The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 17 (2006)

Gender and American Citizenship—
the Construction of “Our Nation”
in the Early Twentieth Century

Yuko MATSUMOTO*“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Emma Lazarus, 1883
We will not judge fellow Americans by appearance, ethnic background or
religious faith. We will defend the values of our country, and we will live by
them. . . . Above all, we will live in a spirit of courage and optimism. Our
Nation was born in that spirit, as immigrants yearning for freedom courageously risked their lives in search of greater opportunity.1
George W. Bush, September 2, 2002

Throughout American history, American values and principles suchas freedom have been regarded as the basis of the national identity. As
Emma Lazarus acknowledged, every newcomer, regardless of gender,race or ethnicity, should be welcomed as a member of “Our Nation” if
he or she accepts American values and principles. As President Bushdeclares, every American citizen is to be a full member of “Our Nation”
unless he or she denies American values and principles.
Copyright © 2006 Yuko Matsumoto. All rights reserved. This work may be used,with this notice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of this work
may be distributed, electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without
permission from the author.
*Professor, Chuo University

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Historically, however, gender as well as race has constructed theboundary of ”Our Nation.” Needles to say, legal citizenship is necessary
for anyone to be a member of a nation. As the history of immigration
policies illuminate, race and ethnicity have deﬁned the eligibility of legal
citizenship. Gender also constructed the boundary of legal American citizenship. From 1907 to 1931, for instance, any American woman who
married a foreigner was forced to take the nationality of her husband.
Those women married to people ineligible for citizenship were deprivedof their own citizenship.2 Moreover, according to Martha Gardner, immigration and naturalization laws and policies have tried to regulate “theborders of belonging” for immigrant women according to the “legal
ideals of moral order, family unity, economic independence and racial
homogeneity.”3
Even if he or she has legal citizenship, however, not everyone has beenable to acquire full membership in “Our Nation” as the civil rights movement revealed. Paying attention to this aspect of American history, recent
studies redeﬁne American citizenship. American citizenship, according
to Evelyn Nakano Glenn, has functioned as a measure to construct“boundaries between those who are included as members of the community and entitled to respect, protection, and rights and those who are
excluded and thus not entitled to recognition and rights.”4 In other words,
we can deﬁne American citizenship as the full membership in “Our
Nation” that assures “respect, protection and rights” to its members. If
we deﬁne American citizenship in this way, it is clear that gender as wellas race has mattered in the history of American citizenship. The movement for women’s suffrage and feminism have stood up for rights which
American citizenship should have guaranteed for every citizen. Rights
are paired with obligation. Linda Kerber points out that the unequalobligations placed on men and women in the practice of citizenship have
prevented women from participating fully in American society. According to Kerber, for instance, the system of coverture excused married
women from civic obligations because married women owed their primary obligation to their husbands. In other words, married women could
not have independent citizenship under this system.5
This paper has no intention to describe how women have been excluded from American citizenship. The aim of this paper is to clarify how
gender affected the construction of American citizenship. In order to illuminate the relations between gender and American citizenship, I will
focus on the period from the late nineteenth century to the 1920s. In this

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period, American society made tremendous efforts to establish an “us”
community, that is, “Our Nation,” as the basis of nationalism. For instance, American history and the American ﬂag were introduced into thecurriculum of public schools. Analyzing the curriculum of civics at public schools in the early twentieth century, Yoon K. Pak argues that “citizenship moved away from political rights and voting toward a cultural
ideal and identity.”6
In order to protect “Our Nation,” nativistic movements tried to clarify
who should be excluded from the “us” community. Analyzing the electoral reforms from the late nineteenth century to the 1920s, for instance,
Michael Schudson points out that the concept of citizenship began tochange from “participation by virtue of one’s presence in the land to participation that rested on prequaliﬁcations.” He summarizes this trend as“puriﬁcation of citizenship.”7 Rogers M. Smith also argues that working-class immigrants, women, and people of color were assumed to be
unﬁt for full and equal citizenship in the Progressive era.8
Furthermore, what was notable during this period was that the movement to deﬁne the standard of inclusion in the “us” community, that is,
the Americanization movement, was active at the same time. The
Americanization movement explained to newcomers in the afﬁrmative
what were the “prequaliﬁcations” for full American citizenship and tried
to inculcate these “prequaliﬁcations” into newcomers. Desmond King
indicates that Americanization meant “deﬁning membership of theUnited States and of American life.”9Thus, both nativistic movements and the Americanization movementattempted to deﬁne the boundary of American citizenship around thisperiod. In response to these movements, various ethnic and racial groups
who were placed as “others” in American society tried to prove that they
were qualiﬁed for full membership of American society. This paper,accordingly, focuses on three kinds of approaches to deﬁne American
citizenship in the early twentieth century, that is, the Americanization
movement, nativistic movements, and responses of newcomers, and clariﬁes how gender was related to the construction of “Our Nation” in theearly twentieth century.
Both nativistic movements and the Americanization movement were
spontaneous activities at local levels as well as nationwide movements.
Political and intellectual leaders at the national level tended to discuss
abstract ideas. At local levels, Americanizers who worked with
newcomers every day had to clarify what newcomers were expected to146

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learn and teach newcomers how to behave in everyday life. Exclusionists
at local levels also had to explain why they tried to exclude certain people in concrete terms in order to gain the support of the public. Accordingly, analysis of local activities will illuminate how gender deﬁned
American citizenship more precisely. This paper will focus on the local
activities in California where both the anti-Japanese campaign and theAmericanization movement were active in the early twentieth century.
1.

