Nativism and the decline in civil liberties: reactions of white America toward the Japanese immigrants, 1885-1945

Abstract

This thesis concentrates on how nativism, through a series of discriminatory policies over the span of fifty years, influenced the creation of the Japanese American internment camps during the Second World War. By using the experiences of the first—and second—generations of Japanese immigrants, my thesis explores how nativism supported the creation of laws meant to preserve racial homogeneity, cultural superiority, economic segregation, and national security from the Japanese immigrants living in California during the end of the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century