pacific coast

Chelsea Bates
Ethnic Studies
Melissa Altman

Pacific Crossing
With tears in my eyes I turn back to my homeland, Taking one last look. This was a quote taken from Takaki Chapter eleven that was put in here by Tears in the Canefields. This quote struck me as both painful, but yet a good point to put into this document. Takaki talks of the Japanese hardships while coming to America through out this chapter. There was a lot of material in this paper dealing with what the Japanese expected and the little they ended up with. It started off as a place to rebuild their lives, to step up in the world, and make a name for themselves. However, at the time the Japanese government was ran by a strong central government that had a screening for any of those who wanted to transfer. The only reason that Japanese women were more prominent in America was due to the fact that the Japanese government was seeking to avoid the problems of prostitution, gambling, and the drunkenness that reportedly plagued the predominantly male Chinese community in the United States, the Japanese government promoted female emigration (248). But, as they started to realize that Japanese men were good for their labor force, they started to ask for men with families to come work for them in Honolulu. Of course, this was not enough because later in the chapter it went on to explain that the farmers began to start importing Korean and Phillipinos for extra labor. That is when the racial pride competition started to come along. Farmers would approach their workers with comments such as we are Phillipinos we are better then that, or we are Koreans lets show them what we are made of. The field work these men partook in was extremely brutal and demeaning. The lunas which were the over seers came to the point where the workers no longer had a name. The workers were away bango and then a random number. In the America’s a highly educated Japanese man could be a farmer or a picker in the fields. The typical job for Japanese man in the nineteen twenties was in agriculture, railroad construction, and the canneries. In summary in our text books we learn of enslavement, and French and Indian war, what I never realized was just how prominent the Japanese History in our society was. Or how brutally they were treated on the plantations.
While reading through this document I have gained a lot more respect for the history of the Pacific Coast people. I mean the quote at the beginning of the paper really hit me right off the bat. I thought leaving for college was bad, but these people left their families for America with the intentions of never seeing their family or homeland ever again. They left with high hopes of their dreams coming true and finally being able to make a name for themselves. However the way they were treated once arrived was horrific and I believe it is really over looked though out our high school and elementary text. I wish I would have been able to learn about this a lot sooner in life and understand where they were coming from in their hardships. I believe this is really related to the enslavement of the African Americans. The similarities being the fact of competition once again with class. For example, the black plantation owners told the white indentured servants that they were better then those of color. While in this situation they were just flat out seeking hatred and competition amongst the different races just to get more work out of their already over-worked souls. I am beginning to believe the new motto for this class is going to be the famous why cant we all just get along as stated in the book of Power and Privilege. What drove the white plantation owners to desire superiority, and power to the extent of hurting men, and women? Or why didn’t the groups join together and rebel? I believe history would have been so much different if groups of the lower class stood up and took a stand. Just think how much different would our world and our social classes be today?