Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907
Type | Informal agreement |
---|---|
Context | To reduce tensions between the two powerful Pacific nations |
Signed | February 15, 1907[1] |
Effective | 1907 |
Expiry | 1924 |
Parties |
The Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 (日米紳士協約, Nichibei Shinshi Kyōyaku) was an
Background
Chinese immigration to California boomed during the
Most Japanese immigrants wanted to reside in America permanently and came in family groups, in contrast to the Chinese immigrants, most of whom were young men who soon returned to China. Japanese immigrants assimilated to American social norms, such as those on clothing. Many joined
As the Japanese population in California grew, they were viewed with suspicion as an entering wedge by Japan. By 1905, Japanese Americans lived not only in Chinatown but throughout San Francisco, while anti-Japanese rhetoric was common in the Chronicle newspaper. In that year, the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League was established to promote four policies:
- extension of the Chinese Exclusion Act to include Japanese and Koreans,
- exclusion by League members of Japanese employees and the hiring of firms that employ Japanese,
- pressuring the School Board to segregate Japanese from white children,
- a propaganda campaign to inform Congress and the President of the "menace".[5]
Tensions had been rising in San Francisco, and since Japan's decisive victory against Russia in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Japan demanded treatment as an equal. The result was a series of six notes communicated between Japan and the United States from late 1907 to early 1908. The immediate cause of the Agreement was anti-Japanese
In the Agreement, Japan agreed not to issue passports for Japanese citizens wishing to work in the
Segregation of schools
At the time, there were 93 Japanese students spread across 23 elementary schools. For decades, policies segregated Japanese schools, but they were not enforced as long as there was room and white parents did not complain. The Japanese and Korean Exclusion League appeared before the school board multiple times to complain. The school board dismissed its claims because it was fiscally infeasible to create new facilities to accommodate only 93 students. After the 1906 fire, the school board sent the 93 Japanese students to the Chinese Primary School and renamed it "The Oriental Public School for Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans." Transportation was limited after the earthquake, and many students could not attend the Oriental Public School.[8]
Many Japanese Americans argued with the school board that the segregation of schools went against the Treaty of 1894, which did not expressly address education but indicated that Japanese in America would receive equal rights. Under the controlling decisions of the
Federal intervention
President Roosevelt had three objectives to resolve the situation: showing Japan that the policies of California did not reflect the ideals of the entire country, forcing San Francisco to remove the segregation policies, and reaching a resolution to the Japanese immigration problem.
Concessions were agreed in a note consisting of six points a year later. The agreement was followed by the admission of students of Japanese ancestry into public schools. The adoption of the 1907 Agreement spurred the arrival of "picture brides," marriages of convenience made at a distance through photographs.[11] By establishing marital bonds at a distance, women seeking to emigrate to the United States were able to gain a passport, and Japanese workers in America were able to gain a partner of their own nationality.[11] Because of that provision, which helped close the gender gap within the community from a ratio of 7 men to every woman in 1910 to less than 2 to 1 by 1920, the Japanese American population continued to grow despite the Agreement's limits on immigration. The Gentlemen's Agreement was never written into a law passed by the US Congress, but was an informal agreement between the United States and Japan, enacted via unilateral action by President Roosevelt. It was nullified by the Immigration Act of 1924, which legally banned all Asians from migrating to the United States.[12]
See also
- Japan–United States relations
- List of United States immigration laws
- Root–Takahira Agreement
- Immigration Act of 1917
References
- ISBN 978-0-415-90872-6.
- ISBN 9780520916869.
- ^ a b Daniels, (1999)
- ^ Brian Masaru Hayashi, For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren: Assimilation, Nationalism, and Protestantism Among the Japanese of Los Angeles, 1895-1942 (1995) pp 41-55
- ^ McFarland, Daniel; Eng, Aimee (2006). The Japanese Question: San Francisco Education in 1906. Stanford University School of Education. pp. 1–11. Archived from the original on 2007-07-04. Retrieved 2008-03-01.
- ^ See U.S. State Department, "Japanese-American Relations at the Turn of the Century, 1900–1922" online
- ^ Neu (1967)
- ISBN 9781598849462.
- ^ Herbert Buell Johnson, Discrimination against the Japanese in California: a Review of the Real Situation (1907) online
- ^ Waldo R. Browne (ed.), "Japanese-American Passport Agreement," in What's What in the Labor Movement: A Dictionary of Labor Affairs and Labor Terminology. New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1921; p. 261.
- ^ a b Browne (ed.), "Picture Bride," in What's What in the Labor Movement, p. 375.
- ^ Imai, Shiho. "Gentlemen's Agreement" Densho Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-07-03.
Further reading
- Cullinane, Michael Patrick (January 2014). "The 'Gentlemen's' Agreement – Exclusion by Class". Immigrants & Minorities. 31 (4).
- Daniels, Roger (1999). The Politics of Prejudice: The Anti-Japanese Movement in California and the Struggle for Japanese Exclusion. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-21950-2.
- Esthus, Raymond A. Theodore Roosevelt and Japan (U of Washington Press, 1967) pp 146–166, 210–228.
- Masuda, Hajimu, “Rumors of War: Immigration Disputes and the Social Construction of American-Japanese Relations, 1905–1913,” Diplomatic History, 33 (Jan. 2009), 1–37.
- Masuda Hajimu, “Gentlemen's Agreement,” The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism (Wiley-Blackwell, 2015).
- Inui, Kiyo Sue (1925). "The Gentlemen's Agreement. How It Has Functioned". Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 122: 188–198. S2CID 143253107.
- Neu, Charles E. (1967). An Uncertain Friendship: Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 1906-1909. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.