Japanese American Food: Mainland Laborers: Dango Jiru as Survival Food

In the 1880s, large numbers of Japanese workers arrived on the West Coast of the mainland United States. Chinese workers acted as mentors and, as in Hawaii, taught the Japanese men who worked alongside them in mines, railroads, and farms how to cook. The association between Chinese and Japanese workers produced the “Japanese chop suey” and “Japanese chow mein,” which later became emblems of acculturation. For employers, these workers were neither Japanese nor Chinese—they were foreign migrant labor. Although the Chinese were the first Asian laborers, the model for their work was established by earlier Mexican laborers. Landowners and construction foremen treated their minority workers as one ethnic group. The Spanish-based pidgin the supervisors had created to communicate with Mexicans became even more creolized with words first from Chinese and then from Japanese, like the foods these laborers cooked and ate, and “chow” became the word for food.