GENDER ROLES AND AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP“Go After Women”
Women participated actively in the Americanization movement. In
California, chapters of various women’s organizations such as the Federation of Women’s Clubs or the Daughters of the American Revolution(the DAR) participated in the Americanization movement. Local governments appointed women to major positions on the California State
Commission of Immigration and Housing (the CSCIH) which was responsible for Americanizing immigrants in California.
Recent studies regard the Americanization movement as one of thesocial reforms in which middle class white women actively participatedduring the Progressive era. John F. McClymer, for instance, emphasizes
the accomplishment of women activists in public policy formation andimplementation in the Americanization movement. Gayle Gullet also
analyzes how women progressives actively played political roles in theAmericanization movement. Both McClymer and Gullet point out thatwomen activists utilized “domesticity” as the means for women’s participation in the public sphere.10
When we analyze the programs of Americanization as a measure todeﬁne American citizenship, however, we should consider why womenactivists could play a signiﬁcant role in the Americanization movement
and why “domesticity” became an effective device for Americanization.
Women could play active roles not only because women intended to doso but because women activists were needed to pursue the Americanization movement. One article on Americanization by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1919, for instance, proposed that it was “the taskof our best American womanhood” to teach “the best American ideals
and home standards, as well as a knowledge of our language to the foreign-born women.”11
Women activists were needed in the Americanization movement

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because the Americanizers considered that it was a top-priority issue toAmericanize immigrant women. In a sense, it is natural that activists
targeted immigrant women since immigrant women stayed at home andhad little contact with American society. The Americanization movement attached more importance to Americanizing women. In 1915, forinstance, Kate Waller Barrett, special agent of the United States
Immigration Service, pointed out the signiﬁcance of Americanizing
immigrant women. “The importance of reaching the alien woman isparamount if we are going to Americanize our foreign population. She
is the crux of the whole subject.”12
Why was “reaching the alien woman” so important? Activists who
advocated the signiﬁcance of Americanizing women did not expect
immigrant women to be independent citizens. They regarded immigrant
women as homemakers or homemakers-to-be. As “a deep concern of ournation should be for the homes of its people,” according to Edith Terry
Bremer, who discussed immigrant education in 1916, women should be
evaluated as “the forces that act upon the homes of this nation and themaking of its people.”13 An article discussing the Americanization of
Mexican laborers, published in 1923, stressed the need for theAmericanization of Mexican women. “ ‘Go after the Women’ should
become a slogan among Americanization workers, for after all the greatest good is to be obtained by starting the home off right.”14 In other words,
as the Americanization movement regarded the “home” as the foundation for the full membership of American society, activists tried to “goafter” immigrant women.
The Home as the Basis of American CitizenshipAmericanizers repeatedly asserted the signiﬁcance of “home.” According to Royal Dixon, who wrote Americanization in 1916, Frances
Kellor, one of the leaders of the National Americanization Committee,emphasized the signiﬁcance of Americanizing the immigrant’s “home”
because the “home” was “a basis of good citizenship and social solidarity.”15 One professor of home economics also maintained in 1922 thatthe “home” was the basis for citizenship. “Home ideals . . . are basic in
their inﬂuence upon the interrelations of the citizenry of the nation.”16
Pearl Idelia Ellis, homemaking instructor of elementary schools in
California, contended that the home, which symbolized a good family
life, was the basis for citizenship in 1929. According to Ellis, a goodfamily life brought about social stability. In her book entitled

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Americanization through Home-making, Ellis advocated the necessityof teaching women “American habits of home-making.” According toEllis, it was signiﬁcant to “begin at the basic structure of their social
order—the home” in order to “assimilate” them.17
This idea that the “home” was the basis for citizenship was put into
practice in California. In 1915, California passed the Home Teacher Act.
The main objective of the home teacher program was Americanizing
immigrant families. “The Manual for Home Teachers of 1919” made it
clear that the primary aim of this program was “to Americanize the families of the community.”18 Amanda Chase, who had belonged to the Los
Angeles College Settlement, experimented with the home teacher system in Los Angeles County and prepared several pamphlets showing themethods of teaching “foreign women.” She wrote that schooling for “foreign-born women” was necessary because the mother determined “thekind of home and health and happiness of the family” and “the foreignborn mothers” would take much of the responsibility of determining“what kind of citizens their children shall become.”19
The home teacher program in California was not just the program of
public schools. Public ofﬁces and private organizations cooperated witheach other in terms of ﬁnances, human resources and ideas. Various
private women’s organizations such as the California Federation of
Women’s Clubs, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and theYWCA as well as churches helped the CSCIH to pass the Home Teacher
Act. Patriotic organizations such as the California State Society of the
DAR and the United Daughters of the Confederacy cooperated withhome teachers. Eight chapters of the California State Society of the DAR,
for instance, paid home teachers wages and asked them to visit immigrants’ homes and gather mothers into a class at the Albion Street School,
which the California State Society of the DAR subsidized.20
Thus, home teachers and local activists in California intervened in theprivate lives of immigrant families and exempliﬁed what was expectedof immigrant women as homemakers. Observing the activities of thehome teacher program in California, F.V. Thompson, superintendent ofa school in Boston, pointed out in 1919 that the home teacher programof California was “a substantial factor in future endeavors for Americanization.”21 Historian George Sanchez also contends that from 1915 to
1929, home teachers were “the linchpin of Americanization efforts.”22

