Speech #920248616

The first Japanese to see. or be seen in. Philadelphia may have been the castaway. Joseph HecoHikozo Hamadawho arrived in San Francisco in 1851 and became probably the first American citizen of Japanese ancestry when he was naturalized in Baltimore in 1858. We know that he traveled between New York and Washington and that he lived and studied for several years in Baltimore. Further. his autobiography "The Narrative of a Japanese." edited by James Murdoch. states that in June 1858. prior to his departure for Japan. he visited a friend in Reading and "set out for Perrymensville via Philadelphia." The earliest significant Japanese contact came in 1860. when the First Japanese Embassy to the United States visited the city.