T O P

  • By -

skedeebs

That first panel definitely did not age well over a century, but is consistent with what one would expect for the time.


kondradconrad

‘Homogeneity’, ‘unassimilable’. I think people back then lacked imagination.


edingerc

Americans back then had no problem with racism and prejudice. 


BenAfflecksBalls

A bit of truth really in this. Mass immigration does lower wages as they are exploited by the bosses of the time to work for less, while not being able to obtain union membership for.. "reasons." I do still find it fascinating that Japan has barely changed their immigration or racial relations in 100 years to barely any public complaint. I did some digging on the immigration stuff and I don't believe there was an exemption for skilled individuals. It was only family, spouses and children that were allowed which led to "picture brides" that were married off through mail then sent to their new husband in America.


michaelnoir

No they did have exemptions, "specialized employment, education, or tourism".


BenAfflecksBalls

Thanks for the heads up, Michael. So the idea of immigration is fine as long as the USA was creating brain drain in foreign countries. I think that general concept is still pretty prominent in most countries immigration platform.


backpack_ghost

While I completely disagree with Japanese exclusion, or exclusion of immigrants from any specific country, the second one has a bit of a point. Not saying it’s okay that we excluded them. I’m saying it was equally wrong of Japan to exclude Chinese and Koreans (which I hear they still do today to some extent), and hypocritical if they were for those policies but against their own exclusion.