this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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Daily US History

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October 11 is the anniversary of the day that San Francisco ordered The Segregation of Japanese Students in 1906. Of course this was done for absurdly racist reasons, and Chinese immigrants had been subject to this for quite some time. However, Japan was in a much better place than China at the time, and this sparked a diplomatic incident.

The US had been coveting their land for quite some time. Although Japan was forced into a relationship with the USA, they had kept their sovereignty thus far, and were a rising power. They'd signed treaties with the US that guaranteed the same rights for Japanese people as US citizens within the US. They'd recently won a war with Russia (which shocked the western world), and the US president Theodore Roosevelt of course wanted to keep the US' hooks in Japan. So he had this to say:

"To shut Japanese students out from the public schools is a wicked absurdity"

Fine words, and he did indeed put a stop to the segregation. But behind the scenes, he worked out a "gentleman's agreement" with Japan. Under the agreement, Japanese labourers would no longer be allowed to emigrate to the US, but family members of existing immigrants would still be allowed. This of course led to a massive bump in human trafficking. Over 10,000 Japanese women were imported as mail order brides. Discrimination of Japanese people was still widespread. California banned new immigrants from owning land. Congress explicitly made laws to keep non-white people from immigrating. Thus the Japanese problem was solved.

Theodore Roosevelt's cousin-nephew Franklin Roosevelt would later round up anyone of Japanese descent and put them in concentration camps.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Honourable mentions to:

The Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1987, where 200,000 people marched on Washington DC to demand equality for LGBT people. It had some marginal success, and the struggle is ongoing to this day.

In an incident very similar to The Attica Prison Massacre which I wrote about last month, prisoners in Washington DC rose up in 1972 to demand better treatment. They were promised improvements and no reprisals. They received neither.