Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

created a state of panic. People began to say that the Gentleman's Agreement was not being observed, and they did not take into consideration the advantage and the desirability of the picture brides. I can talk to you quite frankly. It is not a good thing for a population to have a concentrated mass of thousands of young, unmarried, foreign men. I do not like to think of it. It ought not to be. I am glad those Japanese wanted wives, and that, when they began to be prosperous, they wanted to found families. In the Orient the founding of a family is held to be a man's first obligation. There is an old book, that used to have weight and respectability among us, in which it is laid down as a fundamental fact that the founding of a family is the obligatory thing in humanity. I am glad these Japanese wanted their own kind; that they did not marry American wives. I am glad they were not willing to get along, as lots of people would have done, without marrying at all. I am glad that they brought their wives over after the fashion of what is known as the picture bride. How mysterious that sounds! What deep plots seem to be hidden in the picture bride. Yet it is very simple. If a man was successful, he wrote to his parents in Japan that he wanted them to send him a wife. That is legitimate and regular in Japan. There the young man does not have so much to say about marriage as in America. When it is thought well for a young man to marry, the parents employ a middleman to look for a promising girl. The middleman wants to make a good record for himself, so he sets about looking for a girl, and takes into consideration family, wealth, position, health, and mode of life. He reports to the parents, and if they think he has shown good judgment, they have the young lady brought around for inspection, or perhaps arrange things so that the young man may see her without a too formal inspection. The marriage takes place. I think there is a good deal to be said in favor of this method. While I am not urging the adoption of the system in this country, I confess it has its advantages as compared with the western way of doing things. We allow young people with no experience in life to choose their mates by indulging in sentimental love; often they want to separate the day after they are married. Because we do it that way it is true, I suppose, that today we have more divorces and unhappy marriages than any other country in the world. I am sorry to think of Japan's changing her system. It was a good thing for those young fellows to send home for wives. The parents sent a picture of the proposed bride; if he liked the picture, the whole thing was arranged, and she came out to join her husband. It was a real marriage. The fundamental idea was to live happily and found a family. And we have such terror about those picture brides! They came in great numbers and, as might be expected, there was a high birthrate in the years that followed. It would have been strange if there had not been. But those were not normal years. Look at Japan's story in Hawaii, where its birth-rate, on the average, does not equal that of several of the other populations, and is only a little larger than that of the white population. The picture bride system made for decency, developed family life, gave men some

thing to live for and work for. Instead of finding fault with these picture brides, we ought to think of them as an asset to our nation.

I suppose it is true at the present time that the Japanese birth-rate in California is about two and a half times the birth-rate of the white people of that state. But it is bound to fall. It will come nearer to the rate of the white man in that section. I do not like to think that 8 per cent of the children in the country are born of 2 per cent of the population. The Japanese are doing their share, but not better than they ought to.

The population of California is composed of three elements: the first is the immigrant whites. That is the majority of what they get there. They are making bids for them all the time. They advertise for them. In Los Angeles they once told me they had 355 beautiful days every year. I was there just eleven days, and nine of those were horrid. You know their announcements. We get out something similar in Washington. "Filtered sunlight" is what we specialize in. Here in Denver you are behind, with your bright skies. What you need is filtered sunlight. California is getting quantities of immigrant whites and is going to get them in time to come. The second, is the white births. Do you realize the actual situation in California? We all do. We know that a great many old people go there to end their days quietly; they are not having children. Many go there who are broken in health, hoping to find improvement in California. They have no children. California is full of invalids. The population of California as regards white births is exceptional, just as it is exceptional in the proportion of Japanese births. A percentage of the population of California has no children because it is old; a percentage is invalid, or has something else the matter with it. A third percentage of the white population remains. Instead of wishing the Japanese population to reduce its birth-rate, it is up to that third percentage to do its duty. The white people, not aged and invalid, would better think seriously of life's duties.

