Despite being known as a liberal stronghold, the history of San Francisco is writ in its motto, “Gold in Peace, Iron in War.” Being a strategic naval site, the opposite was certainly true when the Japanese government placed an order with Union Iron Works for a new battleship, the Chitose. Paying foreign powers were friends and allies.
For more on this “armed peace,” here’s an interesting read from a 1908 Sunset Magazine: http://bit.ly/bWa09C

Initially, the US government might have viewed Japan as a powerful ally to aid in their mastery of the Pacific Rim, but as they started showing themselves to be too much like the US in their imperialism, racism showed itself to be a handy tool.

as far as the question of why people come specifically to the US illegally; there are two parts to the answer. the first is that Canada, England, Germany, Sweden, and France also have their fair share of illegal immigrants, and their fair share of horrifying laws intended to “control the problem”. if you catch the BBC at all, you’ll hear quite a bit about the issue in Britain.

the second part of the answer is that it is much easier to fly under the radar in the United States than it is in many first-world countries because of the glaring lack of public programs as compared to, say, Sweden. it is normal for people in the US to lack health insurance, it is normal to lack a job, it is normal to lack childcare, etc., so that when an undocumented immigrant doesn’t have access to those, it does not necessarily distinguish them from the rest of the population. in England, if you are taken to the hospital and it is discovered that you are not on the NHS roll, it becomes obvious that you are in the country illegally. because Sweden is a Social Democracy where almost everything in life is run as a public program, it is even more difficult to pass for a legal resident.

not to go too far off on an anecdote, here’s an amusing artifact: a letter of recommendation written for a friend’s father, a doctor from Korea who had overstayed his 2-year visa and was applying for permanent resident status, praising among other things his “typical oriental politeness and friendliness”:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/plattyjo/4622886038/

Good question!

A few memories fit them, and since there few better places I could think of for getting those thoughts into the open, here they are:

A hundred a fifty years of immigration – is the story of some journeys told from one end. The other end has another name, and oddly, the one in-between goes by other ones entirely. A fairly odd situation of a story changing title for the sake of its listeners bundled by the history of their motives and taste; not unlike a publisher’s privilege. Take an unusual source – say, a well-routed expat reading of immigration laws roiling his home country: “penny for your thoughts?”; “I’ll call myself an immigrant”. Same thing, without name.

[1] By any rule, a century and a half is longer then living memory in my family, and this is mostly because at one point, recounting memories of border-crossings became unthinkable; if parents know better then to talk to their children – their stories are lost. You’d go to the museum to get a feeling of what their lives must have been, just like everybody else. It is a benign call of comers and goers: as a story emigrants would use to convey the feelings of their leaving, as a story of newcomers who want to forget. Almost every place has both kinds of peoples and both sides of the story; few find reason to document the subtle bonds between its comers and goers, let alone make prominent museum exhibits of them.

[2] This is in fact the one thing I am convinced that the present does better then the past, here and there: the memories of a few places are the memories of everyone. Perhaps because rarefied academic considerations are not subject to the grind of life as much as other things, it is still possible to find museum districts where the closest thing to home are either in the anthropology or modern art sections, with a hole in-between. Damn embarrassing where there isn’t a modern art section! Wouldn’t believe it until it got me! It’s a silly jolt for a terribly medley group under archival lighting, a way of reading between the lines of a few artists’ biographies, and… nothing more.

[3] Can’t bottle a feeling, let alone those of crowds past. Unless… some times…someone pulls it off. One thing art is worth tasting for tastelessly – either that, or a few years living in a place with the privilege to listen to its ground noise. In the end, life’s too short to travel like that.

—

In the end, I would have a question to ask:

The description of a doll reads: ‘Shell paste over wood … ‘etc. What ‘shell paste’? How was this used? For what? Is it still? The subject is interesting because nacre coating is being reinvented.

Bleka: Why do so many people want to emigrate to the U.S.? That is a very good question… I would guess that in terms of legality it is easier to emigrate to the U.S. than some other countries although I’m no expert in immigration law. The U.S. historically has a reputation as a country of immigrants. I imagine that this has a lot to do with it too. If I hypothetically were compelled to emigrate to another country I don’t know where I would go. Maybe Australia, Singapore, or the UK. You?

Bleka: Why do so many people want to emigrate to the U.S.? That is a very good question… I would guess that in terms of legality it is easier to emigrate to the U.S. than some other countries although I’m no expert in immigration law. The U.S. historically has a reputation as a country of immigrants. I imagine that this has a lot to do with it too.

Whatever California is it is in the process of becoming at this very moment, and the entire world-flavored multicultural aspect, which is a fairly recent phenomenon, is my favorite part. The paving of paradise, which I’ve also witnessed first-hand over the last fifty-plus years, is my least favorite part.

In my home state of Hawai’i multicultural and multi-ethnic families are the norm. Of course we have our share of ethnic and cultural divides, and the huge challenges that new immigrants face are always the most difficult in the first couple generations. But although every cultural group is in many ways unique with a separate identity there is also a unifying ‘local’ culture of Hawaii that is an amalgamation of all the different cultures as they adapted and contributed to Hawaii’s unique cultural landscape. In Hawaii I would say that I am Japanese, but hapa, also I am a Local, but not Hawaiian. But really that’s pretty typical in Hawaii and there are many people in the Bay Area and California who have even more diverse backgrounds.

So, SFMike, I’m curious to hear your thoughts about being ‘Californian’. How would describe the ‘Californian’ identity?

Say Japan, how many americans, europeans, asians, and etc., actually wanna go there to become citizens or just to live there? I don’t think it comes close to half the volume of people pouring into the US.