MANZANAR Historic Resource Study/Special History Study

The historical background of the persons of Japanese descent who were evacuated to the Manzanar War Relocation Center provides a context for understanding the range of experiences and resentments that they brought with them to the camp. The historical development and the socio-economic characteristics of the prewar communities from which the Manzanar evacuees came, as well as the generational, social, economic, and political divisions that emerged in those communities prior to World War II, offer a contextual framework to better understand the strains and stresses that would plague the relocation center's operation, particularly during its first nine months of operation. The backgrounds of the evacuees, in addition to their experiences during the evacuation process, had a significant impact on their reactions and responses to life within the confines of the camp throughout the war.

JAPANESE/JAPANESE AMERICAN COMMUNITIES OF ORIGIN

The military's statistics and the population reports in The Manzanar Free Press, various War Relocation Authority documents, and other academic studies, although offering some conflicting numbers, provide a picture of the extensive evacuee population buildup at Manzanar during its first several months of operation. Following the arrival of some 80 "volunteer" evacuees from Los Angeles on March 21, 1942, the center's population increased rapidly, reaching a total of 3,302 by April 4. In its first issue on April 11, the Manzanar Free Press reported that 800 evacuees, including family members of the "volunteers," arrived from Los Angeles via a military-escorted caravan of private vehicles on March 23. An additional 500 evacuees from Los Angeles and 9 from Palo Alto arrived on March 25. On April 1, 227 evacuees arrived from Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound, near Seattle, Washington, and on April 3 and 4, 1,000 and 900 persons arrived from the Los Angeles Harbor area (primarily the Terminal Island, San Pedro, and Long Beach vicinities), respectively. The Bainbridge Islanders had been evacuated under Civilian Exclusion Order No. 1 and taken by train directly to Manzanar, because the Puyallup Assembly Center on Washington state fairgrounds was not ready for occupancy and Manzanar was the nearest reception or relocation center to their homes that was in operation. Those from Los Angeles Harbor area were evacuated under Civilian Exclusion Order No. 3. [1]

The evacuee population of Manzanar more than doubled as a result of Civilian Exclusion Orders Nos. 7, 8, and 9. On April 29, 1942, the Manzanar Free Press reported:

Within three days Manzanar doubled its population from 3309 to 7181. On 3 consecutive afternoons, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday caravans of busses brought new settlers in groups of 927, 973 and 1972 respectively. [2]

Two earlier issues of the newspaper indicated that the people affected by these three civilian exclusion orders included Japanese/Japanese American communities in western and northern Los Angeles County. The newspaper stated that the affected communities included the "District of Santa Monica Mountains [Santa Monica bay area], [a] portion of Beverly Hills, the San Fernando Valley, Westwood, Sawtelle, Burbank, Glendale, Universal City, Hollywood and N. Hollywood." [3]

Civilian Exclusion Orders Nos. 32 and 33, the exclusion date of both being May 9, 1942, provided for evacuation of persons from southeast central and north Los Angeles, respectively. Most of the evacuees under the former order were sent to the Pomona Assembly Center, but 390 were dispatched to Manzanar. The majority of the evacuees under the latter order were sent to the Santa Anita Assembly Center, but 413 were sent to Manzanar. [4]

Civilian Exclusion Order No. 66 (exclusion date — May 17, 1942) provided for evacuation of between 1,600 and 1,700 persons from the Little Tokyo and Boyle Heights sections of East Los Angeles. Of this total, 865 were sent to Manzanar, the majority of the others being transported to the Turlock Assembly Center in central California. [5]

Civilian Exclusion Order No. 92 (exclusion date — May 30, 1942) provided for evacuation of more than 1,640 persons from the Fair Oaks area (Florin community) in Amador County east of Sacramento. While the majority of these people were sent to the Fresno Assembly Center, 399 were transported to Manzanar. [6]

Civilian Exclusion Order No. 97 (exclusion date — May 30, 1942) provided for evacuation of 164 persons from the French Camp community on the southern outskirts of Stockton in San Joaquin County, California, to Manzanar. [7]

In addition to the arrival of these large evacuee contingents at Manzanar, War Department records indicate that small numbers of evacuees from various prewar communities were transferred to Manzanar from other assembly and relocation centers during the spring and summer of 1942, primarily because their relatives were there. [8]

The last major contingent of evacuees to enter Manzanar was a group of 65 persons sent from the Santa Anita Assembly Center on October 26, 1942, because that center was closing. The Manzanar Free Press reported that this group was transported on two busses. Although "a few of the 65 new residents are relatives of Manzanites," the newspaper noted that "a majority of them are hospital patients and aged people." [9]

A chart entitled, "State, County, and Size of Community Prior to Evacuation, By Center: Evacuees to WRA in 1942," in The Evacuated People: A Qualitative Description, a statistical study of the evacuee population in the relocation centers prepared by the WRA Relocation Planning Division's Statistics Section in 1946, lists the total population of Manzanar as 10,056. Nearly 98 percent of the relocation center's evacuee population was from California. Of the total population, 8,828 (or approximately 88 percent) were from Los Angeles County, and 7,207 (or approximately 72 percent) were from Los Angeles City. Other California counties from which more than 10 evacuees came included: Alameda (20); Fresno (25); Kern (13); Orange (77); Riverside (35); Sacramento (370); San Diego (59); San Francisco (81); San Joaquin (178); San Luis Obispo (18); Santa Barbara (16); and Ventura (14). In addition to the evacuees from California, 226 persons were from Kitsap County, Washington, and one evacuee was from southern Arizona. [10]

The aforementioned WRA publication also includes a statistical chart (a copy of which may be seen on the following page) entitled, "Age by Sex and Nativity: Manzanar, January 1, 1943." As of that date, the evacuee population at Manzanar was 10,121. Of this total, 5,754 (or 56.9 percent) were male and 4,367 (or 43.1 percent) were female. There were 3,573 (or 35.3 percent) foreign born aliens, often referred to as first generation immigrants and known as Issei, of which total 2,304 were male and 1,269 were female. There were 6,548 (or 64.7 percent) American-born evacuees, frequently referred to as second-generation Japanese Americans and known as Nisei, of which total 3,450 were male and 3,098 were female. More than 80 percent of the Issei were between 35 and 64 years of age, while more than two-thirds of the Nisei were between 10 and 29 years old. [11]

TABLE 37g.—AGE AND SEX AND NATIVITY: Manzanar, January 1, 1943 (Number and Percent)

Note: Includes evacuees on short-term and season leave.

* Less than 0.05 percent.

Figure 19: Table 37g — Age by Sex and Nativity, Manzanar January 1, 1943

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF JAPANESE/JAPANESE AMERICAN COMMUNITIES OF EVACUEE ORIGIN

With the exception of the Bainbridge Island evacuees and one evacuee from southern Arizona, the entire Manzanar evacuee population (nearly 98 percent) came from communities in California. Approximately 88 percent of the Manzanar evacuees came from Los Angeles County. Thus, this section will provide an overview of the historical development of Japanese/Japanese American communities in the state of California, Los Angeles County, and Bainbridge Island.

California

Settlement Patterns and Occupational Characteristics. Despite the growing protests of white supremacists, as discussed in Chapter One of this study, the flow of immigration from Japan to the United States remained relatively unaffected until 1907-08, when agitation from white supremacist organizations, labor unions, and politicians resulted in the "Gentlemen's Agreement," curtailing further immigration of laborers from Japan. [12] A provision in the agreement, however, permitted wives and children of laborers, as well as laborers who had already been in the United States, to continue to enter the country. Until that time, Japanese immigrants had been primarily male. The 1900 census indicates that only 410 of 24,326 Japanese in the United States were female. From 1908 to 1924 Japanese women continued to immigrate to the United States, some emigrating as "picture brides."

In Japan, arranged marriages were the rule. Go-betweens arranged marriages between compatible males and females, based on careful matching of socio-economic status, personality, and family background. With the advent of photography, an exchange of photographs became a first step in this long process. Entering the bride's name in the groom's family registry legally constituted marriage. Those Japanese males who could afford the cost of traveling to Japan returned there to be married. Others resorted to long-distance, arranged marriages. The same procedure that would have occurred if the groom were in Japan was adhered to, and the bride would immigrate to the United States as the wife of a laborer. Not all Issei were married in this manner, but many were.

Those hoping to rid California of its Japanese population thought the Gentlemen's Agreement would end Japanese immigration. Instead, the Japanese population of California increased, both through new immigration and through childbirth. Anti-Japanese groups, citing the entry of "picture brides," complained that the Gentlemen's Agreement was being violated. A movement to totally exclude Japanese immigrants eventually succeeded with the Immigration Act of 1924. That legislation completely curtailed immigration from Japan until 1952 when an allotment of 100 quota immigrants per year was designated. Despite this legislation, thousands of immigrants from Japan would continue to enter the United States as "non-quota immigrants" — relatives of citizens.

The pattern of immigration has left its mark on Japanese communities in the United States. While immigrants before 1924 were uniformly young, the delay in immigration of women resulted in many marriages in which the husband was considerably older than the wife. Immigration of women between 1908 and 1924 also meant that the majority of children (Nisei) were born within a period of 20 years, 1910-30. Thus, the Japanese population in the United States became bi-modal — an age group for the original immigrants and another for their children. This development influenced the ways in which Japanese communities were organized. For example, Japanese communities experienced the need every 25 years or so to have facilities and organizations oriented to children, with long periods of time when such facilities were not needed. Large numbers of Nisei would enter the job market at the same time, and they would have children at about the same time.

Most Japanese immigrants entered the United States through San Francisco. Thus, the newcomers tended to concentrate in the San Francisco Bay area. The second largest port of entry for the Japanese was Seattle, Washington, followed by Portland, Oregon. Approximately 75 percent of the 2,000 Japanese aliens enumerated as residents of the United States in 1890 settled near the ports-of-entry in California or Washington. Ten years later, according to the 1900 census, 42 percent of the country's alien Japanese lived in California, 23 percent in Washington, and 10 percent in Oregon.

In 1890, 590 of California's Japanese residents lived in San Francisco, while 184 resided in Alameda County and 51 in Sacramento County. A scattering of Japanese residents appeared throughout California, with the smallest number in the southern California area. Little is known about these early Japanese immigrants. It is speculated that they worked for the railroad, performed common labor, or performed miscellaneous tasks, such as chopping wood for domestic service. By 1890 the move into agricultural work had begun in the Vacaville area in Solano County in northern California, and labor contractors were beginning to gather new immigrants to work in industries such as the railroads, oil fields, and agriculture.

By 1900, the same northern California counties had the largest numbers of Japanese, but the population had increased tremendously with movement into other parts of the state as agricultural work drew immigrants to what were then rural areas. San Francisco had 1,781 Japanese, Sacramento County 1,209, and Alameda County 1,149. In addition, Monterey County had 710, Fresno County 598, San Joaquin County 313, Santa Clara County 284, Contra Costa County 276, and Santa Cruz County 235.

In many communities, nihonmachi (Japanese sections of town) were developed, with the establishment of small businesses catering to the needs of immigrants. These ethnic enclaves, popularly called "Little Tokyos," were outgrowths of long-standing socio-economic forces and pressures. Discriminatory zoning restrictions segregated the Japanese and excluded them from the better residential districts. Areas considered undesirable by the white population were left to minority groups and developed into various ethnic communities. Historically, "Little Tokyo" communities developed as a result of the natural affinity of the immigrants for their own people. Inability to speak English brought people together where their native tongue could be spoken freely without embarrassment or conspicuousness. These communities provided many of the needs and services which were unobtainable elsewhere. Because of their inability to communicate easily with the American population at large, the Issei depended more heavily on these centers than did the Nisei or Sansei (third generation Japanese).

By 1900, southern California had a Japanese population of approximately 500, with the largest concentration in the steadily growing urban area of Los Angeles County. Ulysses Shinsei Kaneko, a resident in San Bernardino County, became one of the first Japanese naturalized in California in 1896. Businesses in towns and cities had been in operation for almost a decade. Buddhist churches and Japanese Christian churches had been established earlier. Japanese had purchased property, and a few Nisei children had been born.

At the turn of the 20th century, trades of the Japanese in urban California included domestic service and businesses catering to other Japanese — boarding houses, restaurants, barbershops, bathhouses, gambling establishments, and pool halls. Although Japanese communities were emerging in urban areas, labor contractors continued to draw immigrants away from the cities to work for the railroads, canneries, and farms in rural areas of the state.

Some Japanese immigrants initiated their own enterprises and industries. These included industries the Chinese had pioneered in earlier years. Fishing and abalone industries developed at White Point and Santa Monica Canyon in Los Angeles County and at Point Lobos in Monterey County. Kinji Ushijima, also known as George Shima, continued the reclamation work begun by Chinese in the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta. Shima eventually reclaimed more than 100,000 acres of land for agricultural use with the help of large labor crews.

Between 1900 and 1910, Japanese began to purchase property and establish farms, vineyards, and orchards. All-Japanese communities developed in agricultural areas in central California, including Florin in Sacramento County (which the Japanese called Taishoku), Bowles in Fresno County, and the Yamato Colony at Livingston in Merced County.

By 1910, a significant change had occurred in the California Japanese population, which then numbered 41,356. Movement to the southern part of the state had undergone a marked increase, and the number of women in the Japanese community was steadily increasing. By the late 1920s, females would constitute one-third of the Japanese population. Los Angeles County became the most populous Japanese settlement by 1910, with 8,461, and has remained so to this day. A major stimulus for the move south was the rapid expansion of the Los Angeles area during the southern California boom period. Many Japanese also migrated to Los Angeles after the disastrous San Francisco earthquake in 1906.

San Francisco remained the second most populous area in California, however, with a Japanese population of 4,518 in 1910. Sacramento County was third with 3,874, Alameda County was fourth with 3,266, Santa Clara County was fifth with 2,299, and Fresno County was sixth with 2,233. Other counties having more than 1,000 Japanese included Contra Costa, Monterey, and San Joaquin. The large increases in the population reflected the unrestricted immigration of male laborers until 1908, entrance of Japanese women into the United States, and resultant increase in the birth of children. Numerous Little Tokyos had been established in California, ranging from Selma's one block of businesses catering to Japanese in Fresno County to whole sections of town in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Jose.

The Japanese population of Los Angeles County more than doubled by 1920, increasing to l9, 911, more than three times as many as the next most populous county, Sacramento, with 5,800. California's total Japanese population numbered 71,952. The most populous counties after Los Angeles and Sacramento were Fresno (5,732), San Francisco (5,358), Alameda (5,221), and San Joaquin (4,354). Other counties with Japanese populations in excess of 1,000 included Monterey, Orange, Placer, San Diego, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Tulare. The population increase was the result almost totally of the immigration of women and the birth of children. By the early 1920s the economic basis of the Japanese community had been established in agriculture and its offshoots — wholesaling, retailing, and distributing. The Japanese organized their produce and flower industries vertically, resulting in a system in which all operations were owned and operated by Japanese, from raising the plants to retail sales. Such ventures resulted in organizations such as the Southern California Flower Market in Los Angeles, the California Flower Market in San Francisco, Lucky Produce in Sacramento, and the City Market in Los Angeles. Cooperatives, such as Naturipe in Watsonville, Santa Cruz County, were organized to improve growing, packing, and marketing of crops produced by Japanese farmers.

Small Japanese businesses became numerous in California by the early 1920s. Many of the "city trades" were directly tied to rural occupations, particularly agricultural labor. Businesses such as boarding houses, hotels, restaurants, barber shops, and gambling houses were dependent on the constant traffic of single male laborers, who traveled a circuit in California from one crop to the next, from the Imperial Valley near the Mexican border to the Sacramento Valley in northern California. Other city businesses were also oriented towards farming interests. For example, a number of Japanese entrepreneurs operating general merchandise stores had regular routes to the surrounding countryside, taking orders and making deliveries for food and other supplies. Examples of this service included the Kamikawa Brothers in Fresno and Tsuda's in Auburn.

During the 1910s, Japanese farmers became important producers and growers of crops, and this trend continued during the 1920s. Agricultural efforts included truck farming along the Pacific coast, in the San Joaquin Valley, and in southern California; grapes and tree fruit in the San Joaquin Valley and southern California; strawberries in numerous locations; and rice in northern California.

By 1930 California's Japanese population numbered 97,456. Los Angeles County still had the most Japanese, almost doubling its population during the 1920s to 35,390. The county had nearly 40 percent of the state's Japanese population, and it had more than four times as many Japanese as did the second county, Sacramento, which had 8,114. Again the increase can be attributed to immigration of Japanese women as well as the birth of children. Because immigration was totally curtailed in 1924, however, the birth of children probably was the more important reason. Another source for population increase was migration from other parts of the country. Japanese residents, for example, moved to Los Angeles County during the 1930s because of relatively better economic opportunities during the nationwide depression.

Despite the nation's economic downturn, the 1930s were a time of growth for most nihonmachi throughout California. Almost every agricultural area with a population of Japanese residents had a flourishing Japanese section of town. Cooperatives established in previous years were functioning at their peak. Nisei children were in schools and beginning to enter the labor market. This subtle change can be noted in such things as Japanese-language newspapers adding English sections to their publications, and Japanese church youth organizations being organized. [13]

The 1940 census provides considerable detail on the nature and economic structure of Japanese communities in the state of California prior to Pearl Harbor. According to the census there were 126,947 Japanese residents, foreign-born and citizen, in the United States. Of this total 73.8 percent lived in California. The tendency toward geographic concentration in the state was evident. Whereas there had been two counties in the state with no Japanese in 1910, by 1940 there were 11. Seven counties — Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, Alameda, Fresno, San Joaquin, and Santa Clara — contained 67,137 or 71.64 percent of the state's Japanese population. Los Angeles County, the leading county, had 39.34 percent of the state's total. The Japanese were becoming increasingly urbanized. Almost 90 percent of the urban Japanese population of California resided in Alameda, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Joaquin, and Fresno counties.

