Transpacific Accommodation and the Defense of Asian Immigrants

Studies of California’s anti-Japanese movement in the first half of the twentieth century invariably focus on processes of racial bigotry and misunderstanding. This article instead examines the emergence of an important discourse of racial accommodation, as well as the organized opposition to anti-Japanese policies, that was both consistent with and in opposition to the dominant racism of the day. The analysis focuses on three prominent Californians—John P. Irish, David Starr Jordan, and Chester H. Rowell—who, as early adopters of racial tolerance and transpacific identity, pioneered the defense of Japanese in the Golden State.