The Theory of the Split Labor Market: A
Comparison of the Japanese Experience in
Brazil and C anada*
TOMOKO MAKABE,
University of Toronto
"Societies vary considerably in their degree of ethnic and racial antagonism"
(Bonacich, a, 547). The Japanese as one racial minority have had substantial
experience with many varied forms of racial antagonism since their arrival
in new societies such as the United States, Canada, and Brazil. It is generally accepted that Japanese in Brazil have suffered less from racial antagonism, while those in North America have been subject to more intense
prejudice and discrimination. Also, more than a few researchers have recently noted that the experience of the Japanese-Canadians during and
following World War II was much more harsh and unjust than that of their
U.S. counterparts (Adachi; Baar; Daniels; Makabe). 1 What similarities and
differences have there been in the experiences of the Japanese immigrants
and their descendants in Canada and Brazil? How useful is the theory of
ethnic antagonism—that of the split labor market, formulated by Edna
Bonacich—in accounting for differences between Canada and Brazil? In
this study it is hypothesized that differences in economic structure and in
*The author is indebted to Professor Ellen Baar of York University for her helpful comments
on an earlier draft of the paper.
©1981 The University of North Carolina Press. 0037-7732181/030786-09$02.40
786
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ABSTRACT
This study examines the minority experience of Japanese immigrants
in prewar years in two different societies, Brazil and Canada. Data are adduced
to test the applicability of the theory of the split labor market formulated by
Edna Bonacich. The Japanese experience in the two countries lends empirical
support to the theory. The study reveals a significant differentiation between
the two countries in intergroup competition and conflict. The consequence, for
the Japanese, of severe competition in Canada, is that they were almost completely excluded from the entire society. With the lack of notable economic
competition in Brazil, discrimination and exclusion movements were not experienced (as in Canada) by the Japanese in that country.
Split Labor Market Theory I 78
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the position occupied within that structure, will prove useful in accounting
for the nature of intergroup conflicts and the differences in patterns of race
relations.
Bonacich's position, briefly stated, is that economic factors are fundamental in explaining the development and extent of antagonism between
various ethnic groups. The term, antagonism, includes all levels of intergroup conflict: ideologies and beliefs (such as racism and prejudice); behavior (such as discrimination, lynching, riots); and institutions (such as laws
perpetuating segregation). Antagonism arises not from cultural differences,
but out of the split labor market in which one finds differentials in the price
of labor. Differentials in wages do not arise because of the prejudices of the
business class (employers). Instead, wage differentials are due to the desire
of employers to minimize labor costs, and to the resources and motives of
employees. Bonacich considers three groups in a market place: business
(employers), the group comprising higher paid labor, and cheap labor.
When an ethnic group sells its labor at significantly lower rates the higher
paid workers face severe competition to maintain their relatively advantageous position. Such competition leads to two forms of antagonism;
exclusion movements and caste systems. Both forms of antagonism represent victories for higher paid workers since both prevent further undercutting of wages and jobs for higher paid workers.
Generally speaking, the nature of the economic experience of Japanese-Canadians is explained by Bonacich's theory quite well. The Japanese
in Canada, more specifically in British Columbia, were bitterly rejected and
suffered numerous attempts to exclude them. Particularly cruel rejection
and exclusion were exercised by members of labor because the Japanese
strove for higher economic status. Entering the new society at the bottom
of the economic scale, Japanese immigrants, consistently lower paid than
white workers, tried to raise their status to progressively higher levels.
The employers, anxious for cheap labor, could use Japanese labor to undermine the position of more expensive labor through undercutting. Yet, this
brought Japanese immigrants into constant and direct competition with
those who were in higher economic categories. Because of the fear of competition, Japanese were discriminated against economically and were systematically squeezed out of economic competition. This process continued
over some time, and subsequently, almost all Japanese were excluded completely from the entire society. The prewar exclusionist movements on the
Canadian west coast provide a clear example of victories for higher paid
labor which halted Japanese immigration and economic competition.
In Brazil, the economic experience of Japanese immigrants was substantially different. The Japanese in Brazil also entered the economic system
of this new society as cheap labor at the bottom of the economic scale; they,
too, tried hard to raise their status from the lowest to higher levels. But in
Brazil, these efforts did not cause notable competition or conflict with other
788 / Social Forces Volume 59:3, March 1981
Historical Background of Japanese in Canada and Brazil
In 1971, in Canada, 37,260 persons indicated that they were of Japanese
ethnicity (Statistics Canada, c). By 1979 the number of Japanese in the
country has increased to nearly 50,000, or, roughly 0.2 percent of Canada's
population. In 1978, the year of the 70th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Brazil, Japanese-Brazilians were estimated to number almost 750,000
persons. 3 Despite the relatively large size of the group, it constituted only
0.6 percent of the total population of Brazil which is estimated to have
exceeded 100 million some time ago (United Nations). Thus, the Japanese
populations in both countries are small proportions of the total population.
In both countries the rate of growth of the Japanese population has been
considerably slower in the past two decades due to the limited number of
recent Japanese immigrants.
The first documented Issei (the first generation of immigrants) arrived
in Canada in 1877. Emigration from Japan fluctuated greatly during the
early years and it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that
Japanese immigration to Canada became substantial. Immigration records
indicate that from 1897 to 1901 a total of 15,280 Japanese entered Canada
(Adachi). Most of these immigrants were, in fact, travelling to the United
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members of the larger society. There was no sector of the Brazilian labor
force with which newly arrived Japanese immigrants were to compete.
There were only two categories of people in Brazilian society then, the
owners of the land at the top and, at the bottom, practically all members
of the Brazilian labor force. These latter were mostly ex-slaves and their
descendants whose status in society was as low and disadvantaged as that
of the immigrants. In most cases, these native Brazilians occupied a status
lower than that of the immigrants. Japanese immigrants had political and
financial skills and resources, superior to those of the native Brazilians.
Thus, there arose no competition between these two segments of the labor
force because they did not occupy equivalent economic positions. Consequently, economic discrimination and exclusion movements (as in Canada)
were not experienced by the Japanese in Brazil. The only exception to this
was some short-lived immigration restriction imposed by the Brazilian government. Even in the Brazilian context, therefore, by inverse application,
Bonacich's theory is opposite: when there is no economic competition between ethnic groups, there arises no antagonism between them.
To gain a broader view of the different experiences of the Japanese
in Brazil and Canada, the following section discusses what Bonacich terms
"factors affecting the initial price of labor," factors such as resources and
the motives on the part of in-coming Japanese in Brazil and Canada. 2
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States or returning to Hawaii and Japan, for the census .of 1901 recorded
only 4,738 Japanese actually living in Canada (Young). The peak years of
immigration were between 1901 and 1908; nearly half of the prewar immigrants entered during this period. After 1908, because of increasingly tight
emigration control exercised by Japan at Canada's request, the rate of
Japanese immigration slowed considerably. 4 By the time of Pearl Harbor
there were about 23,000 Japanese in Canada; over 95 percent of them were
living in British Columbia—more than three-quarters of them clustered
within 75 miles of the City of Vancouver (Young).
The first to arrive in Canada were unattached young men, laborers
who were attracted by the expanding economy of newly developing British
Columbia. They came to Canada (and to Brazil) as short-term workers
encouraged to migrate by the Japanese government. Emigration companies
at home and abroad operated with the support of the Japanese government.
