Japanese Americans

Japanese Americans

日系アメリカ人 Nikkeiamerikajin
Japanese Ancestry by state
Total population
1,550,875 (0.5% of U.S. population including part-Japanese people)[1] (2020)
Regions with significant populations
Hawaii, San Francisco Bay Area, and Greater Los Angeles[2]
Languages
American English, Japanese
Religion
33% Protestantism 32% Unaffiliated 25% Buddhism 4% Catholicism 4% Shinto[3][4]
Related ethnic groups
Japanese people, Ryukyuan Americans

Japanese Americans (Japanese: 日系アメリカ人) are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in ranking to constitute the sixth largest Asian American group at around 1,469,637, including those of partial ancestry.^[5]

According to the 2010 census, the largest Japanese American communities were found in California with 272,528, Hawaii with 185,502, New York with 37,780, Washington with 35,008, Illinois with 17,542 and Ohio with 16,995.^[6] Southern California has the largest Japanese American population in North America and the city of Gardena holds the densest Japanese American population in the 48 contiguous states.^[7]

History

A street in Seattle's Nihonmachi in 1909

Japanese Americans in Hawaii 1943

People from Japan began migrating to the US in significant numbers following the political, cultural, and social changes stemming from the Meiji Restoration in 1868. These early Issei immigrants came primarily from small towns and rural areas in the southern Japanese prefectures of Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Kumamoto, and Fukuoka^[8] and most of them settled in either Hawaii or along the West Coast. The Japanese population in the United States grew from 148 in 1880 (mostly students) to 2,039 in 1890 and 24,326 by 1900.^[9]

In the earliest years of the 20th century, American officials with no experience in "transliterating...Japanese" often gave Japanese-Americans new names before and during the process of their naturalization.^[10]

In 1907, the Gentlemen's Agreement between the governments of Japan and the United States ended immigration of Japanese unskilled workers, but permitted the immigration of businessmen, students and spouses of Japanese immigrants already in the US. Prior to the Gentlemen's Agreement, about seven out of eight ethnic Japanese in the continental United States were men. By 1924, the ratio had changed to approximately four women to every six men.^[11] Japanese immigration to the U.S. effectively ended when Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1924 which banned all but a token few Japanese people. The earlier Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted naturalized United States citizenship to free white persons, which excluded the Issei from citizenship. As a result, the Issei were unable to vote and faced additional restrictions such as the inability to own land under many state laws. Due to these restrictions, Japanese immigration to the United States between 1931 and 1950 only totaled 3,503 which is strikingly low compared to the totals of 46,250 people in 1951–1960, 39,988 in 1961–70, 49,775 in 1971–80, 47,085 in 1981–90, and 67,942 in 1991–2000.^[12]

Because no new immigrants from Japan were permitted after 1924, almost all pre-World War II Japanese Americans born after this time were born in the United States. This generation, the Nisei, became a distinct cohort from the Issei generation in terms of age, citizenship, and English-language ability, in addition to the usual generational differences. Institutional and interpersonal racism led many of the Nisei to marry other Nisei, resulting in a third distinct generation of Japanese Americans, the Sansei. Significant Japanese immigration did not occur again until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 ended 40 years of bans against immigration from Japan and other countries.

In the last few decades, immigration from Japan has been more like that from Europe. The numbers involve on average 5 to 10 thousand per year, and is similar to the amount of immigration to the US from Germany. This is in stark contrast to the rest of Asia, where better opportunity of life is the primary impetus for immigration.

Internment and redress

Los Angeles during World War II

Anti-Axis Committee headquarters in the Little Tokyo

section of Los Angeles, 1941

During World War II, an estimated 120,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals or citizens residing on the West Coast of the United States were forcibly interned in ten different camps across the Western United States. The internment was based on the race or ancestry, rather than the activities of the interned. Families, including children, were interned together.^[13] and 5,000 were able to "voluntarily" relocate outside the exclusion zone;^[14]

In 1948, the Evacuation Claims Act provided some compensation for property losses, but the act required documentation that many former inmates had lost during their removal and excluded lost opportunities, wages or interest from its calculations. Less than 24,000 filed a claim, and most received only a fraction of the losses they claimed.^[15]

Four decades later, the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 officially acknowledged the "fundamental violations of the basic civil liberties and constitutional rights" of the internment.^[16] Many Japanese Americans consider the term internment camp a euphemism and prefer to refer to the forced relocation of Japanese Americans as imprisonment in concentration camps.^[17] Webster's New World Fourth College Edition defines a concentration camp: "A prison camp in which political dissidents, members of minority ethnic groups, etc. are confined."

