Speech #920248589

Although JapaneseAmericans constitute only a minute part of our Nations populationfewer than 600.000their story is an important one. consisting in large part of adversity. challenge and. eventually. a degree of success and triumph. The implications. however. reach far beyond one ethnic group. particularly today. when America faces grave problems involving the denial of full equality and justice to large segments of our population. Just 3 years ago. the centennial celebration of Japanese immigration to the United States was observed. Perhaps. no other immigrant group encountered higher walls of discrimination and prejudice than did the Japanesethe denial of the right to citizenship. denial of the right to own land or enter certain professions. and eventually complete exclusion. No other ethnic group experienced the dramatic and emotionaa crisis of being uprooted from their homes and herded into American concentration camps. complete with barbed wire fences and armed guards. Few have shown greater loyalty to the United States or greater willingness to make sacrifices for their country on the battlefield or at home. As the late Barratt OHara. when a Member of this House. put it in a floor speech in 1963: I do not know of any group in the history of our country who has suffered so much without Justification and has come out of it to make such a great contribution with never a scar of resentment or faltering their love of and loyalty to country. Although 1869 has been generally regarded as the date when the first Japanese immigrants arrived on the mainland United States. the first organized group of immigrants arrived in Hawaii. then a. kingdom. on June 19. 1868. They had been recruited to labor on Hawaiis sugar plantations. Shortly thereafter. due partly to the slaverylike treatment these first laborers received on the plantations. Japan forbade emigrant workers from going to Hawaii. But Hawaiis need for farm labor grew enormously following the U.S. agreement to permit Hawaiian sugar to enter the mainland United States dutyfree. This was at the same time that the native Hawaiian population. afflicted with various diseases brought by Captain Cook and his crew in the late 18th century. was actually shrinking.