These companies recruited Issei for contract work either in the primary
sector of the Canadian economy or in coffee plantations in Brazil. The immigrants to Canada were usually transients. Some, mostly the fishermen,
had come only as short-term seasonal workers; others came to work in the
province on a limited contractual basis. They hoped—and expected—to
earn a higher wage than they were making at home. Since employment was
seasonal or temporary, families of the immigrants remained behind and
the men lived in company or boarding houses to maximize their savings.
Japanese immigration to Brazil began in 1908, about thirty years
after the arrival of the first Japanese in Canada. The treaty of friendship,
commerce and navigation, signed by Brazil and Japan in 1895 made Japanese immigration to Brazil possible, but the outbreak of the 10-year-long
coffee crisis delayed migration. In 1908, 799 persons arrived, the first of a
total of nearly a quarter million Japanese who entered Brazil during the
next seventy years.
Unlike the earliest Japanese immigration to Canada, those migrating
to Brazil did so as family units because of the Brazilian-imposed requirement that there must be at least three able-bodied farm workers in each
family who would be available for work immediately after their arrival in
Brazil. Single males were thus only a small part of the group in Brazil, and
family life was a regular feature of immigrant settlement from the outset. 5
The immigrants came to Sao Paulo, attracted by the expanding coffee
plantation economy. Expansion of the coffee plantations required much
farm labor. Since the abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1888, the state had
been relying on a supply of European immigrants for labor—mainly Italian,
Portuguese, Spanish, German, and Slavic people. Immigration had been
stimulated by providing incoming immigrants with a subsidy for transportation expenses. Between 1908 and 1923, 31,000 Japanese took advantage
of the subsidies and entered Brazil (Suzuki). On the plantations the Japa-
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nese replaced the European immigrants who had left during the 1897-1906
coffee crisis. Immigration to Brazil coincided with the first severe restrictions imposed on Japanese immigration to the United States and Canada.
Japan's socioeconomic crisis of the 1920s and the U.S. passage of the
Oriental Exclusion Act of 1924 resulted in the Japanese government becoming actively involved in emigration of the Japanese to Brazil. From that year
on, the Japanese government assumed responsibility for the payment of
transportation expenses to Brazil, making Japanese aware of economic
opportunities there, and arranging for plantation employment and housing
in Brazil. Under the sponsorship of the Japanese government, another
158,000 persons entered Brazil between 1924 and 1941 (Suzuki). 6 This was
equivalent to nearly 17 percent of all immigrants entering Brazil during the
period. The peak years of Japanese immigration were between 1928 and
1934 and about 57 percent of the total prewar immigrants entered during
this period.
The Brazilian census of 1950 reported that there were 329,082 persons
racially classified as "yellow" (the large majority considered Japanese),
0.63 percent of the total population (Saito). The first national "census"
taken within the Japanese community in 1958 reported that there were
about 430,000 persons of Japanese origin in Brazil, 94 percent of whom
resided in the southern part of Brazil, principally in the states of Sao Paulo
and Parana (Suzuki). The population has grown in the past two decades
and the Japanese community in Brazil is now the largest one outside Japan.
The Issei migrating to Canada and Brazil in the prewar period had
come mostly from farm backgrounds. The large majority were literate in
their native language, but most were ignorant of the languages of the host
countries when they arrived. Their goal was economic survival and success
enabling them to make a swift return to Japan. Since they intended to
return home in the foreseeable future, their main concern was to save as
much money as possible and to spend as little as possible. For that purpose
they endured longer working hours. The emphasis on savings and the
custom of transmitting savings to kin in Japan are said to be the crucial
reasons for the very low standard of living of the Issei, an essential factor
retarding Issei's assimilation in the prewar period (Adachi; Saito). The low
standard of living was willingly accepted because it was considered only
temporary.
Until the end of World War II, Japanese immigrants in Canada and
Brazil remained sojourners, making money, transmitting savings and returning to Japan. In a survey conducted in a Japanese community in Brazil
in 1933, 85 percent of the Issei interviewed indicated that they intended to
return home; only 10 percent intended to stay in Brazil permartently and
the remaining 5 percent were undecided (Saito). Faced with the defeat of
Japan in the war, most of the Issei in Brazil and Canada resigned themselves to permanent residence in the host countries. Thus, a survey con-
Split Labor Market Theory I 79
They [the immigrants] were entirely unprepared for what they found when they
arrived. Brazil was not yet an industrialized society, working conditions were extremely hard and physical mistreatment was common, wages were very low, and
nutritional levels were very poor. But above all, they were shocked to discover that
the population with whom they had to interact most closely—other agricultural
laborers—were for the most part not only dark-skinned but illiterate (47).
In fact the Issei were disappointed with practically everything they found
in the life of plantations—the standard of living, educational facilities,
sanitation, agricultural methods, and so on. The coffee plantations of Sao
Paulo in many ways resembled the sugar plantations of bygone days in the
North, with their casa grandes (mansions) and senzalas (slave quarters). The
Issei were not psychologically prepared to accept the feudalistic social con-
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ducted in the 1952-53 period in one of the Japanese communities in Brazil,
reported that 85 percent of the respondents interviewed indicated that they
would seek permanent residence in Brazil; only 12 percent insisted that
they would return home (Saito). The sojourner mentality persisted throughout the prewar period in part because the Issei were unwelcome members
of the host society. That was particularly the case in British Columbia.
From the early years on, Canadians were hostile to the Orientals
in British Columbia. The hostility was based on an irrational fear of the
"yellow peril," a fear that British Columbia would be swamped by a population that would pose a threat to the standard of living. It was believed,
partly because of their lower standard of living, that the Japanese could not
be assimilated, and geographic concentration and easy visibility further
spurred anti-Oriental sentiment. These feelings broke out into the open
with such incidents as the 1907 Vancouver riot, when mobs of agitators
marched into Chinatown and Little Tokyo in that city. The riot resulted in
the restriction of Japanese immigration to Canada based on an understanding known as the "Gentlemen's Agreement" between the governments of
Canada and Japan. The agreement made seasonal migration impossible and
it limited the number of adult males permitted to enter the country. But
because it placed no limit on the number of wives entering Canada, large
groups of women began to migrate under the "picture bride" system. Wives
and picture brides meant families, and during the 1920s and 1930s a significant number of Nisei (first Canadian-born generation) were born. This
rapid birth rate reactivated the fear that the province would be swamped
by Japanese and that this would jeopardize the economic interests of white
British Columbians.
Instead of suffering from hostility or overt discrimination as in the
case of Japanese in Canada, the Issei in Brazil faced the different and
difficult conditions of a completely foreign and undeveloped country. R.
Smith writes:
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ditions prevalent in plantations, or the notion that they were working for a
master, in the role of slaves (Hanta).
Struggling to overcome harsh discrimination (in Canada) and extreme disappointment with their new life (in Brazil), the Issei were powerless to effect any changes in their situation, so they turned to the only
political resource available to them, the government of their homeland.
The immigrants in Brazil and Canada alike tended to turn to the mother
country rather than the adopted homeland for aid and comfort throughout
the entire prewar period. The patron—client relationship between the Japanese government and the Japanese emigrants had been established in the
initial stages of immigration.