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The Anti-Japanese Campaign and Gender
The Americanization movement deﬁned the boundary of inclusion
into “Our Nation.” Conversely, the anti-Japanese campaign made attempts to construct the boundary of citizenship in order to exclude
Japanese immigrants and their descendents from “Our Nation.” Bothmovements, however, had one thing in common. That is to say, both targeted women.
One of the most common criticisms leveled against Japanese immigrants was the problem of women’ roles at home. Anti-Japanese advocates accused Japanese immigrants of making women work outside andof neglecting the “home.” Economic competition was one of the major
reasons for this criticism of women’s labor. The advocates, however, did
not directly blame Japanese immigrant women for offering inexpensive
labor. They argued that women’s work in the ﬁelds was a moral issue
because Japanese immigrant men had women neglect their homes.
According to Milton H. Esberg, a member of the Chamber of Commerceof San Francisco, one of the causes of the anti-Japanese campaign wasthat there was no “discrimination” on the part of the Japanese “as towhether the men, or the women do the work.”23 A ﬁeld manager at
Walnut Grove maintained that Japanese immigrants disrupted the “order” of American society because they made women work in the ﬁeld.24
V.S. McClatchy, who was one of the leaders of the anti-Japanese campaign, pointed to the “general use of women as laborers, regardless of
their condition as prospective mothers, and prevalence of child labor”25
as one of the causes of “unassimilability.” According to Harry A. Millis,
who discussed the ”Japanese Problem” in 1915, “an average Americanassumes that wives should not work regularly at the chief gainful pursuit of the family,” but “in the rural communities especially, Japanesewomen have neglected household duties for work in shop or ﬁeld.”26
Ralph Burnight who conducted a survey on “the problems” ofJapanese immigrants in 1920 pointed out the importance of mothers’
roles. “There is a widespread campaign throughout our country against
women in industry. . . . The proper training of the children of any country requires more attention from the mother than taking them into theﬁelds where they sit all day while the parents are working nearby.”
Burnight suggested that the labor of Japanese immigrant women adversely affected the citizenship of American-born farmers. “How can a

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white farmer compete with them [Japanese immigrants] and at the sametime inform himself sufﬁciently to make a good and efﬁcient citizen, andhow could his wife rear good citizens?”27
Thus, the criticism of the gender roles in Japanese immigrants’ homes
became an appealing moral issue for people who had not even seen a
Japanese immigrant. It goes without saying that gender roles within
Japanese immigrants’ homes were only one of many causes for the exclusion of Japanese immigrants. The analysis of criticisms against gender
relations of Japanese immigrants, however, illuminates that the “home”
to which women dedicated themselves was one of the major requisites
for American citizenship.
At the end of WWI, “white” women acquired suffrage. Nevertheless,the suffrage did not automatically assure women of full American citizenship as individuals. As both the Americanization movement and theanti-Japanese campaign in California revealed, the “home” was the basisof American citizenship and women were primarily regarded as “homemakers.”
II“THE HOME BUILT UPON THE AMERICAN STANDARD OF LIVING”

The American Standard of Living
As the “home” was the basis of American citizenship and women were
supposed to be homemakers or homemakers-to-be, immigrant women
had to learn what the proper American home was. The Americanization
textbooks and classes placed importance on the practical way of life
which meant activities and habits of everyday life. In 1915, for instance,
Kate Waller Barrett, special agent of the United States Immigration
Service, argued that the Americanization of immigrant women was
urgent because they made decisions about the practical way of life. “Itis she [the alien woman] who selects the neighborhood and the house inwhich the family live and the church which they attend. She has theopportunity to supplement the lessons at school and her attitude towards
the problems of daily life unconsciously are reﬂected in the other members of the family.”28
Albert Shiels, whose book on Americanization was published by theDistrict of Los Angeles Public Schools in 1919, emphasized that
Americanizers had to be attentive to the everyday lives of immigrants.
“Good citizenship is very much less a matter of knowledge than of habitual action. Therefore Americanization—that is, the making of good cit-

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izens—depends very much more on the kind of a place a man lives inand the people he lives with than on the school he attended.”29 David A.
Bridge also argued that Americanization of immigrants was “connected
directly with their everyday life.”30
Americanizers believed that the proper way of daily living enabled
immigrants to obtain “the American standard of living.” In other words,
obtaining “the American standard of living” was one of the major requisites for American citizenship. In 1916, Helen V. Boswell, presidentof the General Federation of Women’s Clubs summarized the “three
prime essentials” required for American citizenship. They were “common language, common citizenship and a high standard of living.”31
David A. Bridge, who made an Americanization program for the Los
Angeles Recreation Center District in 1920, mentioned that the chief
duty of Americanizers in the district was “to secure an American standard of family life for all” because the family life or the “home” was thefoundation of all the social welfare and progress towards “American
ideals.” As the “home” should stand for “American institutions,” according to Bridge, “the home built upon the American standard of living”
was indispensable to Americanization.32 The California State Society of
the DAR also suggested that obtaining “the proper standard of living”
was necessary for immigrants in order to adapt to American society. “Forwith the ever-increasing foreign population needed in agriculture andindustry, the public institutions and all patriotic organizations are
strained to maintain proper standards of living and education for these
foreign residents.”33
The CSCIH also advocated that Americanization meant developmentof the standard of living. In 1923, the CSCIH claimed that “Americanization was not ﬂag raising and ‘patriotic’ howling” and that Americanization was more than teaching English to foreigners. The CSCIH deﬁned
Americanization as “the encouragement to decent living, and making
possible the attainment of decent standards.”34“The American standard of living” was not an abstract concept. The
Americanization activists did not directly relate the standard of livingwith the level of wages or income, either. They believed that the standard of living was measured by activities and habits of everyday lives.
While some social reformers proposed to change the living and working
conditions of immigrants in order to improve their standard of living, theAmericanizers considered that teaching the proper way of life and“good” habits was more effective than reforming conditions. According

