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The Japanese Problem, also referred to as the Japanese Menace or the Japanese Conspiracy, was the name given to racial tensions in Hawaii between the
The Japanese Problem, also referred to as the Japanese Menace or the Japanese Conspiracy, was the name given to racial tensions in Hawaii between the European-American
European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent Eu ...
sugarcane
Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...
plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
owners and the Japanese immigrants hired to work in the cane fields.
Origins
The term "Japanese Problem" came into use during the 1920 Oahu Sugar Strike. Following the strike, powerfulEuropean-American
European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent Eu ...
s like Walter Dillingham and Harry Baldwin were vocal about their concerns regarding the increasing Japanese population in Hawaii. They worried that the increasing Japanese population would eventually affect politics in Hawaii as the voter base changed. Ultimately, they were most concerned that the Japanese were loyal to Japan, and would allow the Japanese Empire
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent forma ...
to claim Hawaii.
Wallace Farrington pointed out in a speech in 1920 that even though the strikes were caused by "malcontents and agitators", the Japanese had to be given the chance to Americanize
Americanization or Americanisation (see spelling differences) is the influence of American culture and business on other countries outside the United States of America, including their media, cuisine, business practices, popular culture, tech ...
. This notion was pushed back against by people both within Hawaii and on the U.S. Mainland, like Valentine McClatchy, who claimed that the Japanese could not integrate into American culture because they held on to their own culture and religion too fervently.
Further reading
* *References
{{ReflistSee also
*Japanese in Hawaii
The Japanese in Hawaii (simply Japanese or “Local Japanese”, rarely Kepanī) are the second largest ethnic group in Hawaii. At their height in 1920, they constituted 43% of Hawaii's population. They now number about 16.7% of the islands' p ...
* Politics in Hawaii during the 1920s
* Yellow Peril
The Yellow Peril (also the Yellow Terror and the Yellow Specter) is a racist, racial color terminology for race, color metaphor that depicts the peoples of East Asia, East and Southeast Asia as an existential danger to the Western world. As a ...
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
Anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States
History of sugar
Japanese-American culture in Hawaii