Cultural profile

Generations

The nomenclature for each of their generations who are citizens or long-term residents of countries other than Japan, used by Japanese Americans and other nationals of Japanese descent are explained here; they are formed by combining one of the

Issei and many nisei speak Japanese in addition to English as a second language. In general, later generations of Japanese Americans speak English as their first language, though some do learn Japanese later as a second language. In Hawaii however, where Nikkei are about one-fifth of the whole population, Japanese is a major language, spoken and studied by many of the state's residents across ethnicities.^{[citation needed]} It is taught in private Japanese language schools as early as the second grade. As a courtesy to the large number of Japanese tourists (from Japan), Japanese characters are provided on place signs, public transportation, and civic facilities. The Hawaii media market has a few locally produced Japanese language newspapers and magazines, although these are on the verge of dying out, due to a lack of interest on the part of the local (Hawaii-born) Japanese population. Stores 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. But as many of the later generations find their identities in both Japan and America or American society broadens its definition of cultural identity, studying Japanese is becoming more popular than it once was.^{[citation needed]}

Education

Japanese American culture places great value on education and culture. Across generations, children are often instilled with a strong desire to enter the rigors of higher education. In 1966, sociologist William Petersen (who coined the term "Model Minority") wrote that Japanese Americans "have established this remarkable record, moreover, by their own almost totally unaided effort. Every attempt to hamper their progress resulted only in enhancing their determination to succeed."^[19] The 2000 census reported that 40.8% of Japanese Americans held a college degree.^[20]

Schools for Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals

A Japanese school opened in Hawaii in 1893 and other Japanese schools for temporary settlers in North America followed.^[21] In the years prior to World War II, many second generation Japanese American attended the American school by day and the Japanese school in the evening to keep up their Japanese skill as well as English. Other first generation Japanese American parents were worried that their child might go through the same discrimination when going to school so they gave them the choice to either go back to Japan to be educated, or to stay in America with their parents and study both languages.^{[22][page needed]} Anti-Japanese sentiment during World War I resulted in public efforts to close Japanese-language schools. The 1927 Supreme Court case Farrington v. Tokushige protected the Japanese American community's right to have Japanese language private institutions. During the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II many Japanese schools were closed. After the war many Japanese schools reopened.^[23]

There are primary school-junior high school Japanese international schools within the United States. Some are classified as

There are also

supplementary Japanese educational institutions (hoshū jugyō kō) that hold Japanese classes on weekends. They are located in several US cities.^[26] The supplementary schools target Japanese nationals and second-generation Japanese Americans living in the United States. There are also Japanese heritage schools for third generation and beyond Japanese Americans.^[27] Rachel Endo of Hamline University,^[28] the author of "Realities, Rewards, and Risks of Heritage-Language Education: Perspectives from Japanese Immigrant Parents in a Midwestern Community," wrote that the heritage schools "generally emphasize learning about Japanese American historical experiences and Japanese culture in more loosely defined terms".^[29]

Japanese Ministry of Education

or MEXT) were full-time Japanese schools that were formerly in existence.

Religion

Religious makeup of Japanese-Americans (2012)[30]

  

Shintoism

and other (6%)

Japanese Americans practice a wide range of religions, including

Catholic

, being their majority faith as per recent data). In many ways, due to the longstanding nature of Buddhist and Shinto practices in Japanese society, many of the cultural values and traditions commonly associated with Japanese tradition have been strongly influenced by these religious forms.

A large number of the Japanese American community continue to practice

Obon Festival, which occurs in the summer, and provides an opportunity to reconnect with their customs and traditions and to pass these traditions and customs to the young. These kinds of festivals are mostly popular in communities with large populations of Japanese Americans, such as Southern California and Hawaii

. A reasonable number of Japanese people both in and out of Japan are secular, as Shinto and Buddhism are most often practiced by rituals such as marriages or funerals, and not through faithful worship, as defines religion for many Americans.