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to a text for the Americanization program, which was edited by theUnited States Department of the Interior in 1919, there were two main
methods of Americanization. One was to promote education in subjects
such as health, safety and recreation at workplaces and the other was topromote education in communities concerning the practical way of life.35
The “Modern” Domesticity
As everyday lives at home were supposed to be the women’s sphere,
the Americanizers stressed the necessity of educating women. Besides
programs which aimed at teaching English, American history, and civics
to both men and women, activists conducted various classes to teachimmigrant women what to do in the women’s sphere, that is, “domesticity.”
The meaning of domesticity, however, was not self-evident even for
American-born women in the early twentieth century. Since the latenineteenth century, the so-called home economics movement had been
active not only in making home economics an academic subject but alsoin spreading the notion of “modern” domesticity. This “modern” domesticity shifted its emphasis from chastity or the virtue of women to homemaking that required “modern” knowledge and conveniences for homemanagement. Druzilla Mackey, Director of Immigrant Education in the
Fullerton School, translated the keywords of this “modern” domesticity
into terms that immigrants could easily understand. “Our ideal for the
Mexican is centered about our worship of the four Gods to whom webend in allegiance; namely, the clock, the bathtub, the savings bank andAmerican citizenship.”36 Of the four “Gods,” “the clock” meant efﬁciency in domestic chores, “the bathtub” meant hygiene and clean housing conditions, and “the savings bank” meant home management.
The home economics movement in this period promulgated this concept of “modern” domesticity not only among immigrant women, butalso among American middle-class and working class women, women
on farms, and Native-American and African-American women.37 One
home economist claimed that the home economics movement worked
for a “national ideal of home” not only for immigrants but for every family in American society. “We are not concentrating our attention solely
on educating immigrants or the ignorant to an appreciation of right living. We are trying to develop the highest conception of homemaking inevery grade in society.”38
George Sanchez argues that the home economics movement was a sys-

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tem of social control intended to construct a “well-behaved, productive
citizenry” in an industrial order.39 When we recognize the fact that thehome economics movement also approached white middle-class womenand American women on farms, however, it becomes evident that teaching “modern” domesticity was an activity neither to control only immigrant lives from above nor to inculcate into them self-evident middle
class values which had been accepted by mainstream American society
since the nineteenth century. Rather, emphasizing home economics in
the Americanization program was a part of a larger social movement to“modernize” American homes, which were regarded as the foundationof the American nation in the early twentieth century. According to thedeﬁnition of the CSCIH, Americanization involved “the development of
national ideals and standards and the schooling of all residents, foreignborn as well as native-born, in those ideals and standards.”40
In order to develop “national ideals and standards,” American-born
women had to learn “modern” domesticity and set an example for immigrant women. One professor of home economics explained how
American women who could manage their household efﬁciently andcleanly were able to Americanize immigrant women. “The silent inﬂuence of the good housekeeper, surrounded by neighbors from other lands
who are eager to learn American ways, is a potent factor in the great workof Americanization. The simple house furnishings, the spotless window
curtains, the well-laundered clothing, the careful ventilation, and thewell-ordered household activities of the American homemaker will serve
as a guide in helping the foreign housewife who observes them to adapt
her methods of living to those of her foster homeland.”41
It is true that not all women could “modernize” their homes. Most
immigrant women did not have modern bathtubs in their houses. As
Sanchez points out, educators taught “modern” domesticity to Mexican
immigrant girls in order to make them acquire skills for domestic services. Nevertheless, the Americanization movement and home economics movement along with the developing consumer market made both
Americans and immigrants notice that sharing the American dream ofthe modern American home was one of the requisites for membership in“Our Nation.”
The American Standard of Living and the Anti-Japanese Campaign
As “the American standard of living” based on “modern” domesticity
was one of the requisites for American citizenship, “the American

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standard of living” became one of the boundaries excluding Japaneseimmigrants from membership in American society. In 1910, the Asiatic
Exclusion League advocated that California wanted “a population of thesame standard of living—not an Asiatic population with Asiatic standards.”42 In 1919, James Phelan, who was a leading anti-Japanese advocate, pointed out that the Japanese had “no strong disposition to adopt
American standards or maintain those standards of living.”43
The anti-Japanese campaign not only criticized the Japanese way oflife but also agitated that the Japanese way of life adversely inﬂuenced
the standard of living of American farmers. At a hearing of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization in 1920, referring to the “Report of Japanese Problem Committee” of the Los Angeles County Farm
Bureau, one witness pointed out that the competition with Japaneseimmigrants prevented “the poor white farmer” from maintaining “theAmerican standard of living.” “The poor white farmer has a certain
standard of living, as we call it—American; he tries to keep his wife athome . . . The white farmer, in order to compete with him [the Japanese
farmer], will have to give up his American methods and go down to thatprimitive method where all work in the ﬁeld together, and that will stop
education of the children in the farming districts of the white people.”44
Agitators drew a distinction between “the American standard of life”
and the everyday lives of Japanese immigrants speciﬁcally. According
to the report of the State Board of Control about Japanese immigrants in
1920, “the American principles so universally approved in America”
included “clean and wholesome living quarters, reasonable working
hours, the usual Sunday rest and holiday recreation, and above all,refraining from working the women and children in the ﬁelds.” In contrast to these “American principles,” according to the report, the Japanese
farmers and all members in their families, including their wives and little children, worked in the ﬁelds for “long hours, practically from daylight to dark, on Sundays and holidays.” The report also pointed out thatin the majority of cases, Japanese farmers lived “in shacks or under conditions far below the standards required and desired by Americans.”45
Some who believed in the possibility of the Americanization ofJapanese immigrants also focused on the issue of standard of living.
Refuting the claims of the anti-Japanese campaign, they compared theJapanese standard of living with that of European immigrants and tried
to prove that Japanese immigrants and their descendents could enjoy arelatively high standard of living. Harry Millis argued that though theirstandard of housing was “lower than the American or average

