<Begin Segment 18>

FM: I remarked yesterday on the issue that, of why it was that Native Americans could not have been used. And I want to point out again, that Native Americans, who were, in a sense, a natural labor supply in Alaska, are like Native Americans everywhere else in America, really unsuited for becoming a part of a social system such as modern capitalist, the modern capitalist world offers. Both in mental orientation, both in mental perspective and also in their organizational, that is, social organizational habits, Native Americans just do not have that background that fits them for the world that is characteristic of the modern Western civilization. You could put it the other way, that if modern Western civilization -- the people of the modern Western civilization had to fit into the Native American world, it would be an extremely excruciating kind of condition for these so-called, the civilized population. It just would be very difficult for them. And it's, so if you turn it, the situation around, why, Native Americans have a kind of unfittedness for the world that was imposed upon them, that made them unsatisfactory as members of this kind of society. It's a tragedy that this is so, but that is why, I think, sociologically, why Native Americans have suffered so much as a minority in the American society. You could say that they were less well-fitted for this world, even than the black slaves were bought in, brought in. African society was better organized for participation in the kind of world that the whites were imposing on them than were the Native Americans of North and South America.

So, it is an interesting point that the kind of social organizational experience which one brings into the world of work that is offered them that makes a great difference as to how they may function in that world. It is an interesting point, sociologically at least, that there are these background differences that can make a difference in the adaptation that the person makes to, or members of that society or group makes to the opportunities that are offered. I can extend that to even the case of the Chinese and that Filipinos, that they were less suited for, in a sense, fitting into the capitalist society than were the Japanese. Curiously, the Japanese, because of the kind of organizational structure that was developed in the rice-growing system of Japan under the Tokugawa period -- and, of course, historically from the early history of the Japanese society, because of that background they acquired a organizational scheme that was well-suited to fitting into a capitalistic world. The fact that Meiji industry -- I mean, the Meiji Reformation was so successful in transforming Japan in a matter of half a century from a feudal state to a modern power, so to speak, indicates the kind of readiness that was characteristic of Japan for adaptation to the Western world that was imposed upon them. And the immigrants who came during the Meiji era then, were people who were drawn from that kind of background and were therefore well-adapted to, or well-fitted for taking advantage of the opportunities which American society offered them.

Now the Issei, then, come with that kind of interest of trying to make it within a society like the United States, and in order to make, to take advantage of it they wanted to get ahead as rapidly as possible, not in so much, in these industries which were offered them, but in some kind of other individual enterprise of their own. However, the industries which required labor at this time were a stepping stone for the Issei. They could use it for five, ten, years in order to save enough money to establish their own farm or their own business or get training in a profession. It was this kind of opportunity that led them into laboring jobs in the initial phase of their immigrant years and were, as I say, a stepping stone for something else that they were mainly interested in.

In the case of the Chinese it is a curious fact that historically, their society built, based essentially around the strong and powerful family system, was not organizationally well-suited for adaptation to the kind of opportunities which the Western world today offers. And so there is a transition going on in Japan -- China, even today that is going to take a little time before they make, so to speak, the kind of adaptation to the new world that industry and technology is creating for them. Even Korea, I think, is moving ahead more rapidly because of their better-fitted or better-suited organizational background for adaptation to this modern world. In any case, going back to the Chinese contractors, they could not supply labor as effectively as the Japanese contractors back in the early 1900s, and in due course then, the Chinese contractors, although they got in first, in this canning industry, were displaced by Japanese contractors. Now the Japanese contractors have a capacity for doing something that, as I say, the Chinese were not able to do. They could bring in laborers from, so to speak, anywhere as long as they would work for the contractor, which is a little more of a problem for Chinese under their social system of accomplishing. And this was, I think, one of the reasons why this displacement occurred.

Also, although Filipino contractors also came in, in due course, at this stage, this, let's say in the 1920s, for example, or 1910 to 1920s, where the industry was still in this early phase of development, the Japanese contractors did have an advantage over Chinese -- the Filipino contractors in that they, again, had this kind of entrepreneurial background or history behind them that they effectively used in organizing the labor population in the canneries at that time.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.