In California, 11,646 (28.8 percent) of the employed Japanese worked as laborers on farms — the most important single source of employment. Of every ten employed Japanese, two worked on a farm for wages and one as an unpaid family farm laborer.

There were 5,807 Japanese (14.4 percent) reported as farmers or farm managers. The number of Japanese engaged in agriculture as laborers was more than double the number of managers and owners, contrary to the generally held opinion that the Japanese contribution to agriculture was primarily managerial. Of the Japanese male population employed in California, more than half were engaged in agriculture, either as farm operators or as laborers. Of the native-born males slightly over a third were employed as farm laborers.

Approximately 4,600 (11.4 percent) were employed as clerical, sales, or kindred workers, and 4,217 as proprietors and managers. Of the 5,656 employed as service workers about four-sevenths were in domestic service. Approximately 17 percent were employed as non-farm workers, of whom 3,605 were common laborers, 2,717 operatives and kindred workers, and 681 were skilled workers or foremen.

Between the native-born and the foreign-born Japanese, differences in the occupational pattern were more marked than those in the industrial pattern. The employment pattern of the alien Japanese in the younger age groups resembled more closely that of the native-born than that of the older foreign-born. The chief differences were those resulting from ownership. Approximately 21 percent of the native-born were managers and proprietors as compared with 37 percent of the foreign-born.

For Japanese women the most important occupations were farm labor and domestic service. Over a third (36 percent) of the foreign-born females were employed as farm laborers and 28 percent of the native-born females as domestic service workers.

There were 5,135 Japanese-operated farms in California in 1940, with a total of 226,094 land acres. The farm holdings, including buildings, were valued at $65,781,000. Compared with a general average of $16,331, Japanese farms averaged $12,810 in value. The typical Japanese-operated farm was considerably smaller than the average, 44 acres as compared with 230. Almost 30 percent of all Japanese farms were in Los Angeles County, and almost 85 percent were in Alameda, Fresno, Imperial, Los Angeles, Monterey, Orange, Placer, Sacramento, San Diego, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, and Tulare. About 70 percent of the operators rented their farms, about 25 percent were owners or part owners, and slightly less than 5 percent were managers. In 1941 Japanese farmers cultivated 205,989 acres of commercial truck crops, amounting to 42 percent of the state acreage in that category. In value, Japanese production was estimated to be between $30,000,000 and $35,000,000 or about 30-35 percent of all commercial truck crops grown in California. Although the Japanese operated only 3.9 percent of all farms in the state and harvested 2.7 percent of all cropland harvested, they produced: (1) 90 percent or more of the state's snap beans for marketing; celery, spring and summer; peppers, and strawberries; (2) 50-90 percent of the state's artichokes; snap beans for canning; cauliflower; celery, fall and winter; cucumbers; fall peas; spinach; and tomatoes; and (3) 25-50 percent of the state's asparagus, cabbage, cantaloupes, carrots, lettuce, onions, and watermelons. [14]

Community Structure. Japanese American community organizations have been in existence in California since 1877, serving the changing needs of their members. The first Japanese American community organization of record in the United States was the Gospel Society or Fukuin Kai, established in October 1877 in San Francisco. The Gospel Society offered English classes, operated a boarding house, and provided a place for Japanese to meet. With the influence of Caucasian Christians, the religious orientation of the society developed. Out of this organization eventually came the Japanese Christian churches, some of which were established as early as the 1890s.

The Issei established three principal types of organizations in the communities they settled. These organizations included churches, political/social organizations called by various names, and Japanese-language schools. Churches, whether Christian, Buddhist or Shinto, were the focus of activity for most Japanese communities, and often were the earliest organizations to be established. Subsequently, churches expanded beyond religious services as women's organizations (fujinkai) became active, and youth groups were established with the advent of children. The churches provided both religious sustenance and the context for social life. It is estimated that before World War II, 85 percent of Japanese were Buddhist. Possibly the sole Japanese American community with only a Christian church was Livingston (Yamato Colony) in the San Joaquin Valley. During the World War II evacuation, churches served as storage centers for personal property left behind by evacuees and as hostels for returning evacuees. The churches themselves organized into umbrella groups, such as the Buddhist Churches of America, the Japanese Evangelical Mission Society, the Holiness Conference, and the Northern and Southern California Christian Church federations.

The political/social organizations were organized under different names, depending on the community. Some of these names were doshikai, kyogikai, and mhonjinkai (Japanese Association). All Japanese were assumed to belong to political/social organizations which dealt with issues affecting the total Japanese American community. Often they had their own offices or buildings for conducting business and holding meetings. Association leaders were spokespersons for the community in dealing with the larger community, and worked as intermediaries to settle differences of opinion or conflicts. Decisions were traditionally made by male members of the organization. Sometimes, a women's group (fujinkai) was attached to this organization. Many of these organizations dissolved with the onset of World War II evacuation. Properties were signed over to the Nisei, and records were lost or destroyed.

As Nisei children grew older, the Issei-organized Japanese language schools flourished throughout California as the older generation sought to pass on its native language and cultural traditions to its children. The first Japanese language school of record in the state was Shogakko in San Francisco, established in 1902, By the 1930s, virtually every Japanese American community had its own nihongakko (Japanese language school) operated by a church or Japanese association. Some communities had two or more schools. Occasionally, both Buddhist and Christian churches in a community supported their own Japanese language schools. Teachers were often church ministers, their wives, or well-educated persons in the community. Occasionally, as in Fresno, Guadalupe, and Sacramento, a dormitory was built in conjunction with the Japanese language school where children of busy parents would live.

Persons originating from the same area in Japan formed kenjinkai, which were social organizations designed to support, aid, and acquaint fellow kenjin (persons from the same prefecture). Social services in the form of financial aid, informal counseling, and care for the sick or injured were functions of these groups. Communities had one kenjinkai if the Japanese American community was primarily composed of people from the same area of Japan. If the community was large, such as Los Angeles, many kenjinkai existed, reflecting the different geographic origins of the immigrants.

In agricultural areas, cooperatives to grow, ship, and market agricultural products emerged, giving Issei farmers greater control over their economic destinies. Such organizations included Lucky Produce in Sacramento, Naturipe in Watsonville, the California Flower Market in San Francisco, and the City Market in Los Angeles.

The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) emerged as the largest Nisei organization during the pre-WorId War II years. Organized in 1930 with headquarters in San Francisco, the JACL gained prominence as a political organization during the period leading up to World War II as the Nisei sought to assimilate with the larger American society. [15]

Los Angeles County

1869-1930s. The first Japanese to come to the Los Angeles area probably arrived as early as 1869 and took up residence in San Marino at the Molino Viejo, or Old Mill. The census of 1870 records two young men, "T. Komo" and "I. Noska," aged 18 and 13, respectively, who were employed as servants in the household of Judge E. J. C. Kewen that resided at the Old Mill. The two Japanese men apparently left the area by 1880, because the 1880 census did not list any persons having Japanese ancestry.

In 1880 Los Angeles, the largest settlement in southern California, had a population of nearly 11,000 persons, but apparently none of these people were Japanese. Dependent primarily on agriculture, Los Angeles also had some small industry. Southern California, however, had a superlative climate, railroad communications with the eastern United States were bringing people during the mild winters, and Los Angeles was becoming a popular tourist destination during the 1880s. The realization that many people would eventually settle in the area caused a sharp skyrocketing of land values in Los Angeles and other southern California settlements. Land prices climbed steadily and by 1884 the Los Angeles economy was beginning to boom.

That year some 24 or 25 Japanese men moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles to take advantage of the area's growing scarcity of labor. During the height of the boom years (1887-88), there were about 70 Japanese in Los Angeles who had come to the city in search of work. Perhaps, the most famous was Charles Kame, who was probably Shigeta Hamonosuke. He was the first independent Japanese businessman in Los Angeles, so far as is known. About 1886-87 he opened a restaurant on First Street, near the center of the downtown area, and did well enough to sell out two years later. Before 1890 he had left Los Angeles, perhaps to return to Japan. During this period, other Japanese engaged in carpentry, the bamboo business, and Japanese art stores in the city.

By 1888 a Japanese boarding house, known to Americans as the Japanese YMCA, was established about a block from Kame's restaurant. It is likely that the majority of Japanese in the city lived there during the late 1880s. By 1889, with the collapse of the Los Angeles real estate boom, the boarding house had gone out of existence, and the Japanese population in the city had declined to about 40 persons.

After 1893 the number of Japanese residents in Los Angeles increased year by year until there were at least 150 by 1900, and a tiny but moderately prosperous Japanese community emerged in the city. This period witnessed the rise of a Japanese "restaurant era" in the city, the number of such Japanese-owned restaurants rising from two or three in the early 1890s to 16 in 1896. The restaurants were the most significant Japanese economic activity in the city before 1900, outdoing the Japanese-owned art and curio stores and bamboo furniture stores. By 1900 there was a shoemaker, a barber, and a bathhouse owner who were Japanese. In 1896 a new boarding house was opened, and in 1898 a hotel was opened. Virtually all Japanese living in the city were employed by these businesses. In 1897 the Japanese Association of Los Angeles was established.

In 1896 the Santa Fe Railroad hired a few Japanese workers in Los Angeles, and by 1899 the Southern Pacific followed suit and used Japanese workmen. These laborers engaged in such work as track maintenance and boxcar cleaning.

Terminal Island, an island in Los Angeles Harbor about three-quarters of a mile wide and three and one-half miles long, had become the headquarters for the fishing industry in southern California by the turn of the 20th century. A dozen Japanese abalone fishermen settled on the Island around 1901. Other fishermen came after the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, and by the summer of 1907 several hundred Japanese fishermen had moved to the island, many of them having emigrated from fishing districts of Japan with previous experience in that line of work. Between 1907 and 1910 three fish canneries began operation, and many one -story fisherman's houses were built by the canneries [16]. According to the 1910 census, there were 4,238 Japanese in the Los Angeles City, of whom 3,372 were men fifteen years old or older and 531 were women in the same age group. Of the total Japanese population, 3,937 had been born in Japan and 301 had been born in the United States. Of the 4,225 Japanese whose ages were known, only 127 were more than 45 years old.

During the period between 1910 and 1915, the Japanese residents in Los Angeles continued to expand throughout the city into small enclaves outside the downtown area. Some Japanese established nurseries and other business ventures outside the downtown area.

During 1910-15 "Little Tokyo" emerged near the center of Los Angeles City, boasting a steadily increasing number of Japanese-owned businesses in what had become the principal Japanese retail shopping area. Approximately 135 rooming houses of various sizes had been established in city by 1915, because the majority of Japanese were bachelors who generally lived in hotels or boarding houses. Of the 7,444 Japanese in the city by 1915 some 2,000-3,000 lived in "Little Tokyo." The American Bank in the area hired a Japanese cashier, D. Kiyowara, between 1909 and 1913 to take care of Japanese depositors. In 1913 the Yokohama Specie Bank opened a branch within a block of the Japanese retail district.

In August 1915, a consul was appointed for the Japanese community of Los Angeles. The first man to be chosen for the post was Ujiro Oyama, who established his consulate in the German-American Bank Building in downtown Los Angeles. The consul was a significant figure for the Japanese, because they would be denied American citizenship until 1952. As aliens, they were obliged to depend upon the Japanese government whenever they had difficulties in America, and the representative of that government was the consul.

In 1916 there were about 3,000 Japanese domestic workers in Los Angeles, of whom 2,660 were employed by Americans and about 400 were employed by Japanese. There were about 1,000 other service workers in Los Angeles, such as delivery boys and porters in stores. Japanese firms employed 848 such men. They usually worked for grocery or dry goods stores, hotels, laundries, or restaurants as errand boys and runners.

In 1916 approximately 349 Japanese were employed by Japanese-owned manufacturing firms, such as a recently-established box factory and a paper carton factory. American-owned manufacturing plants employed 126 Japanese. The railroads employed about 140 Japanese laborers in Los Angeles, the principal employers being the Pacific Electric, Santa Fe, and Southern Pacific railways.

In 1916 the approximate Japanese population in Los Angeles County was about 15,000. There were probably well over 8,000 Japanese in the labor force of the county, more than half of these being engaged in agricultural pursuits. Though several hundred, perhaps thousands, were self-employed in small businesses, corporations, and partnerships, the majority were wage-earners.

In 1916 there were about 300 Japanese gardeners in southern California, most of whom were in the Los Angeles City. Japanese-style gardens became popular in the city during the 1920s, and the type or kinds of plants which went into the gardens were often selected by the gardeners themselves. Rock gardens in southern California were apparently a Japanese innovation. Wishing to be near their work, Japanese gardeners began to congregate in little settlements of their own in the suburbs. As they cared for the semi-tropical flora which helped to make southern California distinctive, they contributed uniquely to their adopted home, leaving their mark on the city and county landscape.

Japanese farming in Los Angeles County received a setback in 1913 when the state's Alien Land Law was passed. This law was aimed at the expanding Issei-dominated Japanese agricultural pursuits, because only aliens ineligible for citizenship were prohibited from owning land. At the time land owned by Japanese in Los Angeles County amounted to some 3,828 acres. Only Imperial County, where irrigation canals had made desert cultivation possible since 1901-02, rivaled Los Angeles County in the extent of Japanese-owned acreage. There were 3,514 acres owned by Japanese in that county when the land law was passed. In the six other southern California counties only 1,080 acres were owned by Japanese. The average value of Japanese-owned land in Los Angeles County was about $192 per acre, for a total value of Japanese-owned lands of approximately $732,000.

While the Alien Land Law was a setback for Japanese farmers, they developed innovative means to farm without owning land in fee simple. Leased land was made available after some question of legality was resolved, at least to the satisfaction of California's jurists, and in time it was decided that minor children (Nisei) could own land with their parents as guardians.

The preference for farming among first generation Japanese reflects their cultural traditions and economic backgrounds. They could not compete effectively with white Americans in large scale farming endeavors which required heavy outlays of capital, organization, and business skill. In small cropping, however, such as vegetables, berries, and certain varieties of deciduous fruits, the Japanese found their optimum advantages. They were well adapted to a system of agriculture demanding maximum use of hand labor. The arduous labor associated with raising vegetables and berries never appealed to the Caucasian American, and Japanese control of this facet of farming in the county was as much due to the unwillingness of white Americans to enter this field as it was to the competitive strength of the Japanese. The Caucasian farmer, with his taller stature unsuited to the long hours of squatting and stooping required in truck farming, was at a physical disadvantage. Family enterprise, so characteristic of the farm economy in Japan, was carried over to the United States. Women and children commonly labored in the fields and contributed substantially to the farm income. Moreover, women and children could be effectively used in small crop farming because of the general lightness of the commodities and the need for more delicate skillful handling in the planting, weeding, picking, sorting, and packing processes. [17]

By 1916 Japanese farmers were cultivating 15,800 acres of land in Los Angeles County, the majority being leased land. About 80 percent of the vegetables handled by the Los Angeles produce companies were grown by Japanese, and the produce companies distributed 90 percent of the vegetables consumed by Los Angeles City. Thus, approximately three-fourths of the fresh vegetables consumed in Los Angeles were grown by Japanese farmers. The peak for Japanese farm production in Los Angeles County was reached in 1912, the year before passage of the Alien Land Law, when $8,816,000 of produce was grown by Japanese in Los Angeles County and a total of $9,471,725 was produced by Japanese in all of southern California. With the advent of World War I and the rise in price of such crops as beans and sugar beets, the Japanese agriculturists moved outside Los Angeles County in order to grow more specialized crops. In 1916 Japanese in southern California grew $15,000,000 in produce on their farms, of which $5,100,000 was grown in Los Angeles County.

In 1916 there were 1,321 Japanese farmers in Los Angeles County. Of this total, 499 farmed from one to ten acres, 783 from ten to 100, and 39 had farms or more than 100 acres. Of the 499 farms under ten acres, 66 were nurseries (Japanese owned 45 percent of the nurseries in Los Angeles City) and 81 were cut flower farms. Most Japanese farmers were involved in raising vegetables or berries. There were 678 vegetable farmers and 404 berry growers, as well as 29 cattle ranchers, 29 hog ranchers, and nine poultry farmers. Only 14 farmers were growing citrus fruits or grapes.

Japanese residents in the county were also engaged in agricultural-related businesses. About ten percent of the produce companies in Los Angeles were Japanese-owned by 1915, and there were 52 Japanese-owned grocery stores.

In 1916 there were approximately 4,500 Japanese farm laborers in Los Angeles County, including an estimated 500 migrants who were in the county at different times depending upon the crops that were being harvested. Most laborers, however, remained on the same farms throughout the year. Japanese farmers employed 2,756 Japanese laborers for farm work, while American farmers employed only 81 Japanese. There were an additional 1,500 Japanese migrant laborers in southern California who worked from the Imperial Valley cantaloupe fields in early spring to the lemon groves of Ventura County in later months. Some migrants who found employment in Los Angeles County during the summer months would sometimes winter in the city from late November to late January. In the extensive citrus groves American growers employed 1,200 Japanese, while in the Japanese-owned groves 85 men were sufficient for the small amount grown by Japanese. Between 1910 and 1920 the Los Angeles Japanese community changed in several significant aspects, the most important change being the ratio of men to women. Whereas the ratio of men to women had been about eight or nine to one in 1910, it declined to two or three to one by 1920.

