A Different Mirror

Takaki opens Chapter 9 with a description of the massacre that occurred at Wounded Knee in 1890. American troops shot and killed hundreds of unarmed Sioux men, women, and children. In the preface to the chapter, Takaki links this massacre to the end of the Western frontier. Yet even prior to Wounded Knee, Native Americans were the target of social engineering projects that aimed to wipe out “savagery” in the name of “civilization.” US policy focused on strategies of assimilation, forcibly relocating Native Americans to reservations where they would learn “industrial skills” that would also indoctrinate values of discipline, thrift, and self-improvement (220).

In 1887 the US government reversed this strategy with the passage of the Dawes Act, which aimed to break up reservations and “accelerate the transformation of Indians into property owners and US citizens” (221). The government allotted land to heads of families on reservations, which could not be sold for 25 years. It then granted all the remaining land to white settlers. Separate legislation also gave railroads rights-of-way through reservations. Later modifications to the Dawes Act made it difficult for the heirs of Native Americans to retain allotted lands, which they had to purchase back from the government. Takaki notes, “In 1933, the federal government found that almost half of the Indians living on reservations that had been subject to allotment were landless” (224).

Recognizing the severity of the situation, Indian Affairs Commissioner John Collier suspended the allotment program in 1934 and designed the Indian Reorganization Act, which “authorized federal funding for tribes to purchase lands, reversing policy dating back not only to 1887 but to 1607” (225). Collier, a supporter of cultural pluralism, wanted Native Americans to establish local self-governments, but only if the majority of their tribe voted to do so. Approximately 172 tribes voted in favor of self-government, while 73 tribes declined. Takaki explains their reasons for rejection: “Though he was articulating a philosophy of Indian autonomy, Collier was telling them what was in their interest and making decisions for them” (226).

Takaki ends the chapter with a discussion of the Navajo, who rejected the Indian Reorganization Act. The Navajo were a sheep herding people, and Collier believed their sheep were causing soil erosion and silting the Colorado Dam, which supplied water and electricity to California. Against the wishes of the Navajo, he forced them to cull their stock, reducing the Navajo to wage workers dependent on temporary government employment. In the 1950s scientists discovered that the Navajo were correct in their assessment of the land erosion: It was not from overgrazing sheep but from drought, which the Navajo had told the government from the beginning.

Takaki begins Chapter 10 by discussing the push-and-pull factors of Japanese immigration to the United States at the end of the 19th century. Facing high taxes in Japan, many Japanese saw the United States as a compelling alternative to earn higher wages to support their families. In 1907 the Japanese government negotiated a Gentlemen’s Agreement treaty with the United States. It denied Japanese “laborers” to enter the US but allowed women to emigrate as family members, which they largely did as “picture brides,” following a custom of arranged marriages in Japan (234). Women also entered the US as wage earners, contributing significantly to the American economy as field laborers on Hawaii’s sugar plantations.

The bulk of Chapter 10 focuses on the class interests of American capitalists and a proletarianized Japanese workforce. Plantation owners in Hawaii pursued tactics of divide and rule—largely by importing migrants from Korea, Portugal, and the Philippines—to dissuade Japanese workers from organizing into labor unions. This strategy worked at first, as laborers from different ethnic groups formed “blood unions” representing their own class interests based on ethnic membership (243). This changed, however, as minority groups recognized their common exploitation and advocated for better wages and equal treatment. The 1920 formation of the Hawaii Laborers’ Association illustrates the realization of an inclusive, multiethnic labor movement.

Significantly, Japanese immigrants settled on the plantations as families, making important cultural contributions to Hawaii. They established schools and Buddhist temples and celebrated traditional festivals and customs. They also forged a common language, Hawaiian Pidgin English, to communicate with other minority groups, which facilitated a sense of interethnic communality.

In California, Japanese immigrants were a small minority group, comprising only 2% of the population in 1920 as compared to 40% in Hawaii. Over time they prospered as farmers, a niche that coincided with a massive market demand for fresh produce. Nonetheless, despite their contributions to the American economy, Japanese immigrants still faced discrimination and prejudice. In 1913 California passed the Alien Land Law, which denied land ownership to “aliens ineligible to naturalized citizenship,” specifically targeting Japanese immigrants (257). In 1924 Congress took this a step further and enacted a law that prohibited Asian immigration.

Japanese Americans who acquired citizenship at birth also faced discrimination, particularly in the employment sector. Similar to his discussion of second-generation Chinese, Takaki ends the chapter by describing the “sense of twoness” that Japanese Americans felt as they navigated the societal and cultural expectations of their Japanese and American upbringings (260).

Takaki begins Chapter 11 with a description of Jews living in Russia and their persecution as a religious and ethnic group. In the 1880s Jews began migrating to America, often as political refugees fleeing violent pogroms, or deliberate massacres of particular ethnic groups. Most Jews came as families looking to permanently settle in the United States, which they viewed as the “Promised Land” (264). They were a highly educated and literate group, and although poor, they were skilled in handicraft trades like sewing. Upon their arrival, a majority of Jewish immigrants settled in tenement housing in New York City, living in extremely crowded and unsanitary conditions. By 1890, approximately 60% of Jews worked in New York City’s expanding garment industry.

