Between 1860 and 1920, immigrants from many countries arrived in the United States. Of these, 246,400, or .0086%, were from Japan. The 1920 cencus counted 11,010 Japanese, included their American-born children. The early Japanese immigrants came to study or start businesses trading with Japan.
By 1905, a number of students came to the elite schools in the Philadelphia area, including the University of Pennsylvania and Bryn Mawr College. Others came to start businesses, and wives whose marriages had been arranged came to establish new families. Among early Philadelphia residents was Yosuke W. Nakano, who received his Masters of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania in 1916, and was responsible for the building of Jefferson Hospital and the Architect's Building. The brothers William Yosaburo and Richard Tokizo Okamoto had a store at 1011 Chestnut Street, selling custom silk shirts. Other resident Japanese in Philadelphia before World War II included doctors, dentists, a photographer, a sculptor, a carpenter, and the like. Although by law ineligible to become American citizens until 1952, a few of the Japanese married American women, and there were about two dozen families in the area, assimilated into various communities.
After the outbreak of hostilities between Japan and the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, leading to the relocation and incarceration of 115,000 Japanese aliens and their American born children. One of the ironies of history is that Philadelphia might not have had a visible and viable Japanese American presence without the forced removal of the Japanese aliens from the West Coast during World War II. When the government decided to close the relocation camps, the exodus of former West Coast Japanese Americans and their parents began, with many coming to Southern New Jersey to work for Seabrook Farms. Charles Seabrook, founder of the world's largest frozen food industry, appealed to the camps for badly needed manpower, and over 2,300 Japanese had settled in Seabrook by 1946.
In 1947 a group of Japanese Americans who had been providing community activities and had worked with numerous social service agencies and churches formed the Philadelphia chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). The JACL, the oldest and largest Asian American organization, was founded in 1929 on the West Coast. Today there are 112 chapters with 25,000 members throughout the country. The Philadelphia JACL chapter had most recently been one of the most active participants in the campaign to redress the unconstitutional removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during the World War II. The resulting Civil Liberties Act, which was signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988, apologized to victims of E. O. 9066, and paid restitution to 80,000 eligible individuals.
Today Japanese Americans are active in all facets of the community and in all professions. They belong to service clubs such as Rotary, Kiwanis and Lions, or serve as elders of their community churches. In other words, they are part of mainstream America. In addition, Japanese culture is part of their heritage, so talented Japanese Americans share their skills and knowledge with other Americans in areas such as flower arrangement, origami, and Japanese cuisine.
Interested in learning more about Philadelphia's unique relationship with Japan? Phila-Nipponica: An Historic Guide to Philadelphia & Japan, a bi-lingual collection of articles on the Japan-Philly connection published by the JASGP, is available for purchase in our online store!
|
