Many Japanese Americans argued to the school board that the segregation of schools violated the 1894 treaty, which did not explicitly address education, but emphasized that the Japanese would have equal rights in America. According to U.S. Supreme Court review decisions (Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896), a state did not violate the equality clause of the U.S. Constitution by prescribing racial segregation as long as the separate entities were substantially the same. Tokyo newspapers condemned racial segregation as an insult to Japanese pride and honor. The Japanese government wanted to protect its reputation as a world power. Government officials realized that a crisis was imminent and that intervention was needed to maintain diplomatic peace. [9] The increase in Japanese immigration, in part to replace excluded Chinese farm workers, has met with concerted opposition in California. To appease Californians and avoid an open break with Japan`s rising world power, President Theodore Roosevelt brokered this diplomatic agreement, under which the Japanese government took responsibility for drastically reducing Japanese immigration, especially workers, so that Japanese-American children could continue to attend integrated schools on the West Coast.
However, family migration could continue, as Japanese-American men with sufficient savings could bring women through arranged marriages („picture brides“), their parents, and minor children. As a result, the Japan-U.S. population was more gender-balanced than other Asian-American communities and continued to grow through natural growth, resulting in increased pressure to end their immigration and further reduce residents` rights. Most Japanese immigrants wanted to live permanently in America and came in family groups, unlike the Chinese immigration of young men, most of whom quickly returned to China. They assimilated into American social norms, such as clothing. Many joined the Methodist and Presbyterian churches. [3] [4] Japan and the United States clashed again in the League of Nations negotiations in 1919. The United States refused to accept Japan`s request for a racial equality clause or an admission of equality of nations. In addition, the Treaty of Versailles granted Japan control of valuable German concessions in Shandong, causing an uproar in China. This, coupled with the growing fear of militant Japan, contributed to the defeat of the League Convention in the U.S. Senate.
Persistent problems that prevented adaptation continued to be racial equality (particularly with respect to the treatment of Japanese immigrants in the United States) and differences in the management of expansion in Asia. Despite many efforts to reach agreements on these points, Japan and the United States again disagreed in the early 1920s. The potential for conflict between the United States and Japan, particularly over China, prompted both governments to renegotiate. In the 1917 Ishii Lansing Agreement, Secretary of State Robert Lansing acknowledged that Manchuria was under Japanese control, while Japanese Foreign Minister Ishii Kikujiro agreed not to restrict U.S. trade opportunities elsewhere in China. The two powers also agreed not to exploit the war in Europe to gain additional rights and privileges. Although it was not binding, Lansing saw the deal as an important step to promote mutual interests in Asia, but it proved to be short-lived. Eventually, the two nations agreed to end the Ishii Lansing Agreement after the conclusion of the Nine Powers Treaty, which they signed at the Washington Conference in 1922. The Immigration Act of 1907 allowed the president to strike an agreement with Japan to limit the number of Japanese immigrants.
The law also prohibited fools, people with physical or mental deformities, people with tuberculosis, children under the age of 16 without parents, and women from entering for „immoral purposes.“ The Russo-Japanese War was a military conflict between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan from 1904 to 1905. Much of the fighting took place in what is now northeast China. The Russo-Japanese War was also a naval conflict in which ships in the . In the years that followed, however, tensions over Japan`s actions in northeast China and immigration to the United States increased. In 1905, the Japanese began to gain more formal control over southern Manchuria by forcing China to transfer ownership of the South Manchurian Railway to Japan. The Japanese used this opening to penetrate further into northeastern China, which made the Roosevelt administration fear that it violated the ideals of free enterprise and the preservation of China`s territorial integrity. At the same time, senior Japanese officials have expressed frustration with the treatment of Japanese immigrants to the United States. A U.S.-Japanese treaty signed in 1894 guaranteed japanese the right to immigrate to the United States and enjoy the same rights in the country as American citizens. However, in 1906, the San Francisco Board of Education passed a measure to send Japanese and Chinese children to separate schools. The Japanese government was outraged by this policy and claimed that it violated the 1894 treaty. In a series of notes exchanged between late 1907 and early 1908, collectively known as the Gentlemen`s Agreement, the U.S. government agreed to pressure San Francisco authorities to withdraw the measure, and the Japanese government promised to restrict the immigration of workers to the United States.
Japan was willing to limit immigration to the United States, but was deeply hurt by San Francisco`s discriminatory law, which specifically targeted its people. President Roosevelt, who wanted to maintain good relations with Japan as a counterweight to Russian expansion in the Far East, intervened. While the U.S. ambassador reassured the Japanese government in February 1907, Roosevelt summoned the mayor and school board of San Francisco to the White House and persuaded them to lift the segregation order, promising that the federal government itself would address the immigration issue. .