Facing Racism: Reminiscence of Japanese American Immigrant
The Japanese began immigrating to Hawaii (incorporated as a U.S. territorial possession in 1900) and the West Coast in significant numbers starting in the 1890s. Chinzen Kinjo, who arrived in Hawaii soon after 1900, described how Japanese plantation workers reacted to the despotic rule of the “lunas” or overseers—reminiscent of the racist abuses of Old South slave plantations. From Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler, The Japanese American Family Album (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 50: