Settlement processes of the Japanese and the changing structure of their ethnic territory in Seattle

Abstract

In the studies on ethnic immigrant groups in urban areas, the patterns of ethnic residential segregation have been central to geographical concerns, and many other important aspects such as the dynamic formation processes of ethnic territories and their changing structures relating to development of ethnic businesses and social organizations have tended to be overlooked by geographers. This paper is an attempt to understand the settlement processes of an ethnic group and the changing structure of its ethnic territory in an urban area, taking the example of Japanese immigrants and their descendants in Seattle, a city on the West Coast of the United States. In this paper, three aspects of the spatial processes of the ethnic group are considered : 1) population distribution, 2) spatial development of ethnic businesses, and 3) ethnic organizations and their facilities. To describe these changing aspects, the development history of the Seattle Japanese can be divided into five major stages; I (-1907), II(1907-1930), III (1930-1942), IV (1945-1955), and V (1955-). The main information for this study is based on the documents which the author collected during his research visits to Seattle from 1989 to 1993. From among many items, the Japanese-American directories of the years of 1916, 1928, 1936, 1949, 1967, 1973, 1983, and 1991 were examined to analyze the changing composition and distributional patterns of Japanese-owned or -managed businesses as well as their ethnic organizations and institutions. As for the changing population distribution of the Japanese, several existing studies by Miyamoto, Schmid et al., Leonetti, and Abe were helpful. In the first stage (-1907), the Japanese in Seattle, most of whom were young or middle aged single male labor migrants, lived mainly in the so-called 'skid road' area, the south fringe of downtown. A small number of pioneering business people ran restaurants, grocery stores, or hotels, mainly for local white laborers in the same area. However, few community facilities had been established by the end of this period and Japanese society had remained as a labor migrant society rather than changing to an ethnic community. In the second stage (1907-1930), the Japanese community in Seattle changed its character gradually over time with marriage and the coming of children as well as the establishment of social leadership and organizations, and became a true local ethnic community. Most of the Japanese in this period lived in a limited area on the south-west slope of the First Hill, and their community facilities such as churches, schools, and headquarters of various political, social, or economic organizations were located within this area. By the relatively early years of this stage, the Japanese began to run various kinds of businesses such as hotels, restaurants, groceries, barbershops, bathhouses, etc., and these commercial and business facilities were mainly concentrated in a small area of the western part of their residential core area. In this stage, a typical ethnic town of Japanese, the so-called Nihonjin-machi, or Japantown, appeared through the concentrations of their residences, business facilities, and social facilities into a small limited area in the urban region. In the third stage (1930-1942), new arrivals of Japanese immigrants ceased practically under the so-called Anti-Japanese Immigration Act which was passed in 1924, and the Japanese community suffered from the hostile atmosphere against Japanese of the host society. However, the proportion of the second-generation Japanese who were born in the United States was increasing rapidly and Japanese society reached a new mature stage owing to that generation growing up. The residential distribution of Japanese had generally retained the cluster pattern which was formed in the former stage, but some changes took place: the expansion of the main cluster towards the east, the thinning of the population in the center of the core area, and some dispersion to Beacon Hill, a relatively new residential area south of downtown. The total number of Japanese businesses increased by the middle of the 1930's, but their distributional patterns had changed to some degree; about half of them had come to be located outside Japantown through dispersing throughout downtown and its surrounding areas. The number of their ethnic organizations increased also in total. However, their facilities had not so dispersed spatially as the business facilities, but were still relatively concentrated in and around the core residential area of Japanese. The fourth stage (1945-1955) was the recovery period of the Seattle Japanese community after the internment of Japanese during World War II. However, before their recovery process had been completed, a time of great mobility began by the end of the 1950's. In the fifth stage (1955-), the Japanese community in Seattle faced many drastic changes. The second and third generations came to predominate in their society. Their residences have been largely dispersed throughout the metropolitan area of Greater Seattle during the 1970's and 1980's. Japanese business activities have also dispersed spatially throughout the city of Seattle and, in part, suburbanized into other areas of Greater Seattle. In this process, the concentration of Japanese businesses in Japantown has been reduced gradually, but it has still about a 10 percent share of the total Japanese businesses in Greater Seattle. Community activities of Japanese have inevitably expanded spatially as their residences have dispersed. However, their headquarters or main facilities tend to remain in the former residential cores in and around Japantown, and this concentration of social facilities has come to serve as a symbolic focus for the expanded entire ethnic territory. These spatial changes of an ethnic territory are closely related to the changes of the socio-cultural characteristics of an ethnic group and the situations in which it lies, in other words, the ethnicity. The causal factors for the formation and retention of the ethnic core area are considered to be the demand of the members of an ethnic group for reserving their cultural and social identities and internal cohesion as a group as well as the hostile attitude of the majority which tries to restrict their activities within a limited space. On the other hand, the spatial propinquity of the members of an ethnic group serves to strengthen their ethnicity. The spatial dispersion of their residences and businesses is usually considered to be related to their cultural and structural assimilation and accommodation into the host society. However, it is not correct to suppose an ethnic group would totally assimilated into a host society and come to show no more distinct territorial character in a relatively short period of two or three generations. Now, the Japanese community in Seattle faces the stage when the third generation Japanese dominate in their social and business activities, but their territory still retains its centrality to some degree through reserving their social activities core and some business concentration as mentioned above. This teaches us that ethnicity has not easily disappeared with assimilation but it may be reproduced under new contexts of such a society.