Japanese Immigrants in the Laundry and Restaurant Businesses

Japanese Immigration

After these Chinese Immigration laws were passed, the U.S. needed to find a new source of immigrant labor in order to build their railroads and further infrastructure. It was at this time that they recruited Japanese workers to do the jobs that were originally given to the Chinese, and by 1907, 40% of the railroad’s labor force was made up of Japanese immigrants. These Japanese immigrants were called the Issei (first-generation immigrants) and they also took up jobs in farming, as they thought of that profession as the one with the most upward economic potential (“Historical Overview”). Because the Japanese were so persistent in spreading cultural awareness and sharing with the Americans, the initial wariness of a foreign culture eventually faded to genuine interest from the white American populations of California and Hawaii. Japanese cultural aspects, such as opera, art, and food, were seen as trendy. American elites wanted more of it during the first couple of decades, so Japanese restaurants were just as much of a hit as Chinese, though with a different crowd. While Chinese restaurants had ranges of “high-class” and “low-brow,” it was only the very rich and fashionable who craved and bought Japanese food. Japanese people also took a lesson from the Chinese and went to work in laundries as well. In places of heavy Japanese concentration, laundromats were owned and operated by the Japanese, in a family-run way, just like the Chinese laundromats (“Historical Overview”).

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