David Laʻamea Kamanakapuʻu Mahinulani Nalaiaehuokalani Lumialani KalākauaVan Reed, however, proceeded without the new government’s permission to send 153 Japanese to Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations. They sailed from Yokohama to Honolulu from May 17 to June 19, 1868, on the Scioto. This first official group of Japanese immigrants was called the Gannenmono (元年者), meaning the ‘people of the first year of the Meiji period’. (Note: the 150th anniversary of their arrival was celebrated in Hawaii in 2018.)

There were 142 men and 6 women in this initial group, so many of them married Hawaiians after they arrived in Hawaii. They worked on sugar plantations on Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and Lanai. Two or three months after arriving, many complained of contract violations since the working conditions and pay did not match what they were promised. At least four of the six women and 50 men returned to Japan in 1870. Seven had passed away before their contracts ended.

Liliʻuokalani (Sep 2, 1838 – Nov 11, 1917) was the only queen regnant and the last sovereign monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom, ruling from Jan 29, 1891, until the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom on Jan 17, 1893. The composer of 'Aloha ʻOe and numerous other works, she wrote her autobiography Hawaiʻi's Story by Hawaiʻi's Queen during her imprisonment following the overthrowAmong the Gannenmono were several people who would become legends among the Japanese Americans in Hawaii: Tomitarō Makino from Miyagi, the leader of the group; the youngest Ichigorō Ishimura, 13 years old; Sentarō Ishii, a samurai from Okayama, who was 102 years old when he died in Maui; Tokujirō Toko Satō from Tokyo, who lived in the Waipio Valley with his Hawaiian wife, Clara; and Tarō Andō, who would become Japan’s first consul general to the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Between 1869 and 1885 Japan barred emigration to Hawaii in fear that Japanese laborers would be degrading the reputation of the Japanese race, as had occurred with the Chinese according to the point of view of the Japanese government. In 1881 King David Kalākaua visited Japan to strengthen relations between the two nations. Kalākaua offered not to request the extraterritoriality of Japan, an act that departed from the norm of western nations.

On March 10 Kalakaua met Meiji to propose a marriage between Princess Victoria Kaiulani and Prince Higashifushimi Yorihito. A few days later the proposal was denied, but the ban on immigration was eventually lifted in 1885 and the first 153 Japanese immigrants arrived in Hawaii on February 8, 1885, as contract laborers for the sugarcane and pineapple plantations. The political environment shifted with the onset of a new era known as the Hawaiian Revolutions. In 1887 the settlers ended absolute rule by the king by forcing him to accept the Bayonet Constitution and agreeing to the constitutional government with a powerful parliament. The new constitution gave voting rights only to Hawaiians, Americans, and Europeans, and thus denied rights to Japanese and other Asians. The Japanese commissioner worked to pressure the Kingdom to restore the rights of the Japanese by amending the constitution.

The HMS Gannet was a Royal Navy Doterel-class screw sloop-of-war launched on Aug 31, 1878. She became a training ship in the Thames in 1903 and was then lent as a training ship for boys in the Hamble from 1913. She was restored in 1987 and is now part of the UK's National Historic Fleet

In 1893, the Hawaiian Monarchy was overthrown, and Tokyo responded by appointing Capt Tōgō Heihachirō to command the Japanese naval activities in Hawaii. The HIJMS Naniwa was sent immediately to Hawaii to rendezvous with the HIJMS Kongō which had been on a training mission. Capt Tōgō had previously been a guest of Kalākaua and returned to Hawaii to denounce the overthrow of Queen Lydia Liliʻuokalani, sister and successor to the late king, and conduct ‘gunboat diplomacy. Tōgō refused to salute the Provisional Government by not flying the flag of the Republic. He refused to recognize the new regime, encouraged the British ship, HMS Garnet, to do the same, and protested the overthrow.

