The was an informal agreement between the United States of America and the Empire of Japan whereby Japan would not allow further emigration to the United States and the United States would not impose restrictions on Japanese immigrants already present in the country. The goal was to reduce tensions between the two Pacific nations such as those that followed the Pacific Coast race riots of 1907 and the segregation of Japanese students in public schools. The agreement was not a treaty and so was not voted on by the United States Congress. It was superseded by the Immigration Act of 1924. Background Chinese immigration to California boomed during the Gold Rush of 1852, but strict Japanese government practiced policies of isolation thwarted Japanese emigration. It was not until 1868 that the Japanese government lessened restrictions and that Japanese immigration to the United States began. Anti-Chinese sentiment motivated American entrepreneurs to recruit Japanese laborers. In 1885, the first Japanese workers arrived in the Kingdom of Hawaii, which was then independent. Most Japanese immigrants wanted to reside in America permanently and came in family groups, in contrast to the Chinese immigration of young men, most of whom soon returned to China. Japanese immigrants assimilated to American social norms, such as on clothing. Many joined Methodist and Presbyterian churches. As the Japanese population in California grew, they were viewed with suspicion as an entering wedge by Japan. By 1905, Japanese Americans lived not only in Chinatown but throughout San Francisco, while anti-Japanese rhetoric was common in the Chronicle newspaper. In that year, the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League was established to promote four policies: extension of the Chinese Exclusion Act to include Japanese and Koreans, exclusion by League members of Japanese employees and the hiring of firms that employ Japanese, pressuring the School Board to segregate Japanese from white children, a propaganda campaign to inform Congress and the President of the "menace". Tensions had been rising in San Francisco, and since Japan's decisive victory against Russia in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Japan demanded treatment as an equal. The result was a series of six notes communicated between Japan and the United States from late 1907 to early 1908. The immediate cause of the Agreement was anti-Japanese nativism in California. In 1906, the San Francisco Board of Education passed a regulation whereby children of Japanese descent would be required to attend separate, segregated