Another significant change in the Los Angeles Japanese community during the 1910s was the increase in the number of Nisei children who were attending American public schools. In 1916 about 200 were in kindergarten and 220 were in grammar school in Los Angeles City. While the Japanese American children in this period attended the city's public schools, most went to Issei-organized Japanese language schools for two hours in the afternoon to learn to read and write Japanese and have practice in learning to speak the language properly. [18]

The Japanese community on Terminal Island expanded rapidly during World War I and the years immediately thereafter. In 1916 Fisherman Hall was built and became the community center. A Baptist Mission was constructed that same year, and a grammar school was established in 1918. The community, which was known as East San Pedro, or Fish Harbor, grew as more canneries were constructed. Japanese fishermen moved to the island after a destructive fire on the mainland nearby; there was some migration from Monterey; and after the Alien Land Laws were passed, some farmers who had fishing experience in Japan turned again to fishing. By 1925, the growing Fish Harbor community extended into the nearby cities of San Pedro, Long Beach, and Wilmington and consisted of some 3,000-4,000 residents, the size it subsequently maintained until the war. The economy of the entire community was dependent upon fishing. Women, older men, and some children worked in the canneries as fish cleaners and packers, while able-bodied men engaged in catching sardines, mackerel, tuna, and other fish for canning. The Japanese fishermen included individuals who were crew members having no occupational property, equipment owners, and boat owners. By 1931 the Japanese controlled 30-40 percent of the total amount of fish landed in Los Angeles Harbor, including 70 percent of the albacore, 60-70 percent of the bonita, 75 percent of the mackerel, 35-40 percent of the sardines, and 30-35 percent of the tuna.

The fishing fleet on which the Japanese worked operated from the docks in Fish Harbor and took on supplies there. Tuna Street leading to the wharf, was the business center of the Japanese community. It was lined with Japanese shops, grocery stores, pool halls, barber shops, soft drink parlors, a dry goods store, a meat market, restaurants, and other service facilities. Most numerous were the restaurants, serving both island residents and many cannery workers who came from the mainland. The businesses were operated as family enterprises by Issei who lived in rooms behind their shops. Some of the buildings were owned by Nisei, but the land could not be purchased and had to be leased from the Los Angeles Harbor Authority. Separated from the remainder of the Japanese community in Los Angeles and somewhat isolated on the island, the main language of the island's residents was Japanese, and traditional Japanese patterns of behavior, customs, and attitudes continued to thrive, particularly among the Issei. Many Japanese cultural and sport activities, such as judo, kendo, sumo, and Boy's Day celebrations, remained popular on the island, reflecting continuing Japanese traditions. [19]

An academic study of the Japanese/Japanese American community in Los Angeles in 1937 presented the results of a census conducted by the Japanese consulate of Los Angeles two years before. According to the 1935 census, the population of Japanese origin living in Los Angeles County totaled 32,714. Of this total, 58 percent were Issei and 42 percent were Nisei. Several Japanese concentrations were located within Los Angeles City. The largest and most concentrated Japanese community, with a population of 4370 was centered approximately one block east of the Los Angeles City Hall in downtown Los Angeles. The center of this community, known as "Little Tokyo," was the business and cultural center of the Japanese communities in southern California. In this section most of the buildings were owned and virtually all of the stores were operated by Japanese. Almost all of the leading Japanese associations and organizations had offices in the area. A whole range of Japanese articles were found in Little Tokyo, including curiosities, dry-goods, books, magazines, foods, herbs, and toilet articles. Japanese from many parts of southern California went to Little Tokyo for shopping, community meetings, socialization, and amusement.

The next largest Japanese enclave in Los Angeles was located just east of Little Tokyo in Hollenbeck Heights, sometimes also referred to as Boyle Heights or East Los Angeles. In addition to the 2,554 Japanese who lived in this area, members of other minority groups, including blacks, Russians, and Mexicans, also resided there. This area was "the most convenient residential district for any Japanese business men" who had "offices or stores in 'Little Tokyo'."

The academic study described other areas of Japanese concentration in Los Angeles. These areas included:

Another section of Los Angeles where Japanese, together with Negroes live, is the Thirty-Fifth Street district, which covers an area bounded by Vermont Avenue, Western Avenue, Jefferson Boulevard, and Thirty-seventh Street. This district has an adjoining area enclosed by West Twenty-eighth Street, Jefferson Boulevard, Western Avenue, and Arlington. In these two areas live 2,235 Japanese.

Two other more or less distinct Japanese communities are found about West Tenth and Virgil Avenue in which 3,000 Japanese live. There is also a Japanese community in Hollywood. Here, the area is large, but the population is not dense. This area extends from Hollywood Boulevard to Melrose Avenue, and from Van Ness to Highland Avenue. It is almost ten blocks square, but only 723 Japanese live in it.

In addition to the above, there are several small Japanese districts in the City of Los Angeles, such as the Christian Church district which is situated about East Twentieth Street and South San Pedro Street; Belvedere District, and Vernon District; but the number of Japanese living in each of these is less than 500.

The study also discussed the characteristics of the Japanese residents and enclaves in the city and their demographic relationship to the wider community. It noted:

In general, the Japanese are tenants, paying their rents punctually and keeping the houses clean. However, because of the unwillingness of the owners and the antagonistic attitude of American neighbors, as well as the more or less unconscious inferiority complex of the Japanese, the Japanese feel uncomfortable in new neighborhoods where Japanese are not found. They therefore, usually move into districts where other Japanese have already settled. Thus the existing districts become more congested and noticeable.

Geographically, the Japanese communities, in general, are located in somewhat low areas, at the foot of a hill, in a valley, or the like. Another significant point is that the houses in which Japanese live are old and small; formerly those sections were inhabited by Americans of the middle class, but the gradual migration of racial groups, as well as the city development, had made the former residents move to other sections, seeking better environment. [20]

In 1935, the same year that the aforementioned census was conducted by the Los Angeles Japanese consulate, the National Labor Relations Board surveyed 157 farms in the Los Angeles County, estimated to comprise 10.1 percent of the county acreage devoted to vegetables and berries. The board reported on the Japanese-operated farms;

Among the smaller farms a great deal of the work is done by the Japanese growers and their families, whose assiduity and intensive culture of their land are reflected in a greater volume output per acre. These smaller farms, with their family reservoirs of labor, lend themselves more readily to the production of money crops which require greater care and attention, such as strawberries and celery. . . .

On the farms of 10 acres or under, the family does 75.2 per cent of the labor, while on the farms of over 100 acres, the per cent of work done by the family is 34.2. This latter percentage for work done by members of the family on farms over 100 acres in size seems inordinately high, but the underlying explanation of this is that a large number of the bigger farms are cooperative enterprises run by as many as eight families working together. [21]

1940. The 1940 census indicated that the Japanese population of California had decreased from 97,456 in 1930 to 93,717 in 1940. The number of Japanese in Los Angeles County had increased slightly from 35,390 in 1930 to 36,866 in 1940. Of the 1940 population, 30,112 (81.7 percent) were classified as urban and 6.754 (18.3 percent) as rural. Of the urban population, 23.321 lived in Los Angeles City. and of this total, 14,595 had been born in the United States and were citizens, while 8,726 or 37.4 percent were foreign-born or aliens. [22] The leading suburban communities in Los Angeles County that had more than 1,000 Japanese residents included the Compton, Downey, Inglewood, and Pasadena townships. The Los Angeles County Japanese population contained almost a third of all Japanese and Japanese Americans in the United States, and it was by far the largest prewar Japanese population center in the nation. [23]

Urban Settlement: Distribution — By 1940 the Japanese residing in Los Angeles County were centered in seven relatively compact communities. The most prominent of these settlements, according to Nishi in his doctoral dissertation, entitled "Changing Occupance of the Japanese in Los Angeles County, 1940-1950," was "the Central area with its well known 'Little Tokyo' centering on First Street and extending eastward to Central Avenue and westward to Los Angeles Street." [24] According to Bloom and Riemer in their published study, entitled Removal and Return, the Little Tokyo area was the small triangle of highest concentration within Central area-Little Tokio [Tokyo]. Within a few blocks of the intersection of East First and San Pedro streets were to be found cultural, religious and professional services for the Japanese American population of Southern California. On holidays and Saturdays, Japanese Americans congregated in Little Tokio [Tokyo] from all over the region, much as rural dwellers visit the county seat. Hotels and restaurants for Japanese Americans without families were in Little Tokio [Tokyo], and just outside were numerous eating and lodging places run by Japanese Americans for transients and the residents of a deteriorated area. [25]

According to Nishi, the Issei constituted a limited market and the Nisei preferred to shop in the larger business centers of the city. Therefore, the economic bases of Little Tokyo were threatened until the exclusively Japanese-oriented businessmen broadened their trade to include more non-Japanese customers. Around this core of concentrated Japanese business and professional activities was a gradual spreading out of shops, offices, and residences especially to the south and also slightly to the cast and west.

The six other concentrations of Japanese in Los Angeles, according to Nishi, "were primarily residential communities, often including a small business section with a grocery store handling a variety of Japanese foods, a barber shop, drug store or general merchandise store, other miscellaneous shops and services, and invariably, a local language school and church." The primary function of the small business center was to cater to the needs of the Japanese in the vicinity.

Four separate areas of Japanese concentration immediately surrounded Little Tokyo. They had a less varied line of shops and offices because of their greater reliance on the Little Tokyo center. One of these areas was a large concentration known as the Boyle Heights-East Los Angeles area that was virtually adjacent and to the east of Little Tokyo. This area, which exhibited "great ethnic diversity, had a large number of Japanese Americans in trade, especially produce trade." "It had the advantage of providing a place of residence not actually in Little Tokio [Tokyo] but readily accessible to it." Two smaller areas to the west and southwest of Little Tokyo, known as the "Westside" or "West Jefferson" and "Olympic Areas" were compact communities of tradespeople, particularly produce operators, and many contract gardeners serving middle-class white homes nearby. The Hollywood-Virgil Area northwest of Little Tokyo resembled West Jefferson and Olympic in occupational characteristics, but was less compact. These smaller points of Japanese concentration each had retail shops and service establishments for the ethnic community.

Two areas in Los Angeles City were further removed from Little Tokyo and thus formed distinctive and relatively independent communities. One or these areas was West Los Angeles, located east of Santa Monica and north of Venice and Culver City. In this area Sawtelle had a large population of Japanese contract gardeners who served the middle-and upper-class homes of Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and West Los Angeles. The other area was the Japanese community in the Los Angeles Harbor vicinity, covering portions of San Pedro, Wilmington, and Long Beach. In this area of concentration, which included the Terminal Island community, the Japanese population worked almost exclusively in fishing and fish canneries. The western half of Terminal Island, Los Angeles City Census Tract 294, had almost all of the island's residents, a total of 3,831. Of this total, 2,253 (59.8 percent) were classified as "other nonwhites," most of whom (2,051) were Japanese.

In addition to the seven areas of concentration in Los Angeles City, areas to the north and east of the city in the foothill communities of Glendale and Pasadena contained small scattered enclaves of Japanese gardeners and domestics serving upper-class residences. Scattered Japanese floraculturalists and farmers were found in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. [26]

Urban Settlement: Occupational Structure — The prewar occupational structure and socio-economic characteristics of the Japanese in Los Angeles reflected the values as well as the limitations of the Issei. The Issei, who generally adhered closely to Japanese cultural institutions, transplanted traditions, social practices, folkways, and language, established strong patriarchal family organizations. Capital and financial control were in their hands and many substantial business enterprises were developed by them. Closely-held family businesses, at a time of restricted opportunity, served as tight little economic units. Over a period of several decades the Issei had achieved occupational stability and an assured economic position in the Japanese community but no socio-economic pattern had emerged for the younger more Americanized and acculturated Nisei. [27]

The 1940 census reported 17,005 employed workers of Japanese ancestry in Los Angeles County, of whom 29.2 percent were native-born males, 43.0 percent foreign-born males, 13.6 percent native-born females, and 14.2 percent foreign-born females. [28] The large urban and rural non-farm Japanese population tended to enter small businesses where a considerable degree of independence could be enjoyed. The predominance of the Japanese in growing truck and market crops carried over into marketing as they controlled distribution and sales of those agricultural products. The bulk of the farm produce grown in the county was handled in two large wholesale markets — Union Wholesale Terminal Market at Seventh and Central Avenue and the Los Angeles City Market at Ninth and San Pedro Streets — located in the aforementioned "Central Area - Little Tokyo" area in the downtown section of Los Angeles City. The estimated value of business conducted in the Los Angeles City Market was $30,000,000 in 1930 and $50,000,000 in 1934. Of these sums, the Japanese were responsible for $16,000,000 and $35,000,000, or more than one-half of the total. Caucasians, Chinese, and Japanese shared in the ownership and management of the City Market, whereas the Japanese participated in the business transactions but were not represented in the management of the Terminal Market. In 1934 an estimated $10,000,000 of the total $70,000,0000 business in the Terminal Market was attributed to the Japanese. [29]

In 1936 it was estimated that about 500 Japanese were employed in the Terminal Market and some 700 in the City Market. They were engaged in every phase of the marketing business: commission merchants who sold farm produce on a commission basis; dealers who sold produce bought from farmers at wholesale; brokers; cash buyers; hauling men; office workers and book-keepers; and cashiers. Approximately 70 to 80 percent of the Japanese employed in the two produce markets were Nisei. Thus, while larger numbers of Issei were involved in farming, higher proportions of Nisei were found in produce marketing, their proficiency in English permitting them a wider choice of occupations. Aside from farming, retailing vegetables and fruits was the most important single occupation of Nisei men in the county. One survey, for instance, found that 3,110 or 75 percent of the total number of Nisei employed in the city in 1934 worked in some phase of produce marketing. Of this number 2,750 operated retail fruit and vegetable stands, 203 engaged in wholesale marketing, and another 157 in the retailing of produce in chain-markets. Issei employed in produce marketing numbered 1,097. About 1,000 retail fruit and vegetable stores were operated by Japanese in Los Angeles County, or 75 per cent of all such stores, with five as the average number of employees. [30]

The growing and marketing of flowers in Los Angeles County was also Japanese-controlled by 1940. To a lesser extent the same chain of control from producer to wholesaler and retailer was evident in the nursery business. The Japanese flower growers organized the Southern California Floral Market Association (incorporated in 1914), establishing a floral market in Los Angeles on Wall Street near Seventh. In 1934, an estimated $1,500,000 to $2,000,0000 business was conducted at this market. [31]

By 1939-40, there were 64 Japanese retail florists in Los Angeles City. In addition, there were 13 in Glendale, 10 in Pasadena, 5 in West Los Angeles, and a number of others in scattered districts around the city. [32]

By 1940 Japanese-owned independent grocery stores or markets, specializing in Japanese foods and products, were a distinctive occupation in the ethnic enclaves in Los Angeles. Because of market limitations, however, these stores were generally restricted in number and growth. [33]

Cafes and small restaurants provided employment for significant numbers of people in the Japanese community in 1940. Some 928 persons were employed in eating and drinking establishments. The majority of the eating places serving Asian foods were concentrated in Little Tokyo. Of the 56 restaurants that were listed as Japanese food houses within the city in 1939-40, 51 were in Little Tokyo and the other five were close enough to be considered within the sphere of that community. This concentration demonstrated the dependence of Little Tokyo on the Japanese trade. In addition there were 223 cafes, restaurants, and bars operated by Japanese who were listed in the Los Angeles City Directory. [34]

Wholesaling and retailing were the most significant urban occupations of the Japanese in Los Angeles. Although much of this trade was narrowly based on the limited Japanese consuming market, there was an apparent trend toward enlarging the scope to include white Americans and other races. According to the census, 5,831 or 34.3 percent of the employed workers 14 years old and over in the county were reported to be in the wholesale and retail trades. This occupational distribution was not unusual considering the motives and factors underlying the type of work they might consider entering. Beginning with the earliest immigrant groups, the Japanese strove to become independent farm operators or owner-operators of a small business or trade and, until such economic status could be attained, they continued the struggle for improvement. [35]

The fishing industry provided a significant area of employment for many Japanese on Terminal Island in the Los Angeles Harbor area. The 1940 census reported 768 Japanese American fishermen on the West Coast. Almost all of them (740) were in California, and over 70 percent (556) were in Los Angeles County. The rolls of the Southern California Japanese Fishermen's Association, to which most of the fishermen belonged, listed 537 members in December 1941. Of these, 373 were Issei and 164 (30.5 percent) were Nisei. While able-bodied males engaged in fishing operations, as previously noted, women, older men, and some children worked in the canneries as fish cleaners and packers. [37]

The Japanese in Los Angeles, with their tradition of love of nature and their appreciation for gardens, engaged in gardening enterprises. Various estimates during the years preceding World War II indicate that there were between 1,500 and 2,500 Japanese gardeners in the city, several hundred being employed on large estates as gardeners or caretakers. One study estimated in 1941 that approximately "a fifth of all independent [Japanese] male workers in Los Angeles County, i.e., those classified as employers or own-account workers, were contract gardeners."37 The majority of these gardeners were older Issei. Less than 30 percent of the contract gardeners were Nisei, and one-fifth were Issei under 45 years of age. Although the average income was low ($100-$300 per month in 1940) and the work was considered menial, the independence enjoyed by the Issei gardeners and the relatively small capital investment required to begin business operations made this occupation appealing. [38]

Personal service occupations accounted for more than 2,500 jobs or approximately 15 percent of the Japanese employed in Los Angeles County in 1940. Almost 1,600 domestics, serving either as day workers or resident workers, worked in the county. Such jobs were relatively numerous among both Issei and Nisei men and women. Single people were more likely to enter these occupations, although married couples frequently made their living from it. Young people, particularly those attending college, availed themselves of this form of employment, exchanging services in homes for room and board and on occasion a small allowance. Upon arriving in the United States, immigrants frequently took such jobs as temporary expedients until more desirable work could be found. [39]

Hotels, boarding houses, and apartments provided employment opportunities for nearly 450 Japanese residents in Los Angeles in 1940. Japanese-owned and managed boarding houses and hotels in the large cities on the Pacific Coast played an important role in the earlier days of immigration, often serving as employment agencies or recruiting centers for labor as well as providing jobs to migrants and a place to board. The usual custom was to reduce lodging costs by utilizing family members as unpaid laborers. In 1939-40 there were 389 such businesses in the city, the majority of which were clustered in Little Tokyo and vicinity. This community was the original nucleus of Japanese boarding houses and hotels in the city and was largely responsible for stimulating the growth of that ethnic enclave. [40]

In addition, numerous Japanese-operated cleaning establishments in Los Angeles County in 1940 provided employment for several hundred Japanese, the majority being Issei. Other personal services, such as barbers and beauticians, provided an additional several hundred jobs. [41]

Professional, skilled, and semi-skilled employment provided jobs for about 600 Japanese in the county in 1940. These positions tended to be monopolized by the Nisei, whose opportunities for pre-professional training and preparation were greater by virtue of their having attended American schools and colleges. Their education and exposure to American society resulted in an increased degree of Americanization and desire for social acculturation and economic assimilation. The Japanese in these occupational categories were generally English-speaking and had dropped many Japanese traditions. The Nisei's dislike for farming, gardening, and manual labor or taking over many business enterprises established by their parents turned them toward white-collar or professional work which they generally regarded as superior in status. Many Issei urged and aided their American-born children to train for these presumably more dignified positions and often made great sacrifices to give them the advantages of a higher education in spite of the fact that many professional fields and administrative positions continued to be closed to the Nisei. As a result of continuing discrimination in these fields, few Japanese Americans entered teaching, law, or engineering, or achieved positions of responsibility before Pearl Harbor. The patronage of those who entered professional fields, such as medicine, law, dentistry, and pharmacy, was largely Japanese, thus forcing the Nisei professionals to return to the Japanese enclaves from which they wished to leave.

