- Americans in Japan
The community of Americans in Japan (Japanese: 在日アメリカ人/在日米国人) began to form after the 1854
Convention of Kanagawa , under which CommodoreMatthew C. Perry forced Japan open to international trade.citation|last=Mitarai|first=Shoji|title=An Exploration of the History of Cross-cultural Negotiation: The First U.S.-Japan Trade Negotiation before Commodore Perry's Arrival|series=Working Papers|publisher=Social Science Research Network|accessdate=2008-04-11|url=http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=602701] As of 2004, Americans formed 2.4% of the total population of registered foreigners in Japan, with 51,851 U.S. citizens residing there, according to the statistics ofJapan 's Ministry of Justice. This made them the sixth-largest group of foreigners; they had formerly been the fifth-largest, but were surpassed byPeru vians in 2000. [citation|publisher=Ministry of Justice|location=Japan|title=平成19年末現在における外国人登録者統計について (About the statistics of registered foreigners at 2007 year-end)|date=June 2008|url=http://www.moj.go.jp/PRESS/080601-1.pdf|format=PDF]History
The first Americans to come to Japan actually predated Perry by nearly six decades. In 1791, two merchant vessels from
Massachusetts , the "Lady Washington" and the "Grace", landed atKushimoto , nearOsaka , under the pretense that they were taking refuge from a storm. They began negotiations with Japanese authorities there about the potential of opening trade, but made no headway, and departed after eleven days.Especially prior to
World War II , it was a common practice for "issei "Japanese Americans to send their "nisei " children to Japan for education. Known as nihongo|"Kibei"|帰米, they often found themselves the subject of discrimination from their classmates in Japan during their studies; upon their return to the United States, their Japanese American peers also derided them as "too Japanesey" for their alleged authoritarian mindset and pro-Japanese militarist sympathies. [citation|last=Takahashi|first=Jere|title=Nisei/Sansei: Shifting Japanese American Identities and Politics|pages=65-84|publisher=Temple University Press|date=1998|isbn=156639659X] [citation|title=帰米二世―解体していく「日本人」|last=Yamashiro|first=Masahiro|date=1995|isbn=4772702229|publisher=Gogatsu Shobo]Health issues
Americans in Japan overall had similar pattern of
mortality to Americans at large, according to one 1986 study; however, American women in Japan showed a somewhat elevated propensity tostroke s. [citation|last=Kono|first=Suminori|last2=R. Isa|first2=Abdul|last3=Ogimoto|first3=Itsuro|last4=Yoshimura|first4=Takesumi|title=Cause-Specific Mortality among Koreans, Chinese, and Americans in Japan, 1973-1982|journal=International Journal of Epidemiology|volume=16|issue=3|date=1987|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/16/3/415]Notable
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Debito Arudou
*Akebono Taro
*J. R. Sakuragi ee also
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Ethnic issues in Japan
*Occupation of Japan
*Japan-United States relations References
Further reading
*citation|title=Work role transitions: A study of American expatriates in Japan|journal=Journal of International Business Studies|volume=27|issue=9|pages=277-293|last=Black|first=J. S.|date=1988
*citation|title=Reflexivity as a Facilitator to Adjusting to a New Culture: American Expatriates in Japan|last=Mateu|first=Milagros|journal=Journal of Learning|volume=12|issue=12|pages=55-62|url=http://ijl.cgpublisher.com/product/pub.30/prod.1158|accessdate=2008-04-11
*citation|last=Yamakawa|first=Ryuichi|date=1992|title=The applicability of Japanese labor and employment laws to Americans working in Japan|journal=San Diego Law Review|issue=29|pages=175-201
*citation|title=Ethnographic Report of an African American Student in Japan|last=Yamashita|first=Sayoko|journal=Journal of Black Studies|volume=26|issue=6|date=July 1996|pages=735-747|publisher=Sage Publications|url=http://www.jstor.org/pss/2784863|accessdate=2008-04-11
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