Japanese Immigrants Assembly Hall Hilo 40090628 2000c1f2ae

The Japanese in Hawaii (simply Japanese or “Local Japanese”, rarely Kepanī) are the second largest ethnic group in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

. At their height in 1920, they constituted 43% of Hawaii's population. They now number about 16.7% of the islands' population, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. The U.S. Census categorizes mixed-race individuals separately, so the proportion of people with some Japanese ancestry is likely much larger.

History

Contact before 1778

Final voyage of the ''Inawaka-maru''

The first known arrival of Japanese to the Kingdom of Hawaii after Hawaiian contact with James Cook came on May 5, 1806, involving survivors of the ill-fated ship ''Inawaka-maru'' who had been adrift aboard their disabled ship for more than seventy days. The ''Inawaka-maru'', a small cargo ship built in 1798 in

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

, was owned by Mansuke Motoya. The ''Inawaka-maru'' started its final voyage from Hiroshima to Edo (modern

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

) on November 7, 1805. The ship had been chartered by the

Kikkawa clan The was a prominent samurai clan of Japan's Sengoku period. The most famous member of the clan is likely Kikkawa Motoharu (1530-1586), one of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's generals, who was adopted into the family. Along with the Kobayakawa clan, the ...

to deliver mats, horse feed, and two passengers, Kikkawa officials. Her crew consisted of Captain Niinaya Ginzo, Master Ichiko Sadagoro, Sailors Hirahara Zenmatsu, Akazaki Matsujiro, Yumori Kasoji, and Wasazo, a total of eight aboard. The ''Inawaka-maru'' had to turn back, and restarted her journey on November 27. She arrived in Edo on December 21, started back to her home port stopping in

Kanagawa is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kanagaw ...

, Uraga, and Shimoda, and left on her final leg – from Shimoda across the

Enshū Sea Enshū Sea () is the sea area from Cape Irōzaki in Shizuoka Prefecture to Cape Daiō in Mie Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Mie Prefecture has a population of 1,781,948 () and has a geographic ar ...

– on January 6, 1806. The ''Inawaka-maru'' was caught by a snowstorm that turned to rain and winds battered the ship eastward into the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

. On January 7 the crew cut down the mast because of the strong winds. On January 11 two rocky islands were sighted but no attempt was made toward them. These would be the last land before the Hawaiian Islands. On January 20 the water stores were empty, but the men collected rain water to survive. On February 28 the rice provisions ran out. On March 15 a flying fish landed in the ship and the men fished to sustain themselves. On March 20 the ''Tabour'', an American ship Captained by Cornelius Sole, rescued the men of the ''Inawaka-maru''. He found them begging for food by gesturing to their stomachs, mouths and bowing, found the galley empty, and understood their ordeal. He had the possessions of the survivors brought aboard his ship and salvaged parts and items aboard ''Inawaka-maru''. Captain Sole had the survivors fed, over a span of five days, small portions to a progression to three normal meals a day, the remedy for starvation. On May 5, 1806, the ''Tabour'' docked in

Oahu Oahu () ( Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over two-thirds of the population of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The island of O� ...

, Hawaii. Captain Sole left the eight Japanese in the care of King

Kamehameha I Kamehameha I (; Kalani Paiea Wohi o Kaleikini Kealiikui Kamehameha o Iolani i Kaiwikapu kaui Ka Liholiho Kūnuiākea; – May 8 or 14, 1819), also known as Kamehameha the Great, was the conqueror and first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Th ...

. Captain Sole also left the anchor of the ''Inawaka-maru'', 40 axes, and other items as payment for the Kingdom's hospitality. The King delegated the responsibility for the Japanese to

Kalanimoku William Pitt Kalanimoku or Kalaimoku ( – February 7, 1827) was a High Chief who functioned similarly to a prime minister of the Hawaiian Kingdom during the reigns of Kamehameha I, Kamehameha II and the beginning of the reign of Kamehameha III. ...

who had 50 men construct a house on May 6 for the Japanese. It took four days to build and a cook and two guards assigned to the house, which attracted crowds to these men of a different ethnicity. On August 17 the Japanese left Hawaii aboard the ''Perseverance'' to

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a p ...

on October 17. From there they took a Chinese ship to Jakarta on December 25. In Jakarta they fell ill and five died there or on the voyage to

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole Nanban trade, port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hi ...

where they arrived on June 17, 1807, where another died. At the time of the Sakoku it was illegal to leave Japan and the remaining two survivors were jailed and interrogated. One committed suicide and the remaining survivor Hirahara Zenmatsu eventually made it home November 29, 1807 but was summoned by

Asano Narikata Asano Narikata (November 5, 1773 – January 4, 1831) was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the Edo period, who ruled the Hiroshima Domain. His childhood name was Jinnosuke (時之丞) later Zenjirō (善次郎). Family * Father: Asano Shigeakira * Mother ...

