A Study On Shellfish Pickers And Japanese Immigrants In Australia Under The "White Australia Policy"

Japanese immigrants were a special ethnic group in the history of Australian immigration,and have always dominated the pearl shell industry on Australia’s northern coast,becoming the only large-scale group of coloured people under the "White Australia policy".This paper takes Japanese indentured workers in the Australian pearl oyster collection industry as the main research object,introduces the background and reasons of their migration,sorts out their migration process,analyzes their working and living conditions,and explores the subjective and objective factors that have survived under the "White Australia Policy".The article begins with the economic drivers of fishermen’s lives in Japan’s coastal areas in the mid-19 th century,with Australia becoming one of the destinations for immigrants,and by the end of the 19 th century,Japanese indentured laborers became the most dominant monoethnic group in the industry.The reason is that,in addition to the excellent quality and low labor costs of indentured labor,the strict internal recruitment and organizational structure also allowed it to monopolize the core position of the shellfish harvesting industry-divers.After the introduction of the "White Australia Policy" in 1901,due to the deep binding of the pearl oyster collection industry with the Japanese "shell pickers",it was able to continue to exist under pressure until the outbreak of the Pacific War.After World War II,with the withdrawal of the Japanese from the industry,the Australian pearl oyster collection industry gradually disappeared.Although the Japanese "Pearling people" group has become history,in the special international environment,the "Pearling people" are still a special case worthy of in-depth study and discussion in the history of immigration.