Senate Publications
1020 N. Street, Room B-53
Sacramento, CA  95814
(916)327-2155

Make checks payable to Senate Rules Committee.
Please include Senate Publication Number 1028-S when ordering.

Historically relations between Japan and the United States have influenced the manner in which the Japanese in the U.S. were treated. This chronology, therefore, includes events, which mark that relationship.

I. The Early Period

1841
June 27: Best known of the early Japanese arrivals to the Kingdom of Hawaii, Manjiro Nakahama eventually emigrates to the U.S. and becomes educated in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Renamed John Mung, he later returns to Japan, where he serves as an interpreter for Commodore Perry, when the latter enters Tokyo Bay in 1853.

1844
U.S. and China sign treaty to open port of Shanghai to American ships. The treaty, coupled with the acquisition of California from Mexico (1848) and the need for coaling stations, sparks U.S. interest in establishing relations with Japan.

1851
Shipwrecked Japanese taken to San Francisco, among them Hikozo Hamada, young son of a wealthy landowner. Baptized Joseph Heco, he becomes first Japanese to gain U.S. citizenship through naturalization in 1858.

1854
On orders from President Millard Fillmore, Commodore Matthew Perry sails into Edo (Tokyo) Bay for the second time to persuade Japan to open their doors to trade after 200 years of isolation. Japan signs the Treaty of Kanagawa on March 31, opening a few ports to Americans. Other treaties with European nations follow.

1858
Treaty of Ansei signed. Opens up new ports in Japan and sets pattern of U.S.-Japan relations for the next fifty years.

1860
First official Japanese delegation visits the U.S. Manjiro Nakashima serves as official interpreter.

1861
While visiting England. Kanaye Nagasawa, son of a wealthy family in Japan, meets Thomas Lake Harris, minister of a utopian group in the U.S. He accompanies Harris to the U.S. They move to Santa Rosa in the1800s where Harris buys a 2000-acre parcel and names it "Fountaingrove." (See year 1892.)

1869
First groups of Japanese immigrants arrive in U.S. and establish the Wakamatsu Colony a Gold Hill in California.

1870
Twelve Japanese admitted to U.S. Naval Academy by special act of Congress. Fifty-six Japanese counted in mainland U.S. There are now 63,000 Chinese in U.S., the majority, wage-earning workers.

1882
Congress passes Chinese Exclusion Act, which bars further Chinese immigration and prohibits Chinese from citizenship. Enforced from 1882 to 1S92, it creates labor demand, seen as major reason to r increased immigration of Japanese to the Pacific Coast.

1892
Thomas Lake Harris (see date 1861) sells interest in commune in Santa Rosa and leaves California. Kanaye Nagasawa takes over leadership and develops Fountaingrove estate into highly successful commercial venture Becomes first Japanese winegrower in California. Fountaingrove to become popular center for many Sonoma County social events visited by foreign dignitaries and other notables.

1893
A regulation passed by the San Francisco Board of Education provides for segregation of all Japanese children to a Chinese school. When the Japanese government protests, the regulation is withdrawn.

1898
Hawaii annexed by the U.S., enabling about 60,000 Japanese residing in Hawaii to proceed to mainland U.S. without passports.

II. Immigration And Anti-Japanese Activities

The vast majority of Japanese emigrated to the U.S. between 1900 and 1920.

1900
| Under pressure from U.S., the Japanese government stops issuing passports to laborers desiring to enter U.S. Since territory of Hawaii is not mentioned in agreement, Japanese continue to immigrate there.

1904
San Francisco: The National Convention of the American Federation of Labor resolves to exclude Japanese, Chinese and Koreans from membership.

Japan declares war on Russia. Russia badly defeated. American sentiment, initially with Japan, soon turns antagonistic.

1905
Japan and Russia sign Portsmouth Treaty with U.S. as mediator. Provisions of treaty cause outbursts of anti-government and anti-American feelings in Japan. Renewed anti-Japanese feelings swell in U.S.

San Francisco Chronicle runs anti-Japanese series for a year and a half. California legislature urges U.S. Congress to limit Japanese immigration.

Sixty-seven organizations meet in San Francisco to form Asiatic Exclusion League of San Francisco.