The Japanese commissioner eventually stopped Tōgō from continuing his protest, believing it would undo his work at restoring rights to the Japanese. Katō Kanji wrote in hindsight that he had regretted they had not protested harder and should have recruited the British in the protest. The continued presence of the Japanese Navy and Japan’s opposition to the overthrow led to a concern that Japan might use military force to restore Liliʻuokalani to her throne as a Japanese puppet. Anti-Japanese sentiment heightened. America’s annexation of Hawaii in 1898 extended the US territory into the Pacific and highlighted results from economic integration and the rise of the United States as a Pacific power. For most of the 1800s, leaders in Washington were concerned that Hawaii might become part of a European nation’s empire. During the 1830s, Britain and France forced Hawaii to accept treaties giving them economic privileges.

Daniel Webster (Jan 18, 1782 – Oct 24, 1852) was an American statesman who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the United States Congress and served as the United States Secretary of State under Presidents William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, and Millard Fillmore. He was also a prominent attorney, especially during the period of the Marshall Court. Throughout his career, he was a member of the Federalist Party, the National Republican Party, and the Whig PartyIn 1842, Secretary of State Daniel Webster sent a letter to Hawaiian agents in Washington affirming US interests in Hawaii and opposing annexation by any other nation. He also proposed to Great Britain and France that no nation should seek special privileges or engage in further colonization of the islands. In 1849, the United States and Hawaii concluded a treaty of friendship that served as the basis of official relations between the parties.

Liliʻuokalani (Sep 2, 1838 – Nov 11, 1917) was the only queen regnant and the last sovereign monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom, ruling from Jan 29, 1891, until the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom on Jan 17, 1893. The composer of A key provisioning spot for American whaling ships, fertile ground for American protestant missionaries, and a new source of sugar cane production, Hawaii’s economy became increasingly integrated with the United States. An 1875 trade reciprocity treaty further linked the two countries and US sugar plantation owners from the United States came to dominate the economy and politics of the islands.

When Queen Lili’uokalani (left) moved to establish a stronger monarchy, Americans under the leadership of Sanford Ballard Dole (right) deposed her in 1893. The planters’ belief that a coup and annexation by the United States would remove the threat of a devastating tariff on their sugar also spurred them to action. The administration of President Benjamin Harrison encouraged the takeover and dispatched sailors from the USS Boston to the islands to surround the royal palace. The US minister to Hawaii, John L. Stevens, worked closely with the new government and in 1894, he sent a delegation to Washington seeking annexation, but the new President, Grover Cleveland, opposed annexation and tried to restore the Queen. Dole declared Hawaii an independent republic. Spurred by the nationalism aroused by the Spanish-American War, the United States annexed Hawaii in 1898 at the urging of President William McKinley. Hawaii was made a territory in 1900, and Dole became its first governor. Racial attitudes and party politics in the United States deferred statehood until a bipartisan compromise linked Hawaii’s status to Alaska, and both became states in 1959.

Seal of HawaiiFlag of HawaiiAfter April 30, 1900, all children born in Hawaii were American citizens at birth. (8 USC § 1405) Most of Japanese children had dual citizenship after their parents registered them. The Japanese settlers set up the first Japanese schools in the United States. By 1920, 98% of all Japanese children in Hawaii attended Japanese schools. Statistics for 1934 showed 183 schools taught a total of 41.192 students. Today, Japanese schools in Hawaii operate as supplementary education (usually on Friday nights or Saturday mornings) which is on top of the compulsory education required by the state.

Today, where Nikkei is about one-fifth of the whole population, Japanese is a major language, spoken and studied by many of the state’s residents across ethnicities. It is taught in private Japanese-language schools as early as the second grade. As a courtesy to a large number of Japanese tourists (from Japan), Japanese subtexts are provided on place signs, public transportation, and civic facilities. The Hawaii media market has a few locally produced Japanese-language newspapers and magazines; however, these are on the verge of dying out, due to a lack of interest on the part of the local (Hawaii-born) Japanese population.

