Billings: Oriental Immigration 



465 



foreign government officials and their 

 suites, and in selecting such persons as 

 unqviestionably conform to all the 

 requirements of the law, so that they 

 may release such persons immediately 

 from the ship, the medical officers are 

 closely scrutinizing the first cabin pas- 

 sengers with a view to determining 

 whether or not they present symptoms 

 of any of the diseases which are manda- 

 torily excludable. If no such symptoms 

 are observed, and the immigration 

 officers have found nothing undesirable 

 or questionable, permission to land 

 directly from the ship is given. The 

 medical officers then conduct an ex- 

 amination of the crew to determine 

 whether or not any of them present 

 symptoms of a loathsome or dangerous 

 contagious disease. In the event that 

 they do they are not allowed to land 

 while in port and are taken back to the 

 country from whence they came on the 

 return voyage of the vessel. At the 

 present time all second cabin and 

 steerage alien passengers from all ports 

 in the orient are taken from the ship 

 to the immigration station on Angel 

 Island, where a much more thorough 

 ph^'-sical examination is made than is 

 possible on shipboard. 



VOLUME OF IMMIGRATION 



Fiscal 



Because our Government and the 

 Government of Japan have an agree- 

 ment whereby Japan will not issue 

 passports to laborers, and if a Japanese 

 arrives without a passport the burden 

 of proof that he is not a laborer rests 

 upon him, and we have the Chinese 

 Exclusion Law, it very naturally seems 

 to many people not familiar with the 



conditions that Oriental immigration 

 would not be in sufficient numbers to be 

 of much interest. Such, however, is not 

 an actuality as there are so many 

 exceptions. 



All Japanese, except laborers, may 

 come to the United States, and the 

 result in numbers arriving at the port of 

 San Francisco alone, for the last ten 

 years is shown in the preceding table. 

 During the corresponding ten years 

 the total number of aliens of all nation- 

 alities admitted at San Francisco was 

 76,240. 



The column headed "photograph 

 brides" represents one of the most 

 interesting classes of Japanese immigra- 

 tion although the term is, strictly 

 speaking, a misnomer inasmuch as a 

 photograph although, very naturally, 

 often exchanged, is in no way a necessary 

 or indispensable part of the arrange- 

 ment. The term "proxy brides" which 

 is frequently applied to the same class 

 is, in so far as it implies the presence of a 

 third party, also a misnomer, as, 

 properly speaking, there are no proxy 

 marriages in Japan. 



The agreement referred to between 

 the American and Japanese Govern- 

 ments to stop the emigration of laborers 

 was made in 1908 and at that time a 

 very considerable nrmiber of Japanese 

 laborers were domiciled in this country, 

 particularly upon the Pacific coast. 

 Section 37 of the law already quoted 

 allows domiciled aliens to bring their 

 wives to join them and these men very 

 naturally take advantage of the privi- 

 lege. Marriage in Japan is arranged 

 by the parents of the contracting 

 parties and consists of removing from 

 the register of her own family the name 

 of the bride and adding it, in the official 

 register of the administrative district in 

 which he lives, to the names of the 

 family of the groom. There is no civil 

 or religious ceremony unless the con- 

 tracting parties happen to be Christians. 

 The ceremony of removing the name is 

 followed by a social gathering of friends 

 and assumes a congratuatory character. 



This custom, which constitutes the 

 legal marriage of Japan, can be followed 

 even through the contracting parties 

 are not both present and the woman 



