xviii Chronology of Japanese American History
the treaty negotiations between Japan and Commodore Perry,
which ended the 250 years of Japanese isolation from the
world.
1843 The first Japanese arrive in the United States.
1848 James W. Marshall discovers gold on Gen. John A. Sutter’s
property at Coloma, California.
1850 The California State legislature passes a law that imposes a
$20 per month tax on foreign miners.
1852 A Buddhist-Daoist temple to the Empress of Heaven Tien Hau
is founded in San Francisco.
1853 American commodore Matthew Perry sails into Edo (Tokyo)
Bay, representing the United States on his second expedition to
open up Japan to the outside world.
1854 The Treaty of Kanagawa is signed between the Japanese
government and Commodore Matthew Perry, establishing
formal relations between the two countries and ending
200 years of Japanese isolation. Americans gain privileges
similar to those they have in China.
1858 Joseph Heco (1837–1897) is the first Japanese national to
become a naturalized citizen, and the first to publish a Japanese
language newspaper. Heco was a fisherman from the province
of Sanyodo, Japan, who was shipwrecked and brought to
California in February 1851 along with sixteen other survivors.
1862 In his inaugural address as the eighth governor of California,
Leland Stanford promises to protect the state from “the dregs of
Asia.”
1868 Meiji Restoration takes place in Japan, ending its feudal
system. The teenage Emperor Meiji is restored as a symbolic
figure to paramount status, and reform measures are taken to
Westernize and modernize the nation. A conscription law is
enacted soon thereafter.
1868 Japan-based American businessman Eugene M. Van Reed
illegally ships 150 Japanese laborers to Hawai‘i and another
40 laborers to Guam to work on sugar plantations. This
unlawful recruitment of Japanese laborers, known as the
gannen-mono, meaning “first year people,” marks the beginning
of the global Japanese labor migration overseas. However, for