From the beginning there was considerable concern and involvement by the Japanese government in the emigration of Japanese to Hawaii,
the United States, and elsewhere. Japan took the attitude toward her citizens abroad that her direct supervision of their lives was necessary to protect their well-being. Thus Japan was deeply concerned about the "Oriental
Problem" and the anti-Oriental sentiment provoked in prewar British Columbia. Many times the Japanese government protested, through the consular authority in Ottawa, against discriminatory legislation passed by the
British Columbia legislature. The Japanese government tried to interfere in
several ways: first, by asking Ottawa to restrain the provincial government
by limiting the number and variety of restrictions the province could impose
on the Japanese; second, by volunteering to control the amount of Japanese
immigration through the limitation of emigration permits to those intending to go to Canada. For the Issei, the consuls became the recognized
guardians of their welfare.
The Japanese government's patronage of its nationals in Canada
and Brazil was an asset for the Japanese "clients" in organizing themselves
and bargaining with the larger society. In contrast, Chinese immigrants in
Canada or elsewhere, completely lacked such an asset in prewar time. The
paternalistic attitude and policy of the Japanese government toward the
Japanese in Brazil were more effective than in Canada largely because of its
direct, inclusive, and long-term involvement in immigration policy. Thus
the Issei in Brazil were, in one American scholar's words, "carefully herded
by the various officials of the Imperial Company" (Smith, 61). This is
consonant with the fact that very few Issei even up until now have chosen
to become citizens of Brazil because, at least in part, "they were unwilling
to take the last irrevocable step toward severing ties with their homeland"
(R. Smith, 55). 7
In both Brazil and Canada, the Issei established their own segregated communities, highly visible and self-contained, based on Japanese
social structure and customs. They continued to speak their native language
and built schools of their own to educate the next generation. In the prewar
Japanese schools in Brazil, for instance, children received nothing but Japa-
Split Labor Market Theory / 793
The Differential Nature of Economic Competition
THE ISSEI EXPERIENCE IN CANADA
In British Columbia the Japanese entered the economy for the most part as
unskilled laborers. Despite the agitation and discrimination against them,
they rapidly expanded in the labor force. By 1931 the Japanese were employed in every one of thirty main occupational classes and had, in general,
become established economically.
In the early years the Issei were employed in such major industries
as fishing, lumbering, mining, and railroading. Then they moved out of
these industries into farming and commercial occupations, becoming clerks,
proprietors of stores, restaurants, and rooming houses, as well as running
businesses. This shift occurred mostly in the twenties when the general
expansion of the major industries of the province came to an end. Also, it
was the time when Japanese workers finally left behind their sojourner
years as their families became established, and had acquired the minimum
amount of capital needed to buy small farms, stores, fishing boats and
equipment, permanent homes, and so on. Their struggle for status, and
the discrimination to which this gave rise, made them branch out into new
fields, self-employed enterprises, and particularly into agriculture.
In the process of establishing themselves and in their attempt to
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nese education; the schools were staffed only by Japanese teachers and the
curriculum had little in common with the Brazilian educational system. The
sole purpose of these schools was to provide a Japanese education so that
offspring would be able to adjust later when the family returned to Japan. 8
The Japanese language schools established by the Issei in British Columbia
served a similar purpose, although the content of education both in quality
and quantity was much less comprehensive than its Brazilian counterpart.
Like other immigrants entering the New World, the Issei needed selfcontained segregation and a tightly knit community life as a kind of defense,
to protect them from the hostility of British Columbia, or to remain apart
from the Luso-Brazilians. Since they planned to return to their homeland
eventually, they had little reason to develop lasting relationships with
members of the surrounding host society.
Looking at the experience of the Japanese in Canada and Brazil and
the characteristics of the Issei outlined so far, it is clear that factors affecting
the initial price of labor (resources and motives of the group) were comparable in the two settings. With similar motives and goals and backed by consistent patronage of the "nationalistic" government, the Issei approached
the respective host societies as short-term migrants. The economic systems
that each group entered, however, were quite different.
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achieve mobility, the Issei inevitably increased competition and, therefore,
anti-Japanese sentiment. Their presence was synonymous with competition in practically every industry of the province in which the Issei were
employed, above all in the fisheries.
From the very beginning of settlement in Canada, the Issei had been
in the fishing industry. The fishing village of Steveston, for example, by
the turn of the century, had about 2,000 Japanese. Later they were to be
found on all the important fishing areas of the coast—from the Fraser River
up to the northern boundary of the province. Bringing valuable experience
and skill from the homeland where many had been fishermen, the Issei
were drawn rather naturally to fishing. A stronger attraction was the wealth
and variety of fish resources and an industry which was not yet developed
and organized.
From inception, the fishing–canning industry in British Columbia
was racially segregated into groups of workers: native Indians and British
as early comers in the field joined by various European groups, and Chinese
and Japanese entering the field. The industry became the scene of an acute
struggle for supremacy in the competition between the groups. Fishing
was a highly competitive job; the incomes of fishermen depended "primarily upon the size of the salmon run, the prevailing price offered for
salmon, and the fishermen's luck and industriousness" (Ward, 112). The
Issei fishermen, with a tendency to work intensively and efficiently, were
defined as the most aggressive and thus as "dangerous." Because of the
Japanese presence, then, the fishing was a source of contention throughout
the prewar period.
The Report of the Royal Commission on Oriental Immigration submitted in 1902 noted that the Japanese, then still numerically small, had
managed to dominate the industry—i.e., the Japanese had come to control
the boat-building industry, pushing out the whites. Living in shacks along
the water, the Japanese cut their own planks from the timber-lined shores
and undersold the finished products; in one instance, selling boats for
about $65, as compared to the $85 asked by white boat-builders. Other
"evidence" pointed out the generally poor living conditions of the Japanese,
whether in boarding houses or in shacks near the fishing or lumbering
areas, and the report concluded that it was owing to their "wretched existence" that the Japanese were able to compete, unfairly, with the whites.
Business people, such as canners, favored Oriental labor, particularly
the Japanese, as fishermen because of their superior skills, their steady
work habits and ready availability. This favoritism was•shown by the fishing licences issued to the canneries which were used to employ mostly
Japanese fishermen. By 1921 the Japanese held over 2,000 fishing licences
out of a total of 4,722, and it was estimated that over 4,000 Japanese were
engaged in the industry (Adachi). Thus there were more Japanese fishermen than there were either white or Indian.
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There were complaints (mainly from the white fishermen, through
their unions) that the Japanese were driving others out of the industry,
striving for full control of it. The white fishermen, self-employed and independent, were threatened by the introduction of cheap yet superior (Japanese) labor. It could undermine their position as well as the labor-price
standards which they had been able to achieve with the canners. One
hostile witness, a white fisherman, complained to the Commission that
Japanese took over unskilled labor in the off-season, such as supplying
cordwood to the canneries, clearing land and cutting shingle bolts: "It is
aggravating to a man to be pushed out by Japanese ... I would rather
starve together with my own race" (Royal Commission, 343). The various
white fishermen's unions formed then were principally to consolidate antiJapanese opinion and their memberships were open to all "who believe in
driving the Orientals out of the industrial life of the province," (British
Columbia Federationist, April 24, 1924). Being barred from the unions, the
Japanese fishermen formed their own benevolent society. The fishermen in
the province remained divided along racial lines for many decades, and
this impeded the establishment of any permanent organization on a class,
as opposed to racial, basis.
