Americans in Japan (在日アメリカ人/在日米国人, Zainichi Amerikajin/Zainichi Beikokujin) are citizens of the United States residing in Japan. As of June 2023, there were 62,425 American citizens registered as foreign residents of Japan, forming 2.0% of the total population of registered aliens, according to statistics from Japan's Ministry of Justice.^[1] This made Americans the ninth-largest group of foreign residents in Japan, having been surpassed in number by Vietnamese residents, Nepalese residents, Indonesian residents, and Burmese residents since 2011.^[1][2]

In addition to registered foreign residents, a significant number of American military personnel, civilian workers, and their dependents live in Japan due to the presence of the United States military in Japan under the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty. Approximately 70% of American military personnel in Japan are stationed in Okinawa Prefecture.^[3]

History

The first Americans came to Japan in 1791 aboard two merchant vessels from Massachusetts which landed at Kushimoto, Wakayama, south of Osaka. Because of the isolationist sakoku policy of the Tokugawa shogunate, the vessels landed under the pretense that they were taking refuge from a storm. They began negotiations with Japanese authorities about the possibility of opening trade relations, but made no headway, and departed after eleven days.^[4] One early American resident of Japan was Ranald MacDonald, who arrived in Japan in 1848 and was the first native speaker to teach the English language in Japan. In 1830, Nathaniel Savory was among the first settlers to colonize the remote Bonin Islands, an archipelago which was later incorporated by Japan.

Larger numbers of Americans began to enter Japan after the 1854 Convention of Kanagawa, under which Commodore Matthew C. Perry pressured Japan to open to international trade.^[4] Many Americans served as foreign government advisors in Japan during the Meiji period (1868–1912).

Prior to World War II, it was a common practice for first-generation issei Japanese immigrants in the United States to send their nisei children, who were American citizens, to Japan for education. Known as kibei (帰米, lit. "returnees to America"), they often found themselves the subject of discrimination from their classmates in Japan during their studies; upon their return to the United States, they often faced criticism for being "too Japanese" due to perceived authoritarianism, militarism, or pro-Japanese sympathies.^[5][6]

Following Japan's surrender in World War II, hundreds of thousands of American military personnel were stationed in Japan during its occupation. After the occupation ended, a large number of American military bases remained in Japan under the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, and the United States continued to control the Ryukyu Islands until the reversion of Okinawa to Japan in 1972.

The postwar period also saw in increase in cultural interaction between the United States in Japan. Americans in Japan were active in sports, such as baseball, professional wrestling, and sumo. Meanwhile, academics and scholars who spent significant time in Japan, including Edwin O. Reischauer, Donald Keene, Edward Seidensticker, John Whitney Hall, and Donald Richie, became influential cultural critics and contributed to the development of the field of Japanese studies in the 1950s and 1960s.

Since 1987 the Japanese government has administered the JET Programme, an initiative that employs thousands of overseas college graduates as Assistant Language Teachers in Japanese public schools, usually for a period of one to three years. Approximately half of these teachers are from the United States.

Notable people

This is a list of American citizens whose notability is related to their past or current residence in Japan.