Group+Three+-+Immigration

=Immigration   = =** 日系  **=      ===History  ===  The //Discover Nikkei// website states that the Japanese term <span class="t_nihongo_kanji" style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">日系  <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"> (nikkei) refers to the people who emigrated outside of Japan and their descendants. Modern emigration history, according to Wikipedia's "Japanese Diaspora" page, began only recently in Japan. Imposition of travel restrictions during the 1600s (Edo Period) by the Tokugawa shogunate prevented Japanese from coming in and out of the country. It was not until the mid-1800s, when relations with the West improved that the restriction was lifted. It may be this reason that the Japanese immigrant population in the UK never rose above several thousand per a year.

The "Japanese British" Wikipedia article claims the first Japanese immigrants in UK were mainly students and government officials. In the decades after the government permitted overseas travel, the Japanese population in the UK totaled to about 250. London became the central location of UK Japanese immigrants when Japanese business and banking increased during the early 1900s. Additionally, unlike other groups, the Japanese never emigrated in large numbers to the UK or other European countries as they did to the United States or Latin America. According to Keiko Itoh, author of __The Japanese Community in Pre-War Britain__, much of the British Japanese immigrated to advance their education, as opposed to those who emigrated to other regions (13). Furthermore, Itoh states that the Japanese community was primarily composed of "the upper echelons," the upper class who had the ability to exercise their leadership and influence on the rest. Essentially, many emigrated to the UK to learn the "ways of the West," and as Itoh says, "to become a better quality Japanese person" (3-4). ===<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Life in Britain  === <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"> Itoh states that the Japanese community faced little hostility during the pre-WWII years. Interestingly, he notes that the British saw the Japanese in a different light than other immigrant groups such as the "Blacks, Indians, Arabs and Chinese" who were "viewed as a source of cheap labour and potential threat to employment opportunities" (3). In an interview with Makino Yoshio (also known as Yoshio Markino), an artist who moved to London in December 1897 after living for several years in San Francisco, recounts the drastic differences between the treatment of Japanese immigrants in the States and Britain:

//"As I had been in American previously for four years, naturally I used to compare everything here with that of America; and what great contrast between the two countries - especially to a Japanese!// [...] //I was rather amused with my poor life, but by no means did I feel pleasant with the way Californians treated me. It is the world-known fact that they hate Japanese.// [...] //I started my first sightseeing from Hyde Park and the Green Park and St. James's Park ... I so timidly walked inside the rail. Nobody shouted me. Then I went near the crowds of people with still more fear. Being quite ignorant of the English civilisation I anticipated some pebble-showers every minute. I waited and waited with beating heart, but nothing happened to me at all ... Nobody spat on me! 'Hallo, hallo, what's matter?' I said in my heart. 'Perhaps they don't know I am a Japanese.' I took off my hat on purpose to show my black hair. Finally one man pushed me quite accidentally, and he touched his hand to his hat and apologised me very politely"// (15). The growing London Japanese community in the early 1900s was diverse. There were expatriates, who made up a large sum of the population, as well as independent businessmen who opened up their own shops. Much of the businesses gravitated towards Denmark St., off of Charing Cross Road. During that period, Itoh considers it the "Little Tokyo of London." Notably, Yamanaka Chushi (see image 1) started a jewelry business and cemented his place as the "linchpin of the Japanese community," according to Itoh. Yamanaka moved to London at the age of 24 with his cousins, with the intent of studying under Jewish jewellers. However, as his daughter Joyce Unger remembers, Yamanaka was a brilliant businessman. He soon started his own business under the name Yamanaka & Co. but later renamed it to Chushier. At first, he targeted British customers but around 1935 began to gear his business towards the Japanese customers (Itoh 82). He was very successful and married Winifred Cornell when she was 20. In the interview with Itoh, Joyce Unger (Yamanaka's daughter) says: //"When I was growing up, yes, my father must have been pretty well-to-do// [...] //they had a cook, housekeeper, a live-in maid, a weekly gardener, a nanny after I was born, and somebody came to do the sewing once a month"// (61).

Another businessman Itoh examines in his book is Hori Nobuyoshi. Unlike Yamanaka who specialized in retail, Hori started a restaurant named The Ideal <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Café (see image 3) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">, located in Woolwich. Before opening up his own establishment, Hori worked at a number of hotels and <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">café <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">s. In 1917 he met and married Daisy Turnnidge. After several setbacks, they opened up the <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">café <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"> in 1921. Their son, John Hori, describes the difficult start his parents experienced in an interview with Itoh. Unlike Yamanaka who had solid connections with the Japanese community in London, Hori rarely associated with them. The Ideal <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Café <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"> catered to the British community and which John remembers as "a working man's establishment" (Itoh 74). After several years, business at the restaurant picked up and the Hori family moved to a better neighborhood. John Hori recollects this time as "an idyllic phase" in his interview:

//"Life was absolutely super after the recession had lifted and until the outbreak of War. Britain seemed a great place to live and with hindsight I still think it was, at least in the home counties. We didn't have whole family holidays because one parent had to run the shop, but everyone had a holiday. Mum would take the three children away and dad went off separately at another time. Sometimes my sister had an extra holiday with dad. He was a compulsive traveller and would seize any opportunity to go anywhere and everywhere, all the time. Moving to Eltham had important extra benefits for him. He was able to wander at will in the woodland and parks just a stone's throw from the house and this he did for the rest of his life: early in the morning and in the quiet of evening"// (75).

