From Enemy to Ally: How Americans Feel About Japan in Past and PresentReturn to Essay List

Japan has always had a mysterious and exotic aura surrounding it, but until recently, it has been seen as part of an evil coalition hellbent on the destruction of everything American people know and love. Nowadays, Japan is a seemingly conservative and technologically advanced nation bringing many modern-day conveniences to our homes. This research paper will discover the process through which Americans have grown from hate to a grudging acceptance of Japanese influences and ideas through a slow and unsteady process that starts from when Japan was first introduced to Westerners to today.

First Encounters

The first documented visit by Europeans was from the Portuguese who accidentally landed in Japan after being blown off course on the way to China in 1543.

Japan, fearing the West’s intentions to colonize, closed the country from 1635 to 1854. The U.S.A., which needed fresh water and vegetables for its whaling ships, sent Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan with four warships on July 8, 1853 and demanded that Japan open its ports to the West (Wikipedia). These four ships came to be known to the Japanese as the “Kurofune” or “black ships.”

The two countries signed the “Treaty of Peace and Amity,” an unequal treaty that the U.S. forced on Japan with its “gunboat diplomacy,” which shows the American assumption of superiority over the Asian nation.

Yellow Peril

Japanese immigrants to the U.S. starting in the late 19th century used their knowledge of farming to grow a large amount of crops. One Japanese farmer sent his children to Stanford and Harvard and died with an estimated $15 million and the title of “potato king” (Bailey 825). Although Japanese immigrants never made up more than three percent of California’s population, the Anglo-Saxon community felt threatened. They eventually forced the condition to a climax in 1906 when the San Francisco board of education forced all schools to be segregated so that the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean students could be replaced by White students (Bailey 651). Theodore Roosevelt eventually intervened and forced the San Franciscan school board to repeal its order in exchange for the “Gentlemen’s Agreement”. This secret agreement with Japan stipulated that Tokyo would not allow any more immigrants to come to America by withholding passports (Bailey 651).

World War II and Relocation Camps

The next and the most well known impact on how Americans view Japan today is World War II. When Japan allied itself with the “evil” Axis by bombing Pearl Harbor, it actually boosted morale in America (Bailey 822). That morale was directed toward Japanese-Americans who were living mostly in California at that time. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the FBI gathered over 110,000 Japanese immigrants and citizens of Japanese descent and placed them in relocation camps (Bailey 823). Henry McLemore, a journalist of the Hearst press, supported the imprisonment of the Japanese, and was quoted saying, “I am for the immediate removal of every Japanese on the West Coast to a point deep in the interior... let’m be pinched, hurt, and hungry. Personally, I hate Japanese. And that goes for all of them” (Aguirre 197).

• Even though Executive Order 9066 never mentioned the Japanese people, it was specifically applied only to them. Anyone at least one eighth Japanese was forced to leave everything behind to go to the relocation camps (Aguirre 197).
• They sold their assets before leaving, receiving only about five cents for every dollar and they could only bring to the camps what they could carry on their backs (Aguirre 198).
• Twice the Japanese-American internees tried to overturn the order through legal venues, Hirabayashi v. United States in 1943 and Korematsu v. United States in 1944, but both times the Supreme Court chose to support the Executive order (Aguirre 198).
• Eventually on January 2, 1945 the Japanese-Americans were released to return to their homes. -In 1948 under the Japanese-American Evacuation Claims Act, the internees claimed $131 million. The Federal Government recompensed $38 million, or 29 cents for every dollar claimed.-In 1987 the U.S. government formally apologized, pardoned Japanese-Americans who were convicted for violating Executive Order 9066, and put aside $1.2 billion dollars so that each of the 60,000 survivors could receive $20,000 to redress their losses. Some refused the check, but accepted the apology. (www.njamf.com/redeem.htm)

"Gung-Ho" and Vincent Chin

In the 1980’s many Americans were getting the brunt of the world-wide recession, being laid off or enduring pay cuts. During this time, rivalry and competition between Japan and America became particularly noticeable in the automobile industry. Due to the oil shortage gas guzzling American cars became too expensive to run, so consumers started turning towards the smaller, more economical Japanese cars. This caused an increase in tensions, white factory workers often blaming Japanese for their misfortune. One movie called “Gung-Ho” portrayed this tension in a blunt yet comedic way. The movie took place in a local American car factory, which had been shut down and taken over by a Japanese company. The two groups of workers kept clashing because of different standards, but eventually resolved their differences. This movie was fictional, but a similar incident did occur in real life. Unfortunately the real life version did not have a happy ending.

• Vincent Chin was brutally murdered in 1982 by two white men who accused him of being Japanese and for the loss of jobs in the automobile industry (Aguirre 210).
• The two men didn’t hear Chin saying that he was Chinese and chased him out of a bar and beat him to death with a baseball bat. Chin spent four agonizing days in the hospital before finally dying due to his numerous injuries.
• Both men who beat Chin, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, were charged with second-degree murder, but were allowed to plead guilty for manslaughter.
• Neither of the murderers spent any time in prison for killing Vincent Chin.

Today and Tomorrow

Today anti-Japanese sentiment still exists. Asian-Americans face discrimination in the workplace, school, and home. Today discrimination against the Japanese-Americans is a slightly different one, turning a would-be positive into a negative. Japanese and Asians-Americans in general are seen as the “model minority” meaning that society (usually controlled by a white majority) likes to use Asian-Americans as an example to the rest of the community. “If they can do it, why can’t you?” is the gist of what they say to African Americans, Latin Americans, Native Americans, and even White Ethnic Americans. This causes a large percentage of Americans to resent the Asian ethnic groups and Japanese-Americans in particular because of their high success rate.

• More Asians graduate from high school and enter major universities than any other minority or majority group (Aguirre 188-189).
• Even schools like Brown University, UC Berkeley, and Harvard University were not above discrimination against Asian-Americans. When audited, these three universities all had evidence of specifically dismissing Asian-Americans out of their student pool despite higher application rates and grade point averages.
• Many Japanese-Americans experience what is called a “bamboo ceiling” that blocks them from getting raises, promotions, or better jobs.

Survey

• I found that of the 52 people polled, about 34 percent of them did not know that Japan is America’s ally.
• 46 percent of them did not realize that Japan had indeed helped the U.S. in Iraq.
• 73 percent of them did not know who Japan’s current Prime Minister is.
• When asked to write one word that describes Japanese culture, the respondents gave many different answers ranging from "fascinating,” to “interesting,” and “unique”. Some less than complimentary words were “buttoned-up,” “overly-polite,” and “rigid”. -When asked to name one Japanese person, six people could not answer at all, and 15 (28 percent) could only name a person that they knew personally.

Conclusion

Japan may be a major player in today’s global world but not many people realize it. In May 2004 the Toyota Motor Company posted a record net profit of 1.162 trillion yen putting them at the number one spot in the global manufacturing sector. (Japan Almanac 8) Americans can no longer afford to ignore the Japanese, who compete against us in many fields, and we should give them the respect that they give us. I believe we have become more open to new cultures and customs from Japan and soon, I hope, we will actually understand and respect our neighbors across the sea. We have traveled a long way from being cautious strangers to hated enemies and finally to respectful allies to build a future together in this new global community.