The forest industry also employed Japanese workers as permanent
and seasonal hands in the sawmills of the Vancouver area beginning from
before 1900. The Chinese were already in the industry in considerable
numbers. In 1901 the Issei comprised about 22 percent of the approximately 1,000 employees of the seven large mills in the Vancouver area,
thus drawing the attention of the white laborers (Royal Commission). By
1910, Japanese loggers and sawmill workers had spread throughout the
lower mainland, Vancouver Island, and the southern coast. Before the end
of World War I over 2,000 of the Issei made up about 13 percent of the labor
force. Some of the forest workers, despite opposition and discrimination,
eventually became fairly large logging operators: in the 1890s three logging
camps were established by the Japanese; by 1933 there were some fourteen
Japanese operators in the province (Adachi).
Wage discrimination had been the norm in the industry. Oriental
labor was consistently paid less than white labor, a typical wage differential
being one-fourth to one-third less for the same job (Royal Commission).
Employers (sawmill operators) were desperate to obtain cheaper Oriental
labor to undercut more expensive labor. The employers' rationale for favoring Orientals was noted in the Report of the Royal Commission: they
had to have a certain amount of cheap labor in order to carry on business;
they could not get white labor at the same price paid to Orientals. If the
Japanese were to be replaced with white labor at higher rates of pay, they
would have had to raise the price of the article produced or shut down the
manufacture. An employer revealed that the Japanese were paid 900 to
$1.25 and board a day and in most positions they were as good as whites.
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White men were paid $1.50 a day or $30 a month on the average. This
would make a difference of about $600 per month in wages by using
Japanese labor which he was able to save. Similarly, another employer
expressed his view saying that he was delighted to pay the Japanese 90¢ a
day rather than the $1.50 that he had to pay white laborers. His company
would not employ whites because they would cut into the $19,000 yearly
profit made possible by employing Japanese labor. These data indicate that
differentials in wages did not arise because of the prejudices of the business group; they stemmed from employers' desires to minimize labor costs,
so maximizing profits.
White workingmen, who had always been paid higher than the
Japanese, complained and agitated against Japanese labor. White labor
believed that the quantity of work was limited and that imported labor
thus threatened the available supply of employment opportunities. White
workers resented the Japanese because they accepted low pay, long work
days, and low standards of living. Thus "the higher paid worker faced
more than the loss of his job; he faced the possibility that the wage standard
in all jobs will be undermined by cheap labor" (Bonacich, a, 554).
The Japanese workers tried to protest; they formed unions on their
own and called several strikes, demanding equal pay with white workers.
Some improvements were won through the strikes, yet the basics were not
changed. Issei labor remained decidedly cheaper than white labor throughout the prewar period. The price differential of labor in the lumbering
industry was the clearest case, but it persisted as a norm in mining and
railway construction and maintenance as well. In most cases economic
competition arose from this price differential of labor, leading to racial
antagonism directed against Japanese as a whole.
In the twenties, agriculture had become the last alternative for many
Japanese. A great many of the immigrants had originally been farmers in
Japan, and once they had accumulated enough capital, they bought or
leased small farm lands. In British Columbia, unlike California, all British
subjects regardless of nativity were free to buy property privately, although
Orientals were forbidden by law to acquire crown lands. By the mid1930s there were about 700 mini-farms run by the Japanese in the province
(Sumida). Since the Issei had only limited resources, they were unable to
acquire developed farms in well-settled areas. Therefore, they took up
unleased lands and developed them into highly productive and fertile
farms. Pioneering in the bushlands, they built up a thriving industry. Berries
and other small fruits became their specialty, ideal for intensive and careful
cultivation in a small space. The Japanese soon dominated soft fruit growing, operating about 63 percent of the total acreage in the Fraser Valley. It
was estimated that by 1934 the Japanese would be producing at least 85
percent of the berries grown in the Fraser Valley (Adachi). In agriculture,
Japanese in Canada, like their Brazilian compatriots, became the most suc-
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cessful, because it was one area where it was extremely difficult for the
government to induce legal or de facto barriers against the Japanese to
protect the white competitors. Nonetheless, the Issei and their land acquisition were viewed by the white farmers as a threat to their economic
interests. What the province wanted was the power, as in California, to
enact an Alien Land Law which would prohibit Japanese from owning or
leasing land.
The mid- and late -1920s also witnessed an increasing number of
Japanese workers shifting into commercial occupations, opening corner
stores and starting service businesses such as laundering and gardening,
mainly in the city of Vancouver in which, by 1931, one-third of the nation's
Japanese were residing. Next to agriculture, business seemed to be the one
field in which the Japanese were likely to expand in the future. A small but
significant number had established fair sized businesses and entered professional vocations. By the mid -1930s there were about 860 trading and
business establishments owned and run by Japanese in Vancouver. That is,
one business licence for every ten Japanese in the city was compared with
one for every twenty-one non-Orientals (Young). The Japanese were concentrated in such areas as wholesale, retail, and service trades such as
rooming houses, drying cleaning, grocery stores and dressmaking. Expansion was owing to "their use of family members to circumvent labor laws,
their evasion of by-laws relating to Sunday sales" (Roy, c, 128) and as
usual, their acceptance of a low standard of living and long working hours.
Consequently, there was talk of restricting the number of business licences
to be issued to Japanese.
In sum, we may say that the Issei in Canada made a substantial
incursion into the economic life of British Columbia and achieved mobility
perhaps to the highest possible extent considering the circumstances under
which they worked. In the course of four decades, close to half of the
working population had worked themselves up from the bottom of the
economic ladder to where they were offering serious competition to those
at higher levels. In the early stages the antagonism against Japanese had
been based on the notion of their cheap labor flooding the major fields of
industries. Later, the Japanese were regarded as too skillful, diligent, and
industrious, and above all, too competitive, causing people of all classes to
fear their competition. The threat, felt practically by every one of the white
working class on the west coast, was the actual or potential displacement
from an established social position. Historian Ward suggests that economic
competition between Japanese and whites was generated by "the sojourner
condition" of the Issei and the domination and concentration of the Japanese in a few enterprises such as salmon fishing and berry farming. And
so, Ward argues, the Japanese undoubtedly created a labor market for
extremely low paid labor; Japanese competition also lowered commodity
prices.
798 / Social Forces Volume 59:3, March 1981
THE ISSEI EXPERIENCE IN BRAZIL
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Almost all prewar Issei immigrants to Brazil (94 percent), including children, started their new life as farmers; most (78 percent) started as colonos
(tenants) in coffee fazendas (plantations) (Suzuki). To work as a colono in a
plantation for a specific term was the condition contracted between the
immigrants and their future employers (plantation owners) through the
emigration agencies before they emigrated to Brazil. The Issei as colonos
cleared the forest, farmed tracts of land devoted to coffee-growing and
tended the coffee trees on a one-year contract basis. They received a stipulated sum per 1,000 trees and another sum per sack of coffee beans harvested (Ando; Hanta; Saito).