Most Japanese Americans now practice Christianity. Among mainline denominations the Presbyterians have long been active. The First Japanese Presbyterian Church of San Francisco opened in 1885.[31] Los Angeles Holiness Church was founded by six Japanese men and women in 1921.^[32] There is also the Japanese Evangelical Missionary Society (JEMS) formed in the 1950s. It operates Asian American Christian Fellowships (AACF) programs on university campuses, especially in California.^[33] The Japanese language ministries are fondly known as "Nichigo" in Japanese American Christian communities. The newest trend includes Asian American members who do not have a Japanese heritage.^[34]

Celebrations

An important annual festival for Japanese Americans is the

Obon Festival

, which happens in July or August of each year. Across the country, Japanese Americans gather on fair grounds, churches and large civic parking lots and commemorate the memory of their ancestors and their families through folk dances and food. Carnival booths are usually set up so Japanese American children have the opportunity to play together.

Japanese American celebrations tend to be more sectarian in nature and focus on the community-sharing aspects.

A nebuta float during Nisei Week in Los Angeles

Kazari streamers hung during the Tanabata festival in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo.

Bon Odori in Seattle

A kagami mochi display for the upcoming Japanese New Year in San Diego's Nijiya Market

Major celebrations in the United States

Date	Name	Region
January 1	Shōgatsu New Year's Celebration	Nationwide
February	Japanese Heritage Fair	Honolulu, HI
February to March	Cherry Blossom Festival	Honolulu, HI
March 3	Hinamatsuri (Girls' Day)	Hawaii
March	Honolulu Festival	Honolulu, HI
March	Hawaiʻi International Taiko Festival	Honolulu, HI
March	International Cherry Blossom Festival	Macon, GA
March to April	National Cherry Blossom Festival	Washington, D.C.
April	Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival	San Francisco, CA
April	Pasadena Cherry Blossom Festival	Pasadena, CA
April	Seattle Cherry Blossom Festival	Seattle, WA
May 5	Tango no Sekku (Boys' Day)	Hawaii
May	Shinnyo-En Toro-Nagashi (Memorial Day Floating Lantern Ceremony)	Honolulu, HI
June	Pan-Pacific Festival Matsuri in Hawaiʻi	Honolulu, HI
July 7	Tanabata (Star Festival)	Nationwide
July–August	Obon Festival	Nationwide
August	Nihonmachi Street Fair	San Francisco, CA
August	Nisei Week	Los Angeles, CA

Politics

Japanese Americans have shown strong support for Democratic candidates in recent elections. Shortly prior to the 2004 US presidential election, Japanese Americans narrowly favored Democrat John Kerry by a 42% to 38% margin over Republican George W. Bush.^[35] In the 2008 US presidential election, the National Asian American Survey found that Japanese Americans favored Democrat Barack Obama by a 62% to 16% margin over Republican John McCain, while 22% were still undecided.^[36] In the 2012 presidential election, a majority of Japanese Americans (70%) voted for Barack Obama.^[37] In the 2016 presidential election, majority of Japanese Americans (74%) voted for Hillary Clinton.^[38] In pre-election surveys for the 2020 presidential election, 61% to 72% of Japanese Americans planned to vote for Joe Biden.^[39][40]

Cuisine

Circa 2016, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (Japan) calculated that people of Japanese ancestry operated about 10% of the Japanese restaurants in the United States; this was because salaries were relatively high in Japan and few cooks of Japanese cuisine had motivations to move to the United States. This meant Americans and immigrants of other ethnic origins, including Chinese Americans, opened restaurants serving Japanese style cuisine.^[41]

Genetics

Risk for inherited diseases

Studies have looked into the risk factors that are more prone to Japanese Americans, specifically in hundreds of family generations of

DNA samples

which could be used to identify which diseases are more susceptible in Japanese Americans.

Concerns with these studies of the risks of inherited diseases in Japanese Americans is that information pertaining to the genetic relationship may not be consistent with the reported biological family information given of Nisei second generation pro-bands.

coronary heart disease in Japanese Americans. Specifically too, the apolipoprotein *e4 allele is linked to Alzheimer's disease as well. Also, there is increased coronary heart disease in Japanese American men with a mutation in the cholesterol ester transfer protein gene despite having increased levels of HDL. By definition, HDL are plasma high density lipoproteins that show a genetic relationship with coronary heart disease (CHD). The cholesterol ester transfer protein (CETP) helps the transfer of cholesterol esters from lipoproteins to other lipoproteins in the human body. It plays a fundamental role in the reverse transport of cholesterol to the liver

, which is why a mutation in this can lead to coronary heart disease.

