<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/03RSCHOOL.html?pagewanted=all[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/03RSCHOOL.html?pagewanted=all</a></p>
<p>Interesting article on the increased enrollment of Asian students in some New York metropolitan area school districts and its effects on these districts.</p>
<p>Sounds a lot like the Washington, DC suburbs, except that we seem to have more Chinese families than Korean ones, and almost nobody Japanese lives here. Why don’t Japanese families come to DC?</p>
<p>Annandale has a lot of Korean families. Drive on Little River Turnpike inside the Beltway and you will see many Korean-themed grocery stores and restaurants.</p>
<p>We live in one of the towns featured in the story. We’re stars! LOL</p>
<p>There are many Japanese businesses in Northern NJ/ Bergen County, such as Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, etc… Therefore the presence of Japanese families in the NYC metro area. </p>
<p>Does DC metro area have a Japanese corporate presence?</p>
<p>I’m not sure about a corporate presence, but there is a Japanese immersion program for k-6 somewhere in Fairfax County. Usually this language program is placed where there is a high concentration of native speakers.</p>
<p>Japanese Americans are more established on the west coast, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. There are fewer recent immigrants in the Japanese community than in other ethnic groups from Asia. The Japanese have nearly 100 year old communities in Washington, Oregon and California and are typically fully assimilated.</p>
<p>Japan has had a very strong economy for decades now so I’d expect their immigration numbers to be low compared to China, Viet Nam, the Philippines, and some other Asian countries. I haven’t checked the stats though to back this up this theory.</p>
<p>Actually, the economy in Japan has been in the tank in recent years and has only begun to rebound lately.</p>
<p>As I said, Japanese immigration to the the U.S. was very strong in early and mid-20th century.</p>
<p>In northern NJ, about ten years ago, there were lots of Japanese families. The economy in Japan was stronger and companies would send employees to work in this area for a few years at a time. When the Japanese economy wasn’t doing as well, in the late 90s and early 2000s, companies sent fewer people over and recalled the people who were already here. It’s only now that we’re starting to see more Japanese families again. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the big jump is in the number of Korean families–there are many, many more Korean stores, restaurants, and businesses here than there were just three or four years ago.</p>
<p>I worked for years in immigration law handling the logistics of visas for employees of Japanese companies. Thousands of them. At least in New York, it’s much more common for Japanese to come here for several years and then return home at the end of the time period. It’s less common here for Japanese to actually stay in America or to attempt to assimilate.</p>
<p>A surge of any ethnic group, or really any people who comprise a group of nearly any sort can change the composition of a community. I know a midwest area that was transformed by a large number of eastern European families, mainly from the fragments of the former Soviet Union. Within a year, they have a fabulous community orchestra there, and a dance troupe that is well known for excellence!</p>
<p>Quote from article:</p>
<p>“Nearly one-fifth of the Cresskill football team is Asian, and a former star quarterback was half-Korean and half-Chinese.”</p>
<p>This is one of my favorite sentences from the article. I think that is good to see that involvement in sports.</p>
<p>It seems that the impact of immigration varies with social class. I recall that relatively impoverished Vietnamese immigrants to the Gulf areas of Texas were met with much resentment. The same thing happened in Wausaw (Wisconsin?) I believe.</p>
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But if you compare the standard of living for the average Japanese versus the average Chinese, there’s a huge difference economically speaking. Based on economics alone, it’s understandable why there’d be far more Chinese and people from certain other Asian countries trying to emigrate to the US for better opportunities.</p>
<p>Many Hmong and other SE Asian immigrants have settled in Wisconsin (and in the Saint Paul, MN area), especially in the midsize cities (Wausau, in the center of the state, is one of them)- a legacy of their participation in the Vietnam war. They have definitely improved the character of the communities they are in by adding much needed diversity. There are even more Hispanics arriving in the frigid north. The public schools do a good job with teaching diversity and accomodating the new cultures. Some of the many-generations-in-the-same-place working class people have forgotten their roots as immigrants and may grumble, they needed this disruption in the status quo. I agree that social class influences acceptance- ignorance and economics play a major role, struggling workers fear losing their standard of living with the influx of people needing limited public funds. The latest waves of immigrants are similar to the existing blue collar populations in socioeconomic status and thus don’t change the educational climate/ expectations of the places.</p>
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<p>Per the “Gentleman’s Agreement of 1907” - there really weren’t any Japanese immigrating to the US until after the Immigration Act of 1965 (and even then, the Japanese haven’t immigrated to the US in any significant nos. - as another poster stated, most live here in the US for business reasons and eventually return to Japan).</p>
<p>Sorry bdean, but the parents and grandparents of my high school classmates would strongly disagree with you. In the mid-1970s nearly 1/2 of the students in my Seatttle, Washington public high school were of Japanese ancestry. Moreover, prior to 1942 more than a few of the fruit farms in the lower Puget Sound region were owned by and worked by Japanese-American families. As is well documented, these properties were seized and outright stolen as a result of the internment of Japanese-Americans by the Roosevelt administration.</p>
<p>I’d also refer you to the Hibashi (I believe that’s the name) case. A Japanese-American, who despite finishing near the top of his class from the University of Washington Law School shortly after the turn-of-the 20th century, was refused admission to the state bar. The Japanese in America have deep roots, and established them certainly prior to 1965.</p>
<p>I see that some of you need to brush up on your US history.</p>
<p>Per the Gentleman’s Agreement in 1906-7, Japan agreed not to issue any more visas to Japanese who wished to go to the US (there was an exception for spouses, children and parents of those already in America).</p>
<p>The Immigration Act of 1917 formally shut down immigration from Asia until the late 1960s (prior to this Act, only the Chinese had been excluded).</p>
<p>LWashington - it is likely that your Japanese-American friends are 4th or 5th generation Japanese-Americans (and not very likely that their predecessors arrived after 1906, and esp. 1917, up to 1968). However, by the time of the Gentleman’s Agreement, Japanese Americans already made up 1% of California’s population.</p>
<p>Another possibility is that their ancestors arrived from Hawaii, which also had a significant Japanese population in the early 1900s.</p>