The Four Immigrants Manga : A Japanese Experience in San Francisco, 1904-1924

The Four Immigrants Manga: A Japanese Experience in San Francisco, 1904-1924 by Henry (Yoshitaka) Kiyama

Originally published in San Francisco in 1931 as a bi-lingual comic for Japanese-Americans, the 1931 edition of this book was discovered around 1980 by Kenneth L. Schodt in the card catalog of the East Asian branch of the University of California's library. It turned out to be a rare documentation of Japanese American immigrant history in San Francisco, as well as one of the first book-length graphic novels published in the US. Schodt translated the Japanese text for an English langauge audience, and published this English edition in 1999. Schodt also researched the author's life and work, and provides a 11 page biography of the author, 16 pages of notes and comments on the text of the graphic novel, as well as a 2 page bibliography for those wanting to do further research.

The book chronicles the experiences of four Japanese young men who arrive in San Francisco on a ship in 1904. One of them is an art student, the author Heny Kiyama. He begins drawing cartoons of their experiences that will eventually become this book. It is told as a series of 2 page, 12 panel episodes, each with it's own title, that relates the adventures of the four young men from their arrival until the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924. Also known as the Japanese Exclusion Act, it set quotas for immigration from other countries and prohibited any immigration from Japan. This increased tensions between Japan and the USA and made life for Japanese Americans much more difficult. At that point two of the four men decide to return to Japan, ending the story. Readers should be warned that, like many books published in the first half of the 20th Century, the depiction of ethnic groups in this book is offensive by modern standards.

Still this is an important historical document as well as a compelling story. Events covered include the Great San Francisco Earthquake, World War I, the Influenza pandemic of 1918. All of these are told from the point of view of young Japanese men seeking their fortune in a new land. They take what jobs they can, working as house boys and farm hands at first, then seeking ways to succeed.