and the United States. The result of negotiations between the two countries during 1907 and 1908 was the Gentleman's Agreement. Under the auspices of this agreement, Roosevelt summoned San Francisco's mayor to Washington, D.C. and persuaded him to rescind the segregation order. The Japanese government, in turn, agreed to deny passports to laborers intending to enter the United States.
The Gentlemen's Agreement did not end Japanese immigration, though. A provision allowed the wives and children of laborers, as well as laborers who had already been in the United States, to enter the country. From 1908 to 1924, Japanese women continued to immigrate to the United States, and became known as "picture brides" because they were married in Japan to immigrants who had only seen a picture of them.
While the Japanese found ways into the country, they did not enjoy the rights of citizenship in California. Governor Hiram Johnson enacted the Alien Land Law in 1913 which prevented non-citizens from owning property in California. And in the case of Ozawa v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that Japanese immigrants were not eligible to become American citizens because they were neither white nor of African descent. While Californians embraced this ruling, it created a legal issue around defining what it meant to be white. This legal debate around the definition of "white" would affect all immigrants seeking to enjoy the rights of citizenship in the United States.
A movement to curtail Japanese immigration was finally enacted during Calvin Coolidge's administration with the Immigration Act of 1924, legislation that blocked Japanese immigration completely. The act remained in effect until well after World War II. Like the Chinese who came before them, the Japanese were welcome when their labor was required to build out the state. But when it came to enjoying the rights of citizenship, the state balked. The Japanese were consumed in anti-Asian sentiment, and their treatment during this time period was endemic of the distrust fermenting between the United States and Japan as both nations grew as international powers.
11.2 Students analyze the relationship among the rise of industrialization, large scale rural-to-urban migration, and massive immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. (11.2.2)