xx Chronology of Japanese American History
for Bible study, which encourages mutual support for one
another. This is the first immigrant association formed by the
Japanese.
1880 Section 69 of California’s Civil Code prohibits issuing of
licenses for marriages between whites and “Mongolians,
Negroes, mulattoes and persons of mixed blood.”
1881 Hawai‘ian King Kalakaua takes a trip around the world. He
meets with rulers, perhaps to find more laborers for Hawai‘i’s
plantations. He also wants to learn the ways of other rulers to
better protect his own people. He first went to San Francisco,
then Japan, China, Siam (now Thailand), Burma, India, Egypt,
Italy, Belgium, Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Portugal, and
England. In Japan he tries to persuade Japan to lift emigration
restrictions, but the Japanese emperor is not moved.
1882 President Chester A. Arthur signs the Chinese Exclusion Act,
which bans immigration of laborers and their wives from China
for 10 years. It also bans Chinese immigrants from becoming
naturalized citizens. As a result, there is an increase in Japanese
immigration to replace Chinese laborers.
1882 The United States and Korea sign the Treaty of Peace, Amity,
Commerce and Navigation, establishing diplomatic relations
between the two countries.
1885 The first Japanese migrants to be officially admitted to a U.S.
state or territory arrive in Hawai‘i as sugar plantation laborers
on the City of Tokio freighter. Assisted by the Hawai‘ian
government’s assisted passage scheme, they comprise 676 men,
159 women, and 108 children.
1886 American Robert Walker Irwin, the Kingdom of Hawai‘i’s
minister to Japan, reaches an agreement with the Japanese
government to allow its subjects to go abroad. This is known
as the Irwin Convention, which remains in force until 1894.
A total of 28,691 (23,071 men, 5,487 women, 133 children)
government-sponsored Japanese laborers go to work on
sugar plantations during this time on three-year contracts.
After 1894, emigration business is turned over to private
companies.
1889 Jodo-Shinshu priest Soryu Kagai, arrives in Honolulu, surveys
the situation, and, eventually, establishes Buddhist groups
among the Japanese laborers on the plantations.
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