Adequately trained Nisei who hoped to obtain positions in Caucasian firms or offices rather than in the Japanese community were generally unable to obtain professional employment before the war. As a result, many of them were obliged to work in fields other than those for which they had been trained. [42]

Rural Settlement — In 1940, 6,041 of the 17,005 Japanese gainfully employed in Los Angeles County (35.5 percent) were engaged in agriculture, compared with 47.8 percent for the entire state. Most Japanese were employed in family farming enterprises Unpaid Japanese family farm laborers constituted 64.3 percent of all males and 78.1 percent of all females in the unpaid farm labor categories in the county. [43]

In 1940 Japanese farmers in Los Angeles County operated a total of 1,523 farms with 28,670 acres, slightly less than five percent of the total farm acreage in the county. Approximately 90 percent of the farms were tenant-operated and another three percent were managed by Japanese. The remainder were worked by part or full owners. Cash tenancy prevailed, although it had been preceded by some sharecropping. The low proportion of farm owners, 7.4 percent, can be explained by the California land laws prohibiting aliens ineligible for citizenship from purchasing or leasing land and by the fact that in 1940 there were few American citizens of Japanese ancestry who were of legal age and thus eligible to own land. Another problem facing Japanese farmers in Los Angeles County was the unwillingness of many landowners to sell, because they anticipated speculative increases in land values with the growth of the city. High rentals were thus a unique feature of most Japanese farming in southern California and only a willingness to live below American standards, primarily by the Issei, made it possible for them to operate such high-priced land.

Accustomed to and willing to work long hours, most Japanese engaged in intensive agricultural methods. Their land holdings averaged 18.8 acres in contrast to 47.8 acres for farms in the county as a whole. The agricultural commissioner for the county later stated that "while the Japanese farm 26,000 acres they produce a croppage equal to 36,000 acres." [44] Small crops, intensively cultivated, required a heavy expenditure of labor but small requirements in land, machinery, equipment, and capital. These characteristics were typical of Japanese-operated farms. The high rent paid provided further evidence of their ability to obtain high profits per acre. Short term leases and uncertainty concerning their renewal also encouraged intensive practices.

By 1940 the degree of agricultural intensity permitted utilization of high priced lands within the largely urbanized areas of Los Angeles County with small and fragmented holdings distributed chiefly on the ring of the city. The major areas of concentration of Japanese-operated farms were the Dominguez Hills area between Los Angeles and Long Beach, including the Compton and Downey townships, the Culver City-Venice-Santa Monica area southwest of the city along the coast, the Inglewood-Gardena-Hawthorne-Torrance area south of the city along the coast, the Palos Verdes Hills area south of the former along the coast, and the San Fernando Valley northwest of the city. [45]

By concentrating on vegetables and berries, the Japanese farmers achieved a near monopoly in those crops in Los Angeles County. Whereas Japanese farmers accounted for 42 percent of the commercial truck crops grown in California during 1941, they harvested approximately 64 percent of the acreage (29,235 of 45,475) in truck crops, 87 percent (5,565 of 6,363) of the market garden variety of vegetables, and 81 percent (1,792 of 2,225) of the berries in the county in 1941. Altogether, Japanese farmers harvested 68 percent (36,592 of 54,063) of these three categories of crops. The position of the Issei farmers had become economically stronger over the years, a factor that paradoxically made them more vulnerable to the old and ugly racist slurs that Asians were unassimible. Japanese truck farmers, in particular, more firmly entrenched than ever in the state's agricultural system, aroused widespread envy in California's agricultural areas. [46]

With few exceptions Japanese farmers rarely entered into large-scale agricultural enterprises, such as citrus fruit, ranching, dairying, or general farming. They were relatively successful in poultry production, finding a specialized and profitable field in chick sexing which they almost monopolized as a result of skill and proficiency. Of the 138 certificates granted in California by the International Baby Chick Association to chick-sexers in 1941, 96 were given to Japanese. [47]

Other specialized fields of agriculture in which the Los Angeles County Japanese predominated were flower growing and nurseries. One survey, for instance, found that flower farms accounted for over 10 percent and nurseries about 20 percent of the total number of farms in the county. [48] Flower growing and vegetable farms tended to be located in suburban districts or on the outer periphery of Los Angeles City. Although the Japanese were more numerous in the raising of outdoor grown cut-flowers than hothouse varieties, they also competed with other Americans in growing most types of cut-flowers. [49]

More nurseries tended to be located within the city limits. For example. The Kashu-Mainichi Yearbook and Directory for 1939-1940 listed 89 nurseries in the city. [50] In addition, 22 nurseries were listed in Gardena, 13 in West Los Angeles, 8 in Venice, 6 in Culver City, and small numbers in numerous incorporated cities within the county. The Japanese engaged in both retail and wholesale nursery businesses, specializing in small garden plants, ornamental shrubs and trees, and bedding plants, such as celery and tomatoes for farmers or bedding plants for flower growers. [51]

Summary: Pro-World War II Economic Trends in Los Angeles County Japanese/Japanese American Community — By 1940-41 the Issei in Los Angeles County appeared to have achieved a ceiling and were undergoing a process of retrenchment. Although their economic achievements had been rapid and substantial, very few had acquired more than a "petty bourgeois" or small farmer status. These few were powerful in the wholesale produce business, import-export trade, and finance. Most Issei males in business operated small enterprises with low capital investment that survived because of the unpaid labor of the entire family. The reserves of the business lay in the working power of the family, and the operation of the enterprise was a way of life for the entire family. The physical juxtaposition of residence and business was only one sign of this. The Issei proprietor thought of his business almost as an extension of himself.

Under these conditions, Nisei sons of men in substantial enterprises were being prepared to continue their fathers' businesses, as were sons of men in fishing and agriculture. However, some Nisei recognized that many of the stores, especially the general merchandise shops in the ethnic enclaves, had a declining patronage of Issei and were therefore based on a long-term economically unsound foundation. More acculturated, the Nisei were frustrated with traditional ways and practices of the Japanese community and anxious to broaden their contacts and economic and occupational opportunities in the broader spectrum of American society.

Before the war, the Nisei were moving into clerical, professional, and skilled and semi-skilled work. In contrast to the Issei, who strove for the security and prestige of an independent enterprise, the Nisei aspired to white-collar work and had come to overvalue the importance of a "clean" job. The Nisei population was highly educated even by the standards of California, and in college they tended to specialize in practical lines such as the physical sciences, business administration, and preprofessional training, while deemphasizing teaching, the humanities, and the social sciences — fields largely closed to them. One of the most serious frustrations of the Nisei was their inability to find work that would use their training. The Issei-dominated vernacular Japanese press in the years before the war was burdened with self-reproach about this aspect of the "Nisei problem."

The evacuation from the west coast would shatter the securities and ambiguities of the Los Angeles Japanese/Japanese American community. The meager savings of small entrepreneurs and farmers would be wiped out, and the Nisei would be relieved of the possible alternative of taking over the parental businesses and farm enterprises. [52]

DIVISIONS IN JAPANESE/JAPANESE AMERICAN COMMUNITIES OF EVACUEE ORIGIN

Three Major Groups — Issei, Nisei, Kibei

At the time of evacuation the people of Japanese ancestry living in the United States were divided into three major groups — the Issei, or immigrant Japanese born in Japan; (2) the Nisei, American-born and American-educated children of the Issei; and (3) the Kibei, born on American soil but educated wholly or partially in Japan. Although individual variations of personality within these categories were sometimes more important than the generalizations which could made about each group, the basic facts about the three groups provide invaluable insights into the background, attitudes, behavior, and generational/political divisions among the evacuated people. [53]

Issei. At the time of Pearl Harbor nearly one-third of Japanese living in the United States were Issei. These people had been born in Japan and were aliens in the United States, because American law prevented them from obtaining citizenship. Most of them, however, had lived on this side of the Pacific for more than 25 years, had raised families and established businesses or farming operations here, and intended to stay in their adopted land for the remainder of their days.

With some exceptions, these immigrant Japanese had arrived in the United States between 1890, when Japanese immigration into the continental United States began on a significant scale, and 1924, when immigration was forbidden by the Immigration Act of 1924. The majority of the men had come to America before 1908, when the Gentlemen's Agreement, curtailing further immigration of Japanese laborers into the continental United States, took effect. Thus, most Issei males were passing from middle life into old age when war broke out in 1941. The Issei women had reached this country somewhat later — predominantly in the decade between 1910 and 1920 with many entering as "picture brides" after the men had become financially able to send back to their native prefectures for wives — and had an average age of about 52 at the time of evacuation.

Had it not been for their race, Americans would probably have welcomed the Issei as desirable newcomers. Their high standards of literacy, education, industry, thrift, family ideals, community cooperation, respect for law, and desire for self-improvement were qualities admired by most Americans.

Although many Issei had come from the Japanese peasantry, a significant proportion were younger sons from middle-class families. Of the men still alive and in America in 1940, 80 percent had received, before leaving Japan, the equivalent of an American high school education; 10 percent had been to college in Japan or the United States; most of the others had been to primary schools. However, the Issei had started near the bottom of the American economic ladder — as section workers on railroads, common laborers in mines and lumber camps, domestics in the homes of the well-to-do, and especially as harvest hands in the fruit orchards and vegetable fields of the agricultural West. The cultural background and character traits of the stable and adaptable Issei, however, insured that many would not remain in the lower economic and social stratas of American society. Some had never risen above this station and were still following the seasonal harvests up and down the Pacific Coast states as late as 1941. Many, however, as a result of years of hard work and frugal living, had moved up the economic ladder, acquiring a stake in the land, an equity in the wholesale or retail marketing of agricultural products, or a small business in one of the larger west coast towns or cities. A few had risen to positions of prominence and wealth in the Japanese business community.

During the 1910s and 1920s the Issei had built families and businesses, while nurturing sentimental, traditional, and economic bonds with their adopted country. Some who failed, or had made the money they had come to earn, returned to Japan. The majority of the hardy and successful, however, remained to build stable community life, adapt to American modes of living and business practices, and provide American education for their children. The peak of the birth rate occurred in 1921, insuring that the majority of their offspring, the Nisei, were barely on the verge of maturity at the time of Pearl Harbor. After the Immigration Act of 1924 was passed and the alien land laws were enacted in the 1910s and early 1920s, overt agitation and persecution of Issei by anti-Asian groups quieted down. Few Nisei, therefore, had much first-hand experience with violent discrimination except in getting white collar and professional positions prior to Pearl Harbor.

From the time of their arrival in the United States at the end of the 19th century, the Issei had experienced a series of legal and extra-legal attacks which necessitated the development of self-sufficient communities wherever there were significant numbers of persons of Japanese ancestry in rural or urban areas. Like other immigrant groups, Issei sought out people from their own country and particularly from their own prefecture. In their early days in America, they often worked in gangs under a boss who served them as business manager and negotiator with employers. Later when they married, they drew together into communities either in scattered rural districts or in congested city areas. The Issei created closely knit communities, and the highly organized communities, their bonds tightened by the need to unite against discrimination, made the Japanese known as a people who stuck together. During the years just before Pearl Harbor, some of the more well-to-do and progressive Issei were moving into better residential districts in the cities, away from the older Japanese ethnic urban enclaves.

Like other immigrant groups, the Issei clung tenaciously to their native language and often depended on their American-born children to aid them in affairs outside the Japanese community that required a knowledge of English. They also tried to pass on their language and cultural values and traditions as a heritage to their children, emphasizing home and religious instruction and establishing Japanese language schools to supplement the Nisei's public school education. Their emphasis on respect for age and family ties created a strong and tight discipline within the family unit until the maturing Nisei began to rebel and reach out to the wider spectrum of American society for the independence they saw other American adolescents enjoying. [54]

In its War Relocation Authority: A Story of Human Conservation the WRA described the general outlook of the Issei at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. The publication noted in words that some might challenge:

.... Speaking very broadly, the west coast Issei in the spring of 1942 were a tired, hapless, and bewildered group of people who retained a sentimental attachment for the Japan they had known as children or adolescents in the earlier years of the century but who wanted nothing more acutely than to live out the rest of their lives [in the United States) in comfort and in peace. [55]

For the Issei, who were subjected to a barrage of restrictions, harassments, and indignities — including the precipitous internment of their leaders in federal detention centers — the effect of Pearl Harbor and its aftermath was a pronounced increase in social solidarity. For them, the repressive measures enacted by the government represented only the latest and most serious of a long series of discriminatory actions, and they responded in their customary manner — with cultural retrenchment. [56]

Nisei. In contrast with their parents, the Nisei, who made up approximately two-thirds of the persons of Japanese ancestry on the west coast at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, were predominantly an adolescent and young adult group. American-born and educated, the Niseis were citizens of the United States. They were "completely American in speech, dress, and manner; and far more inclined than the average Issei to seek out WRA personnel and give free expression to their opinions." "In all but a few cases, their language was distinctively American as were the clothes they wore, the games they played, the social customs they followed, and the entertainments they enjoyed—sometimes to the consternation of their parents."

Because most of the west coast Issei married and settled down to family responsibilities comparatively late in life, the age gap between them and their American-born children was uncommonly pronounced. An abnormally high percentage of the Issei, as compared with the total population of the country, were between the ages of 15 and 25 when they entered relocation centers. An even more strikingly low percentage of them had passed the age of 30, and only a few hundred were over 35.

Despite the numerical superiority of the Nisei, the Issei "exercised an influence in the evacuee population out of all proportion to their numbers." According to the WRA, this

was partially due to their greater maturity and stability as well as to the prestige which age and parenthood traditionally command in Japanese communities. But it was also due, perhaps in even greater measure, to the plain fact that practically all of the nearly 40,000 Issei were adults while a substantial majority of the Nisei were under 21. Actually, if adults alone are considered, the Issei evacuees . . . outnumbered the American citizen group by a margin of almost four to three.

After the Nisei had proved themselves mature and responsible, the Issei had expected to relinquish gradually the control of the community, family, and business to them. Most Nisei, however, were still of high school or college age at the time of Pearl Harbor, so that this was still for the future. The children, for the most part, had distinguished themselves in the public schools to the pleasure of their parents, and they were kept busy with school and chores at home and a round of picnics and other social activities sponsored by the language school, Buddhist and Christian church organizations, prefecture societies, produce companies. Boy and Girl scouts, and Japanese teen-age clubs — programs and cultural agencies established by the Issei to undermine the Americanization process.

Among the older Nisei were some who were called "regular Issei type," while among the Issei were men and women with the point of view of "typical Nisei." Generally, however, the major lines were by generations. The older Nisei often argued among themselves and rebelled against community and Issei control. The conservative Issei leadership as represented by the Japanese Association was still unshaken, but more and more young Nisei businessmen were organizing their own service clubs and chambers of commerce to do business outside the Japanese community without consulting the associations. These efforts widened the social distance between Issei and Nisei and represented a potential challenge to the ethnic group's solidarity.