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European,” it was not lower than “that of the Greek, the South Italians,
and some of the less desirable races of immigrants from South and East
Europe, better than Mexicans.”46 Raymond L. Buell, who surveyed theanti-Japanese campaign in 1922, also pointed out that “the Japanese standard of living was lower than that of the North-European immigrant, but
probably no lower than the South and Central European.”47
When we analyze the Americanization movement and the antiJapanese campaign at the same time, it becomes clear that “the homebuilt upon the American standard of living” was one of the major requisites for American citizenship. In other words, the capability of constructing “the home built upon the American standard of living” became
the boundary between “us” and “others.” The signiﬁcant point was thatthe anti-Japanese campaign did not evaluate the ability of each individual
but questioned the capability of the group of Japanese immigrants andtheir descendants as a whole. Activists in the anti-Japanese campaign
advocated that biological differences determined the capability of attaining the American way of life. V. S. McClatchy argued that Japaneseimmigrants could not become Americans or make good citizens becauseof “their racial characteristics, heredity and religion.”48 McClatchy contended that this biological difference would determine “the standard ofliving.” Describing how Japanese immigrants’ standard of living was at
a low level, McClatchy concluded as follows: “The Japanese seems tostand this sort of life without strain on the nervous system. . . . The whiterace as educated in the American environment not only will not do it,
but perhaps cannot do it.”49
The biological differences that the anti-Japanese campaign referred towere not differences between the Japanese and Americans but the distinction between “the white race” and the Japanese. Consequently, we
can assume that all the people who were deﬁned as members of nonwhite racial groups would be unable to hold membership in “Our Nation”
because they were supposed to be biologically incapable of attaining “thehome built upon the American standard of living.”
III

THE JAPANESE IMMIGRANT COMMUNITY AND THE BOUNDARY OF
AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP

Americanization of Women
As previous studies on the history of Japanese immigrants show, leaders of Japanese immigrant communities in California made attempts to
respond to criticisms made by the Anti-Japanese campaign. Furthermore,

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they made efforts to Americanize the Japanese immigrants even though
the ﬁrst generation was ineligible for legal citizenship. Among various
issues that the Americanization movement and the anti-Japanese campaign brought forth, the issue that bewildered the leaders most was therole of women and gender relations at home. Most organizations in theJapanese immigrant community consisted of male members only, while
women participated in auxiliaries. In spite of these traditional gender
relations, male leaders had to discuss how to Americanize women.
According to the activists of the anti-Japanese campaign, the issues of
the “picture bride” and “the ﬁeld work” of women proved that theJapanese immigrants did not have the capability to develop a “home,”that is, one of the bases of American citizenship. The leaders of theJapanese immigrants were well aware of this criticism. The Japanese
Association of America made resolutions to prohibit the “picture bride”
system and recommended the members of the community to imitate theAmerican “home.” “We consider it most important and necessary that
the Japanese in America should marry and settle down in domestic life,
because the home is not only essential to the wholesome existence ofindividuals, but also the foundation of a stable national and social structure. . . . At the same time we urge that in marrying and making theirhomes, the Japanese in America should do nothing which is contrary to
the ideas and customs of the country in which they live.”50 Although theJapanese Association of Los Angeles protested against this resolution on
behalf of Japanese single men in the United States, the “picture bride”
system was abolished in 1920.51
The issue of women’s labor in the ﬁelds raised another harsh criticism
against Japanese immigrants. This criticism against women’s labor did
not necessarily convince Japanese immigrants. A Japanese farmer, forinstance, criticized the lives of American women and insisted that awoman should help her husband in his work. A woman’s labor in theﬁelds, accordingly, was not immoral at all for this farmer. “But sometimes I see American women who just want to dress up all the time.
Maybe their husbands work very hard to make a living, but it is hardbecause their wives don’t want to do anything but dress up. And I think
it would be better if those women help their husbands a little.”52
Though they thought that the criticism of women’s labor was misdirected, leaders recognized the necessity of abolishing women’s labor in
the ﬁelds as soon as possible. Gunki Kai argued that women’s labor in
the ﬁelds was not immoral but simply a matter of custom. Nevertheless,GENDER AND AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP

157

Kai recognized that the scene in which women toiled in the ﬁelds was
not “pleasant” for Americans to look upon and admitted that the Japanese
should have succeeded in adjusting themselves to the American standard.53
Pamphlets, which the Central Japanese Association distributed in
1916, recommended that women should not work in the ﬁelds on
Sundays and “if possible” even weekdays. One of the pamphlets, whichurged immigrants to follow American customs, acknowledged thatwomen should be primarily homemakers. “It is a great error to let women
work in the ﬁelds. Women have chores at home as wives and mothers.
You have to learn from Americans if it is a good thing. One immoral act
of a Japanese impacted negatively on people in the whole neighborhood.”54
Sei Fujii, president of the Japanese Association of Los Angeles, wrote
in 1923 that Japanese immigrants should avoid attitudes and customs
which were “repugnant to the good customs and manners of America.”
One of the “repugnant” examples, according to Fujii, was the “hardworking of ladies” because women had “so much to do at home as housewives.” In addition, Fujii suggested that husbands had to “do their bestin always keeping their houses clean.”55
While they made efforts to rectify the points on which they were criticized, the leaders of the Japanese immigrant organizations recognizedthat Americanizing women was urgent. When the Japanese Associationof America made an educational campaign for Americanization, they
recommended local Japanese associations to hold women’s meetings. In
1919, the Central Japanese Association held a series of lectures on
Americanization which targeted women every week at a Japanese language school in Los Angeles. Claiming that they should Americanize
families of Japanese immigrants, the Central Japanese Association invited American teachers to teach classes about manners, how to take careof children, and domestic chores as well as English.56
The Americanization program of the Japanese Association of Los
Angeles also aimed at inculcating into Japanese immigrants and theirdescendants what the American way of life was, while the content wasdifferent depending on gender. The program emphasized the signiﬁcanceof teaching women home economics such as dietetics, care of the home,hygiene, nursing, and many other subjects while it sought to instruct men
in farming, housing, sanitation, hygiene and citizenship.57
Japanese immigrant women were not just the passive target of

