Strangers from a Different Shore

The Central Pacific Railway, or CPR, was a railroad company hired by the US government to build a railway from the California coast to Utah in the late 19th century. This company hired thousands of Asian laborers, mostly Chinese men, because they were excellent workers and they did not demand the wages that white American workers expected. Takaki presents the CPR as an exploitative employer which took advantage of Asian immigrants’ poverty and low status to overwork them in notoriously dangerous jobs while greatly profiting from their labor.

The Exclusion Act was an 1882 law passed by the US federal government. This law banned Chinese immigration to the US for 10 years. Takaki presents this law as a reaction to increased conflict between white workers and white employers, in which the white working class complained of Chinese laborers taking jobs and driving down wages, agitating the US government to resolve the matter by removing Chinese workers from the US.

This organization, founded by Chinese merchants working in America, provided health care and education to Chinese Americans. They also advocated for the Chinese community in meetings with officials and other influential Americans. Takaki credits this organization with helping Chinese Americans establish themselves in the US and confront discrimination.

These Japanese terms refer to the first generation of Japanese immigrants, the Issei, and the second generation who were born in America, the Nisei. Takaki uses these terms to help the reader consider Japanese Americans’ immigration journey from their perspective. It also helps the author distinguish between these generations’ different experiences in the US.

The kae is a credit-rotating system used in Korean culture in which several people pool their funds and take turns lending money to each other. The first person who borrows money from the fund pays interest on their loan, the second person pays less interest, and so on, until the last borrower, who does not pay any interest. By using the kae system, Koreans in the US could help each other establish their own businesses without traditional financing.

The Lunas were white men who supervised Asian laborers performing the menial farm work on Hawaiian plantations. Lunas used their positions of authority to verbally and physically abuse workers, prompting resentment, and sometimes resistance, from the laborers.

Takaki uses the term “planters” to refer to plantation owners in Hawaii. Planters owned large farms which produced cash crops, such as sugar, and employed workforces mainly consisting of Asian Americans. Takaki discusses how planters used their economic and political power to exploit Asian workers, who labored for low wages and in poor conditions.

Takaki uses this term to refer to Asian immigrants who intended to work in Hawaii or the US temporarily before returning to their homelands and families. These “sojourners” saw the US as a place to make money that would greatly help them and their families. The author explains that while some sojourners returned home, many were too poor to do so and ended up staying in the US.

The steerage is a section of a ship which houses the lowest level of passengers. Asian immigrants to the US were often confined to the steerage.

Similar to the kae and the woi, tanomoshi was the Japanese credit system in which community members would share money between members. This allowed Japanese immigrants in the US to access enough money to purchase tools or land necessary to become farmers. Takaki notes that this system shows Japanese immigrants' community-minded nature as one of many types of social and professional networks they used.