Despite these efforts to break away from the traditional Japanese community, the Nisei found themselves returning to the Japanese American community during the years before the war. Socially, the Nisei encountered barriers to their assimilation into the larger society and found it necessary to participate in social organizations, residential patterns, and marital arrangements along ethnic lines. Economically, they discovered upon graduation from high school and college that most available employment opportunities existed within their own communities. Thus, while the Nisei returned to the community perhaps more from necessity than desire, the result was a partial restoration of their ethnicity and a consequent maintenance of group solidarity. [57]

The majority of the Nisei, according to the WRA, "were far from psychologically prepared for the shock of evacuation when it came in the early months of 1942. Although it was widely recognized among the west coast Japanese population that war with Japan might mean serious restrictions on the freedom of the Issei, most Nisei persisted in believing throughout January and February 1942 that their American citizenship would protect them from similar treatment. When it became clear that all persons of Japanese descent on the west coast would be evacuated, the Nisei community was "hit as it had never been hit before in its history." Some were "stunned" and "unable to express their own thoughts about it coherently for many months to come," while a few "were deeply and permanently embittered." As they entered the centers, the traumatized Nisei "were impassive, shy, uncommunicative." Some " were openly sullen and resentful." "But in the minds and hearts of nearly all, to a great or less degree, according to the WRA, "there were trouble and confusion and sharply conflicting emotions." [58]

Kibei. Technically a subgroup of the Nisei, the Kibei had been born on American soil, but had received all or part of their education in Japan. Applied literally, the term Kibei denoted any Nisei who had gone to Japan, for however short a time, and had returned to America, in some instances the term was employed to describe any Nisei, whether he had gone to Japan or not who "spoke Japanese . . . preferably to English and who otherwise behaved in what the Nisei regarded as a 'Japanesy' manner." But its usual meaning was restricted to those whose residence in Japan exceeded two years and who received a portion of their education there. Prior to the war, the ratio of the Kibei to "pure" Nisei over 15 years of age was about 1 to 4. Some 20,000 persons of Japanese descent on the west coast were in this category. [59]

Many Kibei, especially those whose stay in Japan was brief, experienced little difficulty in adjusting to the American milieu, and their behavior was indistinguishable from that of other Nisei. Other Kibei chose to repress their Japaneseness and exhibited hyperbolic American behavior. But for those who had spent considerable time in Japan, the situation was somewhat different. Diverse reasons had led the Issei to send one or more children to Japan — to please the child's grandparents, to take off some of the parents' economic burden until they had established themselves, to be cared for if one parent had died, to learn Japanese language and culture to prepare for economic and social success within the ethnic community in America. Upon their return to the United States, the Kibei were regarded somewhat as outcasts by the more Americanized Nisei who often derided or even scorned them for their linguistic and social ineptitude. The Issei, on the whole, applauded them as "model" Japanese children. A few Kibei, however, condemned their parents for having sent them to Japan, because when they returned to America they were handicapped by their relatively poor English and "un-California-like" manners. The Kibei were mostly non-assimilationists once they returned to the United States. They formed their own clubs and recreational groups, actively led Buddhist and other cultural organizations, and willingly joined the community business structure. Kibei women tended to marry either Kibei or Issei men. For these reasons, the Kibei strengthened group solidarity in the Japanese/Japanese American community. [60]

The Kibei had certain advantages over both Nisei and Issei — characteristics which earned them respect as well as disdain at various times in the Japanese/Japanese-American community. They were, on the average, older than the Nisei, and, although they were much younger than the Issei, the recency of their education in Japan tended to make them more vigorous and effective exponents of modern Japanese ideology and cultural thought — sentiments that frequently earned the contempt of the more Americanized Nisei and offended the cultural traditions of the older Issei. Their generally superior bilingualism also operated in their favor. The medium of communication among the older Issei was primarily Japanese, of which most Nisei had imperfect control, while a working knowledge of English, which most Issei lacked, was essential in negotiating with the Caucasian community. [61]

Political Divisions

Conservatism and Pro-Americanism as Represented by the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). The Japanese American Citizens League emerged as the largest and most influential Japanese American political organization in the United States during the years prior to World War II. Despite its influence, however, its philosophical emphasis on assimilation with the wider society and Americanization was controversial within the Japanese-American community, having both avid supporters and ardent detractors. [62]

The roots of the citizens league movement began during the summer of 1918 with an informal study group consisting of six college-educated Nisei in San Francisco calling itself the American Loyalty League. Several years later, a similar group formed in Seattle under the leadership of Clarence Arai. In May 1923, led by Fresno dentist Thomas T. Yatabe, a statewide American Loyalty League was formed with the help and support of the Issei-run Japanese associations. After an initial burst of activity, this organization began to fade in the late 1920s, with only the Fresno chapter retaining its initial vigor. Arai visited California in 1928, reinvigorating the movement. As a result of a series of meetings, the JACL emerged. The first national JACL convention took place in Seattle in 1930. Organized by older Nisei who emphasized loyalty, patriotism, and citizenship, the JACL emerged largely as a response to xenophobia expressed by white Americans. With passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, Japanese immigration was cut of, and those Issei living in the United States had no chance of becoming naturalized citizens. Thus, the Issei looked to their American-born children, the Nisei, as United States citizens, to secure the future of Japanese America.

By the spring of 1942, the JACL claimed to have a membership of approximately 20,000 in nearly 300 communities throughout the country. Membership was confined to American citizens but not necessarily to persons of Japanese descent. The great bulk of the membership, however, were Nisei who lived in the three Pacific Coast states. Some 650 members lived in the Los Angeles area. [63]

Unsympathetic with the Issei's desire to have Nisei interpret to other Americans what Issei understood as good in Japanese culture, the JACL was a reaction against the Japanese orientation of the Issei leadership. It considered its function to be that of aiding Nisei to solve those mutual problems which could not be settled by individual effort. Because of their heritage of social and economic problems caused by American hostility toward the Issei, the JACL Nisei hoped through organization not only to establish an economic and political status for themselves and protect their own civil rights as American citizens, but also to alleviate and improve Issei status in America. Essentially, the JACL Nisei turned their backs upon Japan and tackled the problems of life in America for all persons of Japanese descent.

Although its members were regarded as the future leaders of Japanese Americans, the JACL was seen by some "as part of an elite network in the Japanese community." The conservative Issei, cynical from their long experience with American racism, often viewed the JACL critically and skeptically. They questioned whether the Nisei should, or ever would, be permitted by Caucasians to forget that they were Japanese.

Many of the founders of the JACL organization held professional degrees and thus attracted Nisei of similar status. Not surprisingly, since the group drew members of higher social position, the politics of the JACL was conservative and Republican. The conservatism may also have stemmed from an assessment of its power — given the organization's small size and the distinctly dependent position Nisei found themselves in relation to both their parents and the larger community, a strategy of conciliation made more sense than one of angry protest. An example of this strategy was the successful campaign the JACL funded during the 1930s to press for American citizenship for Issei World War I veterans. Lobbyist Tokutaro (Tokie) Slocum, who would later be an evacuee resident at Manzanar, pressed loyalty and patriotism to extremes to secure passage of the Nye-Lea Bill. Many in the organization felt that the only way to gain acceptance in the United States was to become 100 percent American and to discourage anything that might cast doubt upon their loyalty.

While the JACL may have seemed bold and rash to some Issei, there were some college-age Nisei at the time of Pearl Harbor who dubbed the JACL as reactionary and criticized it for ifs frequently close relations with conservative pro-American organizations, such as the American Legion, chambers of commerce, Daughters or the American Revolution, and similar groups. JACL leaders often derided such Nisei, some of whom joined Young Democrat clubs, in turn, as intellectuals, leftists, radicals, or even communists. [64]

The pro-American ideology that the JACL adopted placed the organization in a difficult position in the period preceding Pearl Harbor. As loyal Americans, JACL members were recruited by government officials to act as informers on their own community as relations between the United States and Japan worsened. War with Japan was a distinct possibility, and the government wanted to ensure that it could effectively contain those Japanese in America who were thought to be "suspicious." From the JACL point of view, to refuse the government's request could be interpreted as a sign that Japanese Americans were disloyal. Cooperation, they felt, was the only way that the Nisei could demonstrate their patriotism and ensure the safety of their community.

As war with Japan became a distinct possibility and thus placed Japanese American loyalty in question, Mike Masaoka, one of the JACL's most prominent spokesmen who would become the league's first full-time staff person as national secretary in 1941, believed that a statement on how he felt about America needed to be made by the organization. Born in 1915, Masaoka had grown up in Salt Lake City, become a Mormon, and graduated from the University of Utah. The Japanese American Creed, written by Masaoka for approval by the JACL national convention in 1940, was his solution. The creed, which symbolized all that the JACL stood for, read in part:

I am proud that I am an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, for my very background makes me appreciate more fully the wonderful advantages of this nation. I believe in her institutions, ideals, and traditions; I glory in her heritage; I boast of her history; I trust in her future. She has granted me liberties and opportunities such as no individual enjoys in this world today. . . .

Although some individuals may discriminate against me, I shall never become bitter or lose faith, for I know that such persons are not representative of the majority of the American people. True, I shall do all in my power to discourage such practices, but I shall do it in the American way: above board, in the open, through courts of law, by education, by proving myself to be worthy of equal treatment and consideration. . . .

Because I believe in America, and I trust she believes in me, and because I have received innumerable benefits from her, I pledge myself to do honor to her at all times and in all places; to support her Constitution; to obey her laws; to respect her flag; to defend her against all enemies, foreign or domestic; to actively assume my duties and obligations as a citizen, cheerfully and without reservations whatsoever, in the hope that I may become a better American in a great America. [65]

Togo Tanaka, a national officeholder in the JACL and the English language editor of the Los Angeles-based Rafu Shimpo and a future evacuee resident at Manzanar, also zealously advertised the Americanism of the organization and repudiated the local Issei leadership during the prewar period. According to Roger Daniels, a noted historian in the field of Japanese American history, Tanaka, in a speech in early 1941, "insisted that the Nisei must face . . . 'the question of loyalty' and assumed that since the Issei were "more or less tumbleweeds with one foot in America and one foot in Japan, real loyalty to America could be found only in his generation." [66] Tanaka consistently voiced this sentiment editorially, joined on the newspaper's editorial board by Fred Tayama and Tokie Slocum, both future evacuee residents at Manzanar. [67]

JACL leaders were summarily seized and interrogated by federal authorities in the wake of Pearl Harbor. Tanaka, for instance, was arrested under a presidential warrant and placed in Los Angeles jails for eleven days. Such persecution, however, only prompted JACL leaders to redouble their efforts to prove their loyalty as American citizens. They fought their campaign on two fronts. On one hand, they utilized the limited political influence they possessed to alleviate personal hardship and to exonerate the Japanese-American community from the most irresponsible charges of subversion being leveled against it. More ominously, as previously noted, they cooperated with the authorities as security watchdogs. Earlier in the fall of 1941, the JACL in Los Angeles had organized the Southern California Coordinating Committee for Defense, the function of which was to report to federal intelligence officers about the "subversive" activities of members of the Japanese population. This activity gave rise to bitter criticism of the JACL leaders as "inus" or stool pigeons. After Pearl Harbor, the coordinating committee was replaced by a more militant Anti-Axis Committee, headed first by Fred Tayama and later by Tokie Slocum (and also including future Manzanar evacuees Togo Tanaka, Joe Grant Masaoka, and Tad Uyeno), to serve as a liaison with the FBI to help flush out "potentially dangerous" and pro-Fascist Issei and Kibei. [68]

As the pressure for drastic measures to rid the west coast of all persons of Japanese descent increased in early 1942, so did the professions of loyalty, the purchase of war bonds, and Red Cross activities of the JACL. The JACL leaders realized keenly that their reaction to evacuation was the acid test of their future status in the United States, and they resolved to prove their worth as American citizens beyond all possibility of reasonable doubt. The league supported the early calls for voluntary evacuation of all adult Japanese from certain coastal areas with generally unqualified cooperation, while at the same time undertaking efforts to have Nisei exempted from mandatory evacuation orders. Masaoka elaborated on the organization's stand in testimony before the Tolan Committee. The league was "in complete agreement" with any policy of evacuation "definitely arising from reasons of military necessity and national safety." But if evacuation were "primarily a measure whose surface urgency cloaks the desires of political or other pressure groups who want us to leave merely from motives of self-interest," then members of the league felt that they had "every right to protest and to demand equitable judgment on our merits as American citizens." One day before the official announcement of mass evacuation was made on March 3, the JACL urged the Japanese in America to face the future without panic and to avoid sacrificing property at "ridiculous prices." All were urged to await definite government orders, noting that the "greater our cooperation with the government, it can be expected that the greater will be their cooperation with us in the solution or our problems." [69]

When the government's decision on mass evacuation was announced, the JACL determined to support evacuation, taking the line that the relocation centers represented the cause of democracy and supported the military defense of the nation. Saburo Kido, the national president of the JACL, reportedly observed:

Never in the thousands of years of human history has a group of citizens been branded on so wholesale a scale as being treacherous to the land in which they live.

We question the motives and patriotism of men and leaders who intentionally fan racial animosity and hatred. . . [But] we are going into exile as our duty to our country because the President and the military commander of this area have deemed it a necessity. We are gladly cooperating because this is one way of showing that our protestations of loyalty are sincere. [70] During meetings in March and April 1942, the JACL leaders invited the WRA to take them under its wing in a kind of junior partnership, the league supporting the WRA program in return for more favorable treatment for the Nisei. Masaoka recommended that the WRA and the JACL work together to turn the relocation centers into indoctrination camps for the implementation of the JACL creed.

The decision to cooperate with federal government officials was controversial, as many voices repudiated the league as a "spokesman" for the Japanese population. In the eyes of some elements of the Japanese community, particularly the Issei, the JACL were viewed as the people who led them from the freedom of civilian life to the "prison-like" assembly and relocation centers. Many Issei resented the manner in which JACL leaders, whom they regarded as young and irresponsible, seemed to arrogate the role of community spokesmen. Angered by JACL's complicity with the FBI, they criticized JACL for toadying to white racist Americans and selling the Japanese cause "down the river." [71] Many of the Issei felt that the older Nisei in the JACL had attempted to save themselves from evacuation at the expense of Issei. [72] The Kibei were disturbed that the JACL apparently had forgotten that they too were American citizens, and many believed that JACL leaders were informing on them as well as on Issei. Some Nisei were disgruntled that the JACL should presume to "represent" the community. Some leftist Nisei groups, angered by the league's unapologetic patriotism, "looked upon J.A.C.L. as a large organization controlled by a small minority of 'reactionary' businessmen who used the body as a means of getting business connections and personal prestige." Whatever their grievances against the JACL, many Issei, Kibei, and Nisei generally believed that the league had sacrificed the community's welfare for its own aggrandizement. [73]

JACL members were among the first volunteers to go to the assembly and relocation centers, including Manzanar. In several camps, JACL leaders were the targets of threats and physical violence and had to be removed from the camps for their own protection. Because of the controversy surrounding the JACL, its membership dwindled to some 10 active chapters and about 1,700 members during the war. [74]

With the onset of evacuation, the JACL moved its headquarters to Salt Lake City in 1942. In its newspaper, the Pacific Citizen, the league continued to justify its position even after most Japanese had been evacuated to relocation centers. In one editorial on June 4,1942, for instance, the JACL leadership observed:

When military authorities announced that west coast Japanese, regardless of citizenship, would be uprooted from their homes and placed in government-supervised settlements for the duration of the war, the citizen Japanese announced that he was willing to cheerfully co-operate with the dictates of military necessity. Although realizing that he could have protested and fought evacuation and subsequent orders from the standpoint that his rights as an American are no different from the rights of Americans unaffected by evacuation, the majority of U.S.-born Japanese took the position that no personal hardship would be too great if it contributed to the final American victory.

Although thousands of their American-born Japanese brothers were already fighting in U.S. khaki, these Americans were willing as all Americans must be, to sacrifice their homes, their businesses and their normal lives toward the winning of the war.

The fact that these American Japanese have co-operated fully and are continuing to co-operate fully without questioning the military orders is proof, we think, of the essential loyalty of these citizens. Army officials have indicated that the cooperation of the American-born Japanese has done much to avert the ugliness of forced evacuation.

Should the American-born Japanese have protested the orders and declined to co-operate, they would have created a situation necessitating the use of thousands of additional soldiers and officers in carrying out evacuation, soldiers and officers urgently needed by America on the fighting fronts of the war.

The first thought of all Americans must be for the war, and the winning of the war. The attitude of the American citizen Japanese during evacuation has demonstrated that they are willing to sacrifice everything for the war. [75]

After the war, the WRA observed that it was doubtful whether the JACL's creed and position on evacuation reflected the attitudes held by a majority of the evacuees, a majority of the Nisei, or even a majority of the rank-and-file members of the organization. [76]

Leftist Anti-Fascism as Represented by Communist-Affiliated Labor Organizations. By the mid-1920s, Issei Communists, influenced by the international labor and socialist movements, organized Japanese Workers Associations in New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. In 1927 Karl G. Yoneda, a future volunteer evacuee resident at Manzanar, joined both the Los Angeles-based Japanese Workers Association (JWA) and the American Communist Party, and quickly became one of the area's foremost leaders in labor organization. Born of Japanese immigrant parents from Hiroshima Prefecture in 1906, Yoneda passed his first seven year of life in Glendale, north of Los Angeles, where his parents eked out a living in truck farming. In 1913 he was taken to Japan and spent the next years of his life there. After World War I, he attended high school in the city of Hiroshima. Attracted by progressive ideas, he read the writings of noted socialists and anarchists and participated in pro-labor activities. In 1926 he returned to the United States in order to avoid being conscripted by the Japanese military. Seven years later he married fellow Communist Elaine Black, a Caucasian who was active in labor organization activities in southern California. [77]

With the assistance of the American Communist Party's Trade Union Educational League, the Los Angeles-based JWA formed the Japanese Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee of Southern California in 1928 to organize specifically Japanese field hands. In 1929 this committee was disbanded and its members joined the newly formed Communist-led Trade Union Unity League-Agricultural Workers Industrial League, which eventually organized and led numerous strikes in California agricultural areas.

