Family

Topping sugar beets in the Coyote area. The tractor was used to unearth the sugar beets, the workers followed behind and removed the tops with knives, and the beets were placed in the horse-drawn cart.

While the Exclusion Law (Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882) was in effect and the first generation felt alienated, longing for news of China, the children of Heinlenville, a small town/neighborhood once located near present-day San Jose Japantown, regarded America as their home. Those growing up in the segregated town speak of a happy childhood, free from want and fear, filled with festivities and joyous times. Children were precious to the Chinese community, which was largely comprised of unmarried laborers. The Exclusion Law allowed merchants to send for their wives, and some Chinese were able to change their status from laborers to merchants by establishing ownership of a store in Chinatown. The children of San Jose’s Chinatown felt they were Americans, despite growing up in a walled city. They were taught just like all the other boys and girls in their city. Yet there was always an underlying feeling that things were not equal and recognition of attitudes outside Heinlenville were hostile.

Unlike the Chinese farmers before them, the Japanese immigrants in the Valley were likely to start families or begin the process supported by the 1910s arrival of picture brides. Between 1910 and 1920, Santa Clara County would see a thirty percent increase in population, with women and children accounting for most of the growth. By 1920, Japanese farming families started farming berries and vegetables and would shift to more profitable agricultural opportunities. The women held a vital role as major contributors to their households. They were instrumental in supporting the family through their agricultural and wage labor, but some of the women did not adapt to this role in a rural family farm unit. Japanese-American born children also played a role in labor on the family farm by picking strawberries or beans in the fields before school.

Though many of the Filipino farm laborers were male and had no families upon their arrival to the Valley, over time, this changed. First-generation Filipino American Robert Vidal Ragsac recalls growing up during the depression in the 1930s in his self-published book, A First Generation Fil-Am Looks Back. Born on North 4TH street by midwife Mrs. Iwo Kawamura, wife of Dr. Kawamura, grew up in what was once Chinatown near present-day Japantown north of downtown San Jose. His family found support from the Salvation Army which often provided food for what he describes as simple dinners. Robert Ragsac recollects dinner at the table where he would see a fried or a large boiled fish on a black wood burning stove that would feed all six family members. His father would eat the head of the fish while his mother and siblings would eat the remainder of the fish with tomatoes and always with rice and shoyu. Some nights dinner consisted of many vegetables and little meat, known as “dinengdéng.” 

Warren Hayashi, the son of an orchard farmer (Tom) in Santa Clara, remembers gathering vegetables for family meals: 

"After the rainy season in the early spring, we’d see all these mustard greens all over the Valley. That became a project for us kids. My mom (Fumiko) used to have us go out and pick the mustard greens. She would make Tsukemono (Japanese pickled vegetables) with them. She would tell us what part of the plant to pick and not to pick. It became kind of a routine for us as kids when the time was right before the orchard got disked.”

Joyce Oyama, a San Jose native, remembers growing up on a family farm which they own to this day:

“My father had a stroke and couldn’t work on the farm anymore. His 3 brothers ran the farm, and my aunt and mother also helped. And we kids did the little things around the house and in the fields, not some of the back-breaking things that they did. I remember in the summertime, my mother would have us go to the neighbors and we would cut apricots and pick prunes. We earned very little, but we did it. 

In the summer time we were busy canning tomatoes, and we even used to make ketchup. We used to place it in hot water and peel the skin off, cut it up, smash it, and then put it through the sift. All kinds of stuff to get it to be ketchup.”

Robert Ragsac, raised in San Jose, remembers youthful memories of working on a farm:

“After World War II, in order to support the family my dad (Sergio), my brother (Rubin), and I went to work on a farm. In those days my parents didn’t ask; dad just told us. As an Ilocano family my mom (Mária) knew there would be no protesting; we did what we were told. In the morning dad had breakfast ready and prepared lunch. This would be around 4:30a.m. We would work from 6 to 6 with an hour off for lunch. We worked on local farms, vegetable row crops mostly. Dad got the pay, we didn’t. It went to support the family. Summer vacation from junior high, wasn’t happy for us, but gave us a hard, life changing lesson: ‘Get an education boy.’ That we did. Almost 20 years from that distant bunk house to San Jose State College: my brother became a CPA and successful business manager, and I, a rocket and aerospace engineer.”