The Japanese Problem, also referred to as the Japanese Menace or the Japanese Conspiracy, was the name given to racial tensions in Hawaii between the European-American sugarcane plantation owners and the Japanese immigrants hired to work in the cane fields.
The term "Japanese Problem" came into use during the 1920 Oahu Sugar Strike.
Following the strike, powerful European-Americans like Walter Dillingham and Harry Baldwin were vocal about their concerns regarding the increasing Japanese population in Hawaii. They worried that the increasing Japanese population would eventually affect politics in Hawaii as the voter base changed. Ultimately, they were most concerned that the Japanese were loyal to Japan, and would allow the Japanese Empire to claim Hawaii. [1]
Wallace Farrington pointed out in a speech in 1920 that even though the strikes were caused by "malcontents and agitators", the Japanese had to be given the chance to Americanize. This notion was pushed back against by people both within Hawaii and on the U.S. Mainland, like Valentine McClatchy, who claimed that the Japanese could not integrate into American culture because they held on to their own culture and religion too fervently. [2]
Hawaii is a state in the Western United States located in the Pacific Ocean about 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the U.S. mainland. It is the only state outside North America, the only state composed entirely of islands, and the only state in the tropics. Hawaii is also one of a few U.S. states to have once been an independent nation.
Walter Francis Dillingham called the Baron of Hawaii Industry, was an industrialist and businessman from Honolulu, Hawaii. He gained favors from Hawaii politicians to develop urban Honolulu.
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and National Origins Act, was a United States federal law that prevented immigration from Asia, set quotas on the number of immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere, and provided funding and an enforcement mechanism to carry out the longstanding ban on other immigrants.
Ronald Toshiyuki Takaki was an American academic, historian, ethnographer and author. He was born in Oahu, Hawaii, and his work addresses stereotypes of Asian Americans, such as the model minority concept.
The Chinese in Hawaiʻi constitute about 4.7% of the state's population, most of whom (75%) are Cantonese people with ancestors from Zhongshan in Guangdong. This number does not include people of mixed Chinese and Hawaiian descent. If all people with Chinese ancestry in Hawaiʻi are included, they form about 1/3 of Hawaii's entire population. As United States citizens, they are a group of Chinese Americans. A minority of this group have Hakka ancestry.
Pablo Manlapit was a migrant laborer, lawyer, labor organizer, and activist in Hawaii, California, and the Philippines.
The Hanapēpē Massacre occurred on September 9, 1924 when an interethnic dispute amongst Filipino strike organizers in Hanapēpē, Kaua'i resulted in a violent exchange between local police officers and Filipinos. The conflict began when two Ilocano youth, allegedly breaking the Filipino-led labor strike, were detained and harassed by a group of Visayans at the Hanapepe strike camp. When the local police were called to settle the dispute, they arrived with a group of heavily armed special deputies. Upon arrival, the officers issued warrants of arrest for the two detained Illocanos, causing the collection of Filipinos strikers to rally in opposition. Despite previously ridiculing the two Ilocanos, the remaining Filipinos armed themselves and demanded the boys be released. A violent exchange ensued wherein sixteen Filipino laborers and four police officers were left dead.
Pacific Islander Americans are Americans who are of Pacific Islander ancestry. For its purposes, the United States Census also counts Indigenous Australians as part of this group.
Sugarcane was introduced to Hawaii by its first inhabitants in approximately 600 AD and was observed by Captain Cook upon arrival in the islands in 1778. Sugar quickly turned into a big business and generated rapid population growth in the islands with 337,000 people immigrating over the span of a century. The sugar grown and processed in Hawaii was shipped primarily to the United States and, in smaller quantities, globally. Sugarcane and pineapple plantations were the largest employers in Hawaii. Today both are gone, production having moved to other countries.
Japanese Consulate-General, Honolulu is Japan's diplomatic facility in the City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. The facility is located at 1742 Nuuanu Avenue. The facility's jurisdiction includes Hawaii and American Samoa.
The Hawaiian Kingdom, or Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, was an independent state on the Hawaii Islands. The country originated in 1795, when the warrior chief Kamehameha the Great, of the independent island of Hawaiʻi, conquered the independent islands of Oʻahu, Maui, Molokaʻi, and Lānaʻi and unified them under one government. In 1810, the whole Hawaiian archipelago became unified when Kauaʻi and Niʻihau joined the Hawaiian Kingdom voluntarily. Two major dynastic families ruled the kingdom: the House of Kamehameha and the House of Kalākaua.
The Hawaii Hochi is a six-day-a-week Japanese-language newspaper published and sold in Hawaii. The newspaper was founded in 1912 to serve the Japanese immigrant community in Hawaii. Founder Frederick Kinzaburo Makino had recently been released from a ten-month prison sentence for his role in organizing a 1909 labor strike among sugarcane plantation workers. Disappointed by existing newspapers' coverage of continuing labor disputes, Makino established the Hochi to present a "non-party and independent" perspective on the issues then facing Japanese Americans in Hawaii. After some initial financial struggles, the Hochi became one of the primary sources for news related to political issues important to the island's Japanese community, publicly supporting legislation to extend Asian American citizenship rights and ease restrictions on Japanese language schools, as well as another strike in 1920. The paper was one of only a few to discuss racial inequality in the islands during the highly publicized Massie Trial of 1932.
1920 Politics also referred to as “Jim Crow” circa 1930, was a Democratic political strategy to reassert the authority of the white race and promote American Anglo-Saxon values, in what was then the US Territory of Hawaii.
The Oahu sugar strike of 1920 was a multiracial strike in Hawaii of two unions, the Filipino American Filipino Labor Union and the Japanese American Federation of Japanese Labor. The labor action involved 8,300 sugar plantation field workers out on strike from January to July 1920.
The Nippu Jiji, later published as the Hawaii Times, was a Japanese-English language newspaper based in Honolulu, Hawai'i. Established as the Yamato Shimbun by Shintaro Anno in 1895, the paper began as a six-page semi-weekly printed on a lithograph machine, and changed hands four times before being taken over by Yasutaro "Keiho" Soga in 1905. Soga changed the name of the paper to the Nippu Jiji, Japanese for "newspaper for telling timely news," on November 3, 1906, and under his direction the paper was expanded to a twelve-page daily printed on a rotary press with a circulation of 15,000.
Shunzo Sakamaki was a Japanese studies professor at the University of Hawaii. Sakamaki Hall, where the History department at the University of Hawaii is housed, was built after his death and named in his honor.
Takie Okumura(奥村 多喜衛) was a Christian minister from Japan. He was the founder of the Makiki Christian Church in Honolulu, Hawaii, the "Okumura Boys and Girls Home", and some of Hawaii's first Japanese language schools.
Fred Kinzaburo Makino(フレッド 金三郎 牧野) was the founder of the Hawaii Hochi and a community activist. He advocated for workers rights, and led a strike in 1909. Makino also advocated against the regulation of Japanese language schools.
Eugene Miller Van Reed was a Dutch American merchant who was the Kingdom of Hawaii's first consul in Japan. He was the person who brought the first group of Japanese immigrants to Hawaii. They became known as the "Gannenmono".
Jack Wayne Hall was an American labor organizer and trade unionist. He was the Hawaii Regional Director of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.