In spite of continual run-ins with police and immigration authorities, Yoneda and his comrades sought to bring Japanese workers under the wing of the labor movement through these and other Communist-affiliated bodies.

During the mid-1930s Yoneda moved to San Francisco, joining the longshoremen in 1936. As a result of a maritime strike in 1934, Harry Bridges, a left-wing labor organizer, emerged as leader of the west coast longshoremen, switching their affiliation from the more conservative American Federation of Labor (AFL) to the more radical Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1937. Other leftist-oriented progressive unions also switched their affiliation, among them the San Francisco and the Seattle Alaska Cannery Workers unions, both of which had large Asian memberships. During the late 1930s, Yoneda was an active member of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU). He was also active as a CIO organizer and elected union official of the San Francisco Alaska Cannery Workers Union Local 5. In the competition between the AFL and the CIO, the CIO had a special appeal to Japanese American workers. As a champion of industrial unionism, the CIO admitted all workers, regardless of race, in any given industry. As an advocate of racial equality, the CIO denounced the AFL policy of racial exclusion. Hence many Issei, Nisei, and Kibei workers joined the American labor movement for the first time through membership in CIO-affiliated unions.

Besides his activities in the American labor movement and the American Communist Party, Yoneda's life was tied closely to Japan. Throughout the 1930s, Karl engaged in numerous anti-militarist and anti-fascist activities with regard to Japan. As an underground worker, he helped to print, edit, and distribute thousands of anti-fascist leaflets and pamphlets destined for Japan. He participated in countless political rallies and demonstrations against Japan's military actions in China and joined boycotts of Japan-made goods in protest. From 1933 to 1936 he edited the Rodo Shimbun, official organ of the Japanese section of the American Communist Party, in which he wrote frequent editorials against Japanese militarism. The Japanese government not only banned the sale and distribution of the newspaper in Japan, but kept surveillance of Yoneda's activities through its consular staff in San Francisco.

With the corning of World War II, Yoneda never wavered in his anti-fascism. The American Communist Party, ostensibly fearful of harboring fifth columnists, suspended all Japanese members and their spouses after Pearl Harbor. However, neither this suspension nor the subsequent mass evacuation of Japanese Americans dampened his anti-fascist ardor. He tried to enlist for military service immediately after Pearl Harbor, but was rejected. On March 23, 1942, he, along with many JACL members, entered Manzanar as an early volunteer evacuee. Although authorities attempted to prevent his Caucasian wife from entering the camp, she succeeded in her determination to join her husband and son who were required to evacuate. At the camp, Yoneda emerged as one of the leaders of a faction of the evacuee population that advocated working with the WRA administration to press for improved living conditions and help in the war effort against the Axis powers. Although diametrically opposed to much of the pro-Americanism espoused by the JACL leaders, Yoneda supported their cooperative efforts with government authorities. In his mind, the global struggle against fascism had the highest priority. Everything else was secondary, so that he chose to cooperate with his own government, even though it stripped him of his rights. Though disagreeing with the need for evacuation, Yoneda believed that Japanese Americans should first work to defeat fascism in Japan and Germany and then address the wrongs inflicted on them by the United States government. He was among the first Nisei at Manzanar to volunteer for the U.S. Military Intelligence Service and served for much of the war as a propagandist and translator in the China-Burma-India Theater. [78]

PREWAR JAPANESE/JAPANESE AMERICAN COMMUNITIES AND EVACUATION EXPERIENCES OF MANZANAR EVACUEE POPULATION

One of the best sources of data on the prewar Japanese/Japanese American communities and evacuation experiences of the Manzanar evacuee population are the community analysis reports prepared by Dr. Morris E. Opler. On July I, 1943, Opler an anthropologist from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, was appointed as Social Science Analyst at Manzanar. He served in that position until November 16, 1944, when he was transferred to the Office of War Information in Washington, D.C. As the relocation center's community analyst, as he came to be known, Opler studied the evacuee population and advised the Project Director on the "thinking of the evacuees," recommending "courses [of action] by which the administrative contacts with evacuees might be shaped toward more expeditious acceptance of the policies of the Authority by the evacuees." According to the Final Report, Manzanar, Opler's "approach to his problem was historical rather than one of development of broad contact with current situations and the forecast of community response." [79] Although Opler's informants were not necessarily "typical" evacuees or representative of the entire range of opinions and attitudes held by the evacuee population at Manzanar, they nevertheless provide a rich source of data useful in understanding the evacuees' prewar communities and reactions and attitudes toward the government's evacution and relocation program. Opler, unlike most WRA community analysts, adopted an adversarial position vis-a-vis the Project Director, in this case Ralph Merritt, who was not only opposed to having the WRA assign a community analyst to Manzanar, but also attempted to have Opler dismissed from his post. While at Manzanar, Opler chose to live amoung the evacuees in their barracks rather than dwelling among the appointed personnel in their upgraded quarters. In spite of having no legal training, Opler assisted in the preparation of several test cases to the government's evacuation program officially attributed to the work of Nisei attorneys. [80]

After Opler arrived at Manzanar to become the relocation center's community analyst, he undertook a series of studies of economically and geographically denned groups of persons of Japanese ancestry in the camp. The purpose of these studies was to "throw light on the background and present situation of the residents of Manzanar." According to Opler, the "time of evacuation, the manner of evacuation, the losses incurred in evacuation, the amount that has been salvaged from evacuation, the degree of specialization involved in the type of work carried on before evacuation, all have much to do with present attitudes and with resistances to relocation." Bitterness often existed in proportion to the loss, strain, and inconvenience suffered at the time of evacuation. Therefore, such studies threw "much light upon our problems, and may be a direct aid in the formulation of wise remedies and policies." The studies, according to Opler, also shed "some light on the history and meaning of Manzanar as well." Thus, the studies, many of which were lightly edited versions of the evacuees' own words, provided insight into the character of the Japanese/Japanese American communities from which evacuees came to Manzanar, along with their internal rivalries, divisions, stresses, and strains, and enabled a better understanding of the range of resentments and reactions to evacuation that the evacuees brought with them. [81]

Terminal Island

One of the first geographical groups that Opler studied, and one to which he devoted considerable attention, was sizable contingent of evacuees from Terminal Island. According to Opler and other investigators, the Terminal Island evacuees probably suffered more heavily in the evacuation than any other occupational or locality group. [82] After conducting a number of interviews with evacuees from Terminal Island, Opler observed on February 9, 1944:

There has been much discussion, both among the evacuees and among members of the appointed personnel, concerning the separatism of the Terminal Islanders. Part of the strong solidarity and in-group feeling of the Terminal Islanders is a pre-evacuation matter. They were isolated geographically, of course. Their vocation was a specialty and so there was a community of work, dress and food habits that other sections of the Japanese population of Southern California did not share. There were previous ties which bound the people together too. A large percentage of the elders had come from Wakayama Ken in Japan and were familiar with the fishing industry from the Orient. [83]

But, in addition to these pre-evacuation factors, there is the fact that the Terminal Islanders were subjected to a different treatment during evacuation. Evacuation orders affected them before they were felt by others, and were far more drastic in respect to them. Economic losses were enormous. Scarcely a Terminal Island family was untouched by internments. Hence the Terminal Islanders brought to the Center a common fund of bitterness and an attitude of defiant hostility which still further set them off from the general population at Manzanar and somewhat repelled many of the other evacuees at first. . . .

To document "the aspect of the separatism which developed during evacuation," Opler prepared a report, entitled 'The Terminal Island People, Their Evacuation and Their Experiences at Manzanar." In his introductory comments, Opler observed that whether "or not some of the descriptions are exaggerated, whether or not the grievances have grown with repetition, the attitudes they reflect are a reality and have been significant for registration and other events." The report was based on a slightly edited interview with an evacuee who offered a lengthy account of the hardships experienced by the Terminal Islanders:

... .Of course, all of the tragedies and anxiety can not be expressed in mere words but perhaps I can give a glimpse of what occurred as it has been related to me by approximately a dozen persons. Their stories, except in personal details, are all very similar.

The evacuee observed that Terminal Island "had over 3,000 Japanese residents who lived quietly and in a law abiding manner there through the decades." The "peace and serenity" was gone, however, after December 7, 1941. That day was Sunday, a holiday, when numerous "Fish Harbor" people went to the mainland, San Pedro, to visit or to see the movies. . . . Upon hearing what had occurred that day, the aliens who tried to get home via the ferry-boat were detained by the soldiers who took them to the immigration station to be investigated. Even the children were questioned. Although some persons tried to tell the soldiers that they lived on the Island, they, at first, were told to go back to San Pedro from where they had come. Some of the Issei had to stay overnight in jail. On December 7, after dark and through the early morning of the next day, all of the business men and a few fishermen were taken by the F.B.I.

After that day, the fishermen, both aliens and citizens, were not allowed to go out to fish. . . . The majority of the women cannery workers were afraid to go back to their jobs, even though their canneries asked them to return. Thus money was not made after this but was only spent.

Because their fishing vessels lay idly anchored at the wharves, the men had to go every day to see that the boats would not become rusty or scaled with barnacles. Often these men were attacked by the Filipinos, who ganged up on them and beat them. Finally the fishermen were too scared even to go out to see what had happened to their boats. While this happened to the men, the women were often insulted by the Slavs, their former fellow cannery workers.

On Terminal Island, there is only a grammar school. To go to the secondary schools, the students had to cross to the mainland by ferry. After the war commenced, in order to go to school, the students had to show their birth certificates to the soldiers every day. Once the students were detained in the corral to the ferry-boat. The soldiers prevented them from attending school. . . . Some of the students did not attend the schools because they were afraid to leave their homes - afraid something would happen to them.

This life of terror continued for about one month. Then another blow came. On February 2, 1942, early in the morning, all of the fishermen were apprehended by the F.B.I. Even the bed-ridden fishermen were taken, literally dragged from their beds. . . . The F.B.I, always, it seemed, asked how much money one had in his possession. They would order the victim to hold his hands up in the air and then would search for different objects. Actually the F.B.I, acted as though they were hold-up-men. The women and children were too frightened to shed even a tear. But after the men were gone and the first shock was over they were able to cry. The fishermen were taken either to the county jail or to the immigration station. Then later they were transferred to internment camps in Montana and North Dakota. As the men went to their destinations by buses, the women and children craned their necks, trying to find their loved ones and to wave a brave goodbye, for they did not know when they would meet again.

On the following day the F.B.I., or men who pretended that they were the F.B.I., came again to search the homes. They went through the houses from the roof-tops to the cellars and searched every nook and corner. They even flipped the pages of the encyclopedia, children's school books, and they also looked at the bank books. The most pitiful thing that happened was the way the men who posed as the F.B.I., or perhaps they may have been the F.B.I., went through the homes of the bachelors who had been apprehended the day before. When they thought that they weren't watched they would take money. This money was there because these men had been afraid to put their savings in the bank as a result of the freezing of assets. Besides money, it was found that they also took other valuables. The only thing the bachelors had left were the clothes on their backs.

After the fishermen were taken, relatives and friends from Southern California tried to see and help the women, but they were halted at the drawbridge in San Pedro. Only the Nisei were allowed to cross the bridge. After the internment of the fishermen, the women aged greatly because they had to endure so much suffering and despair. . . .

The great majority of the people of Terminal Island lived in homes built closely together and of the same style. These were leased from the fish canneries. It was hard on the women when the canneries asked for rent, especially when they had made no money since the beginning of the war. There were people who did not have much to eat during those days because their pride did not allow them to ask for aid. . . .

At this time, the Terminal Island branch or the J.A.C.L. (Japanese American Citizens League) had the good intention of helping the Nisei get back their old jobs of fishing, but the plans did not go through. Before long, the organization told the people that to insure their safety, they should wear individual snapshots and they should become members of the J.A.C.L. The people trusted the organization, therefore they did what they were told. They paid one dollar for the picture and three dollars for the initiation fee into the J.A.C.L., which was claimed to be a better proof of citizenship than the birth certificate. Ironically enough, in ordinary days, the initiation fee had been one dollar.

The J.A.C.L. also charged three dollars for the service of notifying the Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Alien Registration Division of the change of address of an alien. This service elsewhere was conducted by the post office clerks free of charge. No one knew what happened to this money that was collected. . . . That is the reason so many of these Terminal Island people do not like the group.

It was said that the Navy Department wanted to make the people move out before February 24, but the Department did not have jurisdiction over the civilians. Therefore the Navy Department and the Justice Department purchased Terminal Island from the residents, it is said. The leases on the Island were on the month to month basis although a few individuals might have had longer leases which were still in effect, for leases running from 1 to 5 years had formerly been written. The Harbor Department gave the people 30 days to evacuate after the Navy Department purchased the land, but on February 25, 1942 the Navy Department ordered the 48 hour evacuation. It came about this way.

It was February 24. The silence of the night was punctuated by sharp gunfire, the explosion of bombs, the alarm of the air raid sirens and flashes from the guns. The people of Terminal Island thought that surely the war had commenced on the coast. Panic stricken were the people - the 2,000 women and children of the Island whose fathers and husbands, 600 of them, had been taken away.

The next day, February 25, after the residents spent an anxious and terrifying night, much rumor and talk was circulating. Then the San Pedro evening paper, the "New Pilot" and also the "Los Angeles Times" told of the 48 hours notice given persons of Japanese ancestry to evacuate Terminal Island. After dark, that same day, the soldiers brought notices of evacuation to each house; they took the signatures of the people to make sure that they received the order. This meant that the people had to be off the Island by midnight, February 27. The suddenness of the notice to evacuate left the people numb. This came about a month after the men were interned. How to pack, what to pack, what to leave, what to sell? Or to get out and save your skin! Despair!

.... There were many families who were not able to pack much because of the lack of boxes and other things to store possessions in. Neighbors could not help each other because everyone was too busy tending to his own packing.

The following day the junkmen swarmed over the Island. How they knew that there would be a field day for them no one knew, but they were there to make bargains with the evacuees, bargains that would have been laughed at on ordinary days. But today, any price, even though outrageously low, was better than leaving the household furniture and other belongings lying in the house to be stolen. The bitter tears at seeing each dear possession sold were tragic, but this was the only way; there was no way of storing things because of the lack of transportation. Private trucking concerns asked too much money to cart the belongings to safety. In nearly all of the homes, after the junkmen were gone, stood pianos, the only objects that were too heavy for the buyers to take. . . .

.... In many cases there was not enough time for the people to sell belongings to pack them. . . . Numerous individuals , had to sell their world possessions cheaply. One woman sold both her refrigerator and cooking stove for $10. She sold all of her furniture in the same tragic fashion. . . . Another lady who was considered lucky sold her piano, worth $400, for $20.

What had happened to the fishing vessels? Those, too, were sold too cheaply or were left by the people. The women did not know how to sell the ships because their husbands, who really knew their value, were gone. Therefore they sold them at such ridiculously low prices that they could not even cry over the loss when they realized what they had done.

The value of the fishing vessels on the average were as follows: "jig" boats, the eight, ten, twelve horse-power boats were worth $1,000; forty horse-power boats were worth $4,000 to $5,000; and the local tuna boats were valued at $25,000. They were sold at much below these prices, depending upon the condition of the boats.

There were many petty thieves, persons who had no sense of sympathy but who took advantage of those who were being mistreated. They sneaked into the homes from the back and took the valuables while the inhabitants were busily salvaging or selling their belongings in the front of the house.

One woman went to the bank to draw out money. While she was gone her sewing machine and other light belongings were taken. Some of the women were afraid to leave their homes, therefore they put their belongings together so as to guard them until they were ready to leave. It was said that one woman worked so hard that a few days after evacuation she died of exhaustion.

The Sugiyamas [an assumed name for one of the families] went to the Baptist Church to seek shelter and transportation. From there they, along with about sixty others, were taken to the Chuo Gakuen (Central Japanese School) in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, California. This was one of the shelters provided for the people by the Japanese churches and language schools in Los Angeles, Compton, Torrance, and Gardena. The people were divided into small groups and sent to these places. Of course, there were others who rented private homes or hotel rooms because they wished to live near their friends or relatives. Such persons who did rent homes spent much money on rent and food. But the sentiment in Los Angeles County was against the evacuees, so that lodging places were hard to rind. Those who went to live in the above mentioned shelters did get food donated by the Japanese farmers and friends. This food the women cooked for themselves and the children. Because there were no beds, they had to sleep on the floors until their evacuation to Manzanar.

During this period of evacuation the people were helped the most by Miss S., a Caucasian lady of the Baptist Church. This lady is looked upon as a savior, an angel, because of her unselfishness, kindness, and honesty. . . . The Terminal Island people will always remember her and cherish the love that she gave them. . . . The F.B.I. had her followed because they thought she was a suspicious character for helping the Islanders in their distress. . . .

After leaving Terminal Island and after being mistreated by the Filipinos, the Mexicans, the Slavs, the Jews, and other Caucasians, the people had no place to go. They lived in terror and hopeless despair for weeks. They thought they would be killed any minute and fear did much to change their feelings towards society.

These "Fish Harbor" people were among the first family groups to arrive in Manzanar. And after they had suffered so much because of the evacuation they were due for more hardship here. The essential facilities of the Center were not ready. Many persons were hurt falling into ditches dug for pipes and stumbling over tree stumps in the dark. Added to this, the weather conditions in this desert land were not exactly morale lifting. The frequent dust storms, the sharp cold wind, the cold barrack rooms, the drab brown of the immediate surroundings made the people more resentful, bitter, cynical, and insecure. Everything looked so temporary here. There were no planned activities yet, no books to read. There were not enough jobs, no schools, no security. Only boredom, and tenseness.