Bronze statute of Japanese Sugarcane workers erected in 1985Stores that cater to the tourist industry often have Japanese-speaking personnel. To show their allegiance to the US, many Nisei and Sansei intentionally avoided learning Japanese.

The importance of Japanese immigration to Hawaii and the United States lies not in the fact that it did occur, but rather in how it occurred and in its consequences. Like many that came to America, the Japanese came for economic reasons. Unlike many Europeans, however, the bulk of the Japanese came to the United States not to escape the old country and settle in the new world, but rather with the intent to return home rich after a short period of contract labor, in what actually equated to indentured servitude.

Many did not return and before long had established a solid and unique Japanese American culture, ‘one that often faced severe prejudice.

This immigrant culture and its challenges molded the subsequent Nisei culture and the values of the men of the 100th Battalion of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. As far back as the thirteenth century, Hawaiian legend tells of Japanese fishermen lost at sea and carried by the Black Current, or Kuroshio, across the Pacific to the Hawaiian archipelago.

Likewise, these easterly trans-Pacific currents possibly also carried shipwrecked survivors, much like the flotsam and jetsam of today, to the shores of North America, but with no more impact than the very same driftwood and debris brought by these currents.

GarnetThe earliest recorded Japanese landings in North America occurred in 1610 and 1613, predating the Pilgrims’ landing at Plymouth Rock by almost a decade.

Some trekked from Acapulco to Mexico City, some ventured across Mexico and the Atlantic to Spain, while others settled in North America. Though Japs continued to arrive in Hawaii and America sporadically through the early nineteenth century, it was not until Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry’s Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854 and the restoration of the Japanese Emperor in 1868 that Japanese emigration began to have a noticeable impact on the United States.

Matthew Calbraith Perry (Apr 10, 1794 – Mar 4, 1858)What had been a trickle of Japanese traveling abroad turned into a flood of immigrants to Hawaii and the USA. The 153 persons of the Gannen Mono, the people of the first era of Emperor Meiji, arrived in Hawaii in June 1868 and another handful of Japanese arrived in San Francisco in May 1869, harbingers of the thousands to follow. Coming from varied backgrounds farmers were unable to pay taxes, peasants pursuing dreams, and now out-of-work samurai seeking new lives all sought quick fortunes on the plantations of Hawaii or in the businesses on the West Coast. In terms of business practices, Hawaiian and US businessmen were remarkably similar during the late 1800s and early 1900s, so much so that, fearing an overpopulation of Chinese immigrants, they turned to importing Japanese to work in the sugarcane and pineapple fields of Hawaii and assume odd jobs on the West Coast.

Ironically, the end result was that over the forty-plus years from 1882, when the Chinese Exclusion Act signaled a boom in the emigration of Japanese, to 1924, when the Japanese Exclusion Act ended Japanese immigration, over 180.000 Japanese arrived in Hawaii, and over another 80.000 in the United States, eventually outnumbering the Chinese. Concerns began to rise over the Issei, or the first generation of Japanese abroad, the first Japanese immigrants. Not only was there a dramatic growth in another Asian population, but also the new menial laborers, willing to work longer and harder for less, were displacing white American workers. Too, the Jap’s situation was further aggravated by the uniqueness of the culture imported in whole by immigrants who expected to eventually return home. As contract terms expired, few Japanese had made their fortunes, and as more began to look upon Hawaii and the United States as their home, measures were taken against them. Alien land laws that prevented Japanese land ownership were passed in 1913 and 1920.

Japanese in HawaiiNote on Generations – Japanese-Americans and Japanese-Canadians have special names for each of their generations in North America. These are formed by combining one of the Japanese numbers corresponding to the generation with the Japanese word for the generation (sei 世). The Japanese-American and Japanese-Canadian communities have themselves distinguished their members with terms like Issei, Nisei, and Sansei which describe the first, second and third generation of immigrants. The fourth generation is called Yonsei (四世) and the fifth is called Gosei (五世). The Issei, Nisei and Sansei generations reflect distinctly different attitudes to authority, gender, involvement with non-Japanese, religious belief and practice, and other matters. The age when individuals faced wartime evacuation and internment during World War II has been found to be the most significant factor that explains such variations in attitudes and behavior patterns.

