Directions: In 1924 the United States Congress passed the Immigration Quota Act. The new law
sharply restricted the number of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe. It also denied immi-
gration to Indians, Chinese, and Japanese. Below is a response from a Japanese newspaper. Read
the passage and then consider the three questions that follow.
Japan Times and Mail, April 19, 1924
"The Senate's Declaration of War"
There is no denying that the adoption
by the American Senate of the exclu-
sion amendment to the Immigration
bill has given a shock to the whole
Japanese race such as has never
before been felt.... (T)he Senate has
passed, with an almost overwhelming
majority, an amendment they know is
a most humiliating one to the
Japanese race. And the event cuts the
Japanese minds deep, a wound that
will hurt and rankle for generations
and generations.
EV
Questions
1. Much of the anti-Japanese feeling in the United States in the 1920s was in California. The oppo-
sition included California labor organizations. Why would California workers be against
Japanese immigration?
2. Why does the headline in the Japan Times and Mail call the Senate vote a "Declaration of War"?
3. Seventeen years after this vote and this article, Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor.
Is there a possible connection between the Immigration Quota Act of 1924 and Pearl Harbor?
Explain.