1906
San Francisco School Board orders segregation of 93 Japanese American students.

1907
On orders from President Theodore Roosevelt, S.F. School Board rescinds segregation order, but strong feelings against Japanese persist. Anti-Japanese riots break out in San Francisco in May, again in October, much to the embarrassment of U.S. government.

Congress passes immigration bill forbidding Japanese laborers from entering the U.S. via Hawaii, Mexico, or Canada.

1908
The Asiatic Exclusion League reports 231 organizations affiliated now, 195 of them labor unions. U.S. Secretary of State Elihu Root and Foreign Minister Hayashi of Japan formalize the Gentlemen's Agreement whereby Japan agrees not to issue visas to laborers wanting to emigrate to the U.S.

1909
Anti-Japanese riots in Berkeley. U.S. leaders alarmed at tone and intensity of anti-Japanese legislation introduced in California legislature.

1910
Twenty-seven anti-Japanese proposals intro-duced in the California legislature. White House urges Governor Hiram Johnson to seek moderation.

1913
Alien Land Law (Webb-Haney Act) passed, denying "all aliens ineligible for citizen-ship" (which includes all Asians except Filipinos, who are "subjects" of U.S.) the right to own land in California. Leasing land Iimited to 3 years. Similar laws eventually adopted in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Minnesota.

1915
The Hearst newspapers, historically hostile to Japanese, intensifies its "Yellow Peril" campaign with sensational headlines and editorials, fueling anti-Japanese feelings.

1918
California's Alien Land Law amended to close all loopholes. Forbids Issei to buy land in the names of their Nisei children (see date 1913).

1920
Under pressure from U.S., Japan ceases issu-ing passports to so_called picture brides, who had been emigrating to the U.S. from about 1910 to join husbands they had mar-ried by proxy. Becomes effective in 1921.

1922
Supreme Court rules in Takeo Ozawa v. U.S. that naturalization is limited to "free white persons and aliens of African nativity," thus legalizing previous practice of excluding Asians from citizenship.

Congress passes Cable Act. Which provides that "any woman marrying an alien ineligible for citizenship shall cease to be an American citizen." In practice, this meant that anyone marrying an Issei would automatically lose citizenship. In marriages terminated by death or divorce, a Caucasian woman could regain citizenship, whereas a Nisei woman could not. Act amended in 1931, allowing Nisei women married to Issei men to retain citizenship.

1924
Congress passes Immigration Exclusion Act, barring all immigration from Japan. Protests held throughout Japan. July 1 declared "Day of Humiliation."

1936
Cable Act repealed.

1937
Japan invades China by end of the year, cap-turing Nanking, capital of Nationalist China.
U.S. breaks off commercial relations with Japan.

Britain and France declare war on Germany, signaling beginning of World War II.

III. World War II and Imprisonment of Japanese Aliens and Citizens

1939
President Roosevelt places embargo on most essential raw materials to Japan.

1940
July: Japan seizes bases in South Indochina in collaboration which Vichy government.

1941
July: U.S. government imposes oil embargo on Japan (as do British and Dutch), followed by freezing Japanese assets in U.S.

October 16: Civilian government under Prince Konoye falls in Japan, replaced by military cabinet headed by General Hideki Tojo.

November 7: Report prepared by presidential investigator Curtis Munson and submitted to the President, State Department and Secretary of War certifies that Japanese Americans possess extraordinary degree of loyalty to U.S. Corroborates years of surveillance by PBI and Naval Intelligence.

December 7: Japan bombs U.S. fleet and military base at Pearl Harbor.

December 8: U.S. Congress declares war on Japan. Within hours, FBI arrests 736 Japanese resident aliens as security risks in Hawaii and mainland.

December 11: U.S. declares war on Germany and Italy. Over 2000 Issei in Hawaii and mainland—teachers, priests, officers of organizations, newspaper editors and other prominent people in Japanese community—imprisoned by the U.S. government.

1942
Confusion and rumors of subversion abound. U.S. and allied forces suffer catastrophic defeats for four months, heightening the threat of a West Coast invasion.

January 5: War Department classifies Japanese American men of draft age 4-C "enemy aliens." Status not changed until June 16, 1946.