Japanese in HawaiiThe term Nikkei (日系) was coined by a multinational group of sociologists. It encompasses all of the world’s Japanese immigrants across generations. The collective memory of the Issei and older Nisei was an image of Meiji Japan from 1870 through 1911. Newer immigrants carry many different memories of more recent Japan. These differing attitudes, social values, and associations with Japan were often incompatible with each other. The significant differences in post-war experiences and opportunities did nothing to mitigate the gaps which separated generational perspectives. Issei were the generation of people born in Japan who later immigrated to another country; Nisei were the generation of people born in North America, Latin America, Australia, Hawaii, or any country outside Japan either to at least one Issei or one non-immigrant Japanese parent; Sansei were the generation of people born to at least one Nisei parent; Yonsei was the generation of people born to at least one Sansei parent; Gosei was the generation of people born to at least one Yonsei parent.

Japanese in HawaiiA 1922 Supreme Court Ruling prohibited Issei from becoming naturalized citizens and the 1924 Exclusion Act ended Japanese immigration. Even as late as 1940, efforts were undertaken in Senate hearings to prevent the enlistment of minorities in the armed forces, including blacks and Japanese Americans.

Thus, the Issei, who had imported their culture in whole expecting to eventually return home, instead ended up creating a unique culture melding the American concepts of freedom and opportunity with such Japanese cultural mores as familial piety, loyalty, obligation and on a deep sense of gratitude and indebtedness, garbage a never quit attitude, and haji an almost fatalistic drive to avoid shame and disgrace.

While their heritage set them apart from other Americans, it also united them as people by providing common ideals and values amidst growing anti-Japanese sentiment. Further tempered by the early events of World War II, these traits formed the bedrock of the character of the entire combat team. As the Nisei came of age and struggled to prove the loyalty of their people, the regiment’s shared values formed a solid base for the cohesion among the Nisei in uniform.

This cohesion, along with the nearly unanimous goal of having to prove themselves and their people, gave great motivation to the men of the 100/442d RCT. As America readied for war in 1940, Nisei in uniform faced a precarious situation. In Hawaii, the Selective Service Act brought much-needed manpower to the defense of the islands, but over one-half of the 3000 inductees in the now-federalized Hawaii National Guard’s 298th and 299th Regiments were AJAs and a sizeable number also served in various Reserve Officer Training Corps: ROTC detachments.

By the time of the attack against Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941, Nisei in uniformed service and registered with the selective service numbered in the thousands. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor and the entry of the United States into WW-2, all persons of Japanese ancestry throughout the services were at once branded disloyal and given restricted duty, removed from active service, or reclassified by the selective service as IV-C, ineligible for military service due to ancestry. The University of Hawaii’s ROTC detachment, after initially being activated and called to supplement the active and reserve forces in defense of the Hawaiian Islands was soon disbanded, its Japanese American members discharged from service.

Wartime PaperThe 298th Regiment and the 299th Regiment were forced to release or, in many instances, even incarcerate its Nisei soldiers. As severe as was the treatment of the Nisei in uniform, the plight of the AJAs not in uniform was worse. Almost 400 Issei, Nisei, and Kibei AJAs educated in Japan were interned in Hawaii, and many more were targeted for surveillance and, or investigation.

Those in military-related, sensitive, or otherwise vital labor positions were placed under armed escort and were issued special black restricted identification badges – loosely reminiscent of the Star of David worn by Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. Eventually, 1444 Japanese, 979 aliens, and 525 other AJAs were interned in Hawaii, and another 981 were sent to mainland internment camps.

Beyond the regulations targeting the Nisei, the most visible example of an anti-Japanese frenzy following the attack on Pearl Harbor was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order (EO) 9066.



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