Asahi Sensho, 942. Tōkyō: Asahi shinbun shuppan, 2016. 310, 14 pp. ¥1600, paper. In Japanese. ISBN 978-4022630421.
Professor Tosh Minohara’s reexamination of the history of the anti-Japanese immigration movement, which culminated in the so-called Asian Exclusion Act of 1924, offers timely warnings and historical lessons to all of us across the Pacific. His book reminds us of George Santayana’s words: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” as President Donald Trump is taking an alarmingly dangerous turn toward the policy of “America first,” with an emphasis on isolation, exclusion, and racial and religious discrimination. Minohara’s book focuses on the intersection of white America’s racism, state-federal government relations, and partisan politics within the United States, and demonstrates how they undermined US-Japan relations. The author makes a compelling argument that immigration, which Americans largely treat as a domestic affair, developed into a diplomatic and international crisis. He shows America’s racially motivated ban on Japanese immigration drove Japan toward its decision to go to war with the United States two decades later, because America’s discriminatory action shattered Japan’s national prestige, which was equivalent to hurting Japan’s national power and interests.
The first half of the book traces the trajectory of the snowballing, anti-Japanese immigration movement in California, from the 1906 attempt to segregate Japanese students from public schools in San Francisco to the successful passing of the alien land legislation in California. When the Japanese government protested San Francisco’s attempt at school segregation, President Theodore Roosevelt was able to block San Francisco’s action by working with both the city’s officials and the Japanese government. However, his successor, President Woodrow Wilson, mishandled partisan political opposition from California, and allowed the 1913 alien land legislation to pass, which prohibited Japanese immigrants from owning land in California. In 1920, under the slogan “Save California from the Japs,” anti-Japanese forces passed further legislation prohibiting Japanese immigrants from renting land in California by linking Japanese immigration to Japanese imperialism in the Asia-Pacific region.
The most important contribution of Minohara’s book is his reexamination of the making of the 1924 Asian Exclusion Act, by which the US Congress banned Japanese immigration completely. Minohara challenges the existing simplistic interpretation that the US Senate passed the legislation due to Japanese Ambassador Hanihara Masanao’s letter to Secretary of State Charles E. Hughes containing the warning about “grave consequences,” which the Senate viewed as a “veiled threat.” Minohara argues that Hanihara’s original letter was not intended as a veiled threat and Secretary Hughes actually encouraged Hanihara to rewrite a stronger letter with the hope that it would dissuade Congress from passing the objectionable legislation. Minohara also suggests that Assistant Secretary of State John V. A. MacMurray most likely recommended the wording “grave consequences,” for the State Department did not consider that expression to be threatening. Minohara argues that the real reason behind the successful passage of the Japanese Exclusion Act was the badly divided Republican Party’s desperate efforts to reunite the party and win the presidential election in 1924 against Robert La Follette, who had left the Republican Party and become the Progressive Party’s candidate. In addition, in that same year, the fallout of the Teapot Dome Scandal, the most sensational scandal until Watergate, shook the credibility of the Republican administration. Senior Senator Henry Cabot Lodge shrewdly used the anti-Japanese immigration legislation as a scapegoat and rallied all Republicans’ support by calling the Japanese warning of “grave consequences” a “veiled threat.” Secretary Hughes, who underestimated the effect of Lodge’s political maneuvers, ultimately failed to prevent the Senate from passing the legislation. The outcome irreparably damaged US diplomatic relations with Japan. This American act of racial discrimination of the Japanese disillusioned many Japanese intellectual and political leaders who admired US liberalism and democracy as the model of Japan’s future course. Minohara suggests many of them turned their backs on the white-dominated world system and sought a new order for Asians in Asia, although he does not discuss the subsequent unfortunate path the Japanese empire chose to pursue in Asia.
Minohara’s book is based on meticulous research of both US and Japanese primary sources, but it is written for a general Japanese audience. There is no doubt that American readers will benefit greatly from Minohara’s book were it to be published in English. His book shows the dangers of the politics of fear and racism, especially when they are intertwined with intense partisan politics, the unintended consequences of which can be tragic. Furthermore, as historians and news media in the United States are facing the unprecedented challenge of “alternative facts” we need to embrace historical works that take historical evidence and accuracy seriously.
Noriko Kawamura
Washington State University, Pullman, USA
pp. 593-595