Japanese Farmworkers

Given their familiarity with labor-intensive styles working in agriculture in Japan, the Issei were able to adapt and even excel in this type of farm work. Issei laborers primarily worked with crops like sugar beets, vegetables, grapes, deciduous fruits, and hops and were welcomed into strawberry farming as wage laborers. Some of the crops they excelled in were beets, celery, berries, and grapes, the success unveiled in the agricultural economy. Between 1909 and 1919, the total value of crops produced by Japanese farm workers increased from $6 million in 1910 to $67 million in 1919. Yet, even after such success, the Alien Land Law of 1913 prevented Japanese farmers from acquiring land and leasing it for more than three years. Though they mostly worked seasonal menial labor, Issei used sharecropping and the rental of farmland to create opportunities to farm in the Valley prior to the 1913 California Alien land law.

A group of Issei, first-generation Japanese immigrants, working in the fields of the Santa Clara Valley. Courtesy of the Japanese American Museum of San Jose.

However, the Issei did not let this stop them and acquired land in the names of their American-born (Nikkei) children. Records have shown that between 1900 to 1912, Japanese farmers and white landowners filed a total of 75 lease agreements that covered over 3,000 acres of agricultural land. The total acreage of land operated by Japanese prior to 1913 was approximately 5,000 to 6,000 acres. From 1900 to 1910, Japanese immigrants created a path in the Valley to farm for themselves and not working only as day laborers.  Japanese laborers had to get creative with their presence in the agricultural valley. They thought of various strategies to do household labor, ways to use land through farming and crop selection and rotation, and constructed farm corporations that would prevent land ownership due to the alien land law. The Japanese farmers experimented with new crops such as celery and modified or invented farm equipment.

A young man riding his bicycle through an orchard. Courtesy of the Japanese American Museum of San Jose.

Two farm workers with a shovel through a row of orchards. Courtesy of the Japanese American Museum of San Jose.

Research describes that the Chinese immigrants had a stable hold in berry farming during the late nineteenth century, and the Japanese immigrants would establish themselves as leaders as strawberry growers at the beginning of the twentieth century. The young Issei who worked in agricultural settings often replaced the Chinese who had preceded them. Most often, Issei workers were hired by white landowners to work the already-growing strawberry acreage under a contract or a sharecropping arrangement. 

Mr. R. Nishimura on horseback. Courtesy of the Japanese American Museum of San Jose.

The land Japanese laborers worked on in the Valley underwent a considerable amount of attention involving fertilization methods, the number of crops planted in a field per year, and output. Also strategically achieved was the method of multiple cropping, the use of one field to support more than a single harvest, and intercropping, sowing alternate rows of different crops at the same time, taking advantage of the limited supply of farmland and the Mediterranean climate.

Shin Mune and his family were one of the many Japanese farmers in East San Jose. Growing up his family grew tomatoes. Reflecting on his upbringing, he shares a glimpse into life on the farm: “We had to work after school at the farm. There were times I wanted to move and do something else, but also times where I wanted to come back to the farm. We were torn from growing up on the farm and knowing how poor we were. You come out of the camps and you have hardly any money, so you knew as a family you all chipped in. There’s a feeling of comradery, all working together. My father would say ‘Issho ni iku.’ It meant working hard and working together. We all did that because we all knew how poor we were.”