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Itoh notes that The Ideal  <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Café, as well as the Hori family, were "so integrated that being Japanese had no significance or relevance" (85). In contrast to this, the Yamanakas began catering to the British but gradually immersed into the Japanese immigrant community. This is a telling instance of the separation between mainstream British society and the immigrant communities, but that the separation is not impermeable. These two examples of Japanese immigrants portray the relative success and freedom they had in Britain up until World War II.

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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"> At the onset of World War II, the Japanese community felt a stark difference in the way they were seen and treated. Many of the children, who were born and raised in London, never experienced discrimination growing up. They never saw themselves as different until the War and as Itoh says, "were forced to consider their [...]Japanese-ness" (163). Joyce Yamanaka, who is half-Japanese, was impacted by this as well, saying:

//"I don't think my friends regarded me as being any different, until of course the war. I lost two friends when Japan came into the war. One was a girl and the other was a boy. The girl, I was very friendly with at school, and in those days we were still pretty formal and we would introduce each other as Miss so-and-so. But this girl stopped introducing me as Miss Yamanaka, she would say Joyce or something. I noticed this, and we fell out over it. The other incident was with this boy I was going around with. I knew him before he joined the Navy. When he joined up he was sent on a CW course and on his first leave we went to the cinema. And he saw me back to my gate at home. We lived opposite the road which led to the National Physics Laboratory, which was a very important place during the war. There was always a policeman posted there. And so this boy said, 'I won't come in. It's better that I'm not seen coming in to your house. There's a policeman standing there.' And then it dawned on me that I was an embarrassment to him. He wrote to me after the war and wanted to see me, but I never replied. Those were the only two friends that I lost. But that did make me aware that there was this thing. Half of me was on the other side, as it were"// (163).

In another interview, Rosina Saiko (nee Matsukawa) remembers the discrimination she faced after the War began:

//"If you met strange children in the street you got called names, 'Nip' or whatever they called Japanese. It wasn't a problem in our own schools because everyone knew us. I think after the war, there was a certain amount of animosity. It was more difficulty to make friends. Particularly after the war, I think my father, in order to protect us, did not mix much. I can't really remember much open hostility, but you were treated somewhat as strangers in your own country"// (Itoh 165).

Something that Itoh covers in __The Japanese Community in Pre-War Britain__ is the internment of 114 Japanese men in the Isle of Man camp. After the War began, the resort was turned into "an island of internment camps surrounded by barbed wire" (185). The Japanese were quartered with a multifarious group of people including businessmen, bureaucrats, and journalists. Though the internment of Japanese in the UK was not as extreme as in the United States, one internee did die as a result. Among the 114, a number of them were repatriated back to Japan (187). In addition to the Isle of Man, 2,600 Japanese were held in a British internment camp in India (189). Itoh does not clarify where these 2,600 originated, but judging by the number, many of them were probably POWs.

With Japan's reputation on the brink, increasing discrimination, and encouragement from the Japanese government and embassy to return to Japan, Britain's Japanese community disintergrated in the midst of war and turmoil. In the end, the Yamanakas were forced to return to Japan and John Yamanaka, who had gone to Japan for studies previously, was drafted into the Japanese Navy (Itoh 191). There was an enormous potential for Britain's (especially London's) Japanese community to develop a strong and influential nikkei presence. Despite their loyalties to Britain, the War's effects overwhelmed and ultimately consumed any kind of potential for growth and acceptance into mainstream British society.

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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">According to an article published in 1995 by Edward Pilkington in //The Guardian//, 45,619 Japanese lived in Britain; the majority of them being students, teachers, and researchers. There were still feelings of resentment, especially among POWs who were captured by the Japanese. At the 50th anniversary commemoration of the war, the article states that no Japanese officials were invited "for fear of a walkout by veterans."

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__Discover Nikkei__ <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">. The Nippon Foundation. 3 Dec. 2008 <http://www.discovernikkei.org>.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; text-align: center; display: block;">Works Cited ** <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">

Itoh, Keiko. <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">__The Japanese Community in Pre-War Britain__. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2001.

"Japanese British." <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">__Wikipedia__. 3 Dec. 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Japanese>.

"Japanese diaspora." <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">__Wikipedia__. 3 Dec. 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_diaspora>.

Pilkington, Edward. "Victory celebration makes Japanese in Britain uneasy." <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">__The Guardian__ 12 Aug. 1995 __[Manchester]__ : 008. __ProQuest Newsstand__. ProQuest. San Diego State University. 3 Dec. 2008 <http://www.proquest.com.libproxy.sdsu.edu/>.

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 * All images found through Google Image Search except for images 1, 3 from __The Japanese Community in Pre-War Britain__.
 * Quotes from Itoh Keiko's interviews are italicized to place emphasis on the narrative.

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