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Americanization. They actively participated in the efforts of Americanization in the Japanese immigrant community. The Christian churches
and the Buddhist temples (churches) provided opportunities for women
to meet while the Japanese associations were more male-centered.
Japanese Christian churches, therefore, took an active part in inculcating
the American way of managing the “home” into women. The bulletin of
Mii Kyokai (the Los Angeles Japanese Methodist Church) indicated thatthe women’s organization of the Church had English, cooking, andsewing classes and advocated the importance of hygiene, clean milk andimmunization. The slogan of Mii Kyokai in 1929 was “purifying thehome.”58
In Their Own Ways
The leaders of the Japanese immigrant community understood thatJapanese immigrants and their descendants could not hold membershipin “Our Nation” because Japanese immigrants and their descendants did
not belong to the “white race.” Nevertheless, leaders were eager to participate in the Americanization movement and respond to criticisms
made by the Anti-Japanese campaign. How did leaders try to cross the
racial boundary of American citizenship?
As American society treated Japanese immigrants and descendents not
as individuals but as a “race,” Japanese immigrant leaders tried to respond to the anti-Japanese campaign and the Americanization movement
as a “race.” They aimed at Americanizing Japanese immigrant women
not as individuals but as the foundation of their “race.” Leaders claimed
that the primary role of women was the reproduction of the Japanese“race” and advocated that Japanese immigrant women should be mothersof the “Yamato race” (the Japanese). One Japanese language magazine
for women, for instance, asserted that the home was the source of successfor the ” Yamato race.”59
In order to nurture the “Yamato race,” the Japanese immigrant womenshould have the virtues of “Yamatonadeshiko” (women of the Yamatorace) such as self-sacriﬁce and patience. Leaders feared that if womendemanded their rights based on American principles, the foundations of
their “race” would be eroded. At the meeting of a women’s society of
the Japanese Methodist Church in 1931, for instance, Pastor Kumagaya
warned that as demands for equal rights would endanger the foundationof any nation, Japanese immigrant women had to maintain the virtues ofJapanese women such as “patience.”60

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159

Most leaders of the Japanese immigrant community did not seem tonotice the contradiction between the virtues of “Yamatonadeshiko” andAmericanizing Japanese immigrant women. Furthermore, the leaders
did not, or would not, recognize the difference between the notion of theAmerican home and their concept of home or “ie.” The American home
was supposed to consist of a nuclear family and women were the“managers” of households. The home that the Japanese immigrantleaders imagined was almost synonymous with the “ie,” which had arigid patriarchal structure and a seniority system within the family.
Without recognizing this difference in perception, Japanese immigrantleaders believed that the “home” of Japanese immigrants was superior
to the American “home” as the foundation of the nation because theJapanese “home” had “strong family ties.”61 Shinichiro Hasegawa, vicepresident of Los Angeles Japan America Society, for instance, asserted
that the Japanese should teach “familism” to Americans. According toHasegawa, American women claimed equal rights as individuals and thisindividualism broke the family ties in American society.62
Emphasizing the “superiority” of their “home,” the Japanese immigrant leaders asserted that the “Yamato” race was an exception in nonwhite racial groups. They tried to prove that the Japanese immigrants
and their descendants were qualiﬁed for full membership in “Our Nation” because they exceptionally could build the home as the foundationof “Our Nation.” According to The Survey of Race Relations, Japanese
female interviewees praised the strong family ties of Japanese immigrants and the Nisei in comparison with the families of Southern
European immigrants. “Like the Jews, they [female interviewees] said,
the family tie is very strong among the Japanese. The children have more
respect for their parents than is true of many of the people of the Southern
European countries and there seems to be much less disharmony in thehomes resulting from the Americanization of the children.”63
Thus, while Japanese immigrant leaders recognized the importance ofAmericanizing women and establishing a good home, they interpreted
the ideas of Americanization concerning home and gender relations intheir own ways. As this discrepancy revealed, most of their efforts
toward Americanization were not understood by American society.
Furthermore, this kind of difference in the interpretation of American
values furthered the friction between Japanese immigrants and American
society before World War II.