Studies have shown that the CETP is linked to increased HDL levels. There is a very common pattern of two different cholesterol ester transfer protein gene mutations (D442G, 5.1%; intron 14G:A, 0.5%) found in about 3,469 Japanese American men. This was based on a program called the Honolulu Heart Program. The mutations correlated with decreased CETP levels (-35%) and increased HDL cholesterol levels (+10% for D442G). The relative risk of CHD was 1.43 in men with mutations (P<0.05), and after research found for CHD risk factors, the relative risk went up to 1.55 (P=0.02); after further adjustments for HDL levels, the relative risk went up again to 1.68 (P=0.008). Genetic CETP deficiency is an independent risk factor for coronary heart disease, which is due mainly to increased CHD risks in Japanese American men with the D442G mutation and lipoprotein cholesterol levels between 41 and 60 mg/dl.[43] With research and investigations, the possibility of finding "bad genes" denounces the Japanese Americans and will be associated only with Japanese American ancestry, leading to other issues the Japanese Americans had to deal with in the past such as discrimination and prejudice.^[44]

Japanese Americans by state

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California

See also: History of the Japanese in Los Angeles and History of the Japanese in San Francisco

In the early 1900s, Japanese Americans established fishing communities on Terminal Island and in San Diego.^[45] By 1923, there were two thousand Japanese fishermen sailing out of Los Angeles Harbor.^[46] By the 1930s, legislation was passed that attempted to limit Japanese fishermen. Still, areas such as San Francisco's Japantown managed to thrive.

Due to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, historically Japanese areas fell into disrepair or became adopted by other minority groups (in the case of Black and Latino populations in Little Tokyo). Boats owned by Japanese Americans were confiscated by the

community centers in order to feel accepted. Today, many have been renamed cultural centers and focus on the sharing of Japanese culture with local community members, especially in the sponsorship of Obon festivals.^[50]

The city of

From the early 20th century, Japanese immigrants to the state often came from rural parts of Japan and the "prosperous Aichi Prefecture".^[10]

There were roughly 11,000 people of Japanese heritage in

Illinois

As of 2011 there is a Japanese community in

There is a Japanese School of Language in Medford.[56] Another, the Amherst Japanese Language School, is in South Hadley, in the 5-college area of the western part of the state.^[57] Most Japanese Americans in the state live in Greater Boston, with a high concentration in the town of Brookline.

Michigan

As of April 2013, the largest Japanese national population in Michigan is in Novi, with 2,666 Japanese residents, and the next largest populations are respectively in Ann Arbor, West Bloomfield Township, Farmington Hills, and Battle Creek. The state has 481 Japanese employment facilities providing 35,554 local jobs. 391 of them are in Southeast Michigan, providing 20,816 jobs, and the 90 in other regions in the state provide 14,738 jobs. The Japanese Direct Investment Survey of the Consulate-General of Japan, Detroit stated that over 2,208 more Japanese residents were employed in the State of Michigan as of October 1, 2012, than had been in 2011.^[58]

Missouri

Many Japanese Americans in Missouri live in the St. Louis area and are the descendants of those who were previously interned in camps such as one in Arkansas.^[59]

New Jersey

As of March 2011 about 2,500 Japanese Americans combined live in Edgewater and Fort Lee; this is the largest concentration of Japanese Americans in the state.^[60] The New Jersey Japanese School is located in Oakland. Paramus Catholic High School hosts a weekend Japanese school, and Englewood Cliffs has a Japanese school. Other smaller Japanese American populations are also located in the remainder of Bergen County and other parts of the state. Mitsuwa Marketplace has a location in Edgewater that also houses a mini shopping complex.^[61]

New York

Oklahoma

The 1990 census recorded 2,385 Japanese Americans in Oklahoma.^[62] Historically, they lived in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Bartlesville, and Ponca City and none were interned during World War II.^[62]

Oregon

Rhode Island

Rhode Island is the only state celebrating Victory Over Japan Day (V-J Day) as a holiday. Every year, the holiday is observed on the second Monday in August. It has been claimed that this holiday is racially-based and negatively affects Japanese American citizens in RI and other states in the U.S., ignoring traumas caused by the history of the internment camp and deaths of between 129,000 and 226,000 civilians and lasting radiation poisoning due to the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is reported that in Rhode Island, some Japanese "are uncomfortable leaving their homes on Victory Day because they fear violence."^[63]

Virginia

There are about 5,500 Japanese Americans in

Neighborhoods and communities

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West

• Hawaii:

