Japan and the California ProblemIyenaga, T. (Toyokichi)
History
Japan and the California Problem
Iyenaga, T. (Toyokichi)
Japan -- Emigration and immigration; Japanese -- California
Our discussion of intermarriage seems to suggest that it is not likely to
occur, for some time at least, in large numbers; that as far as hereditary
effect on progeny is concerned, it is wholly premature to pass any
judgment at present because of our limited knowledge; but that the social
as well as the economic position of the contemporary Japanese in America
does not seem conducive to the happiness of either the children of such
unions or their parents.
Is Assimilation without Intermarriage Possible?
Let us now consider the third question:--"Is intermarriage necessary for
the assimilation of the Japanese?" The people, who argue that the Japanese
should be discriminated against because they are biologically unamalgable,
thereby commit themselves to maintaining that intermarriage is the only
way by which Japanese may become true Americans. Governor Stephens states
that California's effort at Japanese exclusion is "based entirely on the
principle of race self-preservation and the ethnological impossibility of
successfully assimilating this constantly increasing flow of Oriental
blood."[48] Without questioning whence he derived the authority for the
assertion that the Japanese are ethnologically impossible of assimilation,
we wish to refute the contention that the Japanese are unassimilable
because they are racially impossible of amalgamation. We believe that
racial amalgamation is not a prerequisite of assimilation. We have already
shown that the customs and traditions, as well as the supreme law of the
United States, do not demand that all Americans be of one and the same
race. This fact alone is sufficient condemnation of those baseless
utterances which seek an excuse for failure and negligence in successfully
fulfilling the duty of Americanizing aliens by the camouflage of race
difference.
But there are other powerful reasons to support our view that race
intermixture is not the only way to Americanize the Japanese. And this we
find in the strong influence of environment on the physical and mental
make-up of man. Perhaps the most significant anthropological contribution
of recent times is the establishment of the truth that race is not a fixed
thing, but that it is a changeable thing; changeable according to the
conditions of environment. Professor Boas, a recognized authority on
anthropology, found, in a strictly scientific investigation concerning the
changes in bodily form of immigrants and their descents in America, that
aliens change considerably in physical form after they come to America.
His conclusions are:
The investigation has shown much more than was anticipated, and the
results, so far as worked out, may be summarized as follows:
The head form, which has always been considered as one of the most
stable and permanent characteristics of human races, undergoes
far-reaching changes due to the transfer of races of Europe to
American soil.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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