Japanese Immigration to Hawaii
This excerpt is from a speech delivered by Walter Murray Gibson in 1872 to the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii. At the time, Hawaii was undergoing significant demographic changes, with large numbers of immigrants arriving to work in the sugar and pineapple industries. Gibson was a prominent politician and landowner.
You have considered the races that are desirable, not only to supply your needs of labor but to furnish an increase of population that will assimilate with the Hawaiian. . . . We must look to races, who whilst being good workers, will not much affect the identity of the Hawaiian, and whose gradual influx will harmonize with, and strengthen, by the infusion of new blood, the native stock. A moderate portion of the Japanese, of the agricultural class, will not conflict with the view that I present, and if they bring their women with them, and settle permanently in the country, they may be counted upon as likely to become desirable Hawaiian subjects.
A 1872 speech by Walter Murray Gibson to the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii
Question 1
Describe one argument for Japanese immigration to Hawaii expressed in the excerpt.
Question 2
Explain one political development in Japan that made Japanese immigration to Hawaii possible in the 1870s.
Question 3
Explain one way that Japanese immigration to Hawaii and the U.S. mainland affected U.S.-Japanese relations from 1870 to 1910.
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