Writing and Printing

History of the Japanese in Seattle

Seattle and its surrounding metro area in the U.S. state of Washington has historically been home to a significant population of Japanese Americans and Japanese expatriates, whose origins date back to the second half of the 19th century. Prior to World War II, Seattle's downtown Japanese community had grown to become the second largest Nihonmachi on the West Coast of North America. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Japanese community in Seattle was deeply impacted by the internment of Japanese Americans. After the war, only about 60-70% of the incarcerated population returned to their prewar homes across the state of Washington. Nevertheless, the Japanese community has steadily grown in the decades since. As of 2019, Seattle ranked as the fourth largest metropolitan area in the contiguous United States in terms of its Japanese population (fifth if including Hawaii).

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See also

• ▸Comparison of Japanese and Korean
• ▸Balkandji
• ▸Chinese name

Uncatalogued shelf

Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.