Changes

This early period of Japanese immigration to Hawaii (and the rest of the United States) came to an end in 1924, as the US Congress passed the Asian Exclusion Act,  which barred East Asians from immigrating to the country. By that time, however, there were already over a quarter million ''issei'' (immigrants) and ''nisei'' (US-born children of immigrants) in the United States; roughly half of these lived in Hawaii.

This early period of Japanese immigration to Hawaii (and the rest of the United States) came to an end in 1924, as the US Congress passed the Asian Exclusion Act,  which barred East Asians from immigrating to the country. By that time, however, there were already over a quarter million ''issei'' (immigrants) and ''nisei'' (US-born children of immigrants) in the United States; roughly half of these lived in Hawaii.

Japanese were not permitted to immigrate to the US, or to become naturalized citizens, from 1924 until sometime after World War II.

Japanese were not permitted to immigrate to the US from 1924 until 1952. It was also not until 1952 that Japanese were able to become naturalized citizens of the US. An act of Congress in 1790 limited naturalization to whites, and though this was extended to blacks in 1870, it was never formally extended to Asians until that year; a small number of Japanese were able to naturalize earlier, however, in individual cases where judges deemed them to fall within the category of "white." A handful had also been able to become naturalized citizens of the Kingdom of Hawaii, but this lost most legal meaning after the kingdom's fall. Some Japanese were able to become naturalized citizens of the US in 1935, when a special bill granted citizenship to a number of World War I veterans of Asian descent, but this came only after a lengthy process of petitions or complaints. Japanese had to fight to be allowed to enlist in the military to begin with, as well. Furthermore, from 1922-1931, American women could ''lose'' their US citizenship by marrying Asians. Certain state laws in the 1920s, such as in California, and implemented soon afterwards in the Territory of Hawaii, barred "aliens ineligible for naturalization" from owning land, without explicitly discriminating by ethnicity. According to the law of ''jus soli'', however, those born in the United States, regardless of their ethnicity, were born American citizens; ''nisei'' and ''sansei'' born in Hawaii after the overthrow were thus both US citizens, and by the law of ''jus sanguinus'', Japanese citizens as well.<ref>This would change in 1985, when a law was passed prohibiting Japanese citizens from holding a second citizenship.</ref>

 

==1920s to World War II==

 

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, roughly 110,000 people of Japanese descent living in the mainland United States, 2/3 of whom were US citizens, were rounded up and removed to internment camps. They lost nearly all their worldly possessions, as well as their claims to land, businesses, and homes, and most West Coast Japanese communities never recovered. The Japanese community in Hawaii was spared such widespread, wholesale destruction, but roughly 2,000 Japanese in Hawaii, including roughly 700 ''kibei'', were interned. Buddhist temples, martial arts schools, language schools, and the like, and the community as a whole, came under heavy suspicion as the United States entered the war against Japan. Many members of the Japanese community, more eager than ever to prove their loyalty to the United States, or feeling great pressure to do so, sold or destroyed family heirlooms such as kimono, musical instruments, and the like, and suppressed or halted their observance of certain Japanese customs. A number of members of the community, like their brethren on the mainland, volunteered for the US military, becoming members of the 100th Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team, or Military Intelligence Service, the 442nd eventually becoming the most-decorated unit in US military history, with numerous Purple Hearts and Congressional Medals of Honor, and with all three units being honored with the Congressional Gold Medal.

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