Research On The Segregation Of Japanese Students From San Francisco’s Public Schools In 1906

After the 1890s,a movement that excluded Japanese labor immigration broke out in the Pacific Rim of the United States.For a time,San Francisco had been the center of the anti-Japanese movement.In October1906,the San Francisco Board of Education passed a resolution requiring Japanese students who had previously attended ordinary public schools to enter a designated oriental school.The exclusion of Japanese students caused the dissatisfaction of the Japanese people and the protest of the Japanese government,which caused tension between the US and Japan.In the early days of the incident,President Theodore Roosevelt adopted a policy of suppressing the Japanese campaign to maintain US-Japan friendship.He explained and assured the Japanese,dispatched Secretary of Commerce and Labor Metcalf to San Francisco to investigate and persuade.In his message to congress concerning the Japanese,President Roosevelt condemned San Francisco’s practice and announced that he would do everything that was within his power to do,employ all the forces which he might lawfully employ to protect the Japanese’s treaty rights.At the request of the president,the federal government even appeal to courts regarding the educational segregation of Japanese students in San Francisco.But federal intervention failed to spur San Francisco to revoke school order,but instead caused a wave of criticism of the president and the urge to exclude Japanese immigrants.Recognizing WestCoast’s determination to exclude Japanese immigrants and the importance of immigration issues in US domestic politics and US-Japan relations,the President began to change policies and seek to solve school controversy by restricting Japanese labor immigration to the continental United States.The president also thought that by doing so,he can regain support from West Coast voters,and avoid US-Japan immigration disputes.The president won the support of Californian Congressmen for his plan.The representatives of San Francisco government were summoned to the White House by the President for a conference.The President persuaded them to repeal the segregation while ensuring that measures will be taken to exclude Japanese labors from continental United States.The Japanese government thought that educational segregation was a discrimination against the Japanese and violated the US-Japan treaty,but didn’t want the relationship between the two countries to be affected.The support of the president was gratifying to Japan,but the deterioration of the situation prompted Japan to agree to reach an agreement with the United States on immigration restrictions on the premise that San Francisco would in return revoke educational isolation.The United States hoped to enter into a treaty excluding laborers reciprocally,and to this end was willing to give school privileges of the most-favored nation to Japanese children in the United States,but Japan,in order to preserve national honor and to protect the government from criticism,wished to acquire right ofnaturalization for Japanese subjects as a quid pro quo for an immigration treaty.These led to a deadlock in the immigration treaty negotiations.Roosevelt pushed American Congress to pass the Root Amendment,authorizing the president to take measures to restrict Japanese labors from enter into the United States from places such as Hawaii,and San Francisco agreed to withdraw the educational segregation.In February1907,the United States and Japan reached an understanding on the issue of labor immigration restrictions.This understanding was later known as "Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907".According to the agreement,the United States would restrict Japanese labors from going to the United States from places such as Hawaii,and Japan would restrict Japanese labors from going to the United States from Japan.In March,San Francisco revoked educational segregation,and the president issued an executive order prohibiting Japanese workers from going to the United States from places such as Hawaii.Although the American government continued to seek an immigration treaty with Japan after the school controversy,the differences between the two sides on the immigration treaty and the domestic public opinion environment led to the suspension of the immigration treaty negotiations.The two sides finally resolved the immigration problem by refining and strengthening the 1907 agreement.The educational segregation incident is a product of the US anti-Japanese movement and Japanese immigration problem.Theresulting US-Japan diplomatic dispute reflects the new characteristics of the relationship between the two countries,indicating a new direction for the development of bilateral relations.The Gentlemen’s Agreement of1907 ended the US-Japan diplomatic crisis triggered by the school controversy,and restricted Japanese labor migration to the United States to a certain extent.However,the agreement failed to solve the immigration problem fundamentally.The agreement also triggered new disputes and struggles between the United States and Japan.