• California:
  • Greater Los Angeles:
    • Anaheim and Orange County.^[64]
    • Cerritos, Hawaiian Gardens and adjacent cities.
    • Costa Mesa
    • Fontana in the Inland Empire.
    • Fullerton in Orange County.
    • South Bay
      area.
    • Lomita in the L.A. area.
    • Long Beach, California – historic Japanese fisheries presence in Terminal Island.
    • Los Angeles, especially the Little Tokyo
      section.
    • Imperial Valley
      .
    • Pasadena in the Los Angeles' San Gabriel Valley.
    • Santa Monica – esp. Blacks Beach.
    • Sawtelle, California, in West Los Angeles.
    • South Bay area, the largest Japanese community in North America and the second largest Japanese community in the U.S.^[65]
    • Marina Del Rey
      .
    • Terminal Island – site of a former Japanese fishing village in Los Angeles Harbor. Notable for a Japanese-English pidgin spoken there before WWII. It was demolished during the War, after its residents were sent to Manzanar.
  • San Diego area:
    • University City.
    • Chula Vista.
    • Japanese community center in Vista in North County, one of two of its kind in Southern California.
  • Central Valley, California
    region:
    • Bakersfield / Kern County
      .
    • Butte County.
    • Fresno
      , 0.5% of county residents have Japanese ancestry.
    • Livingston, California in Merced County.
    • Lodi.
    • Merced
      .
    • Stockton.
    • Sutter County
      .
    • Yuba County
      .
  • San Francisco Bay Area, the main concentration of Nisei and Sansei in the 20th century:
    • Alameda County, concentrated and historic populations in the cities of Alameda, Berkeley, Fremont, Oakland, and Hayward.
    • Contra Costa County, concentrated in Walnut Creek.
    • San Mateo County, especially Daly City and Pacifica.
    • San Jose, has one of the three remaining officially recognized Japantowns in North America.
    • Santa Clara County, concentrated in Cupertino, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale.
    • San Francisco, notably in the Japantown district^[66]
    • Santa Cruz County.
  • Monterey County, especially Salinas, California.
  • Sacramento, and some neighborhoods of Elk Grove, Florin and Walnut Grove.
• Washington State:
  • Seattle area.
  • Bellevue.
  • Redmond.
  • Tacoma.
• Puget Sound region (San Juan Islands) have Japanese fisheries for over a century.
• Skagit Valley of Washington.
• Yakima Valley, Washington.
• Chehalis Valley of Washington.
• Oregon:
  • Ontario.
  • Portland and surrounding area.
  • Southern Oregon valleys.
  • Willamette Valley.
• Idaho:
  • Boise Area.
  • Caldwell.
  • Meridian.
  • Nampa.
• Arizona:
  • Phoenix Area, notably a section of Grand Avenue in Northwest Phoenix, and
    Maryvale
    .
  • Las Vegas Area, with a reference of Japanese farmers on Bonzai Slough, Arizona near Needles, California.
  • Southern Arizona, part of the "exclusion area" for Japanese internment during World War II along with the Pacific coast states.
  • Yuma County/Colorado River Valley.
• New Mexico
  • Gallup, New Mexico, in World War II the city fought to prevent the internment of its 800 Japanese residents.
• Colorado
  • Denver, note Sakura Square
    .
  • Greeley.
  • Pueblo.
• Utah
  • Salt Lake City
    .

Outside the West

In the Southern, Midwestern, and Northeastern United States, the New York metropolitan area has the highest number of Japanese Americans, followed by the Washington metropolitan area.^[67]

• Arlington, Virginia and Alexandria, Virginia (the Northern Virginia
  region).
• Bergen County, New Jersey.
• Boone County, Kentucky.
• Carmel, Indiana.
• Boston, Massachusetts
  .
• Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Brookline, Massachusetts.
• Chicago, Illinois
  and suburbs:
  • Arlington Heights.
  • Buffalo Grove
  • Elk Grove Village.
  • Evanston.
  • Kane County.
  • Naperville.
  • Schaumburg.
  • Skokie.
  • Wilmette.
• Columbus, Ohio.
• Fayetteville, North Carolina – close to the Research Triangle.
• Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex
  area).
• Kansas City
  metro area.
• Northern New Jersey
  .
• Northern Indiana has a small, but evident Japanese community.
• Novi, Michigan outside Detroit.
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with the suburbs of Chester County
  .
• Salem, New Jersey and Cherry Hill, New Jersey (see Delaware Valley).
• Salisbury, Maryland and Ocean City, Maryland (see Wicomico County).
• Seabrook Farms, New Jersey.^[68]
• South Texas – Rio Grande Valley had Japanese farmers.
• Washington, D.C., and suburbs in Maryland and Northern Virginia.
• Yamato Colony, Florida in South Florida.

