Chapter 10 Takaki

This chapter is a ver expressive chapter. It expresses a lot about how Asians were treated in America and Hawaii. But its primary focus was on the racial discrimination of the Japanese in America and of people and their inability to merge successfully into the American culture.

The chapter opens by informing the reader about the sudden merger of Japanese immigrants into the United States. The main reason for this sudden “flooding” of Japanese into the U.S was because they were trying to get away from the “economic hardships” of their culture and their country overall. Those who chose to work on plantations in America were able to make almost 6 times the amount that they could have made in Japan. This making for a good catalyst for more and more of them to continue to come over and apply their labor here. The immigration of the Japanese was different from that of the Chinese because the Japanese tended to immigrate in families and not just for the good of one individual. Though they were paid more, they still were discriminated against and worked unfairly. A lot of those immigrants who come here ended up working in Hawaii on sugar plantations. Here they were discriminated against, through work and pay. People of other groups were found to be getting paid more for doing the same work and the same amount of it. The plantation owners tried to prevent strikes on the wage differation by separating the workers into different areas and not allowing them all to be in one area at the same time. Many women began to get frustrated as well because of the fact that they went out and did the same kind of work just as well as anyone else and yet they were still paid less for the same work. This raised a lot of commotion but not a whole lot was ever done about it. Many Japanese decided to try to become farmers on their own to get away from the discrimination and everything, but even though they were able to start and run their own farms, they still were able to gain no respect from others.
Takaki also talked about how many Japanese who were born of split heritage (American/ Japanese) were still often considered only Japanese because of their unwillingness to let go of their Japanese heritage.

What have we done to change the way the Japanese were treated when they came over to the Americas? We are still dealing with a lot of discrimination against Japanese in America. This discrimination isn’t nearly as bad as it was at first, but like the discrimination against many other groups, there are still those people out there who have held on to the old ways. I do think though in many ways, we have progressed. There are many companies that have become well known and Japanese based that have become very popular with the world. A few good examples being: Honda, Suzuki, and Kawasaki. These mainly being motor vehicle based, but that is a very important part to out society today.

This information from chapter ten was rather interesting to me. I personally was not aware that all that discrimination went on when they first came here. I was aware that they had come over, and that at one point after Pearl Harbor they were put into camps, but nothing like this had ever been told to me.