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The Changes During The Meiji Restoration Of 1868

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Beginning in 1869, due to various rapid reforms in the Japanese government and social changes during the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the Japanese slowly made their way from their homeland to the American West Coast in search of new lives and opportunities. They rose to prominence in California as a major immigrant group shortly following the Chinese Exclusion Acts of 1882 because their labor was necessary to fill several occupation vacancies, such as labor on the Transcontinental Railroad and on farm plantations, resulting from a decline in Chinese immigration. Immediately following the Exclusion Acts, about two thousand Japanese immigrants were recorded on American soil. By 1900, the population of Japanese immigrants and settlers increased dramatically to about twenty-four thousand, twelve times their initial population, and exceeding the population of Chinese immigrants and settlers in the United States. They were very successful farm laborers; about two thirds of all Japanese immigrants leased or bought California land, and they became major providers of fruits and vegetables to the American market. However, the Japanese encountered much discrimination, especially from Euro-Americans. This resulted in several hostile actions towards them, such as laws and acts preventing citizenship, the vandalizing of their neighborhoods and communities, and their ostracism in public, where many American middle class and lower class laborers, especially the farmers, plantation

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