However, the wage or the salary paid on a yearly basis was extremely
low, much lower than the amount previously announced by the emigration
agencies and worth only about one-fifth of the average wage then made by
a worker in Hawaii or the United States (Saito). The Issei felt betrayed not
only by the false information on wage levels but also by the inaccurate
account of life and opportunity in general in the new country. Soon they
realized that their goal—to become wealthy and go home within given
years—was unattainable in the short term. One could not even realistically
expect to pay off the debts incurred in migrating to Brazil. Being impatient
and frustrated, many immigrants broke their contracts and fled the plantations. In fact frequent desertion from the plantation and changes in occupation were characteristic of the early history of Japanese immigrants in
Brazil (Ando; Hanta). The Issei were considered unfit as colonos because of
this. Their aspirations were not in the direction of mere wage earning
through employment, rather their goal was capital accumulation and thus
they were oriented toward independent farming, cash cropping, and thrift
and achievement.
The Issei did not remain colonos very long. They were soon able to
move out of the plantations, acquiring farms of their own. Some others
chose to make their way to the city. This shift occurred mostly in the 1920s
and 1930s when general expansion in the coffee production came to an end
in the state of Sao Paulo. Land-owning systems were in the process of
change in the state since the abolition of slavery, from traditionally large
landed estates to small scale independent ownership. Old coffee plantations
were subdivided into smaller sized lots and sold. Landless farm laborers,
for the first time in the country's history, had the opportunity to obtain
land to work on for themselves. The immigrant colonos invested all their
savings in farms which they purchased. The Issei volunteered to develop a
frontier or a deserted-uninhabited waste land, often covered by bush,
which came to be known later as terra p'rs Japonesa (Japanese land). It was
so poor in quality or so badly drained that no one else wanted it (Saito).
Split Labor Market Theory / 799
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Like their compatriots in British Columbia and California, the Issei turned
the area into highly productive farms.
As owner–farmers or renters, the Japanese produced new crops in
addition to coffee—cotton, rice, potatoes, and other crops. As cotton was
emerging as a lucrative crop in the world market and production was
booming in Sao Paulo in the 1930s, a substantial number of Japanese got
involved in cotton planting. Cotton planting in Brazil then was a migratory
mode of farming—planting moved from one area to the next as the land
became less productive—leasing or renting of land, with the expectation of
a rapid turnover, was the pattern. This sort of farming was favored by the
Issei who were still largely in the sojourner stage and thus were not quite
prepared to make a long-term commitment of any sort (Saito). Leasing
involved a minimum of fixed investment without being tied to the land.
The Japanese began dominating cotton planting in the state of Sao Paulo;
by the late 1930s they were responsible for half of the total production
(Saito). A small but significant number of the Japanese cotton planters
made a fortune in this endeavor.
Those who had settled in the environs of Sao Paulo city specialized
in truck farming, particularly potatoes. They replaced obsolete methods of
agriculture by modern suburban family techniques. Accustomed to the
labor required to cultivate plants which hugged the soil, and attracted by
the comparatively small capital required to enter mixed farming, the Japanese found a ready market for vegetables and fruits in Sao Paulo. Around
1935 Japanese families accounted for 80 percent of the vegetable production
of suburban farmers in the area surrounding Sao Paulo city (Saito).
In the years approaching 1941 the Japanese immigrants had, in general, become established economically. They created a part of a large working class which undermined the economic basis of slavery and large landed
estates. When a large labor force was necessary during the harvest of
cotton, coffee, or other crops, the Japanese hired Brazilian laborers, the
local colonos. Hired labor was abundant and cheap; the Issei as employers
took full advantage of it. In this way the Issei rose to a sort of intermediate
or middle man position (Bonacich, b) in Brazilian society; they found themselves as independent farmers in an intermediate position between the
land-owning class of proprietor–owners of great plantations and the indigenous landless workers.
A nationwide survey conducted within the Japanese community in
1958, fifty years after the arrival of the first group in Brazil, found farming
to be the major occupation of 55 percent of the economically active Japanese in Brazil (Suzuki). Seventy-five percent of these immigrant farmers,
who were heads of families, had risen from colonos, sharecroppers, or
renters to owner–farmers; only 11 percent remained as farm laborers. For
the immigrant group as a whole, 68 percent had become property owners
800 / Social Forces Volume 59:3, March 1981
The rule of the game is that the underprivileged should not make drastic demands,
but rather should ask for reasonable favors. Since the act of giving was highly
valued among those in the upper strata, lower status individuals would obtain the
minimum which would prevent overt conflict. Furthermore, those who have received "favor" would be in debt, reinforcing the strong link between individuals of
different classes (260-61).
The dependency relationship minimized class conflict and also prevented social mobility. It was practically impossible for native Brazilian
workers to acquire economic and technical skills. They were therefore dis
-advntgeicompwhJanesortimg.Thegrants were also more tightly and effectively organized than the indigenous
members. The subordinate indigenous Brazilian laborers "failed to participate in the new economy and political order introduced by migrant"
(Lieberson, 907), and thus the contact resulted in "subordination of an
indigenous population group" (Lieberson, 902). They were slow to take
part in the post-slavery plantation economy as unskilled laborers, and
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(Suzuki). This rate was substantially higher than that for the total Brazilian
population. Vertical mobility was rapid; nearly half of the Japanese had left
colono status within two years after their arrival and by four years a large
majority had done so. Japanese immigrants rapidly progressed from the
lowest status of a colono, to a sharecropper, to a renter, and finally to an
owner—farmer. Most became owner-farmers within five to ten years (Saito).
Thus, the Issei in Brazil, like their compatriots in Canada entered
the host society's economic life as cheap labor in the lowest and most
handicapped status of colonos. In Brazil, however, ownership of land,
which was the highest achievement to be attained for the immigrants,
became possible relatively easily and quickly. The decline of coffee plantations made plenty of land available for independent farming. The Issei
were at the right place at the right time. Unlike those in Canada, the Issei
in Brazil could become owner—farmers without causing notable competition and conflict with other members of the larger society. Why?
No sector of Brazilian society existed with which the immigrants
were to compete. In traditional Brazilian society with its large agricultural
producing units (fazenda or latifundia in Brazilian terms), the basic social
system was only two classes or categories of people; a few people owned
large amounts of land and the masses possessed little or none of it. In such
a dualistic system, becoming middle-class operators of family-sized farms
was possible and did not create competitive relationships between populations. The native Brazilians, many of whom were either colored ex-slaves
or their descendants, were accustomed to what van den Berghe calls a
paternalistic system of race relations which minimized conflict between
groups or classes of individuals in different categories. A scholar of Brazilian
society, Sugiyama, describes the system this way:
Split Labor Market Theory I 80
Exclusion
VICTORY FOR WHITE WORKING CLASS
-
BRITISH COLUMBIA
.... To reduce the threat presented by the Japanese, [white] labor sought restriction on oriental immigration, economic opportunities available to orientals, and
their access to political power. To maximize their own economic advantage, the
British Columbia working class sought to exclude competitors and to minimize the
economic opportunities of those competitors entering B.C. (Baar, 339).
