeply rooted in the immediate
contexts surrounding their lives from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth
century, as discussed in Chapter 1. This situation worked as a backdrop for the translocal
identity formation among Japanese immigrants once they were abroad. Chapters 2 and 3
have demonstrated that people made their migration translocal by moving from particular
villages in Japan to specific foreign destinations. Emigration patterns among Wakayama
245

migrants show that networks at the regional and village levels strongly influenced
prospective emigrants’ decisions as to where to go. Residential, occupational and
marriage patterns among Japanese immigrants in the United States, particularly among
those in Southern California, suggest that they brought over their local networks and
locality-based job qualifications from Japan, well into the 1920s. Although patterns were
not always clearly visible at the level of village networks, some occupations and localities
specifically related to the fishery industry essentially required village ties among
immigrants, confirming the translocal nature of Japanese migration.
Chapter 4 in further detail has shown how one particular trans-Pacific community
emerged in the early twentieth century, connecting Terminal Island, California, and
various villages along the southern coast of Wakayama Prefecture, Japan—particularly
the village of Taiji. Residents on Terminal Island as well as returnees and those left
behind in Taiji maintained a strong translocal relationship by keeping the flows of people,
goods and money alive, even in the face of anti-Japanese agitation in the United States.
Finally, Chapter 5 has made clear that the meanings attached to “localism” changed
depending on contexts. Where Japanese politics in Los Angeles were concerned,
immigrants recreated and invested in their new local identities based on the “prefecture of
origin” to protect whatever they scraped up in the new land. The intensified prefectural
identity nonetheless helped immigrants sustain their translocal identification, as some felt
proud of the achievements made by the Japanese from the same native prefectures, or
saddened by the news of natural disasters affecting their home prefectures. At the same
time, immigrants used their translocal identities to call for strong nationalism toward
246

Japan and to influence US-Japan relations, as people situated in between two places but
driven by a strong sense of mission to take advantage of their peculiarity.
Thus, Japanese immigrants from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth did
not simply behave as people moving between two nations. Rather, they brought over
local identities and cultures, transplanted them, and in so doing recreated them to meet
their needs. When they spoke of bridging the United States and Japan, many Japanese
immigrants did not think of themselves as representing nations. Rather, what first came
to mind was being a bridge between their hometowns on each side of the Pacific. As
global actors, their identity remained decidedly local.
While the current immigration scholarship emphasizes the transnational aspects of
migrant lives and experiences, the framework of translocalism adds a new dimension to
our understanding of immigration history. While immigration scholars question
unilateral processes of assimilation and stress immigrant agency in freely crossing
national borders, their transnational frameworks force them to look squarely at the
nation-state as central to immigrant identity. In order words, transnational scholars have
sought to get beyond national history by simply adding another nation to the analysis. As
much as this has been an innovative approach to historical studies, the dual-national
approach tends to homogenize the local diversity among immigrant groups and obscures
the fact that transnational interactions and practices were shaped not only by historical
contexts but also by space. Depending on locales in both sending and receiving societies,
transnationalism took many different forms. Immigration historians would benefit from
247

accumulating case studies of translocal immigrant experiences in order to sort out various
forms of immigrant cultural retention and incorporation into American society.
The translocal framework employed in this dissertation offers a better way than
transnational approaches for getting beyond national history. First, a close attention to
regional differences saves us from automatically bestowing a national identity on
immigrants, many of whom came from countries still in early phases of modern nation-
making. Moreover, the translocal approach helps us detect diverse patterns of emigration
and accommodation, leading us to realize that historical contingencies and human
relations, and not necessarily developments occurring at the national level, determined
the course of history. Furthermore, the translocal approach better explains today’s
immigrant localism.
The translocal framework is useful in analyzing international migration in a global
age, even though it has become less meaningful in studying contemporary Japanese
overseas migration in particular. For one thing, Japan is no more a nation sending a large
number of labor emigrants that it once was. Now it has become a nation in desperate
need of foreign labor. Moreover, those intending to stay abroad for a while, such as
students and expats rather than laborers, could use alternative networks instead of region-
based relationships—the ones cultivated in schools and workplaces. Information about
foreign countries is more easily available to a wider population, via travel agencies and
through the media, particularly the Internet. While ties across the Pacific connecting two
localities could be still meaningful today as in Taiji and Los Angeles, fewer Japanese
people nowadays would learn about the possibility of earning money abroad from their
248

friends, relatives, or neighbors. Nonetheless, the significance of studying translocalism
among immigrants in contemporary contexts is never lost. Post-World War II Japanese
overseas immigrants—long-time settlers—still use prefectural associations in
maintaining ties with their homeland as well as in cultivating friendships among
themselves. Some prefectural associations try to reach out to the youth by offering
scholarships to the descendants of immigrants. What does this recreation and
reinforcement of prefectural identities in the contemporary context mean? Moreover, if
we turn our eyes to immigrant groups other than the Japanese, we also find a good
number of examples in which migration has created translocal contexts, as in the case of
Mexican groups in the United States. It is possible that undocumented immigrants and
those with less accessibility to the media would turn to regional networks more often than
not, as well as people hailing from areas where there is strong culture of migration today.
Thus, translocal processes are at work in contemporary labor migration, and it is the task
of immigration scholars to look at these examples to better explain how globalization
works at the grass-roots level.
249

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Asset Metadata

Creator Konno, Yuko (author)

Core Title Trans-Pacific localism: emigration, adaptation, and nationalism among Japanese immigrants in California, 1890-1940

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program History

Publication Date 07/17/2014

Defense Date 05/04/2012

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag immigration,OAI-PMH Harvest,transnationalism,US-Japan relations

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Kurashige, Lon (committee chair), Katada, Saori N. (committee member), Sanchez, George J. (committee member), Yamashita, Samuel (committee member)

Creator Email konno@usc.edu,yukokonno@hotmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-60579

Unique identifier UC11290468

Identifier usctheses-c3-60579 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-KonnoYuko-960.pdf

Dmrecord 60579

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Konno, Yuko

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA