Gentlemen's Agreement

For the general term, see Gentlemen's agreement

The Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 was an informal agreement between the United States and Japan regarding immigration.

In the agreement, Japan agreed not to issue passports for Japanese citizens wishing to work in the United States, thus eliminating new Japanese immigration to America. In exchange, schools in San Francisco, California agreed not to discriminate against students of Japanese descent.

In October 1906, the school district had tried to segregate all Asian students to separate schools. A treaty in 1894 had assured free immigration but it was informally nullified when the Gentlemen's Agreement went into effect.

The agreement stemmed from increasing racial tensions between Japanese workers and white American workers, and from the Japanese government's desire to prevent a possible segregation that would affect the Japanese community in San Francisco. There was also a strong desire on the part of the Japanese government to preserve the image of the Japanese people in the eyes of the world: Japan did not want America to pass a Japanese Exclusion Act similar to the Chinese Exclusion Act.

President Theodore Roosevelt decided, based on his positive opinion of the Japanese nation (which had just come away from a victory in the Russo-Japanese War), to accept the agreement as proposed by Japan as an alternative to more formal, restrictive immigration legislation.