Reconsidering "Inbetweenness" : Japanese Migrants and the Anti-Asian Immigration Policies in the Union of South Africa

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  • YAMAMOTO Meyu
    Department of Sociology, Graduate school of Letters, Kyoto University

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  • 「中間性」の批判的検討 : 連邦期南アフリカにおける日本人とその待遇をめぐって
  • 「 チュウカンセイ 」 ノ ヒハンテキ ケントウ : レンポウキ ミナミアフリカ ニ オケル ニホンジン ト ソノ タイグウ オ メグッテ

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Abstract

At the beginning of the twentieth century, 'white' countries and colonies around the world restricted immigration from Asia, which was associated with the 'Yellow Peril' panic and the threat to the 'white' labour. While literature on the immigration policies towards Asians at that time has been pursued for decades, the history of Japanese migrants to the Union of South Africa has not been adequately addressed. From the perspective of racial studies, this article aims to examine how negotiation, adaptation and resistance by the Japanese authorities subverted the racial boundaries of South African immigration policies. As a result of Indian immigration at the end of the nineteenth century, along with the flow of Chinese labourers entering the country in the early part of the twentieth century, Asian exclusion movements became widespread throughout South Africa. The Union government established the Immigrant Regulation Act in 1913, aiming to restrict Asian immigrants. Being treated not as whites but as non-whites under the Act, the Japanese government and consulate repeatedly negotiated with their South African counterparts. Eventually the two countries exchanged an agreement in 1930, which allowed Japanese merchants, tourists and researchers to enter the country, although with some restrictions. Behind this change were the decision of the Japanese government to exclude working-class subjects from Japanese immigration into the Union, and a shift in South African economic circumstances in which the wool industry had to expand its market due to the Great Depression. Regarding the status of Japanese residents as "inbetween" (Barrett and Roediger 1997) as described in whiteness studies and migration studies, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of how the whiteness of the Japanese was linked to an uncertainty of their status in the country.

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