Who Gets to Be an American?
The WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans didn’t come out of nowhere. The groundwork for this discrimination was laid centuries earlier, when Europeans and, later, Americans brought enslaved African people to the Americas by force and dispossessed Indigenous peoples of their land.
As Japanese immigration began in earnest in the late 1860s, Japanese migrants faced significant legal and social barriers. 1882’s Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese laborers from entering the U.S. for ten years and played to anti-Asian hate, built upon this legacy of discrimination. By the 1920s, anti-Asian sentiment led to major legislation like the Immigration Act of 1924, which abolished Asian immigration.
Asian Americans have not been the only people targeted by immigration policies. Even today, immigration remains a hotly debated issue, and the answer to the question “Who can be a citizen?” shifts administration by administration.
The Mitarai family sits for a portrait on the steps of their home. Henry Mitarai, the father, was a prosperous large-scale farm operator. The success of Japanese American farmers like Mitarai stirred up jealousy and contributed to anti-Japanese sentiment in the U.S. Dorothea Lange, Mountain View, California, March 30, 1942.
