A boy from Nakanohama went fishing, only to return eleven years later as a well-travelled American.
May 7, 1843: The first Japanese immigrant arrives in the U.S., by accident.
On May 7, 1843, a teenager named John Manjirō Nakahama became the first known Japanese immigrant to arrive in the United States, by pure accident.
Born in the small fishing village of Nakanohama (now Tosashimizu City), Manjirō was just 14 years old when he set out on what was supposed to be an ordinary fishing trip with four other men. But fate had other plans. A violent storm wrecked their small boat, stranding them on a desolate island nearly 300 miles from home.
For five grueling months, they survived off rainwater, shellfish, and sheer determination, until an American whaling ship, the John Howland, spotted them. Its captain, William Whitfield, made an unprecedented choice: he rescued the castaways and offered Manjirō something unimaginable — a passage not just to safety, but to America itself.
Manjirō boarded the ship and traveled across the Pacific to Fairhaven, Massachusetts, becoming the first Japanese person to set foot on U.S. soil. In a time when Japan was still under sakoku (the isolationist policy banning contact with foreigners), his presence in America was truly remarkable.
Welcomed into Captain Whitfield’s family, Manjirō embraced a new life, taking the name “John” Manjirō in honor of the ship that saved him. He studied English, navigation, mathematics, and shipbuilding. He even became naturalized as an American citizen — a remarkable achievement for a young man from a country closed off to the West.
By the time he was 25, Manjirō had transformed from a teenage fisherman into an educated, bilingual, well-traveled seaman — a bridge between two worlds.
Eventually, Manjirō made the daring decision to return to Japan. Risking imprisonment or even death penalty under Japan’s ban on foreign contact, he smuggled himself back into the country. But rather than punishment, his rare knowledge of the West made him invaluable to Japan’s leaders. He went on to serve as an interpreter, educator, and advisor, playing a quiet but crucial role in Japan’s opening to the world after more than two centuries of isolation.
From a rather ordinary boy to a man who helped shape diplomacy between Japan and the United States, John Manjirō’s life stands as a powerful reminder:
Sometimes history is rewritten not by politicians or generals — but by a kid who got lost at sea.
The First Japanese Settlement
Years after Manjirō’s accidental arrival in the U.S., the Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Colony became the first planned Japanese settlement in America — a dream built on diplomacy, agriculture, and hope. Together, their stories offer a glimpse into the earliest chapters of Japanese American presence.
Did You Know?
May was chosen for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month to commemorate two historic milestones: the arrival of John Manjirō Nakahama, the first Japanese immigrant to the U.S., in May 1843; and the completion of the transcontinental railroad in May 1869, built largely by Chinese immigrant labor.