Notable people

Sessue Hayakawa	Bob Matsui	Eric Shinseki	Isamu Noguchi	Norman Mineta	Michio Kaku	Mirai Nagasu
Hikaru Utada	James Iha	George Takei	Mike Shinoda	Ellison Onizuka	Yuna Ito	Sadao Munemori
Harry B. Harris Jr.	Melody.	Jake Shimabukuro	Sono Osato	Francis Fukuyama	Hayley Kiyoko	Ryan Higa

Politics

After the

As an expansion of immigration continued in 1920, more restrictions on women were put in place.This also came with the push for more Single women to act as continental brides and come to the United States and more to raise up strong Japanese communities by marrying Japanese settlers who lived there. This push also called for women to be trained to  best server the household needs, husband and mostly the empire.[69]

Japanese American members of the United States House of Representatives have included Daniel K. Inouye, Spark Matsunaga, Patsy Mink, Norman Mineta, Bob Matsui, Pat Saiki, Mike Honda, Doris Matsui, Mazie Hirono, Mark Takano, Mark Takai, and Jill Tokuda.

Japanese American members of the United States Senate have included Daniel K. Inouye,

George Ariyoshi served as the governor of Hawaiʻi from 1974 to 1986. He was the first American of Asian descent to be elected governor of a state of the United States. David Ige was the governor of Hawaii from 2014 2022.

Kinjiro Matsudaira was elected mayor of Edmonston, Maryland in 1927 and 1943.^[70] In 1957, Japanese American James Kanno was elected as the first mayor of California's Fountain Valley.^[71] Tom Kitayama became Union City, California's first mayor in 1959, and also served there as mayor in 1962, 1969, and 1974 through 1990.^[72][73] In Norm Mineta became mayor of San Jose, California in 1971.^[74] Ken Nakaoka became Gardena, California's mayor in 1972.^[75]

In 1980, Eunice Sato became the first Asian-American female mayor of a major American city when she was elected mayor of Long Beach, California.^[76]

Science and technology

Many Japanese Americans have also gained prominence in science and technology. In 1979, biochemist

Charles J. Pedersen won the 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his methods of synthesizing crown ethers. Yoichiro Nambu won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on quantum chromodynamics and spontaneous symmetry breaking. Shuji Nakamura won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes. Syukuro Manabe won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to the "physical modeling of earth's climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming."

In 2018, Lauren Kiyomi Williams became the second ever tenured female mathematician of the Harvard mathematics department.

Art and literature

Art and architecture

Artist Sueo Serisawa helped establish the California Impressionist style of painting. Yoko Ono's Fluxus art and performance art has been exhibited internationally. Other influential Japanese American artists include Norio Azuma, Chiura Obata, Isamu Noguchi, Kenjiro Nomura, George Tsutakawa, George Nakashima, Hideo Noda, and Ruth Asawa.

Architect Minoru Yamasaki designed the original World Trade Center (completed in 1973) and several other large-scale projects. Gyo Obata designed the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. (completed in 1976) and the pavilion of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles (completed in 1992).

Literature

Japanese American recipients of the

Taro Yashima won the Children's Book Award in 1955 for his book Crow Boy. Cynthia Kadohata won the Newbery Medal in 2005 and National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2013.

Michi Weglyn and Ronald Takaki received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in 1977 and 1994 respectively.

Dale Furutani won the Anthony Award and the Macavity Award in 1997.

Poet laureate of San Francisco (from 2000 to 2002) Janice Mirikitani published three volumes of poems. Lawson Fusao Inada was named poet laureate of the state of Oregon (2006–2010).

Michiko Kakutani is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning literary critic and former chief book critic for The New York Times (from 1983 to 2017).

Karen Tei Yamashita was named the recipient of the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2021.

Music

Classical violinist

Other notable Japanese American musicians include singer, actress and Broadway star

Japanese Americans first made an impact in Olympic sports in the late 1940s and in the 1950s.

Several decades later,

Michael Norman (mother from Japan) was a member of the gold medal-winning 4 × 400 meters relay at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, and won an individual gold medal in the 400 meter race at the 2022 World Athletics Championships. Swimmers Erica Sullivan and Jay Litherland (both with mothers from Japan) each won silver medals at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

In figure skating,

In distance running, Miki (Michiko) Gorman won the Boston and New York City marathons twice in the 1970s. A former American record holder at the distance, she is the only woman to win both races twice, and is one of only two women to win both marathons in the same year.

