7. Facing similar nativist hatred as the Chinese, Japanese migrants to the United States suffered ill-treatment and eventual exclusion by mutual national consent under the “Gentleman’s Agreement” of 1907
Unlike their Chinese counterparts, the Empire of Japan operated a strict policy of isolation which restricted the migration of its people. Gradually opening to the world, some of the earliest Japanese migrants only arrived in the United States in the aftermath of an 1894 treaty promising open immigration and worker’s protections. Despite only growing to one percent of California’s population by 1906, anti-Japanese sentiment quickly became endemic throughout American nativism. Requiring Japanese children – numbering just 93 in California – to attend racially segregated schools, in 1905 the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League was formed to advocate the extension of the Chinese Exclusion Act to all Asians.
Seeking to “preserve the image of the Japanese people in the eyes of the world” and avoid the humiliation China endured with the Exclusion Act, after President Roosevelt proved unable to compel states to reverse their anti-Japanese policies the two nations entered into negotiations. Reaching a compromise in February 1907, the Japanese government agreed to stop issuing passports to those seeking to enter the United States whilst America would strengthen the rights of those already residing. Spurring an increase in “picture brides”, the overwhelmingly male Japanese population in America would enter into arranged marriages to circumvent the agreement and bring their new spouses to the continent.