January 26: Ringle Report and Naval Intelligence secret reports argue against mass internment. Urges encouragement of Japanese American loyalty.

February 19: President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, giving Secretary of War authority to designate "military areas" from which to exclude certain people. Sets into motion eventual incarceration of 120,000 Japanese, aliens and citizens.

February 21: Tolan Committee begins hearings in San Francisco on question of Japanese Americans, even as decision to incarcerate them has already been made. California Atty. General Earl Warren testifies that the very absence of fifth column activities by Japanese is "confirmation chat such actions were planned for the future."

March 2: Public Proclamation #1 issued by Lt. General John L. DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command, specifies military zones 1 and 2. Zone I includes western halves of California, Washington and Oregon and Southern third of Arizona.

March 24: Gen. DeWitt issues first of a series of exclusion orders which would force complete removal of entire Japanese population from Military Zone 1.

March 27: DeWitt orders curfew of all persons of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast. Curfew for persons of German and Italian ,ancestries restricted to aliens only.

March 28: Attorney Minoru Yasui turns himself in at Portland, Oregon police station to test discriminatory curfew regulations.

April 2: California fires all Japanese Americans in state civil service based on ethnic affiliation.

May 5: University student Gordon Hirabayashi (Seattle) refuses to follow curfew and exclusion orders in order to test constitutionality of military orders.

May: Fred Korematsu arrested in Oakland, California for violating orders to report for detention.

June 4-7: Battle of Midway mangles Japanese navy, a turning point in the war in Pacific.

June 5: Incarceration of persons of Japanese ancestry from designated military zones now complete.

October 30: U.S. Army completes transfer of inmates from Army transit camps to ten permanent War Relocation Authority, (WRA) detention camps. Formation of Japanese American combat units. 1943

1943
January 28: War Department announces plans to organize all Japanese American combat unit.

February 5: Wyoming State Legislature passes law denying American citizens a Heart Mountain camp right to vote. Similar 2 laws passed by other interior state where camps located.

February 8: Loyalty questionnaire administered in all ten camps to men and women over the age of seventeen. Contradictory and confusing nature of questions causes conflicts in families.

April: 442nd Regimental Combat Team activated.

April 20: 9507 Hawaiian Japanese volunteer for special combat unit.

July 15: Tule Lake, California camp designated as segregated center for those whose response to "loyalty oath" prove unacceptable to authorities.

1944
January 20: Reinstatement of draft of Japanese Americans.

March 1: 400 Nisei at Heart Mountain camp vote to resist draft until constitutional rights restored.

June 26: 63 men from Heart Mountain convicted for refusing induction. Sentenced to three years in prison. (267 from all ten camps eventually convicted for draft resistance.)

October 30: 100th/442nd combat teams rescue Texas "lost battalion" after five days of battle. Suffer 800 casualties, including 184 killed in action to rescue 211 Texans.

December 17: U.S. War Department announces revocation of the West Coast exclusion order against Japanese Americans (effective on January 2, 1945, in anticipation of possible negative ruling of Supreme Court the following day).

December 18: Supreme Court rules detention orders are valid use of war powers" in the Korematsu case. In Endo case, it declares WRA cannot detain loyal citizens against will, opening way for Japanese Americans to return to West Coast. Nearly 5000 remain interned at Tule Lake under "individual exclusion" law.

1945
March 9: Sixteen square miles of Tokyo destroyed in napalm firestorm.

August 6: U.S. drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

August 9: U.S. drops atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Total of 3 million Japanese left homeless.

September 2: Japan surrenders formally.

September 4: Western Defense Command issues Public Proclamation No. 24, revoking all West Coast exclusion orders against persons of Japanese ancestry.

IV. Post-War

1946
Japanese Americans returning to West Coast often met with hostility and acute housing shortage. Begin manual labor as crop pickers, cannery workers, and gardeners.

March 20: Tule Lake, last of ten major concentration camps closes.

1947
December 12: President Harry Truman grants pardon to all 257 Japanese American draft resistors.

1948
January 19: U.S. Supreme Court invalidates California alien land law, which denies gifts of land by immigrant Japanese co citizen children.

May 3: U.S. Supreme Court rules racially restrictive housing covenants unenforceable.

