During the 1880s and 1890s some Japan-born migrants worked as crew for Australian pearlers in northern Australia. Others worked in the Queensland sugarcane industry, or were employed in service roles.
The first Japanese migrants to Australia arrived in the late 1800s, most of whom worked in the sugar cane or diving industries, or were employed in service roles. Many continued to arrive as part of indentured work schemes.
Like the sugarcane workers, Japanese divers and ship crew were nearly all indentured—forced to work for a set period until they had repaid their debts. The work was grueling, hours were long, and the risk of injury and death was high due to decompression sickness, cyclones, and shark attacks.
Japanese immigrants began their journey to the United States in search of peace and prosperity, leaving an unstable homeland for a life of hard work and the chance to provide a better future for their children.
Australia's declaration of war on Japan was a response to the coordinated attacks by the Japanese on United States and British territories across the Asia-Pacific region.
The US naval victory at the battle of Midway, in early June 1942, removed the Japan's capability to invade Australia by destroying its main aircraft carriers. This made it safe for Australia to begin to transfer military power to fight the Japanese in Australian Papua and New Guinea.
We never had enough troops to [invade Australia]. We had already far out-stretched our lines of communication. We did not have the armed strength or the supply facilities to mount such a terrific extension of our already over-strained and too thinly spread forces.
On February 19, 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 with the stated intention of preventing espionage on American shores. Military zones were created in California, Washington and Oregon—states with a large population of Japanese Americans.
The first recorded Japan-born settler arrived in Australia in 1871, Mr Sakuragawa Rikinosuke who was an acrobat who settled in Queensland. During the 1880s and 1890s some Japan-born migrants worked as crew for Australian pearlers in northern Australia.
Japanese immigrants arrived first on the Hawaiian Islands in the 1860s, to work in the sugarcane fields. Many moved to the U.S. mainland and settled in California, Oregon, and Washington, where they worked primarily as farmers and fishermen.
The Japanese first attacked the Australian mainland on 19 February 1942 when they launched a devastating air raid on Darwin in the Northern Territory. Two weeks later, more aircraft attacked Broome in Western Australia killing about 70 people.
As of October 2022, close to 29 thousand Japanese residents lived in Sydney. Sydney was therefore one of the cities with the highest number of Japanese residents outside of Japan.
These stereotypes served to conflate Nikkei-Australians with the soldiers in the Japanese military that Australia witnessed during wartime, who were regarded as “subhuman beast[s]” and “vermin” (Saunders 1994, 325–27).
MOSELEY: On the 19th of February, 1942, war came to Australia's shores. Japan wanted to destroy our country's northern defenses, so it could invade Timor and in the process send Australia a warning.
Today, Japan is Australia's closest partner in Asia, and Japan describes Australia as its most important security partner after the US, a common ally of both countries.
To counter the perceived threat from Australia as an American ally, the admirals of Japan's Navy General Staff and Navy Ministry wanted to invade key areas of the northern Australian mainland in early 1942 to isolate Australia from American and British aid.
By the end of March 1942, there was a line of Japanese-held territory directly to the north of Australia, stretching from Rabaul to Singapore. The Japanese had conquered their Asian/Pacific empire. Many Australians believed it was only a matter of time before Australia too was invaded.
The only Japanese force to land in Australia during World War II was a reconnaissance party that landed in the Kimberley region of Western Australia on the 19th of January 1944 to investigate reports that the Allies were building large bases in the region.
While on Australian soil the Japanese even took some 8 mm movie footage of what they saw. As it turned out they had landed only 25 kms from where the RAAF were several weeks later to start building their secret airfield at Truscott.
Persistent attempts by the Europeans to convert the Japanese to Catholicism and their tendency to engage in unfair trading practices led Japan to expel most foreigners in 1639. For the two centuries that followed, Japan limited trade access to Dutch and Chinese ships with special charters.
It is conventionally regarded that the shogunate imposed and enforced the sakoku policy in order to remove the colonial and religious influence of primarily Spain and Portugal, which were perceived as posing a threat to the stability of the shogunate and to peace in the archipelago.
The order sent Japanese Americans from their homes to remote camps throughout the U.S. Some 1,600 prisoners died during their incarceration and many lost property and businesses that they were forced to abandon.
1957: Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke said to the people of Australia: "It is my official duty, and my personal desire, to express to you and through you to the people of Australia, our heartfelt sorrow for what occurred in the war."
Japan's increasing economic importance to Australia from the 1960s, and rising prosperity and linkages between the two countries, led to an increase in the number of Japanese choosing to live in Australia.
During the Second World War, people of Japanese origin were interned in Australia as 'enemy aliens'. National Archives holds alien registration and internment records from this time period. Most Japanese internees were deported at the end of the Second World War.