Strangers from a Different Shore

John Bigler was the Governor of California from 1852-1856. After initially welcoming Chinese immigrants to the state, Bigler changed his mind, using cultural and economic arguments to persuade the state legislature to pass the foreign miners license tax. Bigler claimed that the Chinese newcomers were too “dissimilar from ourselves in customs, language, and education” and claimed that new legal measures were necessary to stop the “tide of Asiatic immigration” (81). Bigler’s tax required Chinese immigrant miners to pay $3 a month to the state. This tax generated $5 million for the state of California and remained in place until 1870. By including Bigler’s perspective, Takaki shows how the anti-Asian xenophobia which was common among white American leaders at the time fueled unfair legislation such as the foreign miners license tax.

Calvin T. Sampson was a business owner in the town of North Adams, Massachusetts in the late 19th century. Sampson’s shoe factory produced 300,000 pairs of shoes each year and was one of the most successful businesses in town. In 1870 Sampson’s workers, all white, working-class Americans and union members, struck for higher wages and a shorter workday. Sampson immediately fired the workers and replaced them with a group of 75 Chinese workers from San Francisco.

This strategy pitted Chinese workers against the local white working-class, some of whom blamed the Chinese workers for taking their jobs and driving down wages, while also condemning Sampson’s actions. Local bosses were inspired by Sampson’s decision and reduced their own worker’s wages, since they could now hardly threaten to strike. By replacing striking workers with scabs and paying employees very little, Calvin T. Sampson was like many other employers of the time, seeking the cheapest labor possible to maximize his own profits. By detailing this episode of class conflict, Takaki shows how 19th-century Asian newcomers found themselves in the middle of hostile labor disputes between white workers and employers.

Abiko Kyutaro was a prominent Japanese immigrant in late 19th-century San Francisco. After spending much of his adolescence in Tokyo, where he converted to Christianity and learned some English, Abiko moved to San Francisco in 1885 and studied at the University of California. Despite only having one dollar upon moving to the US, Abiko became a rare financial success story, developing a labor contracting business, the Japanese American Industrial Corporation, in which he hired Japanese laborers for American employers. He also ran a restaurant, a laundry business, and a Japanese-language newspaper, the Nichibei Shimbun.

Abiko firmly believed that to succeed in America, Japanese people needed to embrace the idea of settling in their new country rather than simply earning money and returning to Japan. Abiko used his newspaper to advocate to his fellow immigrants, recommending farming as the ideal way to become respectable settlers in the US. Abiko purchased 3,000 acres of desert in California, which he sold to Japanese American families to establish farms and permanent settlements.

By sharing Abiko’s unique life story, Takaki demonstrates the multiplicity of the Asian American experience, showing that some newcomers did manage to work their way to wealth and prominence in the US. His discussion of Abiko’s philosophy also shows the differing approaches to immigration among Japanese people at the time. Some immigrants agreed with Abiko and tried to learn the language, assimilate to some American norms, and settle in the country permanently, hoping that this would earn them the respect of other Americans.

George Shima was a prominent Japanese farmer who made his fortune working as a labor contractor, and later as a productive potato farmer, in early 20th-century California. Shima’s experience was an exceptional one in the Japanese American community; as he worked his way out of menial labor jobs, became a millionaire and raised his family in Berkeley. Even though his success was unusual, Shima’s story is a reminder of the importance of agriculture to the Japanese American community at this time, as nearly half of all Japanese people in the US were farmers or farm laborers. Shima was likely an aspirational figure for Japanese Americans at the time, and was friends with influential people such as the Chancellor of Stanford University and the mayor of San Francisco. However, Takaki points out that even millionaire Shima experienced racist discrimination, emphasizing the ubiquity of anti-Asian racism at the time.

Carlos Bulosan is best known as an author of memoirs, social commentary, fiction, and poetry. Bulosan grew up in the Philippines and immigrated to the US at age 17 in 1930. Although denied naturalized citizenship due to his race, Bulosan never returned to his home country. Bulosan survived the Depression-era US doing menial work in canneries, restaurants, homes, and farms. Like many Filipinos, he experienced dangerous and exploitative workplaces, as well as racist violence from thugs and police. Over time, he was able to establish himself as a writer, publishing short stories, poems and longer works. His 1946 book America is in the Heart expresses his experience as a Filipino in the US. Bulosan’s work provides insight into the psychological alienation many Filipino people felt in the early 20th-century US and illustrates the contradictions of the US as a place of both violent hatred and welcoming kindness.