Gentlemen’s Agreement Restricts Japanese Immigration, Prevents Segregation

Japanese contract workers started immigrating to the United States to replace Chinese laborers after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Because they were more spread out, not just living in a single community like the Chinese in Chinatown, Japanese children attended local public schools. The Anti-Chinese sentiment turned into an all out anti-Oriental movement. Job losses, low wages and the growing population of Japanese led to the Japanese to be new targets for social and economic problems.

The Gentlemen’s Agreement was created in 1907 between the United States and the Japanese Empire to solve the issue of Japanese immigration. It was an informal agreement, meaning it relies upon the honor of the parties for its fulfillment and is thus not necessarily enforced. The cause of the Agreement was anti-Japanese nativism in California, specifically San Francisco, where the California Board of Education had passed a regulation saying that children of Japanese descent would be required to attend racially segregated separate schools. To prevent this, Japan agreed to not issue passports to Japanese citizens who wanted to work in the U.S. if the U.S. would agree to accept the presence of Japanese immigrants who already live in America, permit the immigration of these residence’s families, and to not discriminate against Japanese children.

The agreement that Japan would stop Japanese immigration was the only way the School Board would agree with to stop the segregation. The Japanese government agreed to it because doing the opposite would just harm their national pride and they didn’t want to suffer the same humiliation the Chinese government did in 1882 because of the Chinese Exclusion Act. In short, they didn’t want to ruin their reputation as a world power. The act was passed by President Theodore Roosevelt on March 14, 1907 and became officially known as Executive Order 589. It was meant to be able to limit the amount of Japanese laborers residing in America so as to allow native workers jobs. This agreement incited the popularity of picture brides, in which a Japanese woman in Japan would agree to a marriage of convenience with a Japanese man in through association by photographs. This allowed Japanese women to be able to gain passports to the U.S. while the Japanese men gain helpmates of the same nationality. This also allowed for an equal gender ratio in the Japanese community, allowing for steady birthrates and strong tradition of familial unity.

Congress never made this order into a law, meaning the U.S. didn’t have to go through with their word and could have broken the agreement since it wasn’t legalize. The United States, however, stayed true to their words and lifted the segregation of Japanese children and allowed immigrants to stay as residence and work as laborers. Japan, on the other hand, issued passports for immigration to the Territory of Hawaii. From Hawaii, immigrants could move to the U.S. a lot easier than going directly from Japan since there were no restrictions against going from Hawaii.