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CONCLUSION
The membership in “Our Nation,” that is, full American citizenship,
was not accessible to every one in the early twentieth century. The analysis of three kinds of approaches for deﬁning American citizenship clariﬁes that “the home built upon the American standard of living” was oneof the bases for “Our Nation” in the early twentieth century.
In order to construct “the home based on the American standard of living,” women who were supposed to be responsible for everyday lives athome became the target of the Americanization movement. Women’srole and place at home also became the issue of criticism when American
society tried to exclude Japanese immigrants and their descendents.
Exclusionists argued that Japanese immigrants should be beyond theboundary of full American citizenship because they were biologicallyincapable of understanding the American way of gender relations which
was the foundation for the American standard of living.
Even though the ﬁrst generation was ineligible for legal citizenshipand the anti-Japanese campaign advocated that the Japanese immigrants
and their descendants could not be members of “Our Nation” as a race,
the Japanese immigrant leaders made efforts to Americanize their wayof life, focusing on Americanizing women. Nevertheless, there arose adiscrepancy in interpreting the meaning of “home” and gender relations.
Thus, gender roles, and women’s role as “modern” homemakers inparticular, directly affected the construction of “Our Nation” in the earlytwentieth century. It is often said that gender roles at home and “the homebuilt upon the American standard of living” were only private matters.
In the process of deﬁning the boundary of American citizenship, however, they were public issues.
This paper had no intention to describe how women were oppressed
within the domestic sphere in the process of constructing “Our Nation.”In the context of gender history, not women’s history, this paper proposes to reconsider the function of home and gender roles in the historyof politics and nationalism. When women were regarded as homemakers in the process of constructing American citizenship, how were men
positioned? Were men who would not or could not build “respectable”
families treated as full members of American society? We also need to
re-examine the relations between the “home” and the concept of “manliness” in this period in order to illuminate how gender affected the development of “Our Nation.”

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NOTES
“The New Colossus” (1883) James B. Bell et al., In Search of Liberty: The Story of
the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (Doubleday & C., 1984) p. 58. George W. Bush“Introduction” in “The American Spirit: Meeting the Challenge of September 11” Life
Vol. 2 No. 6 (September 2, 2002), p. 11.
2
Lawrence H. Fuchs, The American Kaleidoscope: Race, Ethnicity, and the Civic
Culture (Hanover: Wesleyan U.P., 1990), p. 115.
3
Martha Gardner, The Qualities of a Citizen: Women, Immigration, and Citizenship,
1870–1965 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).
4
Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American
Citizenship and Labor (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 1.
5Linda K. Kerber, No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies: Women and the Obligationsof Citizenship (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998), pp. xxiv, 304.
6
Yoon K. Pak, Wherever I Go, I Will Always Be a Loyal American: Schooling
Seattle’s Japanese Americans during World War II (New York: Routledge Falmer,
2002), p. 55.
7
Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen:A History of American Civic Life (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1998), pp. 184–185.
8
Rogers M. Smith, Civic Ideals: Conﬂicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 468.
9
Desmond King, Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of theDiverse Democracy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 110.
10John F. McClymer, “Gender and the ‘American Way of Life:’ Women in theAmericanization Movement” Journal of American Ethnic History Vol. 10 (Spring,1991); Gayle Gullet, “Women Progressives and Immigrant Women” Paciﬁc Historical
Review 64 (February, 1995).
11
Harriet P. Dow, “Home Classes for Foreign-Born Women” U.S. Dept. of Interior,
Americanization (Washington D.C., 1919), p. 135.
12
Kate Waller Barrett, “The Immigrant Woman” in Philip Davis ed., Immigration andAmericanization: Selected Readings (New York: Ginn and Co., 1920), p. 228.
13
Edith Terry Bremer, “Education for ‘Immigrant Women’: What is It?” Educational
Foundations 27 (1916), pp. 291, 292, 297.
14
Alfred White, The Apperceptive Mass of Foreigners as Applied to Americanizationof the Mexican Group (Los Angeles: U. of Ca.,1923, reprinted by R. & E., 1971), pp.
34, 35.
15
Royal Dixon, Americanization (New York: The McMillan Co., 1916), pp. 120–22,
118.
16
Cora M. Winchell, “For the Homemaker:Homemaking as a Phase of Citizenship”
The Journal of Home Economics Vol. XIV No. 1, (January, 1922), pp. 32–33.
17
Pearl Idelia Ellis, Americanization through Homemaking (Los Angeles: Wetzel
Publishing Co., 1929), pp. I, 15 31, 35–8, 41, 56.
18
A Manual for Home Teachers, (1919) p. 8 in Sophonisba P. Breckinridge, New
Homes for Old (1921, rep. by Patterson Smith, 1971), p. 238.
19
Samuel Edgerton Wood, “The California State Commission of Immigration andHousing: a Study of Administrative Organization and the Growth of Function” (Ph. D.
dissertation., University of California, 1942), p. 105.
20
Walter S. Morley, History of California State Society of Daughters of the American
Revolution, 1891–1938 (Berkeley; Leader, Street & Zeus Co., 1938), pp. 124–5.
21
U.S. Dept. of Interior, Americanization (1919), p. 70.
1