Third, there is the matter of assimilation. And here, the Senator! And McClatchy! And talking about assimilation, isn't it interesting to notice their names! It seems to me there must have been some kind of assimilation there. Mr. V. S. McClatchy, for example, testified before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization last June, saying: "Now the objections to the Japanese are that they are non-assimilable. They don't intermarry, and we don't want them to intermarry. That Japanese is always a Japanese." There is argument for you, just bristling with matter! Senator James D. Phelan has resorted to the same method of attack. He said, during the same hearing: "If there is any way of putting them on an equality in all respects we would do it. It is an economic proposition, because the races are not assimilable, and we can never have that equality." Farther on he said: "It is our duty to exclude the Japanese for economic reasons. Their competition is deadly and their non-assimilability established. Heretofore the Japanese have objected to discrimination, but God made them so and it is the nature of things. If we were to swallow them and

could assimilate them as an American community, it would be well and good, but we cannot do it. They, therefore, should not complain except against the decree of nature."

It is possible to understand what is the matter with both Phelan and McClatchy. People frequently, instead of assigning their real reasons, assign the exact contrary. It is psychopathic. The real truth is that the Japanese is remarkably assimilable. He is quick to take on American ways and to become like Americans. It is not that he is unassimilable; the trouble is that he assimilates too easily. That is what worries these two men. You get it in the admission that Japanese competition is something that cannot be overcome.

I will tell you two personal stories. I have a Japanese boy in my home in Seattle who is attending college. He came to this country for a university education, and had his freshman year at the University of Chicago, and his sophomore and junior years in Seattle. In Chicago he had a good time. My friends were his friends, and he enjoyed his stay there. When we came to Seattle, I said to him, "You will be all right here because there are so many Japanese. You will feel quite at home, especially with the boys in college." He went to college, but said very little, and when I asked him how he was getting along, gave evasive replies. When I asked him if he had joined the Japanese Club, he said he had not, and when I asked why he said, "Oh, they don't care for us." There are perhaps fifty Japanese in the university, but they were born in Seattle, or Washington, or Oregon, and have not learned Japanese ways. They scarcely speak their parents' language. They look at everything with American eyes. They have graduated from high school, with superior marks usually, and they are making good records in the university, but, bless you, they do not care a cent for a boy that comes from Japan. He is slow, backward, foreign.

Mr. Harding was in our state a little while before his death and a reception was given by the school children; among them were several Japanese children, one a little boy. President Harding, with that kindliness that was characteristic of him, patted the youngster on the head and said, "Little Japanese boy?" "No, sir," said the youngster, "I am an American boy." Talk about assimilation! These young people are Americans, not Japanese.

In 1913 I made the circuit of Mount Fuji with a young Japanese. When we came back to his home to rest for a few days, we found the daughter of the family all excited. The father was a Buddhist priest, a dear old man; the mother was a kind, gentle soul; the temple in which they lived was a home of peace and joy. Well, we found this girl all excitement because she was going to America as a picture bride. All the details had been arranged, and she was only waiting for the steamer to take her to Seattle. She asked me many questions about what she should do, and how she should act, and whether people would be pleased with her. The next time I went through Seattle, in 1915, they saw by the newspapers, that I was in town, and came to see me, and brought the baby. Senator Phelan's statement about picture brides worked out just right in that case.

The baby was a dear little fellow, and the parents were proud and happy over him and over living here. The bride was getting along much better than she expected, and she found the American ladies kind and gentle; they did not make fun of her mistakes. I went through Seattle again in 1917, and this time they came in their automobile to take me to the steamer. The little fellow was now beginning to talk and to be interested in things. When I went to Seattle in 1923 to live permanently, after a time I began to wonder why this family had not been around to see me, and was a little peeved. I made inquiries, but could not locate them. Presently I went across to Tokio, where, the afternoon of my arrival, the man called upon me to pay his respects. They had gone back to Japan for a visit, he explained, and so had not been able to call upon me in Seattle. They had seen in the newspapers that I was going to ascend Mount Fuji. The wife and children were at the temple, and when I descended from the mountain they would see me. They did so. I asked the little boy how he was getting on. He had been brought up to respect me-they respect the aged in Japan-and he said, “I don't like it at all. I want to go back to my country. They are so slow and things are so inconvenient here." Americanization? Assimilation? Why, in Seattle you will find in their homes chairs-rocking chairs—and tables, and doilies, cushions on the davenports, and photographs and pictures on the walls. They do not have any of those things in Japan. There you can take comfort in your rooms and not be disturbed by the clutter of furniture around you. The point I want to make is this, that that little fellow was not a Japanese. He loves America. And yet Senator Phelan says, "God made them so." They cannot assimilate.