Union leaders played a prominent part at one time or another in
forming such anti-Oriental organizations as the Asiatic Exclusion League
to "keep the province and the Dominion for the white man, by stopping
any further Oriental immigration" (Rog, 249). The well-established unions
and much of unorganized labor, mobilized their voting clout behind antiOrientalism, pressing for strong exclusion measures and vigilantly ensuring their enforcement. In the early years of confrontation, the major
force was the organized working class, later joined by small businessmen,
farmers and veterans of the Great War who began to experience competition from Japanese and were forced out of wage industries. Pro-exclusion
groups were "as diverse as the Trades and Labor Congress and United
Farmers of Alberta; the Railway Brotherhoods and the Imperial Order of
the Daughters of the Empire; the Great War Veterans' Association and the
Retail Merchants' Association of Canada" (Roy, b, 55).
Probably the most crucial and dramatic of the exclusionist measures
was the reduction of Japanese-Canadian fishing licences during the 1920s.
Fishing licences and regulations were under federal jurisdiction. Dating
from before 1900 the policy had been to issue commercial fishing licences
only to British subjects. The long agitation by white fishermen's organizations and a host of provincial politicians succeeded in persuading the federal government to adopt a policy of progressively and systematically excluding Japanese-Canadian fishermen after 1922. The reduction in fishing
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were widely removed from the conditions imposed by capitalism in the
frontier regions of Brazil.
Therefore, the Issei in Brazil did not experience a wage differential,
or economic competition, in a way that the Issei did in Canada, simply
because the two groups in the labor market did not occupy equivalent
economic positions to begin with. For the Issei in Brazil, with more than
90 percent of them living in rural areas engaged in agricultural activities
throughout the prewar period, economic competition seemed to have had
very little relevance. No specific reference to, or analysis of, any sort of
competition or conflict is made in the reference materials reviewed in this
study. 9
802 Social Forces Volume 59:3, March 1981
The employers were unhappy when the cheap supply of labor dried up. As a
result, in 1934 the British Columbia Board of Industrial Relations modified the
original ruling of the Minimum Wage Act so that a quarter of the workers in the
sawmill industry might be paid 25¢ an hour while the general rate was set at 35g.
No stipulation was made concerning what type of men were to be included in the
special category, but, in practice, employers assigned Japanese to it (146).
Policies to restrict the occupational activities of the Japanese took an
unexpected turn. When they were forced out of one industry, for example,
fishing, they were likely to compete in another such as farming. The alternative long-term solution to Oriental competition was, as exclusionists
often argued, to seek final and complete elimination of immigrant labor by
driving it out of the country and "sending it back to the land from which it
came."
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licences held by the Issei was to be 40 percent the first year, another 15
percent in 1935, declining to 10 percent reductions until "these licences will
be entirely confined to whites and Indians." In 1930 the Privy Council
judged, in responding to the appeal made by the Japanese fishermen's
union, that the withholding of licences by order-in-council under the authority of the Fisheries Act was invalid and that there was no authority
to refuse a licence to a qualified person. This was immediately countermanded by the federal government which shortly before had given the
Minister of Fisheries "absolute discretion" in the issuing of fishing licences
and leases. The government reduction policy ended with great success and
that period just before World War II recorded only 12 percent of the total
number of licences as being held by the Japanese (Adachi).
Likewise, every effort was made to drive the Japanese out of the
forest industry. Operators on provincial land were threatened with the loss
of their licences if they employed Japanese, and Japanese operators were
unable to retain their licences or get new ones. The number of Japanese
workers engaged in lumbering therefore showed a serious decline. By
1923, Japanese in the industry decreased to only 9 percent from a high of
about 20 percent previously. The Minimum Wage Law passed by the Legislature of British Columbia in 1925 was designed to restrict further Oriental
employment in the lumbering industries. At that time the Issei were receiving far less than white laborers for the same work, not more than 25 0 an
hour. Now by the introduction of this law, an employer was obliged to pay
his Oriental workers the minimum of 40 g an hour. If this were done, it was
expected, Oriental labor would be less desirable for an employer; "he
would be willing to pay his white workers more, or alternately a large
additional number of white workers would be introduced into the industry"
(Young, 33). In fact, this proved to be the case, effectively eliminating
many Japanese workers, for "986 Japanese were dropped from the payrolls
in camps throughout the province" (Adachi, 146). However, the law did
not remain effective very long as Adachi (146) further notes:
Split Labor Market Theory / 803
The situation has reached a point at which, it seems to me, it is the duty of the
Dominion Government to grapple with it. The longer the facing the issue is postponed, the. more difficult will it be to deal with. The stopping of Oriental immigration entirely is urgently necessary, but that in itself will not suffice, since it leaves us
with our present large Oriental population and their prolific birth rate. Our Government feels that the Dominion Government should go further, and by deportation
or other legitimate means, seek to bring about the reduction and final elimination
of this menace to the well being of the white population of this province. il
One measure which gave an equal, if not more, significant impetus
to the exclusion of Japanese was that which disqualified the Japanese from
the right to vote. Back in 1902 the Legislature of British Columbia had
passed a measure disenfranchising British Citizens of Asiatic origin, that
is, in terms of race rather than nationality. Japanese born in Canada, as
well as those from Japan (although naturalized citizens of Canada) thus
ceased to have the right to vote in the province. The only exception to the
rule was the case of Japanese-Canadian veterans. An amendment passed
in 1931 after some ten years of agitation, granted to returned soldiers who
served with Canadian forces in World War I the right to vote which "was
not a major concession—only about 80 individuals (then surviving exsoldiers) were involved" (Roy, c, 62). As well as being barred from the
provincial vote, Japanese were also barred from voting federal as well as
municipal elections, and further excluded from eligibility for office or the
privileges of certain public services on the grounds that they were not on
the voter's list, provincial or municipal. Being excl ded from the voting
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The demand from British Columbia for limits or a ban on immigration
began as early as the 1870s soon after Chinese immigrants began to arrive
in numbers. The 1908 "Gentlemen's Agreement" set an annual quota of
400 for certain classes of persons who could enter Canada. Immigration
dropped from 7,601 in the fiscal year ending March, 1908 to 495 the following year (Adachi). In 1924 and 1928, further limitations were introduced
until, in the 1930s, only 83 persons, on an average, entered each year
(Ward). What the province really wanted was total exclusion, or the power
to enact a law, like Canada's Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923 10 and the United
States' Immigration Act of 1924, which would prohibit Japanese immigration completely. Nonetheless, the agreement was sufficiently restrictive in
that the total number of the quota was extremely small within the context
of Canadian immigration then, and it also made migration of only a very
limited type of labor possible.
Traditional arguments for total exclusion never disappeared among
some whites on the west coast throughout the entire prewar period. The
demand for deportation or repatriation of those Japanese already in Canada
was heard now and then and officially expressed by then Premier Oliver in
his government petition to the federal government in 1927:
804 I Social Forces Volume 59:3, March 1981
SELF-EXCLUSION-THE ISSEI RESPONSE IN BRAZIL
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lists meant, more importantly, that the Japanese-Canadians became excluded from all the licenced professions and occupations—law, dentistry,
pharmacy and others. They were ineligible for employment in federal,
provincial, or municipal civil service jobs or even such manual jobs as road
construction or work on railways, and other projects which involved public
funds. They were also driven out of handlogging on Crown timber (most
of the provincial forests) or even working for private companies utilizing
such timber. Thus disenfranchisement meant exclusion from a whole series
of activities in the political and economic life of the province. Restriction on
political participation of the Japanese, furthermore, assured a distribution
of political power which encouraged the introduction and passage of restrictive provincial legislation.
