The first Japanese immigrants arrived in San Francisco in 1869. Their numbers were small, and consisted mainly of young men. As their ranks gradually increased, social institutions arose to serve them. In 1877, the Fukuin Kai (Japanese Gospel Society) believed to be the first Japanese organization in the U.S., began meeting at the Chinese Methodist Mission, in Chinatown. In the late 19th century several more Japanese Christian organizations were founded and grew here, and spread to a growing number of other Japanese communities along the West Coast, Central Valley, Pacific Northwest, Midwest, South, eventually the entire U.S. By 1898, San Francisco was also the headquarters for Buddhist churches and social organizations located throughout the West. Other important institutions included prefectural associations, or kenjin-kai, and newspapers.

By the turn of the 20th century, as the size of the community continued to increase, racist opposition to Japanese immigration began to coalesce, led by San Francisco Mayor and later California Senator James D. Phelan, and involving existing labor unions. Hostility worsened after the Japanese victory in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War raised fears of Japanese military power. However, much of the animus was still couched in terms of economic rivalry between Japanese immigrants and surrounding communities.

San Francisco was a center of this antipathy. Following the 1906 earthquake, the San Francisco Board of Education adopted a policy intended, for the first time, to restrict Japanese students to the segregated school previously established for Chinese American students. When the Japanese government protested, an international dispute arose. President Theodore Roosevelt intervened to urge that the policy be rescinded, and the school board agreed in return for a promise by Roosevelt to stem Japanese immigration. In response, Roosevelt negotiated the 1908 "Gentlemen's Agreement" between the United States and Japan, by which further immigration of Japanese laborers was drastically reduced. Some immigration, most importantly of Japanese women, continued until the passing of the Immigration Act of 1924, which completely curtailed immigration from Japan until 1952.(2)

In 1913, California law, in the form of the Heney-Webb Alien Land Act, forbade property ownership by "aliens ineligible for citizenship.(3) (At the time, immigrants from Asia were not permitted to become naturalized citizens.) Given the population of California at the time, this restriction applied almost exclusively to Japanese immigrants, and remained in effect until 1952. Anti-miscegenation laws prohibiting interracial marriages prevailed through the 1960's.

The Gentlemen's Agreement, however, did permit immigration of wives whose husbands were already living in the U.S., including "Picture Brides," who may never have met their husbands prior to immigrating. This provision marked an important shift in the nature of the Japanese community in San Francisco, by facilitating the establishment of families, and of a nisei generation who were citizens by birth-legally able to own property. Institutions to serve the changing community quickly arose, including Japanese language schools and pre-schools for the rapidly Americanizing nisei.

(1)Significant Japanese immigration to Hawaii predates this.
(2)Japanese Americans in California. National Park Service, (Isami Arifuku Waugh, Alex Yamamoto, Raymond Y Okamura) 2002. http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/5views/5views4a.htm
(3)Federal law, since 1790, had limited naturalization to "free white persons". However, due to ambiguities over the definition of "white" some 400 Japanese immigrants had been naturalized over the years prior to 1910.