Young women represented about one-third of the workforce in the garment industry. Packed into sweatshops, they labored in dangerous conditions. In 1911 a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, killing 146 workers. Some of the women who died in this fire had participated in the famous 1909-1910 strikes organized by women to advocate for better working conditions, wages, and union recognition. Over the next 10 years, “these labor struggles represented a watershed in Jewish-American history,” establishing a union stronghold and creating “a broadly based radical Jewish consciousness” (279).

While deeply involved in labor movements in the early 20th century, Jewish immigrants also aspired to a middle-class identity. They contrasted the naivete and incivility of a “greenhorn,” a recent arrival to America, with the “purification,” “modernity,” and “civility” of an “allrightnik,” a person who successfully adopted American cultural habits (282). To accomplish the identity of an “allrightnik,” Jews learned English, anglicized their names, and participated in American consumptive practices. Their aspirations of upward mobility also were gendered, as men engaged in business activities, sometimes with the help of their wives. Women mostly stayed home to look after the household.

As skilled workers and businessmen, Jewish immigrants reached a level of economic stability that made it possible to send their children, particularly their sons, to elite institutions. Their success and visibility, however, made them vulnerable to anti-Semitism. Institutions like Harvard enacted quotas, limiting the number of Jewish students, and in the 1920s “Henry Ford led an anti-Semitic campaign against ‘international Jews,’ whose loyalties were allegedly not to America but only to their greedy interests” (288). In 1924 US immigration laws restricted entry from Southern and Eastern Europe, sharply reducing the number of Jewish immigrants to America. Takaki ends the chapter by noting the emergence of Nazism in Europe.

While Jews spoke of the “Promised Land,” Mexican immigrants referred to America as “El Norte” (292). Work opportunities and higher wages were compelling reasons for Mexicans to migrate to the United States, and in 1910 the violence from the Mexican Revolution pushed tens of thousands more emigrants to the US as political refugees. The expansion of the railroads made this migration easier. Although primarily agricultural workers, many Mexicans became urban industrial workers, especially in California and Texas. They also tended to be young, primarily between the ages of 15 and 44, and often brought their families with them. Women were a major force in the industrial sector, too, working in the garment, food processing, and cannery industries.

As unskilled agricultural workers, Mexican immigrants tended to follow seasonal farm work and were subjected to highly exploitative labor practices and living conditions. During the Great Depression, Mexican laborers experienced massive wage cuts, leading them to participate in a series of strikes between 1928 and 1933 that called for improved working conditions. Similar to Jewish women, Mexican women were strong labor organizers too.

A unifying Mexican American identity emerged not only through labor movements but also through their common experiences living in ethnic enclaves, often referred to as the barrio. Here, Mexican Americans “did not feel like aliens in a foreign land” but celebrated their cultural heritage and helped one another with big life events and “in simple, day-to-day ways” where they could feel at home (309). This sense of belonging had its limits, as white Americans, resentful of the growing presence of Mexicans and their participation in the American labor force, promoted xenophobic legislation like repatriation programs to send Mexicans and their children, who were American citizens by birth, back to Mexico.

Takaki’s description of agricultural workers and the creation of an inclusive ethnic identity extends to other minority groups as well. Farm laborers from the Punjab region of India also migrated to America and, like Mexicans, followed seasonal agricultural work. But unlike Mexicans, very few Asian Indian women came to the United States. Because of antimiscegenation laws, Punjabi men were not allowed to marry white women. Many instead married Mexican women whom they knew from working in the fields. While the California Alien Land Act of 1913 prevented Punjabi men from acquiring land, they could own it through their Mexican wives. Most of these men settled permanently in the United States as farmers. In these cases Takaki describes a melding of traditions, where Punjabi Mexican families drew on customs, languages, and religions (primarily Catholicism and Sikhism) from their respective societies to create a multicultural American identity.

Chapter 13 describes African Americans’ migration from the American South to cities in the Midwest and Northeast. After the Civil War, most African Americans were sharecroppers and tenant farmers for white landowners. As Takaki writes, “Though they were free, many were in economic bondage” (313). African Americans found employment opportunities in Chicago and New York, especially during World War I, as more factory jobs opened up. Younger African Americans, in particular, envisioned new possibilities for themselves in the North, refusing to accept the subservient roles that white Southerners expected of them.

Though the North offered the possibility of better wages, discrimination and racism persisted—especially as black populations grew in urban areas, putting pressure on housing and employment opportunities for whites. In the stockyards and packing houses, managers pitted white employees against blacks to subvert union efforts and minimize chances of interracial solidarity. Whites also made it difficult for blacks to buy and rent homes, especially in Chicago, creating highly segregated neighborhoods. When African Americans moved into white neighborhoods, their families and property were threatened with violence.

In 1920s New York, Harlem was the center of black housing, as it attracted large numbers of African Americans who could not afford to live elsewhere. For some, Harlem was an overcrowded “slum” (332); to many others it was the bedrock of black intellectual and artistic life. During this time Marcus Garvey, with his ideology of black nationalism, inspired African Americans to take pride in themselves and celebrate their heritage. The writers and artists of Harlem took this message to heart and developed a vibrant culture that rebelled against “Middletown America” (328).

Takaki ends the chapter with a discussion of the Great Depression and the disproportionate effects of poverty and disenfranchisement on African Americans. Excluded from work and social welfare programs, they came up with new strategies to survive high unemployment rates and inequality. They began turning to the Democratic Party in greater numbers to advance their socioeconomic interests, leading to a massive political realignment in the North.