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22

YUKO MATSUMOTO

George Joseph Sanchez, “Becoming Mexican-American: Ethnicity and Acculturation in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900–1943” (Ph. D. dissertation, Stanford University,1989), p. 139.
23
Tasuku Harada, The Japanese Problem in California (Los Angeles, 1922), pp. 14,
17, 19.
24“Mr. J.C. Mitchell, “Field Man for the California Pimento Canning Co., Garden
Grove, Dec. 15, 1924,” pp. 3–4, in The Survey of Race Relations (The Institute of Social
and Religious Research, 1925).
25
V.S. McClatchy, Japanese Immigration and Colonization: BRIEF Prepared forConsideration of the State Department, (October 1, 1921, reprinted by R. & E Research
Associate, 1970), p. 53.
26
Harry Allen Millis, “Some of the Economic Aspects of Japanese Immigration”
American Economic Review 5(1915), pp. 194, 256–7.
27
Ralph F. Burnight “The Japanese Problem in the Agricultural Districts of Los
Angeles County” (Los Angeles, 1920), p. 23.
28
Barrett, “The Immigrant Woman” (1920) p. 228.
29
Albert Shiels, Americanization (District of Los Angeles Public Schools, 1919), p.
2.
30David Alexander Bridge “A Study of the Agencies which Promote Americanizationin the Los Angeles City Recreation Center District” (M.A. thesis, University of Southern
California, 1920), pp. 13, 37, 66, 87, 71, 126, 92.
31
Helen Varick Boswell, “Promoting Americanization” Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Sciences Vol. LXIV (March, 1916), p. 206.
32
Bridge, “A Study of the Agencies which Promote Americanization in the Los
Angeles City Recreation Center District” pp. 13, 37, 66, 71, 87, 91, 126.
33
Morley, History of the California State Society of Daughters of the American Revolution, p. 124.
34
California Commission of Immigration and Housing, Ninth Annual Report (Sacramento, 1923), p. 11, cited in William C. Smith, Americans in the Making (N.Y., 1939),
p. 203.
35
U. S. Department of Interior, Americanization (1919).
36
Honora D. Smith, “Friends of the Mexicans Conference” Community Exchange
Bulletin 9 (1930), p. 32 cited in Robin F. Scott, “The Mexican-American in the Los
Angeles Area, 1920–1950” (Ph. D. dissertation, University of Southern California,
1971), p. 149.
37
Clifford Edward Clark, Jr. The American Family Home,1800–1960 (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press,1986); Lisa E. Emmerich, “Save the Babies!:
American Indian Women, Assimilation Policy, and Scientiﬁc Motherhood, 1912–1918”
in Elizabeth Jameson & Susan Armitage, Writing the Range: Race, Class, and Culturein the Women’s West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997) pp. 394–406.
38
Eva W. White, “The Home and Social Efﬁciency” The Journal of Home Economics
Vol. V No. 2 (April, 1913), p. 126.
39
Sanchez, “Becoming Mexican-Americans” pp. 144, 147, 150: Sanchez, “ ‘Go After
the Women:’ Americanization and the Mexican Immigrant Woman, 1915–1929” (originally published in 1984) reprinted in Rima D. Apple et. al. eds., Mothers & Motherhood:
Readings in American History (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1997).
40
California Commission of Immigration and Housing, Ninth Annual Report (1923),
p. 11, cited in William C. Smith, Americans in the Making (New York, 1939), p. 203.
41
Cora M. Winchell, “For the Homemaker: Homemaking as a Phase of Citizenship”
The Journal of Home Economics Vol. XIV No. 1, (Jan., 1922), pp. 33, 32.

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Proceedings of Asiatic Exclusion League, 19 (June, 1910), p. 35 cited in Thomas K.
Walls, “A Theoretical View of Race, Class and the Rise of Anti-Japanese Agitation in
California, 1900–1924” (Ph. D. dissertation, U. of Texas, Austin, 1989), p. 201.
43
James D. Phelan, “Japanese in California” University of California, Berkely, Haynes
Papers, Box 87 p. 26.
44“Japanese Immigration,” Hearings before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Rep. 66th Congress, Second Session (1920) (Washington, 1921),
p. 959.
45
State Board of Control of California, California and the ORIENTAL (Sacramento,
1920), pp. 102, 103, 108.
46
Harry Allen Millis, The Japanese Problem in the United States (Mc Millan, 1915,
rep. by Arno Press, 1978), pp. 255–6.
47
Raymond L. Buell, “The Development of the Anti-Japanese Agitation in the UnitedStates” Political Science Quarterly Vol. 37 No. 4 (1922), pp. 636–7.
48
V.S. McClatchy, “Japanese in the Melting-Pot: Can They Assimilate and Make
Good Citizens?” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences Vol.
XCIII (January, 1921), pp. 31, 33.
49
V.S. McClatchy, Japanese Immigration and Colonization p. 53.
50“Japanese Immigration” Hearings before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives 66th Congress, Second Session, July 15–20, 1920
(Washington, 1921), p. 719.
51
JARP box237 (UCLA), “Minutes of Los Angeles Japanese Association” (1).
52
“Mr. Nitta, Santa Ana, Jan. 7, 1925” p. 3, The Survey of Race Relations.
53
Gunki Kai, “Economic Status of the Japanese in California” (M., A. thesis, Stanford
University, 1922), pp. 72–3.
54
JARP box 229 (UCLA), “Nannka Chuou Nihonnjinnkai Gijiroku” (Minutes ofSouthern Central Japanese Association).
55“A Letter of Warning from Sei Fujii, Los Angeles” p. 1, The Survey of Race
Relations.
56
The Rafu Shinpo, March 31, 1919.
57
Burnight, “The Japanese Problem in the Agricultural Districts of Los Angeles
County” p. 53
58
JARP box 292 “Rafu Mii Shuhou” Bulletin of Los Angeles Methodist Church (Jan.
12, 1925).
59
Yamabiko (1927) Akahori Papers, JARP 12–5 (UCLA).
60
JARP box 292 (UCLA), “Rafu Mii Shuhou” Bulletin of Los Angeles Japanese
Methodist Church (July 7, 1931).
61“The Life History as a Social Document, Takeuchi, Aug. 14, 1924” p. 6 The Surveyof Race Relations.
62
Shinichiro Hasegawa, Zaibei Hojin no mitaru Beikoku to Beikokujin (Tokyo:
Jitsugyo no Nihonsha, 1937) (America and American Seen by the Japanese in the UnitedStates), pp. 229–238, 251, 255.
63
“Interview with Mrs. K. Iseri (L.A.) and Mrs. Takayama,” pp. 1–2, 4, The Surveyof Race Relations.
42