The Double Burdens of Immigrant Nationalism: The Relationship between Chinese and Japanese in the American West, 1880s–1920s

JOAN S. WANG

SINCE THE ARRIVAL of Japanese immigrants in the american West during the late nineteenth century, the relationship between the Chinese and Japanese there has been complex, marked by suspicion and, at times, direct conflict. Such antagonism between two marginalized minority groups would seem incongruous, given the discrimination they both faced in the new World. Indeed, at the beginning of the twentieth century, as in the previous century with Chinese immigrants, discriminatory treatment of Japanese took root in the western United States and spread throughout the region. A diplomatic agreement between the United States and Japan in 1908 temporarily curbed Japanese immigration. In 1924 the U.S. Congress passed the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act, which excluded, among others, Japanese immigrants—hearkening back to the Chinese exclusion act of 1882. From 1882 to 1924, as American society gradually embraced a nativist outlook toward the asian groups, relations between them became strained. Increasing competition for a limited supply of jobs, combined with racial prejudice and anti-foreigner sentiment, sharpened estrangement between the groups, leading to mutual hostility that would dominate relations between Chinese and Japanese immigrants for much of the twentieth century. Admittedly, some Chinese and Japanese immigrants empathized with each other's plight, particularly in the context of their shared experiences of discrimination; unfortunately, such feelings did little to bridge the gap between them.