Chronology of Japanese American History xxi
1889 Katsu Goto, a prominent merchant and interpreter, is lynched
in Hawai‘i. He is murdered for his advocacy work on behalf of
Japanese plantation workers.
1890 Tsunetaro Jo and Tadoyoshi Sekine’s shoemaking business
is forced to close by the Boot and Shoemakers’ White Labor
League. In response, 20 Japanese American shoemakers in San
Francisco form the Nihonjin Kutsuko Domeikai, the Japanese
Shoemakers’ League, the first Japanese trade association in the
United States. They shift from shoemaking to shoe repair to
avoid competing with white shoemakers.
1892 Ellis Island opens in Upper New York Bay. It will be the
gateway to America for European immigrants until 1954.
1892 The first Japanese-language newspaper in Hawai‘i appears in
Honolulu.
1893 Queen Lili’uokalani, the last native ruler of an independent
Hawai‘i, is deposed in a bloodless coup d’état by five American
nationals, one English national, and one German national.
All were living and doing business in Hawai‘i and opposed
her efforts to establish a new constitution. President Grover
Cleveland refuses to annex Hawai‘i because he feels the
Americans in the sugar industry engineered the overthrow, and
that the Hawai‘ian people did not want revolution.
1894 Shebata Saito, a Japanese man, applies for U.S. citizenship,
but the U.S. circuit courts decide that he should not be
granted citizenship because he is not “white” nor “black.”
This case predates the Takao Ozawa case (1922) by nearly
three decades.
1894 Japanese immigrant Namyo Bessho, a U.S. Navy veteran of the
Spanish-American War and World War I, files for naturalized
U.S. citizenship under the Act of July 26, 1894, which granted
citizenship to “any alien” over 21 years of age who served five
consecutive years in the Navy or Marine Corps. Bessho finally
becomes a U.S. citizen through a measure signed by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt in June 24, 1935, granting Asian veterans
citizenship rights.
1894 The Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) starts in Korea in
response to the presence of Chinese military called in by
Korean government to suppress the Tonghak Rebellion. Japan
wins the war.
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