Energetic boys and girls with nothing to do, too restless to stay home, would wander aimlessly about the Center and think over the 48 hours evacuation, the internment of fathers, and evidences of race prejudice to which they had been subjected. [84] Opler submitted a number of similar reports on the Terminal Island people based on personal interviews with evacuees at Manzanar. While each report noted unique experiences and reminiscences, they verified cumulatively the essential details of the Terminal Island evacuation that resulted in the despair, disillusionment, anger, bitterness, and resentment that characterized this group at Manzanar. [85] One report related the story of a 20-year-old man on Terminal Island whose attitudes had changed considerably as a result of the evacuation. The report, based on an interview with a Nisei who had become acquainted with the young man, stated in part;

.... Where once he was an average American-minded citizen he became very anti-American. Not that he would go out and blow up factories and act like a movie saboteur, but anti-American in the sense that he had lost his faith in America. His faith and his trust. To be persecuted because of his ancestry and to be treated as if they were less than human with no feelings was more than he and most of the others could stand. It's hard to be treated as they were without becoming bitter. It would seem that his troubles were enough for so young a boy. But no, he was sent here to camp, and his troubles seemed to just begin. . . .

After he and his family arrived in Manzanar, most of the Terminal Island people were housed in the same blocks, therefore they were in constant touch with each other. He lived in the environment of bitterness for which the Terminal Islanders were noted. They nursed their bitterness along, never forgetting, always remembering what they had and how much they lost. . . . The younger people went around in "gangs" and generally stuck with their own crowd. [86]

Several of Opler's reports related to the prewar reputations of the Terminal Island youth and their formation of gangs once they arrived at Manzanar. The reputation of the Terminal Island youth, as well as their geographical isolation from the rest of the Japanese community in Los Angeles, set them apart. One Nisei, for instance, told Opler:

Before the war, Terminal Island kept pretty much within itself, as hardly any group outside of them could mingle with them.

If any visiting baseball team went to play the Island team, they were treated very unsportsmanlike and sometimes threatened with bodily harm. This happened especially if the visiting team was ahead in the game. So there was an unwritten gentlemen's agreement among the various clubs in Southland to avoid playing with the Terminal Islanders.

I heard many Nisei girls say that, "I wouldn't think of going around with a Terminal Island boy." Even fellows avoided the Niseis from the island. In fact, many fights occurred when some Terminal Island boys went to dances in Los Angeles.

Terminal Island boys now rate pretty highly in Manzanar with the girls as compared to before the evacuation. This is principally because the island teams win most of the sport contests held here. The Islanders want to win regardless of anything. They'll threaten umpires or players in order to win. It is a good thing to win, but it takes a lot to lose in a sportsman like manner. This is not in the Terminal Island team.

Terminal Island teams would not be so strong if they had been divided when evacuation started. They are the largest group of any evacues [sic] from one section.

At first, they terrorized the center in gangs. Sure, "in unity there is strength but divided we fall," that is what Abraham Lincoln said and it seems the Terminal Island boys are applying it here. Another reason why Terminal Island boys are popular with Nisei girls is that Manzanar is made up of evacuees from all parts of California. There is the Florin group from the North West Los Angeles, Venice, Glendale, San Fernando, and very few from Los Angeles proper. [87]

Some youth from Terminal Island formed "Zoot suit" gangs at Manzanar as an expression of their rebellion. Zoot suit gangs originated among Mexican and black young men in Los Angeles during the prewar years, but they also became popular among some Japanese (particularly on Terminal Island and in Little Tokyo) and Filipinos. The gangs were characterized by long hair, exaggerated baggy clothing, and use of unique slang. One Nisei informed Opler that such gangs became popular among the Terminal Islanders at Manzanar:

The Japanese that copied the zoot suits frequented the 'Lil' Tokyo' streets. I believe the Exclusive Twenty Club boys were the earliest [Japanese] groups to wear zoot suits. The Dunbar boys were next in wearing those styles.

After evacuation, the Exclusive Twenty Club was scattered in various centers, but the clothes that they wore took hold in various centers, especially in the Manzanar Center. The Terminal Island Niseis went for the zoot suit styles in a big way. They draped all kinds of pants to conform with the style. [88]

Gangs, such as the Dunbar Boys, would cause considerable trouble to WRA officials at Manzanar, particularly during the camp's first year of operation.

Little Tokyo — East Los Angeles

Opler also compiled a series of studies on the experiences and attitudes of evacuees at Manzanar that had come from the Little Tokyo-East Los Angeles area. In one report, dated October 26, 1943, Opler interviewed a Nisei mother who characterized herself as "an average Nisei . . . woman, 25, married, with a four year old daughter." Her father was an Issei, and her mother was a Nisei, but she considered herself a Nisei. She observed that her story was "like hundreds of other Nisei girls, with slight variations:"

.... I was brought up from the time I was about 3 or 4 until my teens by Caucasian Nuns (Catholic, my mother was a Catholic, and so are we) because Mother died, and left Father with a good-sized family (seven of us), ranging from less than a year to about 10, whom he could not take care of and support at the same time. Therefore, my background from childhood was strictly American, with no Japanese customs and restrictions. ... I went to the grammar school the Nuns conducted, then on to the public high school. I graduated from Los Angeles High School in Los Angeles, with neither high honors, nor, on the other hand, at the foot of the class, but just as one of 500 or so other students, ready and eager to go into the world to make use of the high ideals and teachings we had received.

Eight months or so after graduation, I met and married another 'nisei' from Florin. ... He had come to Los Angeles when he was 19 to establish a wholesale fruit and vegetable business. When I met him he was 24 years old, and already quite established in his business, through four years of hard work. We were married and a year later our daughter was born. About this time he felt that he could expand his business, so with more heart-breaking work and sacrifice, he was really established.

Now, we were really well situated and settled, even according to American standards. We lived in a nice home, had a new car, and a growing business, with enough money for the necessities of life with a few luxuries added, but not enough to squander foolishly. . . . now that I was married, and had a beautiful daughter, and a young, ambitious and fairly successful husband, I for once felt the sense of security, love and protection that I had been unconsciously longing for. As our second, and third years of marriage came and went, my husbands' business became better and better and he had big plans for future operations, when — bang — all of a sudden — Pearl Harbor — and the smashing of all our hopes and dreams.

The nisei evacuee reflected on the impact of Pearl Harbor and evacuation:

One cannot imagine the bitter despair and unhappiness of those first days and weeks. People, ignorant people, instead of letting us lick our wounds in peace, knocking at our door, asking if we had anything to sell, cheap, as if we were junk men or something, trampling, and handling our belongings as if we had no feelings at all. . . . The humiliation and degradation of those days will never leave us. ... I sometimes thought I could not stand the heartbreak in my husbands' eyes. Ten years of blood and sweat went into his business, and he was just about ready to sit back, and ease up a little, to enjoy his well earned fruits, when he had to give up and sell out. . . .

When evacuation came, and things were in such a confused state, and we were in a panic, we thought it best to get rid of her [their daughter's] furniture, as we thought we could not take it along with us. We sold it for a song. . . .

The greatest blow to her was when we were forced to give away all her toys. I didn't want to sell them, so I just gave them away to the neighbor children. . . .

Maybe these are little things compared to many which have happened, the heartache and misery, the thousands on thousands of dollars which were lost through evacuation, but the little things piled on each other, day by day, caused more heartbreak in us, then the one clean break of evacuation. Evacuation, on the whole, was a big, stunning blow that numbed us. But when we recovered from the shock we were actually in camp, learning to take it as a matter of course. But it is these little irritations, constantly chafing us, that keep us a little bitter, with a sense of frustration. . . .

.... On the whole, most of us took it [evacuation] as a matter of course; we were neither too bitter nor too happy about the whole affair. I think some of us

(especially those of us who came from the Los Angeles area and the immediately surrounding towns) were a little relieved to be away from the minor irritations, i.e., insults and slander, and the small humiliations unthinking people heaped upon us after Pearl Harbor. . . .

Not only were things like that common occurrences, but we had to take being refused a ride on the street car by the conductor, who in normal times wouldn't have thought to insult us so openly. . . .

Not only were we afraid for ourselves, but for our children, husbands, and parents. Personally, I always thought I could take care of myself when such things came up, as I am completely Americanized, and can give tit for tat, but when your children and especially our parents (most of whom are law-abiding, unassuming people, who could not understand why they were spoken to and insulted the way they were, but just took it in silence) were made miserable and unhappy, I think many of us tried to act as a buffer for them, so that they might be a little more relieved in a situation which was no fault of theirs nor, as a matter of fact, any fault of ours. The Nisei mother observed that many "of us will not have any more children for some time, as under the circumstances, when we have no home to go to, no real security, nor the atmosphere of safety in which normal happy children should be brought up, we feel it is best not to bring any more into the world." She elaborated:

.... Many will say, there's nothing to prevent you from having one, as there are hospital accommodations, etc. at the camp. Yes, I admit that. Excellent accommodations, in fact, but how many of us would care to go through life having to admit we were born in a "concentration camp". I know they are called 'relocation centers,' but in actuality, they are concentration camps. I, myself, would rather not have another child if it had to be born in camp. I'd much rather wait until I am out again, free, and on my own, settled in a community of understanding and sympathetic Americans, to bring up my family in an atmosphere of trustfulness and love, and free of the prejudices and hate that we have known. Maybe I am being idealistic, but no matter how hard hit and bitter we were about evacuation, our ingrown American teachings and traditions were never downed.

Despite her disillusionment and frustration, the Nisei evacuee reflected on her continuing loyalty to the United States. Noting that loyalty had never been an issue for her, she stated:

.... America is the land of my birth, the only land I know, I have never been in Japan, nor have I had any desire to go; I feel I belong here, and here I wish to remain. You don't stop loving your father if he gives you a sound thrashing for something that wasn't your fault. You admit it was wrong and try to forgive him. So it is with most of us. We think evacuation wasn't the solution to the problem, but as long as the Administration thought it was best, we have tried to understand and take it, and when the time comes for our release, we shall try to pick up the threads of our former life and live in the true American traditions, and bring up our children, too, on these same traditions, of justice, equality and the pursuit of happiness. [89]

Opler prepared a second report based on an autobiographical sketch with this Nisei woman. In this sketch of her experiences, she related how she and her husband had arrived at Manzanar and discussed the quandaries in her mind as to the meaning of evacuation. Prior to the war, she observed that their lives were "set in a complete pattern."

Then suddenly and shockingly, without any notice, the war started. Things were in a confused state. People were becoming panicky. There was talk of evacuating all Japanese out of the state. I hoped and prayed we at least — as citizens, would be allowed to remain. But to no avail. My husband sold his business while the selling was good. When evacuation was confirmed, we decided to move north to the so-called 'white (free) zone.' But even there we were not allowed to stay in peace. We were ordered to evacuate to the Tale Lake center. While we were there, my husband went to the Montana Sugar Beet fields on furlough. Returning to camp he decided he would go out again in the spring and stay 6 or 7 months. I decided to apply for transfer to the Manzanar Center where my folks were, since I had no relatives or friends in Tale. My transfer was recommended, and I reached Manzanar early in the spring. . . .

After being at Manzanar for two years, this Nisei mother observed:

I often sit and wonder how I ever came to be in a camp full of Japanese, aliens and citizens alike, with nothing much in common between them and myself except the color of our skins. What had I, or as a matter of fact, what had the rest of them done, to be thrown in camp, away from familiar surroundings, and familiar faces? What had there been in my life that made such a thing happen? I suppose the only answer is, the accident of my birth — my ancestry. There is no other logical answer. . . .

.... So we are looking forward to that day when we will again be 'free citizens' and lead once more a normal life. Maybe some day I may be able to find an answer to why we were put in camps. Even now I can find no answer, no event in my life to make me realize WHY? [90]

Opler gathered other stories of arbitrary treatment and discrimination encountered by evacuees from the Little Tokyo-East Los Angeles area that contributed to the anger and bitterness of those people. On April 24, 1944, he prepared an account of a Nisei who had grown up in Fresno where his father's laundry business was located in "Chinatown." Because 90 percent of his father's business came from "Chinese," it "hit rock bottom" in 1931 when "Japan started the war against China and took over Manchuria." The Chinese tongs in Fresno "forbade any dealing with Japanese."

Because his mother had a cousin living in Los Angeles, he "hitch-hiked" to the city, "getting a ride with a produce truck." The cousin found him a job "in a retail produce market as an apprentice with a salary of sixty dollars a month, room and board." Within six months he had "saved over two hundred dollars," so he sent for his parents and brothers. The family rented a house near the wholesale produce markets.

The Nisei man encountered racial slurs and slights as he worked in Los Angeles during the 1930s. He remembered being called a "Jap" and being told to go back where he came from. He observed:

When someone said something like this it sure used to get my blood boiling as I didn't know how to speak Japanese enough to be called a "Jap." I resented it very much as I thought I was as good as any other American citizen.

In time I got used to being called a 'Jap' by some 'ignorant whites.' I realized that if a I argued every time with ornery customers when I was called names, there wouldn't be much business left, so I learned to control my temper.

Things were pretty tough in Los Angeles during the years 1932 to 1934, but we managed [to] live by the skin of our teeth.

I wanted to go to college and take up law but my obligation to help the family was stronger so I remained working. My father wanted us to start some kind of a business of our own, but somehow we could never get enough capital to start a business. I learned through my associations with fellow fruit-stand workers that speaking English only was a handicap in getting better wages and good jobs.

I tried to get jobs with American concerns but found that only janitorial jobs were open and some concerns said right out that they 'had nothing for Japs'. . . . This kind of treatment jolted my ideals and so I took to learning to speak Japanese in earnest. Now I speak Japanese pretty well for I have really applied myself to it. In fact, I worked on it so hard that I believe my English slipped back.

Although the account did not discuss the Nisei's experiences in the late 1930s and at the time of evacuation, Opler noted in the foreword of the report that in 1939 the young man was able to found a business of his own, and it too, collapsed at evacuation. At the Project [Manzanar] the young man has been restless, volatile and unstable. He has sampled work in almost every Department of the Center. It is possible that his disorganization has gone too far, and that what he seeks is behind, and not before him. [91]

Several other reports prepared by Opler illustrated the discriminatory and brutal treatment experienced by evacuees in the Little Tokyo-East Los Angeles area that contributed to their anger, bitterness, and anti-social behavior at Manzanar. One report, entitled "Arbitrary Treatment by F. B. I. Men," was related by an evacuee who was a friend of two Nisei and one Issei from Little Tokyo. The report stated:

It was the night of December seventh 1941 in the LIL' TOKYO section of Los Angeles. Three Japanese fellows were walking home from Broadway when they were stopped by four F.B.I., agents who got out of a sedan. This happened between Los Angeles and San Pedro streets on East First street. The F.B.I. men asked the trio what nationality they were— whether they were Chinese or Japanese. They asked them what they were doing out so late at night. It was only 9:30 P.M. and the men were nearly home. There were no curfew laws in effect yet. When they replied that they were Japanese, the F.B.I, men told the trio to get inside the car or they would be black-jacked. The trio didn't have any alternative other than to comply. After the trio got into the car, they were driven to an empty auto-park behind the Paris Inn Cafe. Then the Japanese boys were told to get out. They did so and then the F.B.I, men beat the holy day-lights out of them. One of the G-men told the trio to make a run for it, all the while holding onto his hip-pocket as though getting ready to draw his gun out. The trio refused to run away so then they were taken to Central Jail. There again the fellows were subjected to further punishment until one of the policemen interfered, telling the G-men that they had enough beatings already.

The trio were later transferred to Lincoln Heights jail to be booked on some trumped up charge about late hours or something. Their trial came up about a week later and when it did they were dismissed immediately. [92]

Two reports by Opler linked the discrimination experienced by Japanese in the Little Tokyo-East Los Angeles area with the rise of zoot suit gangs in those sections of the city. One report, as previously noted, indicated that the "Japanese that copied the zoot suits frequented the 'Lil' Tokyo streets." [93]

Another report prepared by Opler related the story of a young man from the Little Tokyo-East Los Angeles area who had become a gang member at Manzanar, in part because of the chaos and turmoil he had experienced during the evacuation. An evacuee who had known the young man for some time told Opler:

One boy, a neighbor here, is a good example of what the 'zoot suits' have done to him. He is a member of one of the more 'famous' gangs of Manzanar.

In Los Angeles, where he was born and raised until evacuation, he was more than a model boy and son. He was the oldest boy in a family of two boys and two girls. He was a hard working fellow helping his father, who owned a wholesale produce firm in the Los Angeles market. Working as an all-around man, he sold, bought and received the produce. At that time he was about 20 years of age and the pride of his dad. He knew that by working hard he not only helped his dad, but himself at the same time, for he was learning the business inside out and preparing for the day when he might have to run it himself. He was an extremely ambitious boy. He actually never went out with a girl, which is in itself amazing, for he was twenty, a city boy and not too poor. But he just was 'too busy.'

After evacuation, when he landed in camp he seemed to become completely different. Not that he became vicious or bad, but from a quiet, conservative boy, he really became a model 'pachuco' boy, with haircut, clothes and talk of the zoot suit gang. He let his hair grow almost to his shoulder, cut in that exaggerated fashion of the true pachuco. All his clothes, both work clothes and good clothes were cut in the zoot drape. [94]

West Los Angeles

Opler prepared several reports describing the experiences and attitudes of evacuees at Manzanar from the West Los Angeles area. One report was based on an interview with a Nisei who had been born and raised in Hawaii. After graduating from high school this man had moved to northern California where he worked as a farm laborer. Several years later, he migrated to West Los Angeles and became a gardener. The report stated:

He was doing better than average in making a living and by this time he was married and had a son. His wife was a proprietress of a beauty shop in West Los Angeles and things were going along very smooth until the notice of evacuation. . . .

