Editing Issei (section)

===Immigrants in America===
{{main|History of Japanese Americans|Japanese-American life before World War II|Japanese-American life after World War II}}
Few Japanese workers came to North America intending to become immigrants. Initially, most of them came with vague plans for gaining new experiences and for making some money before returning to homes in Japan.  This group of workers was overwhelmingly male. Many ''Issei'' arrived as laborers.  They worked in employment sectors such as agriculture, mining, and railroad construction.

The Issei were born in Japan, and their cultural perspective was primarily Japanese; but they were in America by choice.  Despite a certain nostalgia for the old country, they had created homes in a country far from Japan.  If they had not been prohibited from becoming citizens, many would have become citizens of the United States.<ref>Yenne, Bill. (2007). [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ok3JZw28xhEC&dq=issei&pg=PA12  ''Rising Sons: The Japanese American GIs Who Fought for the United States in World War II,'' p. xv.]</ref>

In 1913, California's Alien Land Law prohibited non-citizens from owning land in the state, and several other states soon after passed their own restrictive [[alien land laws]].  This included the ''Issei'', Japanese residents born in Japan, but not their children, the Nisei, who were born in United States or Hawaii, and who therefore were American citizens by birth.  Many of the Issei responded to the law by transferring title to their land to their ''Nisei'' children.<ref>Yenne, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ok3JZw28xhEC&dq=issei&pg=PA12  p. 12.]</ref>