In professional sports,

WNBA and finished off her NCAA career with the third-most career 3-pointers at Stanford University

.

U.S. Chess Championship

for the first time. He later won four other times.

Collin Morikawa won golf's 2020 PGA Championship and 2021 Open Championship.

Tennis player Naomi Osaka, who moved to the United States aged three,^[82] had held U.S. citizenship until she renounced it in 2019 in order to represent Japan at the 2020 Summer Olympics.^[83] She was the main torchbearer at the event in Tokyo.^[84] Osaka resides in the United States.^[85]

Kyle Larson, born to an American father and Japanese American mother, won the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series.

Entertainment and media

Mako Iwamatsu, and Pat Morita

were nominated for Academy Awards in 1957, 1966, and 1984 respectively.

Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Kazu Hiro won the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling

in 2018 and 2020, winning the second award as an American citizen.

Japanese Americans now anchor TV newscasts in markets all over the country. Notable anchors include Tritia Toyota, Adele Arakawa, David Ono, Kent Ninomiya, Lori Matsukawa, and Rob Fukuzaki.^[87]

Works about Japanese Americans

• In 2010
  TBS produced a five-part, ten-hour fictional Japanese language miniseries, Japanese Americans. This featured many of the major events and themes of the Issei and Nisei experience, including emigration, racism, picture brides, farming, pressure due to the China and Pacific wars, internment, a key character who serves in the 442nd, and the ongoing redefinition in identity of what it means to be Japanese and American.^[88]

• Buddhist Churches of America (Young Buddhist Association & Buddhist Women's Association)
• Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii
• Zenshuji Soto Misson & Soto Zen Buddhist Association
• Midwest Buddhist Temple Ginza Holiday Festival
• San Francisco Peace Pagoda
• List of Shinto shrines in the United States
• Gedatsu Church of America
• Chicago Shimpo
• Day of Remembrance (Japanese Americans)
• Go for Broke Monument
• Japanese American Citizens League
• Japanese American National Library
• Japanese American National Museum
• Japanese American service in World War II
  • 442nd Infantry Regiment, and the related 522nd Field Artillery Battalion
  • 100th Infantry Battalion
  • Military Intelligence Service
• List of Japanese American Servicemen and Servicewomen in World War II
• Japanese Community Youth Council (San Francisco)
• Japanese in Chicago
• Japanese in Hawaii
• Japanese in Los Angeles
• Japanese in New York City
• Japanese in Texas
• Japanese Argentines
• Japanese Brazilians
• Japanese Chileans
• Japanese Colombians
• Japanese Mexicans
• Japanese Peruvians
• Japanese Filipinos
• Japanese Canadians
• Japanese Australians
• Japanese New Zealanders
• Japanese in the United Kingdom
• Americans in Japan
• Ōbeikei Islanders
• Model minority
• Nisei Baseball Research Project
• Pacific Movement of the Eastern World
• Japan–United States relations

