Japanese American immigration and assimilation

Author

Lynn Jones

Graduation Date

2005

Document Type

Project

Program

Other

Program

Thesis/Project (M.S.S.)--Humboldt State University, Emphasis in American History, 2005.

Committee Chair Name

Dennis Fitzsimons

Committee Chair Affiliation

HSU Faculty or Staff

Keywords

World War, 1939-1945., Japanese internment--United States., Humboldt State University -- Projects -- Teaching American History, United States--Detention policy., Humboldt State University -- Projects -- Social Science

Abstract

Using World War II as a pivotal period from which to view Japanese-American assimilation, this study will probe laws, attitudes and motives that led to the "military necessity" of Japanese internment in 1942. The controversies that emerged over the constitutionality of relocation are a backdrop for analyzing the geographic factors in Japanese settlement in Hawaii, California, Oregon, and Washington, and for analyzing the differences in detention policies. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle, General John DeWitt, and American-born Fred Korematsu provide character studies that reflect the legal, military, and social debates central to detention. Racially restrictive laws which segregated Japanese students from public schools, made citizenship unavailable to non-whites, and prohibited aliens from owning land are critical to understanding the pervasive racism that limited the civil rights of Japanese Americans at the time. Before 1853 Japanese culture was separate and insulated from western development for centuries. The circumstances that opened Japan to trade, pushed Japanese from their homeland, pulled the first generation of migrants to Hawaii, and eventually to the west coast as contract laborers, will initiate the fourth, fifth, or eighth grade unit of study. Students will survey Japanese cultural traits, from arts to social hierarchies, provide comparative information and a scale by which to measure Japanese American assimilation. Finally, students will examine post World War II Japanese Americans, many of whom lost businesses, land, and status during internment. Both Japanese and white attitudes changed. Systematically and determinedly Japanese Americans ascended U.S. social, educational, and economic ladders, maintaining cultural traits while achieving success in American terms.

https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/concern/theses/0c483m65b

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