Takaki chapter 10

In chapter ten Takaki talks about other groups of people that were discriminated against which were the Pilipino, Japanese, and Chinese people. These groups came to America for various reasons, but ended up experiencing different hardships. What they thought America was ended up being something completely different that they had imagined.
When the Japanese came to America they mainly settled on the east side. Numerous people wanted to come to America because they heard the wages were better. Japanese women also went to America and “forty-seven percent of Japanese women made up the Japanese population.” Because of the major influences to come to America and, so many people immigrating, the U.S. came up with the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Chinese and Japanese differed somewhat with their values and traditions. In a Japanese family the first bon son was to follow in his father’s footsteps and the second son had to find a job. Soon enough the field work was being divided between Korean laborers. Takaki stated that, “the Korean government prohibited further immigration to Hawaii” because the workers were complaining about suffering from abuse. Later on the different work groups formed into gangs and would often get into fist fights and riot. Work gangs would consist of 20-30 people. Gangs included some nationalities like Hawaiians, Filipinos, Japanese, and Chinese workers. Since the Japanese were composed of much of the work force they then realized they wanted better pay like the Portuguese workers. The Portuguese workers earned around 22 dollars per month compared to the 18 dollars the Japanese workers were making.
During the 1920s the people in America were very anti-Japanese. The Japanese were not even considered second class citizens and were treated like animals. It like they did not matter to anyone and people held grudges and biases against them. Shoe keeping and farming soon became the main Japanese trade. The Japanese workers came to America to work and have a better life but they could not get a break being harassed by the white population. Why do people continue to discriminate against a different group of people throughout the decades? It went from African Americans in the past to Arabs and Muslims in today’s society. No matter what people do someone or some major event is going to put a group in jeopardy and make them hated by many people.
I thought this chapter was very long but interesting. I learned some new facts about the Japanese and their past. I think that learning about different groups’ past is important because people do not realize that everyone has gone through some kind of struggle.