The economic status of the Japanese appears to be about the same as that of European immigrants. This is indisputable from the sheer fact that the earnings of both are about the same. The only difference is that the Japanese show a tendency to mediocrity of earning power without becoming either paupers or millionaires. This is due to the fact that while there is an abundance of work offered to Japanese which enables them to earn a comfortable living, all avenues for a greater economic success are closed to them. No sooner do the Japanese show signs of some small success in agriculture than the privilege to till the soil is denied them. A similar restraint is now being attempted on the Japanese progress in fishing in California. In a sense, economic welfare is the foundation of cultural and spiritual progress, and to be denied the opportunity to make progress in this field is a heavy disadvantage.
The gravest defect of the Japanese is their lack of training in democratic institutions. Having been given little opportunity to share in public or political activities in Japan, their understanding and training in civic duties is notoriously weak. Obviously this must hinder the process of Americanization to a great extent. To counteract this weakness the dissemination among them of a knowledge of American civics is necessary. It may be most effectively done by allowing them to share in a measure the American communal activities. But this is a privilege denied them.
The foregoing discussion of the cultural conditions of the Japanese in America is important, not in determining whether or not the Japanese immigrants are qualified to become American citizens—for this is out of the question at present, since the right of naturalization is not granted to them—but to show what is the character of the influence which is exerted upon the native-born Japanese, Americans by birth, by their parents. The core of the Japanese problem in America is, in our opinion, whether or not American citizens of Japanese descent can become worthy Americans. Those immigrants who came from Japan will die out in the course of time, and further immigration can be stopped. In this way it is possible to curtail to a minimum the number of alien Japanese in the United States. But the American-born Japanese are American citizens and they are here to stay. Whether these young Americans will become a strong and successful element of the American people or whether they will degenerate to a kind of parasite and become America’s “thorns in the flesh” is really a question of cardinal importance. But this depends much on the freedom and opportunity which are extended to their parents in this country. Thus the treatment of the Japanese in California or elsewhere in the United States assumes an aspect of vital significance to the nation. It is not a question of the abstract principles of justice or equality alone, but one of concrete and vital interest to America’s own welfare.
It is in this connection that all sorts of pressure and oppression—economic, political, social, and spiritual—exerted on the Japanese population, become most objectionable and harmful. These discriminatory efforts against the Japanese obstruct the Americanization of native-born Japanese in two ways. They prevent the parents from becoming well-to-do and refined people, and from getting permanent occupation and homes, all of which are essential if parents are to bring up their sons and daughters to a respectable standard. They also unconsciously imprint on the tender minds of children the idea that their fathers and mothers were not treated kindly in America, whose loyal citizens they are destined to become. What do those exclusionists really mean, when they insist that the Japanese should be given no opportunity to progress either in agriculture or industry because they are unassimilable people? Do they mean thereby to check Japanese immigration? They surely cannot mean this, for there are other and more friendly ways of achieving their object, since Japan has more than once expressed her willingness to coöperate with America in this respect. What else can they mean but that they want to hinder the American citizens of Japanese descent from becoming worthy Americans by ostracizing and persecuting their parents?
Native-Born Japanese.
Fortunately, in spite of all unfavorable influence and environment created for them, the native-born Japanese show very hopeful signs of realizing perfect Americanization. Here again we do not wish to dogmatize, in apparent lack of scientific data, and assert that we need feel no apprehension. Yet the few data gathered on the subject from observation strongly point to the hopeful conclusion that as greater numbers of them approach mature age they are gradually becoming Americans by the accepted standard. They proved their patriotism to America during the great war by enlisting in the American army and navy. In their manner, address, and temperament these boys and girls are American, with an unconcealed air of American mannerism. In their fluent and natural English, in their frankness and bold recklessness, in their dislike of little and irksome tasks and love of big and adventurous undertakings, in their chivalry and gallantry, in their tall and well-built stature, these young people are wholly American, no longer recognizable as Japanese except in their physical features. Indeed, it is the common testimony of the Japanese visiting America that the Japanese children born and reared here differ so distinctly from children in Japan that in their manners, spirit, and even in the play of expression on their faces, they appear characteristically American. We cannot help being surprised by the completeness with which the so-called racial traits of the Japanese are swept away in the first generation of Japanese born in America.
The explanation for such a remarkable fact must be sought in the strong influence of social, national, and spiritual environment. We have seen how even the most stable elements of man’s physiological constitution may change in a new environment. This being the case, it may not be entirely surprising that less stable elements, such as temperament and expression, should change more rapidly and completely in a new social milieu. This fact is a deathblow to the theorists who uphold the à priori view of race, that it is a fixed, pure, unchangeable reality. It attests the truth of Mr. John Oakesmith’s thesis in which he so ably establishes that “the objective influence of race in the evolution of nationality is fiction,” and that the sole foundation and unifying force of nationality is the “organic continuity of common interest.”[55]
In the cross-examination of native-born Japanese children by the Congressional Sub-Committee on Immigration and Naturalization conducted on the Pacific Coast last spring, it was found that in almost all cases the children expressed the feeling that they like the United States better than Japan because they are more familiar and closely associated with things and people in America. This is doubtless an honest confession of their sentiment. They generally do not read or write Japanese because it is wholly different from English and so difficult. They learn from their parents that the life is hard and competition is keen in Japan. They know America is a great country, a land of liberty and opportunity. Naturally their interest in Japan is very slight, and they think they are Americans, and they are proud of it.[56]
These are the hopeful signs which offer us reason for being optimistic. We cannot, nevertheless, be blind to the fact that there are many obstacles which if left unchecked will tend to defeat our hopes. These obstacles we find, first, in the congested condition of the Japanese on the Pacific Coast. For convenience and benefit the Japanese have been living more or less in groups, speaking their own language to a large extent, and retaining many of the Japanese customs and manners. This tendency has been a great obstacle in the assimilation of the Japanese. Their dispersal in many other States of the Union is one of the first requirements of Americanization, and consequently of an equitable solution of the Japanese-California problem. We shall touch upon this subject in the concluding chapter.