Bonacich's hypothesis leads to a thesis: if there is no economic competition
between ethnic groups, no antagonism arises between them, nor does one
group move to exclude others. The thesis is supported by the Japanese
experience
Brazil.
Japanese
in Brazil did not
experience
disof
extent thatinthey
capitalize
on heterogeneity
in the
transitioneconomic
rates, the fit
-crimnato;ehwyxcludasthewrinCd.Toly
extent that they capitalize on heterogeneity in the transition rates, the fit of
notable exception to this was the government-imposed immigration restriction act of 1934. Brazil revised its legislation in that year with a view to restricting immigration in general, but in particular, immigration from Japan.
It introduced a quota system for the first time in its immigration history:
"the number of immigrants to enter Brazil from each country is not to
exceed 2 percent of the total number of immigrants settled in the past fifty
years." Reacting against the great flow of Japanese to Brazil in the early
1930s, the government took legal action to prevent Japanese immigrants
from coming in great numbers (Izumi).
After the shock of the Oriental Exclusion Act of 1924 in the United
States, the Japanese government actively encouraged emigration to Brazil
and got directly involved in the business of transferring Japanese to Brazil.
From 1924 on, Japanese immigration to Brazil steadily increased each year.
Nearly 60,000 Japanese came to the Brazilian shores during the three years
from 1932 to 1934, about half the total immigration to Brazil during this
period (T. L. Smith, a,extent
b). Inthat
the they
yearscapitalize
prior to 1924,
the total number
of
on heterogeneity
in the transition
rat
Japanese immigrants made up only 2.5 percent of all immigrants to Brazil,
and thus the influx was overwhelming. If we consider these facts:
1. that of all the countries of origin of immigrants to Brazil, Japan
had provided the smallest group; and
2. that during the period immediately prior to the revision of the
Brazilian law, one-half of the total immigrants to Brazil happened to be
Japanese; we can only conclude that the restriction was directed against
Split Labor Market Theory I 80
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the Japanese. In fact, the law affected Japan more than any other country,
"despite the absence of explicit anti-Japanese discrimination" (T. L. Smith,
a, 156). An annual quota of a total of 62,246 immigrants and 2,711 Japanese
immigrants was settled by the law and the scheme continued to be effective
until 1941 (Izumi). Japanese immigration decreased substantially after the
law became effective. The number of immigrants became less than the
quota after 1938, and the decline continued until the outbreak of World War
II. The law was enacted by the government ostensibly as an effort "to
protect many Brazilians from the economic effects of rapid decline in the
price of coffee" (T. L. Smith, a, 156) and the consequent gradual decline in
coffee cultivation in the country (Izumi; Saito). As the plantation system
was finally decaying toward the mid-century in Brazil, the need for cheap
labor, particularly immigrant labor, declined. Within this sociohistorical
context, Saito argues that the law was not primarily aimed to exclude any
particular immigrant group, including the Japanese, from Brazil, but to
control the amount of immigration on the part of the then strong nationalist
government. He insists that the law was not derived from anti-Japanese
discrimination. 12
In fact the Japanese in Brazil, immigrants or otherwise, including
such scholars as Hiroshi Saito, tend to deny the existence of racism directed
against the Japanese; they do not feel that they have been victims of racism
at any point or stage of their settlement. Very seldom confronted in direct
competition by members of the larger society, the Japanese seem to be
firmly convinced that they have been almost completely free from prejudice
and discrimination directed specifically against them. 13
Instead of being rejected by, or excluded from, the larger society, I
would argue that the Japanese reaction to their immigrant-minority status
in Brazilian society was quite the opposite, a reaction of self-exclusion
(rather than being excluded), or a reaction of "almost completely voluntary
segregation" (Davie, 440). Self-exclusion was a protective device that the
Issei in Brazil had developed in the prewar years for the sake of their
survival in the new society after a series of disappointments and disillusionments with it and its people in particular. The Japanese learned to look
down on their Brazilian neighbors, drawing very sharp distinctions between
themselves and the Luso-Brazilians, especially as to ethical codes and values
(Hanta). This brought about the tendency for the Japanese to isolate themselves and to withdraw from Brazilian society. Thus, "it has not been
unusual for the Japanese element to be referred to as a 'cyst' in the social
body" (T. L. Smith, a, 61). Self-exclusion, i.e., avoidance (Rose) was one of
the responses available to minorities elsewhere as noted by various scholars
in the field of race relations (Kurokawa). As Rose outlines in his typology
of minority response, the Issei not only did not accept the inferior status
that the dominant group could impose on them; they totally ignored it.
Few wanted any part in the larger society. In fact, the Issei learned to
806 I Social Forces Volume 59:3, March 1981
Conclusions
The present study has examined the minority experience that the Japanese
immigrants have gone through in prewar years in two different societal
contexts: Brazil and Canada. The examination has attempted to test the
applicability of a theory of ethnic antagonism, that of the split labor market,
formulated by Edna Bonacich. The comparative investigation of the Japanese experience in the two countries has provided empirical support for
the theory. The Canadian scene provides a test of the validity of the theory
as it is stated: the Brazilian situation, on the other hand, backs up the
theory by the inverse application of it. The study has revealed a significant
differentiation between the two countries in intergroup competition and
conflict. The severe competition induced by the Japanese in Canada led to
their almost complete exclusion from the entire society. Despite the differentiation, however, this study has indicated the .similarities in the endproduct of the immigrants' endeavor in dealing with their respective host
societies. The Japanese immigrants in both countries have remained basically alien to the societies in which they chose to settle and this alienation
has remained from their initial encounter to the end of their lives.
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ignore practically everything. All they could see around them offered little
incentive for assimilation. The Issei attempted to exclude themselves from
the host society by avoiding contact with members outside their own communities. They established distinct institutions of their own, schools and
agricultural cooperatives paralleling, often superior to, those of the larger
society. Being proud of these achievements, they even tended to view
themselves as superior people. Through segregation and a tightly knit
community life, they managed to maintain self-respect by involving their
Japanese heritage and their way of life.
Therefore, either by being excluded from the host society (in Canada), or by voluntarily excluding themselves from the host society (in Brazil),
the outcome of the Issei journey was strikingly similar in these two different societal contexts. The Issei both in Brazil and Canada: (1) could not
escape the "sojourner" mentality and conditions for a long time—not until
faced with the defeat of Japan in the war; (2) were regarded as unassimilable by other members of the host society, as they differed too greatly,
racially and culturally, and their assimilation had in fact proved to be very
limited; and (3) aroused the suspicions, if not the rejection, of the larger
societies because of the segregated nature of their settlement. In essence
the Issei remained alien to the respective host societies from initial encounter through several decades of settlement.
