Motoyuki Negoro (June 14, 1875 – April 18, 1939) was a journalist and strike leader in Hawaii.

Early life

Negoro was born in 1875 in

Wakayama Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Wakayama Prefecture has a population of 944,320 () and has a geographic area of . Wakayama Prefecture borders Osaka Prefecture to the north, and Mie Prefecture and Nara Prefecture ...

, Japan. After attending school for a couple years in his hometown, he decided to go to America and study law. He earned a law degree from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1903, one of the first awarded by the school.

Hawaii

After graduation, Negoro moved to Hawaii, where he wrote for the ''Hawai Shimpo''. Though he had a law degree, he was not allowed to practice because he was a

resident alien In law, an alien is any person (including an organization) who is not a citizenship, citizen or a nationality, national of a specific country, although definitions and terminology differ to some degree depending upon the continent or region. ...

, not a citizen. Instead, he was a clerk and interpreter at the Atkinson and Quarles law firm. In 1908, Negoro, Yokichi Tasaka, Yasutaro Soga, and

Fred Kinzaburo Makino Fred Kinzaburo Makino (August 27, 1877 – February 17, 1953) was a Territory of Hawaiʻi newspaper publisher and community activist. He was the founder and first editor of the ''Hawaii Hochi'', a Japanese-language newspaper for Japanese laborer ...

, formed the Higher Wage Association (''Zokyu Kisei Kai),'' and protested the low wages that Japanese plantation workers were paid. During the same year, Negoro began writing for the ''

Nippu Jiji The , later published as the ''Hawaii Times'', was a Japanese-English language newspaper based in Honolulu, Hawai'i. Established as the ''Yamato Shimbun'' by Shintaro Anno in 1895, the paper began as a six-page semi-weekly printed on a lithograph ...

,'' which was published by Soga. He wrote articles that fanned the flames of the 1909 Sugar Strike, and established himself as one of the leaders. Negoro, Soga, and Makino were arrested during the strike and sentenced to ten months in jail and a $300 fine. They were pardoned and released after four months, on July 4, 1910. After the strike broke, Negoro returned to Japan and worked in Makino's brother's trading company. In November 1914, Negoro came back to Hawaii and began writing for the ''

Hawaii Hochi The ''Hawaii Hochi'' (Japanese: ''ハワイ報知'') is a six-day-a-week Japanese-language newspaper published and sold in Hawaii. The newspaper was founded in 1912 to serve the Japanese immigrant community in Hawaii. Founder Frederick Kinzabur ...

'', Makino's newspaper and ''Nippu Jijis competitor. In 1917, he returned to Japan for good. He died in Tokyo on April 18, 1939.

Selected bibliography

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References

1875 births 1939 deaths Japanese journalists Japanese activists UC Berkeley School of Law alumni People from Wakayama Prefecture Japanese emigrants to the United States Hawaii people of Japanese descent {{DEFAULTSORT:Negoro, Motoyuki