Kristen Hayashi
speaker
189 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Dec 2024
Kristen Hayashi’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Well, yeah. So I'm sure, you know, the Nisei generation, they're born here in the United States. They're sort of caught in between their parents, you know, culture and the culture that they were sort of born into here in the U.S. But, you know, they know that as because they were born here in the United States, they have certain rights as citizens.
So I think they felt like, well, you know, something maybe could happen to my parents because they're not citizens. But, you know, we have rights and they should be protected. And that turned out to not be the case later on.
So at that point in 1924, something fundamental happens here. The 1924 Immigration Act is passed. This is driven by largely nativist concerns of Euro-American, Anglo-Saxon type populations saying enough. We're not going to deal with this anymore. We are bringing down the hammer on all this immigration. And I'm like, as I even say these words, boy, does it sound familiar.
I mean, this is the theme that is almost generational at this point in America, where people just start to say this. And let's describe and explain exactly what the 1924 Immigration Act was meant to do.
The 1924 Immigration Act was meant to halt immigration from Japan sort of indefinitely. It's very similar to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It had the same effect on this ethnic group. And, you know, it's all because there was the sense that there are too many immigrants like from Japan flooding like the West Coast.
The groups that are behind this, very supportive, the likes of which are Ku Klux Klan and those sorts of organizations are driving this whole thing under the guise of labor concerns and economic concerns is really xenophobia.
Exactly. I'm glad you brought up that term xenophobia. Yeah, because I think we're hearing that a lot today in current events. And so it really echoes, you know, this time period in the 1920s, especially in 1924. But I mean, it just goes against, you know, what this country was founded on. And it touted, you know, diversity and being this refuge for immigrants.
And, you know, that wasn't the case when we look at the experience of Japanese immigrants. Right.
I mean, and to be clear, what it does is forbids immigration by aliens ineligible to citizenship, entirely blocks migration until 1952 when things begin to shift. That's how long this period goes on. Of course, there's something else that happens in between that time period.
But after 1924, we're going to run into a lot, namely the Great Depression on our way to World War II, which is its own discussion, of course. We're talking about now 30 years are going to pass in this time. Nisei are going to have children of their own. Is this the Sunsei? Is that right?
Yeah, there are definitely Sansei who were born before the war and during the war. I think it's a lot of them are born after the war.
And are we talking about millions of people are present now or hundreds of thousands at the most? No, not even, right?
Right. So, I mean, I actually don't know what the population was in Hawaii, which had a large Japanese population, but at least like in Los Angeles County on the eve of World War II, there were 36,000. Japanese and Japanese Americans. The incarceration, we think 125,000 Japanese Americans were affected by the forced removal and incarceration.
There were Japanese Americans living in other parts of the country, but they were small in comparison to the West Coast. So yeah, we're talking probably less than 200,000.
But by 1930, half of that population is second generation, fair to say?
Yeah, well, at least two-thirds, yeah.
So they have made their homes here, is my point, and been successful in what they pursued, largely agricultural concerns, but also otherwise as well. This is what we're talking about when we get to World War II, are generations of people who have been successful in their settlement and developing their lives. How much does assimilation play a role in this?
Much of the culture is very different from American culture. How much do Japanese want to assimilate versus live apart?
Yeah, I think for Issei, they really wanted their American-born children to be American, but to still retain some of the culture from Japan in case they returned to Japan or just so they could converse as a family. And so Japanese language schools were proliferate in the United States because they wanted their children to be able to speak and read Japanese.
However, they also wanted their children to really fit in with mainstream society. And so they encouraged activities like baseball and Boy Scouts. And from what we understand, like Boy Scouts was a very accepting organization. So a Buddhist temple could sponsor a Boy Scout troop. And I think Issei really liked the values that, you know, an activity like scouting provided to their children.
Showing 81–100 of 189 · page 5 of 10
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