Split Labor Market Theory / 807
Notes
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1. The overall process of Japanese-Canadian history is parallel to that found in the United
States. Similarities, rather than differences, characterize the situations of Japanese in these
two North American countries. (One possible exception to this are the differences in legal
status of Japanese immigrants and their children in the prewar period.) The wartime experience was also similar, the evacuation and incarceration of men, women, and children who
were seen as belonging to an enemy race. It should be noted here, however, that the Canadian
wartime policy tended to be more severe than the policy of the U.S.; internment began earlier
and ended later in Canada; the government's postwar strategy for dealing with the Japanese
in Canada by mass deportation had no dear counterpart in the United States. As the war
against Japan drew to an end, the United States permitted the Japanese to return to their
homes in the coastal area, while in Canada the Japanese were not allowed to return to the
coast until 1949; and the Canadian government rejected Nisei for military service until near
the end of the war, while in the United States Nisei could enlist early in 1943.
2. The literature on the situation in Brazil, both scholarly and popular, is limited; it is largely
in the Japanese language and a substantial portion of it has been produced by the immigrants
themselves. The rest is in Portuguese and only scattered materials are available in English.
Thus, it is less well-known, less familiar to most North Americans. The materials upon which
the present study is largely based, are mostly written by the Japanese authors in Brazil in the
Japanese language.
3. Due to lack of official statistics, the population size cannot be accurately assessed. Seven
hundred and fifty thousand is an estimated figure based on the number obtained from the
nationwide census of the Japanese community which was undertaken 20 years ago. The
Brazilian Census has not provided any data on the ethnic or racial origin of the population.
Thus, even the most basic data on the characteristics of the Japanese population—its size,
distribution and composition—are not available in Brazil. Until now there has been only one
comprehensive, empirical study providing an overall picture of the Japanese group; that is the
Population Survey of Japanese in Brazil in 1958. The survey was carried out in the form of a census
of national scope by the Census Committee specially organized within the Japanese community
in Sao Paulo, as one of the commemorative programs of the 50th anniversary of Japanese
immigration to Brazil. The report is published by Suzuki.
4. On the average 666 entered Canada each year from 1908 to 1921; 380 annually until 1931,
and 82 per year thereafter until war with Japan broke out.
5. Quite a number of "families" were in fact created by the emigrants before they left Japan.
To satisfy the entry requirement imposed by the Brazilian government, the immigrant often
resorted to including one or more outsiders in his family as though they were legitimate
members. Usually those incorporated family members were relatives who had not previously
been part of the family unit, such as cousin, nephew, niece, wife's relative, et al. However,
even persons without any kinship were sometimes included by means of simulated adoption
or simulated marriage. In the 1958 census, 18 percent of the prewar immigrants were reported
to be "incorporated family members" at the time of their arrival in Brazil. The "family"
groups tended to break up shortly after their arrival.
6. Thus, up until the advent of World War II, altogether about 189,000 Japanese immigrants
were recorded as having entered Brazil. However, placed in the complete context of Brazilian
immigration, which reached nearly the five million level by then, the flow from Japan was
rather slight and insignificant.
7. The 1958 census reported that there were 1,804 naturalized Issei in Brazil. Placed in the
context of the nearly quarter million immigrants who had entered Brazil by the time of the
census, the figure is negligible. Most of the Canadian Issei, on the other hand, chose to
become citizens of Canada by renouncing their Japanese citizenship when they became fully
entitled to Canadian citizenship and franchise after the war.
8. The large majority of Nisei growing up in the prewar time in Brazil were educated in the
Japanese educational system at least up until 1939, when the Brazilian government prohibited
instruction in public schools in any language other than Portuguese. The law virtually eliminated the legal operation of Japanese schools; nevertheless, "private" schooling never ceased
to exist in Japanese communities.
9. Why was the threat of economic competition sensed so intensely in British Columbia,
while it had only a little relevance for the Issei in Brazil? Part of the explanation lies in certain
808 I Social Forces Volume 59:3, March 1981
References
Adachi, Ken. 1976. The Enemy That Never Was. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.
Ando, Z. 1968. "Nihon Imin no Shakaishiteki Kenkyu (The Japanese Immigrants
and their Social Background." Annual Report for the Center for the Studies of
Japan and Brazil.
Baar, E. 1978. "Issei, Nisei, and Sansei." In Daniel Glendary et al. (eds.), Modernization and the Canadian State. Toronto: Macmillan.
Bonacich, E. a:1972. "A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: the Split Labor Market"
American Sociological Review 37(October):547-59.
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demographic features of the newly developing regions of Sao Paulo and British Columbia at
the time of the dawning industrial age. British Columbia was the only area in Canada where
even as late as 1921, the foreign-born comprised nearly half of the population. Immigrants
from Europe, forming the core of the highly paid labor, were in direct and constant competition for jobs with the natives and other immigrant groups, especially with the Asiatics.
Although Sao Paulo's foreign-born population has always been the highest in Brazil, the
foreign-born part of the labor force never reached more than 18 percent or so, which was
substantially lower than the figure in British Columbia. Competition in unskilled and semiskilled occupations between native Brazilians and immigrants has become real during the
twentieth century, particularly in cities, but not to the extent experienced on the Canadian
west coast, partly because of the relatively lower proportion of the immigrant labor-force
(Statistics Canada, a, Table 35, b, Table 11; T. L. Smith, a, Tables 7, 25).
10. Attempts at restriction of Chinese immigration first took the form of a head tax. Back in
1885 a $50 head tax was imposed on Chinese entering Canada and by 1900 the amount of tax
increased to $100; and in 1904, it further increased to $500. The tax was paid by all Chinese
immigrants except consular officers, merchants, clergymen, and their families, tourists, men
of science, students, and teachers. Over $22 million had been handed over by Chinese immigrants during the 40 years between 1886 and 1923. Despite the tax Chinese continued to enter
Canada until 1923 when Canada finally banned Chinese immigration altogether by introducing the Chinese Exclusion Act. This law did work: only 8 Chinese immigrants entered
Canada between 1924 and 1940.
11. Oliver to King, January 21, 1927, King Papers, MG26, Jl, Vol. 47, 124777. It may be worth
noting here that British Columbia's demand for total exclusion of Japanese by deportation
was finally realized when the federal government introduced the "voluntary repatriation"
scheme in 1945 as a part of the postwar government policy on Japanese-Canadians. At that
time the Canadian government actively encouraged the Japanese who were then evacuated
into the interior of B.C. to choose voluntary repatriation and was very successful in the
strategy as the scheme ended up with the eventual repatriation of 4,000 of the then 23,000
total Japanese in Canada to Japan. In due course, about 10,000 voluntarily requested for
deportation.
12. An argument can be made, however, that the government action was the beginning of
a program designed to exclude the Japanese. The Japanese were rapidly penetrating the
country's agriculture field during the 1930s, imposing competitive pressure on business (employer) groups. This argument can be backed up by a later event: in 1946, 12 years after the
revision of the immigration act, Japanese immigration again became the topic of discussion in
the General Assembly. The following bill was presented by one of the members: "regardless of
age and birth place, all Japanese immigrants are prohibited from entering the country." Only
the chairman's vote prevented the bill from being written into the new national constitution.
13. A brief note on the Brazilian wartime situation should be given here. The government of
Brazil did intern a small number of Issei, and Japanese were barred from some coastal areas of
the country. But there was no mass evacuation or resettlement in Brazil. All foreign language
media (including schools) were banned, but all these restrictions fell equally on all immigrant
groups. Unlike Canada, there was no serious post-war effort at the highest level of government to effect the deportation of significant elements of the Japanese population. Likewise
relocation or resettlement, voluntary or involuntary, were not considered in Brazil.
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