Historically, family formation along the lines of the bourgeois ideal has been difficult for Japanese Americans as well. It is therefore no coincidence that, like the Chinese, Japanese American males have been portrayed often as lone desexualized beings. Like the Chinese, many early Japanese immigrants to the United States viewed their sojourn (dekasegi ) as temporary. It was assumed that once he had attained a certain level of wealth, the migrant laborer would return to Japan. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, however, hopes of returning to Japan faded while corresponding dreams of making a home in America took hold. As a consequence, the marriage rate accelerated and so too did the birthrate.

Again, like the Chinese, Japanese immigrants were specifically targeted for social subordination and exclusion by racially motivated laws that prevented them from acquiring real property and obtaining U.S. citizenship. Factors that negatively impinged upon Japanese family formation and maintenance included the Gentlemen's Agreement (1908) negotiated between the governments of Japan and the United States, the Alien Land Law (1913) passed in California, and exclusionary legislation passed by the U.S. Congress. The Immigration Act of 1924 struck the final blow against the Japanese American community by barring entry to aliens ineligible for U.S. citizenship. This in effect prevented a large number of immigrant bachelors from marrying and bringing wives to the United States. For at least one contemporary observer, the passage of the 1924 Immigration Act brought Japanese immigrants to the realization "that all of their efforts to adapt themselves to American society and to demonstrate their asimilability had been in vain.

After four and even five generations of a Japanese American presence in U.S. society, it would seem reasonable to expect television programs to depict individuals and families who are fairly well assimilated. But this is not the case. Rather, Japanese Americans are still represented as foreigners, as aliens. Japanese immigration to the United States has fallen off drastically since the 1960s, especially in comparison with other Asian groups. Yet many television programs feature recent Japanese immigrants rather than the more assimilated Americans of Japanese ancestry. This strategy of symbolic containment implies that Japanese Americans still occupy "probationary" status within the larger society.

One of the earliest programs that featured a Japanese American occupying a central role was The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1969-72). Although the Japanese POW Fuji Kobiaji (Yoshio Yoda) appeared regularly on the military sitcom McHale's Navy (1962-66), it was actually entertainer Miyoshi Umeki who first earned costar status in a television series. Much earlier, during the 1955 season, Umeki broke into television as a featured performer on the musical variety program Arthur Godfrey and His Friends (1949-57). Miyoshi Umeki replaced a Hawaiian performer named Haleloke, who had been on the program for five years (1950-55) before being fired by the autocratic Godfrey as part of a larger personnal purge.

An accomplished, versatile performer, Umeki later went on to a career in films and won an Academy Award for her role in Sayonara (1957). Four years later, Umeki, as "Me Li," starred in Flower Drum Song (1961). Although sappy and sentimental, Flower Drum Song -based on the 1957 novel by Chin Yang Lee-was nonetheless the first commercial film to feature Asian Americans exclusively in singing, acting, and dancing roles. If nothing else, Flower Drum Song showcased the talents of Asian American performing artists who were otherwise consigned to less-than-glamorous, unchallenging positions within the entertainment field.

As the soft-spoken, unassuming housekeeper in The Courtship of Eddie's Father , Mrs. Livingston, Umeki took care of widower Tom Corbett (Bill Bixby) and his inquisitive young son Eddie (Brandon Cruz). Although there is little direct evidence revealed in the program itself, on the basis of her Anglo-Saxon name it might be inferred that housekeeper Mrs. Livingston was a war bride at one point in her life. In any case, it was obvious that Mrs. Livingston was born and raised in Japan, given her accent, geishalike demeanor, and propensity for offering tidbits of "Oriental" wisdom to her employer and his son.

Asian exotica on TV has not abated in more recent years. Programs such as Happy Days (1974-84), Mr. T. and Tina (1976), Gung Ho (1986-87), and Davis Rules (1991-92) continued to portray Japanese Americans as newly arried foreigners. Even Lieutenant Ohara (Pat Morita) of the Los Angeles Police Department in the detective drama Ohara (1987-88) was shown soving crimes through Zen-like meditation techniques practiced in front of a shrine at home. The ascetic Japanese American detective was without a wife (deceased), which left him with few material or earthly attachments that could interfere with his transcendental pursuit of the bad guys. After solving a difficult case, Ohara would sometimes be seen engaging in some form of exotic activity, such as cooking a meal using a Chinese wok, as in the tag scene of the episode "Seeking Something That Isn't There."

Although almost always cast in the role of the alien Asian on television, Pat Morita is an American-born entertainer who began his career as a stand-up comedian. During a late 1960s appearance on The Tonight Show (1954-present) with guest host Flip Wilson, Morita, billed as the "Hip Nip," jokes about the common perception among whites that people of Asian heritage in the United States are not truly Americans. Like only the best comedians, Morita reaches deep into existential issues and mines them as source material for humor. Still, it is not certain whether the audience "gets it," as a fidgety Morita puffs nervously on a cigarette while tossing off one-liners to a not-quite-comprehending studio audience. On the basis of his starring role in the popular feature film The Karate Kid (1984) and its sequels The Karate Kid, Part II (1986) and The Karate Kid, Part II (1989), Pat Morita began appearing in both TV and print media ads as the "Colgate Wisdom Tooth" in early 1989. In the course of his career as a performer, Morita had graduated from being the self-professed "Hip Nip" to an "Oriental" wise man who fights tooth decay by recommending liberal applications of Colgate Tartar Control Formula.

Pioneering Asian American performers such as Pat Morita set the stage for new talent, including stand-up comedian Henry Cho, a second-generation Korean American born and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee. Cho has appeared on a number of television comedy programs and talk shows in addition to doing guest shots on the sitcoms Designing Women (1986-93) and Lenny (1990-91). But like Pat Morita's thirty years before him, Cho's work as a stand-up comedian is constrained by his Asian American ethnicity. Cho always prefaces his comedy routine with references to his ethnic background before moving into the heart of the act itself.

The characters Matsuo "Arnold" Takahashi (Pat Morita) in Happy Days and Taro "Mr. T." Takahashi (Pat Morita) in Mr. T. and Tina both depict the Japanese American population as a "foriegn" presence. Mr. T. is a Japanese inventor with two children who has moved with his family from Tokyo to Chicago and lives with his sister-in-law Michi (Pat Suzuki). Vice-principal Elaine Yamagami (Tamayo Otsuki) in the situation comedy Davis Rules is also a Japanese immigrant. With her thick accent, the somewhat scatterbrained school administrator utters strings of malapropisms and misinterprets culture-specific information, which blesses Yamagami with an endearing naive honesty. The liklihood of a recent Japanese immigrant occupying such a key position in a public school is, to say the least, remote. Yet, in their wisdom, the Davis Rules producers chose to cast stand-up comedian Tamayo Otsuki in the role when they could have just as easily selected a Japanese American actor who possessed competence in the English language. Given the preponderance of immigrant characters in the shows discussed, it might be inferred tht such controlling images of Japanese Americans as recent arrivals, as "aliens," are meant to perpetuate the notion of their radica unassimilability.