July 12: President Truman signs "Evacuation Claims Act' which would pay less than ten cents on dollar for lost property only. Many former internees are unable to produce required documentary proof of losses.

1952
April 17: California Supreme Court declares racially restrictive alien land laws unenforceable.

June 11: McCarran-Waleer Immigration and Naturalization Act passes in Congress over President Truman's veto. Truman considers Act too restrictive in its quota system, which heavily favors northern European nations. However, Act allows Japanese and other Asian immigrants to become naturalized citizens for the first time.

1956
California voters repeal alien land laws by 2 to 1 margin.

1959
August 29: Hawaii becomes fiftieth state. Daniel Inouye first Japanese American elected to the House of Representatives.

1962
Daniel Inouye becomes first Japanese American elected co the Senate.

1965
October 3: Immigration Law of 1965 eliminates "national origin" quota system. Equal quota (20,000 per nation) finally granted to Asian nations.

June: Anti-miscegenation laws ruled unconstitutional by U.S. Supreme Court.

V. Campaign for Redress

1970
Edison Uno, Nisei civil rights activist, proposes demands for redress for Japanese Americans. Unanimously adopted by Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) National Council.

1971
Emergency Detention Action (Title II of McCarran-Walter Immigration Act) repealed by President Nixon, thereby nullifying power of mass preventive detention.

1974
Norman Mineta elected first mainland Japanese American to the House of Representatives.

1976
President Gerald Ford rescinds Executive Order 9066.

1978
July: JACL National Council passes resolution to seek $25,000 for each camp detainee. Launches national redress campaign.

1979
May: National Council for Japanese American Redress (NCJAR) founded for "sole purpose of obtaining monetary redress for Japanese American victims of World War II concentration camps. '

1980
July 12: National Coalition for Redress and Reparations (NCRR) established as grass roots drive for redress.

July 31: President Jimmy Carter signs bill to create Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) to determine whether any wrongs had been committed in internment of Japanese Americans, also of 1000 Aleutian and Pribilof Islanders.

1981
CWRIC holds hearings across the country.

1983
June 2-3: Report of CWRIC contained in Personal Justice Denied concludes that exclusion, expulsion and incarceration of Japanese Americans nor justified by "military necessity"; that decision was based on "race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership. "Recommends that Congress passes legislation, which recognizes "grave injustice" done and offers the nation's apologies and compensation of $20,000 to each of estimated 60,000 surviving persons.

March 16: Class action lawsuit seeking $200,000 in damages for internees filed by NCJAR headed by William Hohri of Chicago.

November 11: In response to writ of error coram nobis by Fred Korematsu, the federal court of San Francisco vacates Korematsu's original conviction and rules that the government was not justified in issuing internment orders.

1984
California State Legislature proclaims February 19, 1984 and February 19 of each year be recognized as "A Day of Remembrance" of the concentration episode to encourage Californians to reflect upon their shared responsibility to uphold the Constitution and the rights of all individuals at all times.

1985
October: Federal District Court in Portland (OR) invalidates Minoru Yasui's conviction violating a curfew order during World War II.

1986
Federal District Court in Seattle (WA) invalidates Gordon Hirabayashi's 1942 conviction for violating wartime internment orders.

1987
September 17: Exhibit at Smithsonian, "A More Perfect Union," commemorates bicentennial of U.S. Constitution by featuring internment of Japanese Americans and contributions of 100thl442nd combat units and MIS, (Military Intelligence Service detachment during World War II.

September 17: Congress passes Civil Liberties Act.

1988
August l0: President Ronald Reagan signs Civil Liberties Act of l988, requiring payment of $20,000 and apology to estimated 60,000 survivors of internment.

April 20: Senate Passage of Civil Liberties Act of 1988.

1989
August 10: California Stare legislature adopts ACR 37, introduced by Assembly woman Jackie Speier, which urges adoption of history/social science textbooks that accurately portray wartime incarceration.

November 21: President George Bush signs appropriation bill. containing redress payment provision under entitlement program.

1990
June 26: San Francisco School Board unanimously adopts "Day of Remembrance" resolution introduced by board member Leland Yee.

October 9: First letters of apology signed by President George Bush presented to oldest survivors of Executive Order 9066 at Department of Justice ceremony along with redress payment: of $20,000.