In this effort to assimilate themselves to their surroundings there are some things that lead to misunderstandings. I will mention three things that are good and ought to remain, but which are suspected and misjudged. The first of these is the Japanese Association. It is a splendid thing. It has made life tolerable for the Japanese here. It has helped them in trouble and directed them in time of need. It has interpreted American ways to them. Americanization has been its aim. Some Americans think it is dangerous. It has been claimed that it is maintained by the Japanese government, that it has imperial political aims. Nothing is farther from the truth. It is an organization of mutual helpfulness. We should encourage these Japanese Associations. There are three of them on the west coast-one in southern California, one in San Francisco, and one in the Northwest. They help to develop friendships, and they help to maintain order, and they deserve encouragement from us, and aid.

The second is the Japanese school. I approve of it, but I expect it will disappear. The question might be asked, If they are to assimilate, why have Japanese schools? It is to keep them in touch with their parents, and to help them not to forget their language. It holds one or two hours outside public school hours. It supplements the public school. It is a saving thing and a safe thing, but it will die naturally before long, probably.

The third thing is the Buddhist temple. I shall quote Senator Phelan. At the San Francisco hearing of the Immigration Committee, he testified: "There are seventy-six Buddhist temples in California, and I am told that they are regularly attended by 'emperor worshipers' who believe that their emperor is the overlord of all." Think of that! Somebody ought to have told the senator a thing or two so that he need not have insulted the intelligence of the Committee by remarks of that kind. Mr. Phelan never found a Buddhist temple, in any country at anytime, that taught emperor worship. Nor did any one else. When we go to Japan to live we expect them to tolerate our churches in their country. We insist on their doing so, and in the cities where there are any number of foreigners there are foreign churches, so that foreigners may continue to worship after their own belief. But there is more. Not only do foreigners establish churches for their own worship; they attempt to force their religion upon the Japanese. American missionaries have sought to introduce a religion the principles of which Americans themselves do not practice. Yet the Japanese have put up with it. They have not only permitted foreigners to have their own churches; they have not interfered even when churches have been introduced for proselytizing purposes, bound to have an effect on the social and political and economic situation of the country. When the Japanese came here, the old folks wanted to have their own way of worship-which, in my opinion, is better for them than Christianity. The Japanese brought up in Buddhism and remaining in it is likely to be a more amenable, more controllable, more assimilable character than the one who becomes a Christian. But because they have a few temples and religious services, we have a panic. They do not try to proselytize, nor to take Christianity away from our people. They want only their natural, legitimate, normal, ordinary religious opportunity, and we cry out, They must go, those Buddhist temples! I presume they will go. It is unfortunate.

Once I was in conversation with a Japanese gentleman about the troubles between our nations. He said, with great show of enthusiasm, "The trouble is, we have different religions. If only we would become Christians, the whole thing would be solved, and then there would be no troubles between us and the Americans." My answer was: "My friend, the fact that you are Buddhists is only made an excuse. The real thing that counts is that you are different in blood. We have in our country ten or twelve million people who are good Christians, unusually good Christians, who love to go to church, and sing, and pray; they are children of Jesus, sons of God; Christianity means more perhaps, in their daily life, than in the life of any other element in the population of the United States; but their skin is black, and the hostility toward them does not seem to be the less because they are Christians." The Buddhist temple will no doubt go. It has a proper place in the Americanization of those Japanese people, but it will go, and when it has gone prejudice of race or the difference of color will not be affected in the least by the fact that we have some thousands more of Christian converts in our churches.

« AnteriorContinuar »