References

Further reading

• "Present-Day Immigration with Special Reference to the Japanese," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (Jan 1921), pp. 1–232 online Archived August 9, 2016, at the Wayback Machine 24 articles by experts, mostly about California
• Hosokawa, Bill (October 1, 2005). Colorado's Japanese Americans: From 1886 to the Present. University Press of Colorado.
  ISBN 9780870818110
  .
• Azuma, Eiichiro. "A History of Oregon's Issei, 1880–1952 Archived November 4, 2015, at the
  JStor
  .
• DeWan, George. "Learning How To Stay Japanese In America." Newsday. January 6, 1990. PART 11, Start page NOPGCIT.
• Easton, Stanley E., and Lucien Ellington. "Japanese Americans." in Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, edited by Thomas Riggs, (3rd ed., vol. 2, Gale, 2014), pp. 537–555. online Archived March 26, 2021, at the Wayback Machine
• ISBN 978-0-688-05013-9
  .
• Inouye, Karen M., "Changing History: Competing Notions of Japanese American Experience, 1942–2006" (PhD dissertation Brown University, 2008). Dissertation Abstracts International No. DA3318331.
• Jacobson, Matthew Frye. (2000). Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876–1917. Hill and Wang,
  ISBN 978-0-8090-1628-0
• Kase, Toyoshi. "Nisei Samurai: Culture and Agency in Three Japanese American Lives." (PhD dissertation 2005). online Archived March 2, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
• Kikumura-Yano, Akemi, ed. "Encyclopedia of Japanese Descendants in the Americas." (Walnut Creek, CA: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).
• Leong, Andrew Way. "Early Japanese American Literature, 1815–1900." in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature (2019). online^{[dead link]}
• Lyman, Stanford M. Chinatown and Little Tokyo: Power, Conflict, and Community Among Chinese and Japanese Immigrants in America (Associated Faculty Press, 1986).
• Miyakawa, Tetsuo Scott. East across the Pacific: historical & sociological studies of Japanese immigration & assimilation (ABC-CLIO, 1972).
• Montero, Darrel. Japanese Americans: Changing Patterns of Ethnic Affiliation Over Three Generations (Westview Press, 1980).
• Moulin, Pierre. (1993). U.S. Samurais in Bruyeres – People of France and Japanese Americans: Incredible story Hawaii CPL Editions.
  ISBN 2-9599984-0-5
• Moulin, Pierre. (2007). Dachau, Holocaust and US Samurais – Nisei Soldiers first in Dachau Authorhouse Editions.
  ISBN 978-1-4259-3801-7
• Nakano, Mei T. Japanese American Women: Three Generations 1890–1990 (Mina Press, 1990).
• Niiya, Brian, ed. Encyclopedia of Japanese American History: An A-to-Z Reference from 1868 to the Present. (2001). online free to borrow
• Takahashi, Jere. Nisei/Sansei: Shifting Japanese American Identities and Politics (Temple University Press, 1997).
• Thernstrom, Stephan; Orlov, Ann; Handlin, Oscar (1980). "Japanese". Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (2 ed.). Harvard University Press. pp. 561–562.
  ISBN 0-674-37512-2
  .
• Tsuchiya, Tomoko, "Interracial Marriages between American Soldiers and Japanese Women at the Beginning of the Cold War," Journal of American and Canadian Studies (Tokyo) (no. 29, 2011), 59–84
• "United States Census 2000". United States Census Bureau. April 2000. Archived from the original on July 30, 2017. Retrieved March 16, 2007.

In Hawaii

Further information: Japanese in Hawaii § Further reading

• Asato, Noriko (September 2005). Teaching Mikadoism: The Attack on Japanese Language Schools in Hawaii, California, and Washington, 1919–1927. Honolulu: University of Hawaii.
• Kono, Hideto; Sinoto, Kazuko (2000). "Observations of the first Japanese to Land in Hawai'i" (PDF). The Hawaiian Journal of History. 34: 49–62. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 14, 2017. Retrieved February 13, 2016.
• Kawakami, Barbara F. Japanese immigrant clothing in Hawaii, 1885–1941 (University of Hawaii Press, 1995).
• Morgan, William. Pacific Gibraltar: U.S.-Japanese Rivalry over the Annexation of Hawai'i, 1885–1898 (Naval Institute Press, 2011).
• Morimoto, Toyotomi (1997). Japanese Americans and Cultural Continuity: Maintaining Language through Heritage. Routledge.
• Nordyke, Eleanor C., and Y. Scott Matsumoto. "Japanese in Hawaii: a Historical and Demographic Perspective." (1977). online Archived February 28, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
• Takagi, Mariko (1987). Moral Education in Pre-War Japanese Language Schools in Hawaii. Honolulu: University of Hawaii.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Japanese diaspora in the United States.

• "Japanese Americans". (Archive) State of California.
• Japanese American National Museum
• Embassy of Japan Archived February 16, 2019, at the Wayback Machine in Washington, DC
• Japanese American Citizens League
• Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii
• Japanese Cultural & Community Center of Northern California
• Japanese American Community and Cultural Center of Southern California
• Japanese American Historical Society
• Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project
• Japanese American Museum of San Jose, California
• Japanese American Network
• Japanese-American's own companies in USA
• Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives Archived November 25, 2002, at the Wayback Machine
• Online Archive of the Japanese American Relocation during World War II
• Photo Exhibit of Japanese American community in Florida
• Nikkei Federation
• Discover Nikkei
• Summary of a panel discussion on changing Japanese American identities
• The War: Fighting for Democracy: Japanese Americans Archived March 10, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
• "The War Relocation Centers of World War II: When Fear Was Stronger than Justice", a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan
• U.S. Government interned Japanese from Latin America
• Short radio episode Baseball from "Lil' Yokohama" by Toshio Mori, 1941. California Legacy Project.
• American Life in the 20th Century in Washington State^{[permanent dead link]} – University of Washington Digital Collections