ABSTRACT
The overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the restoration of Imperial Rule by Japan's Meiji reformers in 1868 brought with it the opening of the country to the outside world after two hundred years. These political developments also ushered in the beginning of an era of Japanese emigration. Initial migration flows from Japan had the United States and Hawaii as their destinations and were organized by private emigration companies (Tsuchida 1998; Tigner 1981; Suzuki 1969; Fujii 1959; Schumpeter 1940). Sadly, many of these early forays into the outside world ended in tragedy, with migrants forced to endure unfair treatment, harsh living conditions, and low wages at the hands of unscrupulous employers and irresponsible emigration companies (Tsuchida 1998; Suzuki 1969; Schumpeter 1940). These “pioneer” emigrants, by calling upon the Japanese government to rescue them from the near slavery of their lives abroad, succeeded not only in securing passage home, but in strengthening the official Japanese prejudice against the idea of Japanese emigration. As a result, in 1896, the Meiji government established the Emigrants Protection Law which was “intended to control emigration companies … rather than to protect emigrants” (Tsuchida 1998:87). Nevertheless, emigration from Japan continued, primarily to the United States, until the early 1900s when U.S. immigration policy grew increasingly exclusionary toward Asians (Sowell 1996;Tigner 1981; Sims 1972; Suzuki 1969; Fujii 1959; Schumpeter 1940). This change in U.S. immigration policy and corresponding changes in Hawaii, however, did not bring Japanese migration to an end. Rather, these changes caused a shift in Japanese migration flows; South American destinations, particularly Peru and Brazil, became more popular among Japanese emigrants during the early to mid-1900s.
