Electric Rabbit Street

I am repeatedly incensed by the absolute stupidity of the claim that Asian immigrants are "unassimilable." The idea's whole "support" and "reinforcement" of its "truth" stemmed from white racism in the first place! The "strangers" were discriminated against just because they were not white and they were forced to rely on each other for anything, for opportunities and for protection. And then they were labeled as "unassimilable" because they had such clannish ways and weren't integrated! THEY WERE KEPT FROM INTEGRATION! This kind of roundabout "reasoning" doesn't get anyone anywhere and just reinforces hostility.

And then there's the question of the definition of citizenship in the late 19th century, early 20th century. For some reason, despite whatever other values or qualities of a person, citizenship hinged on whether or not one was Caucasian - or, at least, that was whenever one of Asiatic descent applied and brought the issue to court (see U.S. Supreme Court case Takao Ozawa v. United States). HOWEVER, after the Civil War, after being liberated from slavery, blacks were considered citizens.

White bigots of the time could argue that the Constitution "technically says" that all persons *born* in the United States were citizens and could vote, etc., and that Japanese-Americans *were* citizens, just not the newcoming immigrants. However, the point here is this -- if that is the true 14th Amendment, then where on earth does the color of one's skin come into play? It really doesn't, does it? One can't say you can't be a citizen unless you're white, but you can be a citizen if you're black - it's a blatant contradiction, and makes it even more obvious that the target was not just those who were "different," but those who were Asian. You can't have it both ways. Being Caucasian never was part of the criteria for citizenship as far as the backbone of American law goes in the first place.

On a final note - Theodore Roosevelt is such a fence-rider. He "personally favored the restriction of japanese immigration," has a number of prejudices, prevents persons immigrating from Hawaii to the mainland in California, "became increasingly shrill in his advocacy of Japanese exclusion" after leaving the presidency, AND YET despite all his personal issues with the Japanese and his personal support for their segregation in schools, in 1906 he recommends legislation to extend naturalized citizenship to the Issei "aliens" ! Is it just a "president thing" to try to have your cake and eat it too all the time? I can understand that a lot of the time he was trying to appease Japan and maintain peace between their country and the United States, but sometimes... even that's a stretch for some of his reasoning.

For anyone's personal enjoyment, p. 195 of Takaki's book has an allusion to Rime of the Ancient Mariner - or, rather, an allusion to another allusion. Abiko Kyutaro, publisher of the newspapaer Nichibei Shimbun, used the parallel that "as dekaseginin [sojourners], Issei were placing an albatross around their own necks" - or, that they were painting a bullseye on their chest as a target for "justified" discrimination for taking America's resources and then leaving, rather than coming with the goal of being an American and settling (how Abiko thought they could gain more favor in the country). Abiko was a very intelligent man to put this together. If only things actually worked that way - he was right, the whites claimed their anger and label of Japanese/Asian "unassimilability" came from the dekaseginin view; however, that evolved into a more complex, deeper aversion to Asian immigrants in general, and no matter how open such "strangers" were to assimilation, they would be barred from it and subsequently blamed for their failure by the same obstacles.