Books:
[1 ] Sakata, Yasuo. Fading Footsteps of the Issei. Los Angels: the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, 1992.
This book is essentially a collection of hundreds of primary sources that provide significant history and events about the first Japanese American immigrants, called Issei. The reason why I chose this book is that its introduction provides me with some significant facts and history about Issei and it also explains how many of significant primary records of Issei have been destroyed or lost because of the San Franciso’s Great Earthquake of 1903. Hence, I have specifically chosen this book to gain supplemental knowledge about Issei.
[2] Smith L, Susan. Japanese American Midwives. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005.
The author, Smith focuses on discussing the community, culture, perception, occupation of the first generation Japanese American women. It provides me with the fundamental knowledge about how they struggle to change their perception of being less-educated and house-wife in the United States by becoming licensed midwives. The reason why I chose this book is that I wanted to incorporate women’s perception toward the history of Issei into my article.
[3] Spickard R, Paul. Japanese American: The Formation and Transformations of an Ethnic Group. New York: Twayne Publishers.
This book covers a broad topics about Issei including: why Issei immigrated to the United States; how American perceived them; racial segregation against the immigrants in school; and what kind of occupations Issei had in the US. The book also has significant statistics about total population of immigrants and Issei over a couple decades and about what part of Japan they are mostly immigrated from. Hence, the book can help me understand about issei more broadly and some other facts that can deepen my understanding about them.
Wikipedia Articles:
[4] Wikipedia. “Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907.” 2008. Wikipedia. 30 March. 2008.
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentlemen%27s_Agreement_of_1907>
This article focuses on explaining the significance of Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907 in history of immigrants including Issei. The act was caused by a racial segregation against the Japanese immigrants in California and in order to settle this issue, The U.S and Japan passed this act to stop issuing passports for Japanese citizens who are willing to work in the continental US. Since my article will partly explain about the racial segregation, I decided to learn about the act in details by reading this article.
[5] Wikipedia. “Immigration Act of 1924.” 2008. Wikipedia. 30 March. 2008.
Similarly to Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907, the article provides some significant knowledge about a event that impacted the immigrants in the United States in 20th century. The immigration act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants coming to the US by admitting people from any country to two percent of the number of people who are already living in the states.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924>
[6] Wikipedia. “Japanese American Life pre-World War II.” 2008. Wikipedia. 30 March. 2008.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_life_pre-World_War_II>
Although this article lacks of explanation about Issei in depth compared to the books that I have chosen to read, it still provides me some interesting facts about society and lifestyle of Issei .
[7] Wikipedia. “Anti-Japanese Sentiment.” 2008. Wikipedia. 30 March. 2008.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Japanese_sentiment>
This article talks about Anti-Japanese Sentiment that involves distrust and dehumanization of Japanese American in pre WWII. The article shows the image of old sign that says “Whenever You Buy Goods ‘MADE IN JAPAN,’ You Help To Crush China.” This shows that how the laws at that time openly discriminated against Japanese American. This article will help me emphasize the seriousness of the racism against Issei at that time.
External Websites:
[8] Densho and the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. “Reading: The Issei immigrants and Civil Rights.” 2008. Densho and the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. “ 30 Mar., 2008 < http://www.densho.org/learning/spice/lesson2/2reading2.asp>
This website covers relatively broad topics about Issei including: when they came to the US; how they established their community, and how they resisted the racial segregation. Specifically it discuss how the Columbia River Basin’s and Idaho’s Issei successfully fought anti-Japanese sentiment in order to protect their ethnicity and culture.
[9] Mercier, Laurie. “Japanese Americans In the Columbia River Basin: Historical Overview.” 2008. Washington State University Vancouver. 29 Mar. 2008. <http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/crbeha/ja/ja.htm>
This website focuses on discussing how Alien Land Law, the Gentlemen’s Agreement, and Immigration act of 1924 affected the lives of Issei and also provides some insights about their struggles to fight those prejudiced regulations.
