History of the Japanese in Seattle
Prior to World War II, Seattle's Japanese community had grown to become the second largest Nihonmachi on the West Coast of North America.
[6] Many of these men were younger sons from families who, due in large part to the Japanese practice of primogeniture, were motivated to establish themselves independently abroad.
[8] A majority of the men that came during this period found work in the surrounding canneries, railroads, and the massive logging industry around the Seattle area.
[9] Because most of the initial Japanese immigrants during this period had only planned to stay temporarily, the early community was unstable with a ratio of 5 men to every woman and very little social, economic, or religious support.
[6] Long before the events of World War II, Japanese immigrants to the Seattle area faced considerable racism, much tied to labor disputes that created a divide with the predominantly white population.
[11] The region's first anti-Japanese organization was formed in 1894, and succeeded in expelling many of the 400-500 Japanese laborers from the White River Valley area south of Seattle.
The Immigration Act of 1924 and the Great Depression, however, had a dampening effect, leading to significant departures both to California and back to Japan.
[22] Nevertheless, as the second generation (known as Nisei) began to grow up, the Japanese immigrants who had once planned to return to Japan after only a few years, had begun seeing themselves as settlers.
[1] East of Lake Washington, Japanese immigrant labor helped clear recently logged land to make it suitable to support small scale farming on leased plots.
[27] Not long after, on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued and signed Executive Order 9066, clearing the way for the mass incarceration of all persons of Japanese ancestry on the American West Coast in inland concentration camps.
[29] Walt and Milly Woodward of the Bainbridge Island Review were the only West Coast editors to openly criticize Executive Order 9066.
Tacoma mayor Harry P. Cain was one of only two elected officials on the West Coast to publicly oppose the government's internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans,[31] in stark contrast to Washington congressional members Henry M. Jackson and Warren Magnuson.
[30] Most of the remaining 9,600 Japanese Americans from the Seattle area were forced to live behind barbed wire in converted livestock stalls and parking lots on the Puyallup Valley Fair grounds for several months while the War Relocation Authority oversaw the construction of longer term concentration camps further inland.
"[37] Japanese exclusion groups flared up in the Seattle area in response to the return of the internees, but after encountering some community resistance, eventually disappeared.
[40] On Bainbridge Island, about half of the relocated Japanese community made the decision to come back, where they received a notably more positive reception than elsewhere on the West Coast.
This was the site where more than 7,000 people of Japanese descent from Western Washington and Alaska were held before being transported to more permanent concentration camps further inland.
[44] Early Japanese settlers worked in coal mines, canneries of salmon products, railroad construction areas, and sawmills.
[49] First opening in 1904, Seattle's restaurant Maneki was built to resemble a three-story Japanese castle and could seat up to five hundred customers.
Too badly damaged to be restored, the restaurant reopened after the war in its current location in Seattle's International District on a much more modest scale.
[51][50] Seattle's Bush Garden restaurant was once considered a destination dining establishment, attracting visits from celebrities and politicians as well as locals.
[56] Founded in 1902 by first generation immigrants and investors Kiyoshi Kumamoto, Kuranosuke Hiraide, Juji Yadagai, and Ichiro Yamamoto,[57] the North American Post became one of the region's main Japanese newspapers.
[61] Aimed specifically at the American-born Nisei, the Courier reported on Japanese affairs while encouraging its readers to assimilate into "Americanized" society.
In June 1946, the North American Post was revived, and its editor in chief was the same person (Sumio Arima) who published Hokubei Jiji before the war.
It was busy several nights a week with actors and musicians from Japan, movies, concerts, judo and kendo competitions, and community meetings.
[81] Also near the entrance to Seward Park was a Japanese style wooden torii, originally built for Seattle's Potlatch festival in 1934.
The wooden torii was later removed in the mid-1980s due to decay,[82] and a replacement made with stone columns and timber cross beams was completed by 2021[83] and formally dedicated in 2022.
[85] Founded in 1996, Densho is a nonprofit organization based in Seattle, Washington, which collects video oral histories and documents regarding Japanese American internment in the United States during World War II.
It's an annual event featuring food, cultural displays, and dancing, and is held along the street in front the Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Temple during the summer.
[88] Other long running Bon Odori festivals in the Puget Sound region include those held in Tacoma[89] and the White River Valley.
That year 70% of the employees of the members of the Japanese business association Shunjū (春秋) Club resided in that region, according to the organization's figures.