, The Daimyō of Hiroshima, to recount his odyssey of an experience titled ''Iban Hyoryu Kikokuroku Zenmatsu''. Hirahara Zenmatsu died six months later.

Gannenmono

In 1866, Eugene Miller Van Reed, a Dutch American, went to Japan as a representative of the Hawaiian Kingdom. He failed to establish a formal Hawaii-Japan relationship, but continued to stay there as a merchant and obtained a permission of Japanese emigration from the Edo Shogunate. As he started recruiting, the new

Meiji Government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji o ...

that came into power in 1867, the first year of the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

, nullified all the Edo Shogunate's treaties. (One of the reasons of the new government's rejection is said to be the rumor that Van Reed was engaged in

slave trade Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

. For example,

Korekiyo Takahashi Viscount was a Japanese politician who served as a member of the House of Peers, as Prime Minister of Japan from 1921 to 1922, and as the head of the Bank of Japan and Ministry of Finance. Takahashi made many contributions to Japan's developm ...

, whose study in the U.S. was arranged by Van Reed, ended up being sold by the host family as a slave, but managed to get back to Japan, and eventually became the 20th

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

.) Van Reed, however, proceeded without the new government's permission to send 153 Japanese to Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations. They sailed from

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of T ...

to Honolulu from May 17 to June 19, 1868, on the ''Scioto''. This first official group of Japanese immigrants were called the Gannenmono ( ja, 元年者), meaning the "people of the first year (of the Meiji period)", and the 150th anniversary of their arrival was celebrated in Hawaii in 2018. There were 142 men and 6 women in this initial group, so many of them married Hawaiians after they arrived in Hawaii. They worked on sugar plantations on Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and Lanai. Two or three months after arriving, many complained of contract violations since the working conditions and pay did not match with what they were promised. At least four of the six women and 50 men returned to Japan in 1870. Seven had died before their contracts ended. Among the Gannenmono were several people who would become legends among the Japanese Americans in Hawaii: Tomitarō Makino from

Miyagi Miyagi may refer to: Places * Miyagi Prefecture, one of the 47 major divisions of Japan * Miyagi, Gunma, a village in Japan, merged into Maebashi in 2004 *Miyagi District, Miyagi, a district in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan Other uses * Miyagi (surna ...

, the leader of the group; the youngest Ichigorō Ishimura, 13 years old; Sentarō Ishii, a

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

from Okayama, who was 102 years old when he died in Maui; Tokujirō "Toko" Satō from Tokyo, who lived in

Waipio Valley Waipio Valley is a valley located in the Hamakua District of the Big Island of Hawaii. "Waipio" means "curved water" in the Hawaiian language. The valley was the capital and permanent residence of many early Hawaiian Aliʻi (chiefs/kings) up ...

with his Hawaiian wife, Clara; and Tarō Andō, who would become Japan's first consul general to the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Subsequent immigration

Between 1869 and 1885 Japan barred emigration to Hawaii in fear that Japanese laborers would be degrading to the reputation of the Japanese race. In 1881 King David Kalākaua visited Japan to strengthen relations between the two nations. Kalākaua offered not to request

extraterritoriality In international law, extraterritoriality is the state of being exempted from the jurisdiction of local law, usually as the result of diplomatic negotiations. Historically, this primarily applied to individuals, as jurisdiction was usually cl ...

of Japan, an act that departed from the norm of western nations. On March 10 Kalakaua met Meiji to propose a marriage between Princess Victoria Kaiulani and

Prince Higashifushimi Yorihito was the second (and last) head of the Higashifushimi-no-miya, an '' ōke'' cadet branch of the Japanese imperial family. Early life Born on September 19, 1867, as seventeenth (and posthumous) son of Prince Fushimi Kuniie, head of the Fushimi- ...

. A few days later the proposal was denied, but the ban on immigration was eventually lifted in 1885. The first 153 Japanese immigrants arrived in Hawaii on February 8, 1885, as contract laborers for the sugarcane and pineapple plantations. Many more Japanese immigrants came to Hawaii in the following years. Most of these migrants came from southern Japan ( Hiroshima, Yamaguchi,

Kumamoto is the capital city of Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, Japan. , the city has an estimated population of 738,907 and a population density of 1,893 people per km2. The total area is 390.32 km2. had a population of 1,461,000, ...

, etc.) due to crop failures in the region.

Okinawan immigration

In 1900, the first group of Okinawan laborers arrived in Hawaii after Japan lifted its emigration ban on Okinawa Prefecture. These laborers were helped by Kyuzo Toyama, who is considered to be the "father of Okinawan emigration". Kyuzo Toyama himself led the second group of Okinawans, who arrived on 1903. By 1920, nearly 20,000 Okinawans and their descendants lived in Hawaii. Today,

Okinawans in Hawaii The Okinawans in Hawaii ( Okinawan: ハワイ沖縄人, ''Hawai uchinānchu'') are a Ryukyuan ethnic group, numbering anywhere between 45,000-50,000 people, or 3% of Hawaii’s total population. History Immigration The economy of Okinawa plu ...

form a distinct community from the Japanese in Hawaii due to cultural and linguistic differences.

Annexation of Hawaii by the United States

The political environment shifted with the onset of a new era known as the Hawaiian Revolutions. In 1887 the settlers ended absolute rule by the king by forcing him to accept the

Bayonet Constitution The 1887 Constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom was a legal document prepared by anti-monarchists to strip the Hawaiian monarchy of much of its authority, initiating a transfer of power to American, European and native Hawaiian elites. It became k ...

and agreeing to constitutional government with a powerful parliament. The new constitution gave voting rights only for Hawaiians, Americans, and Europeans, and thus denied rights for Japanese and other Asians. The Japanese commissioner worked to pressure the Kingdom to restore the rights of Japanese by amending the constitution. In 1893 the Hawaiian Monarchy was overthrown, Tokyo responded by appointing Captain

Tōgō Heihachirō Marshal-Admiral Marquis , served as a '' gensui'' or admiral of the fleet in the Imperial Japanese Navy and became one of Japan's greatest naval heroes. He claimed descent from Samurai Shijo Kingo, and he was an integral part of preserving ...

to command the Japanese naval activities in Hawaii. The HIJMS Naniwa was sent immediately to Hawaii to rendezvous with the HIJMS Kongō which had been on a training mission. Captain Tōgō had previously been a guest of Kalākaua, and returned to Hawaii to denounce the overthrow of Queen Lydia Liliʻuokalani, sister and successor to the late king and conduct “

gunboat diplomacy In international politics, the term gunboat diplomacy refers to the pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of naval power, implying or constituting a direct threat of warfare should terms not be agreeable to t ...

”. Tōgō refused to salute the

Provisional Government A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, or a transitional government, is an emergency governmental authority set up to manage a political transition generally in the cases of a newly formed state or ...

by not flying the flag of the Republic. He refused to recognize the new regime, encouraged the British ship to do the same and protested the overthrow. The Japanese commissioner eventually stopped Tōgō from continuing his protest, believing it would undo his work at restoring rights to Japanese. Katō Kanji wrote in hindsight that he had regretted they had not protested harder and should have recruited the British in the protest. The continued presence of the Japanese Navy and Japan's opposition to the overthrow led to a concern that Japan might use military force to restore Liliʻuokalani to her throne as a Japanese puppet.

Anti-Japanese sentiment Anti-Japanese sentiment (also called Japanophobia, Nipponophobia and anti-Japanism) involves the hatred or fear of anything which is Japanese, be it its culture or its people. Its opposite is Japanophilia. Overview Anti-Japanese senti ...

heightened. After April 30, 1900, all children born in Hawaii were American citizens at birth. () Most of the Japanese children had dual citizenship after their parents registered them. The Japanese settlers set up the first Japanese schools in the United States. By 1920, 98% of all Japanese children in Hawaii attended Japanese schools. Statistics for 1934 showed 183 schools taught a total of 41,192 students. Today, Japanese schools in Hawaii operate as supplementary education (usually on Friday nights or Saturday mornings) which is on top of the compulsory education required by the state. Today, where Nikkei are about one-fifth of the whole population, Japanese is a major language, spoken and studied by many of the state's residents across ethnicities. It is taught in private Japanese-language schools as early as the second grade. As a courtesy to the large number of Japanese tourists (from Japan), Japanese subtexts are provided on place signs, public transportation, and civic facilities. The Hawaii media market has a few locally produced Japanese-language newspapers and magazines; however, these are on the verge of dying out, due to a lack of interest on the part of the local (Hawaii-born) Japanese population. Stores that cater to the tourist industry often have Japanese-speaking personnel. To show their allegiance to the U.S., many

Nisei is a Japanese-language term used in countries in North America and South America to specify the ethnically Japanese children born in the new country to Japanese-born immigrants (who are called ). The are considered the second generation, ...

and

Sansei is a Japanese and North American English term used in parts of the world such as South America and North America to specify the children of children born to ethnic Japanese in a new country of residence. The '' nisei'' are considered the second ...

intentionally avoided learning Japanese.Morimoto, (1997)

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