According to Opler, this Nisei

never realized that the United States government would allow such abridgement of citizenship rights of Niseis. This fellow was totally Americanized so he couldn't think that the Army could make us evacuate. Later he thought that the United States government would pay indemnity to evacuees for property losses. But when he finally realized that the retribution wasn't going to be paid to evacuees, he became pretty bitter.

He said the Army didn't even give the Niseis a chance to show their loyalty to this country, instead they shoved us in here [Manzanar]. This man also remarked that prior to evacuation he was willing to fight for this country, but not any more. [95]

Venice

At least four of Opler's reports were devoted to the study of Venice, a truck farming community near the coast south and west of Los Angeles City from which many evacuees at Manzanar originated. The most comprehensive report relating to this area, entitled "Mr. O., A Farmer from Venice, California (By an Evacuee Research Assistant)," was prepared on August 24, 1944. In his introductory comments, Opler observed that this account was "in part autobiographical, in part a mirror of a region and of a section of the West Coast population of Japanese ancestry before and during evacuation." It was "the story of an individual whom we shall call Mr. O., a successful farmer of the Venice, California area." The materials presented "were obtained in the course of a number of interviews with Mr. O. After the various interviews were organized and paraphrased, the data was submitted "to the narrator for comment and correction."

The report included Mr. O's impressions as he and his family left Venice for Manzanar on April 27, 1942. The evacuation experience was "like sinking down to the gloomy, colorless abyss of a foggy, damp morning." He related further:

.... One by one the buses, filled with heartsick, discouraged and humiliated evacuees, rolled away. The occupants craned their necks to see their homes, perhaps for the last time. All the energy used to build up what they had simply disappeared like a mirage in the cloud of dust and the carbon monoxide of the buses. ...

The evacuees who arrived [at Manzanar] on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, April 26, 27, and 28, 1942, came from the Santa Monica bay area, Sawtelle, San Fernando Valley, Burbank and Glendale. . . . After engine trouble and a flat tire, Mr. O's group arrived, only to be met by a famous Manzanar dust storm. Anguished tears stung their eyes as they thought, 'Haven't we gone through enough without having to face this too?'

Mr. O.'s father had emigrated to the United States via San Francisco in 1907. After meandering throughout the western states, he returned to Japan to attend to a family emergency. After marrying, he returned to America in 1911, and the family, which now included a baby daughter, settled in Elysian Park, a spinach-growing area on the north side of central Los Angeles where Mr. O. was born the following year. During the mid-1920s the family had moved to the Venice area and established a truck farming enterprise. The account of Mr. O.'s prewar experiences continued:

The oldest son, Mr. O., took over the family farm when he was 16 years of age. Luck was with the family, for in 1929 they hit the 'jack-pot,' — they had an exceptionally good year. From then on, farming was easier. Young Mr. O. says he could not claim to be a seasoned farmer until he was 21 years of age. Before evacuation, he had twenty acres of land, leased, which was yielding on the average from three to four car loads of celery an acre or sixty to seventy car loads a year. This does not include other crops. One refrigerated car carried 340 crates, the half-crate type, field packed.

He specialized in celery raising from 1926 to 1942. His twenty acres of it brought him $16,000 to $18,000 gross per year.

During his Venice High School years, his ambition was to become a doctor of medicine. He majored in mathematics and foreign languages. Since his father could not work as he used to, Mr. O. had to take all the responsibilities of the family onto his young shoulders. So his dreams of becoming a doctor faded. Instead, he sent his younger brother to a medical college. . . .

Mr. O is now 32 years of age. He has an attractive wife and three children. He met his wife, a Kibei, in Ise, Japan, on one of his three visits to that country.

Mr. O. was one of the oldest Nisei farmers in the Venice district, though there were a few Kibei farmers who were near his age. All the Nisei seemed to prefer white collar jobs. ... He says, The Californians should not be afraid that the persons of Japanese ancestry are going to be tough competitors in the field of agriculture, because even before the war, the Nisei were leaving the farms for the city. The Issei, because of the lack of education, did not go into business, but chose the farm, the back-breaking manual labor. The Nisei have seen the work their folks have gone through, and they do not wish to go through the same thing. The younger generation prefers the easier and cleaner jobs.'

Concerning activities in Venice prior to the war, the report stated:

.... everybody was busy all the time; there just did not seem to be much time for leisure. Mr. O. did belong to the Young Men's Association and was at one time a cabinet member of this organization composed of persons of Japanese ancestry. He, also, was a member of the Judo club.

There were yearly prefecture picnics, as well as picnics with the Pacific Fruit and Produce Company employees (Caucasians) and the farmers of Japanese ancestry in Southern California. This was a bright and true way for better racial understanding.

In answer to charges that the Japanese farmers exploited Mexican laborers in the Venice area, the report noted:

All the Mexican laborers who were hired to work on the various ranches in California were members of the Mexican Union. If the wages were low, they would strike. The Mexican consul would help them. It has been charged often that the Japanese people always were close to their consulate, but the Issei had to have some group to look after their rights since they could not become citizens of this country.

It is understood that the Japanese never took unfair advantage of the Mexican laborers. Wages paid during the pre-evacuation days were $.50 per hour; now they are probably $.85 per hour.

The report described the financial condition of the Venice farmers at the time of evacuation:

At times when the celery crop was good, the people in the Venice area were swamped with salesmen from various companies. In those years, they bought the best and most modern kitchen equipment, household furniture and nice automobiles. For an example, in 1941, luck was with them. In a competitive spirit, all the neighbors bought new 1941 Pontiacs, Chryslers, Fords, and Buicks. Everyone tried to out-do the other fellow. And when there were picnics, rows of shining new automobiles with window license stickers still on were to be seen.

Also new tractors and farm equipment were bought. Everything was perfect. Although the homes looked shabby from the outside, this contrasted sharply with the interiors. Money was not spent on the outside of the houses because the places were rented, and the tenants never knew when the landlords would decide to sell out. If they, the Issei, had been able to buy land, then naturally the exteriors of the homes would have been made more presentable. . . .

The "good times," however, came to an end with the coming of war. The report discussed this chaotic period:

When war was declared all the leaders of the Venice district: were interned; the Japanese language school teachers and the Japanese school committee members as well as those who were members of the Japanese Association. . . .

.... much hardship was suffered by the Venice farmer when the five mile travel limit and the curfew were enforced. Whenever he had any business to do, he had to go to the local WCCA office or the police department for a travel permit. To get this, he had to wait in line, because there were many other persons who also wished to travel. Therefore he had to do his business the next day. This took much time and spoiled many business opportunities. The distance from Venice to Los Angeles is sixteen miles.

There had been so much talk of evacuation that the aliens were, in a hazy way, expecting it. But the citizens [Nisei] of the Venice area never thought for one instant that they would be evacuated too.

Mr, O. is a citizen, and he never met discrimination whatsoever in his line of work. He was confident that he would be allowed to stay. Had he not been deferred from selective service because he was an essential farmer? Because he was so optimistic, he put in much time, labor and money so that he would be able to harvest and work his land for the duration. Thus, he lost his money. He was too confident of his rights as a citizen.

Mr. O.'s optimism was based, in part, on a letter that he had received from the Defense Board of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Los Angeles on March 16, 1942. The letter stated that "the best possible evidence of the loyalty of Japanese persons to this country . . . is that they continue their farming operations." Opler's report continued:

This . . . letter . . . supposedly answered Mr. O.'s question of what to do with his crops as evacuation became imminent.

He received this letter and heard from the neighbors that they, too, were told that they would be considered saboteurs if they did not put in their money and make preparations to harvest the crops even though they would not be there to benefit from them. This furthered the feeling of unrest. If the fields were neglected, it was said the FBI would come and take them to jail. Of course, this frightened the farmers, for people were actually being picked up by the FBI constantly in the community for various minor reasons after the outbreak of war.

In March, 1942, when Mr. O. asked the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco what to do with the farm equipment he was purchasing on an installment plan, the reply was that he should make suitable arrangements with the dealers who had sold the machines to him.

One of the tractor company dealers said, 'We don't know whether you Jap boys will pay or not. You are going to a concentration camp. We don't consider people who go in there citizens of this state. So pay now; I can't tell if you will be able to later on.'

The tractors had to be stored in the company's garage. Mr. O.'s brother lost his tractor, even though payment for it was not due. Mr. O.'s bill for his tractor was not due until June of the following year but he still had to pay for it then. He had hoped for a moratorium.

A group of Venice men finally asked a lawyer to draw up a petition to General DeWitt asking permission to stay a little longer than the time set for their evacuation, so that they might harvest the celery. But DeWitt did not even answer them. The farmers had to put in money to keep the farms going until the day of evacuation. They had to put up all ordinary costs, about $600 at the minimum per acre. .. .

Meanwhile, the Venice truck farmers were trying to sell their crops as the time of evacuation drew closer. The report stated:

.... as the evacuation day grew nearer, people who were panic stricken harvested their crops early and took them to the markets at the same time. The markets were flooded with stock. Naturally the prices went down drastically. In April Mr. O. was able to sell the crops by himself, but one of the reliable companies signed a contract with him to harvest the crops in May and June. . . .

Because the evacuees were anxious to get rid of whatever they had, they sold cheaply or else lent farming equipment, land, or crops to their neighbors or other Caucasian farmers. The evacuees, it seemed, had lost all sense of balance. . . .

While at Manzanar, Mr. O., as well as many other farmers, were angered by enactment of the Lowrey Bill, signed into law on May 18, 1943, by Governor Earl Warren. The law authorized the seizure of idle Japanese-owned farm machinery by the government for agricultural use. Some Caucasians who had taken over the Japanese-operated farms and stored Japanese-owned equipment reported the idle farm implements and machinery to authorities. Thus, many of the evacuee farmers were forced to sell or to run the risk of having their equipment seized. Mr. O. "decided that it would be better to sell his equipment, no matter how cheaply, than to have it seized." Accordingly, Mr. O. sold his equipment, despite his desire to keep and use them when he relocated. The report described the equipment and buildings that Mr. O. was forced to sell while interned at Manzanar:

Approximately 3800 nursery flats and 25 larger items were sold. Some of the more valuable items were as follows: one Chevrolet, 1939, 11/2 ton truck; one, 1940 Pontiac; one Farmall model 1941, cultivator; one Hardie High pressure sprayer, 1941 model; one caterpillar tractor, 1941; one John Deere plow, 1941 (late); one John Deere Disc, 1941; Land leveler, 1939; two hot houses with a capacity of 2200 flats each; two living houses; one garage; one barn; and one tool house.

The report stated that the Lowrey Bill "was a great blow in many ways." It worked against the plans of the government, which was to get the evacuees [out of the relocation centers] and back to productive life again. This bill came at a time when plans to relocate were being made by farmers. The farmers do not wish to go out as common laborers. They desire to run their own farms as before. This bill, as well as the newspaper propaganda that went with it, led to a great deal of bitterness. A good many of the evacuees who were not farming also reacted to the harshness and cruelty of the Lowrey Bill and to the viciousness of the newspaper articles [associated with its passage]. The people felt persecuted. Farmers who lost their equipment abandoned plans for relocation. [96]

Several other reports prepared by Opler indicate the level of anger and bitterness on the part of many evacuees from the Venice area. One report, entitled "The Venice Niseis (From a Los Angeles Nisei)," stated:

The Niseis of Venice region were very much urbanized, considering that they lived in rural homes. Most of them spoke good English and mingled with the Caucasian children. Majority of them were so Americanized that their parents could not tell them what to do. The Niseis would argue back, saying that it's old fashioned to do things the Japanese way. Venice farmers were better off from the financial standpoint as compared to average farmers.

When the war broke out, the Niseis also were prevented from going anyplace, anytime, and they were not allowed to have in their possession cameras or firearms. In other words, the same restrictions placed on the enemy aliens were applied to the Niseis as well.

After being placed in a evacuation center, the Niseis were ridiculed as to their status as United States citizens. They were reminded that they were in the same boat with aliens and that their citizenship had done them no good. Most of these Niseis resent the fact that their citizenship rights were taken away. The fact that they were so Americanized and yet were suddenly placed in the category of aliens, and being constantly reminded of this by the elders made them pretty bitter. [97]

Pasadena

Opler prepared a report on the impact of evacuation as reported by a Nisei gardener in Pasadena, a suburb northeast of Los Angeles. The Nisei, who lived with his wife and two-year-old son, noted that he was telling his story "to explain what my family and I went through during that critical time." The report stated:

At the out-break of war, some people were kind and some as ornery as could be. I had a Caucasian friend, a woman, who insisted that I remain put instead of voluntarily evacuating. My younger brother had volunteered to go to Manzanar on March 23rd, 1942 to help prepare the camp for later evacuees.

My older brother was working in a large American vegetable store in Alhambra [a suburb near Pasadena] when the restriction for traveling any distance was placed on people of Japanese ancestry. The distance from Pasadena to the store was just about five miles, maybe a little over, so he kept on his job, but when the curfew law was put in effect, he had to quit his job, as he was working nights only.

Now I was the only one working and 1 was not earning enough to support any large number of persons. So my only recourse was to evacuate with the rest of the family to Manzanar.

I went to the Los Angeles induction station to get necessary information regarding evacuation. This was at Seventh and Spring Streets. I wanted to find out if I could bring my radio, beds, and countless other appliances for daily use. The people working there passed the buck to each other in giving out information regarding things like that. They said that I could bring whatever I could carry. Now this didn't clarify my mission so I asked them to define 'all I can carry.' They said, 'Just what it means is all the explanation that is necessary.'

Now, I couldn't carry much nor could I expect my wife or son to carry anything. My wife was in a family way, so I devised ways and means to carry as much as possible.

The American lady friend offered to store some things until such time as they could be called for, so part of my problem was solved. Some things which we did not consider worthwhile storing we sold or gave away, such as projection films, music sheets, buckets, clothes-pins, pictures of Japan, some cooking utensils and countless other things that are used daily in average American homes.

April the second was the date set for us to evacuate to Manzanar. I made a contraption whereby I could pull a heavy load, carry the beddings on my back, and at the same time carry two suitcases on each side. The contraption was a 2-wheel, sledlike trailer and I expected to carry a big bundle on it. My wife was to carry a small suit case and my son was to carry a shopping bag filled with light things.

I will never forget the scene at the railroad station when I went to load our things on. Why, there were sewing machines and trunks and all sorts of bundles that a single person could not possibly carry by himself. It sure made me sore to see things like that. Maybe I trusted the government employees at the induction station too much. When I thought of the things I had thrown away I sure was sore. It took me a good 6 months to forget this.

This mass evacuation was handled in an orderly way, but what the evacuees suffered in property losses and rights can never be quite forgotten.

I personally thought, as my Caucasian friend did, that we Niseis with citizenship would be out of the center within half-a-year. That kind of thinking probably made me sell and throw away a lot of things. I expected to go right back to Pasadena and work as a gardener. I sure was an optimist then but now I know better. [98]

Burbank

On December 14, 1943, Opler prepared a report based on an interview with a young Nisei adult who lived with her mother and younger brother in Burbank, a suburban community north of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley, at the time they were evacuated to Manzanar on April 28, 1942. The family lived on a small estate owned by an upper middle class family where the interviewee's now deceased father and mother had settled in 1921 as caretakers. In addition, the parents had established a small flower enterprise, renting several acres on the estate on which to raise the flowers.

The interviewee described her school experiences in Burbank:

Going to school was something which I have always liked. I know that I was very happy going to school for thirteen years; kindergarten, grammar school, junior and senior high school. . . .

For junior high school graduation, I was selected as one of the five speakers. . . .

While in high school, I was a member of the scholarship society, and the exploration club. We had our parties, conferences, and trips. . . I think I led a very normal American girl's life. . . .

Although I heard that discrimination and prejudice existed, I never encountered them during my school years. My friends always treated me as an equal so that I always had a good time. . . .

The evacuee described her experiences after Pearl Harbor. On December 8, 1941, she and her brother went to school "with some anxiety." She observed:

.... Instead of ill treatment, there seemed to be a closer and more understanding feeling between us and the other students. On that day, the principal of the school spoke in assembly, telling the student body not to molest persons of Japanese ancestry. I was glad and grateful that he did but I don't think anyone would have done anything cheap towards us. After that day, all the days seemed to be the same. On occasions some people would look at us in a queer way but that would be all.

The evacuee described the fear that her family experienced as they read newspaper stories of Japanese persons being killed by Filipinos in Stockton and of the Terminal Island evacuation. "We wished that we could do something for them, but what?"

The evacuee also described the feelings of denial, helplessness, and fear experienced by her family as evacuation day for her community approached. She noted:

.... As the evacuation areas were being planned we thought that since we lived so far from the coast line we would not be evacuated. And in the first place, we smugly thought, the Caucasians would know that we wouldn't want to do any sabotage or espionage. In the first place, how, even if we had such ideas, could we get away with such a thing? Our complexions would give us away immediately. If we were white then maybe such a thing would be possible.

Alas, we learned that we were in the restricted zone. The voluntary evacuation was stopped and the curfew laws were enforced. All during this period and the weeks that followed, there was much emotional upheaval. The anxiety of not knowing what was going to happen next was oppressive. We were always in fear and felt like hunted animals or like escaped convicts. . . .

Before long, notices were posted and newspapers gave the complete restricted zones. We found that we had to move to Manzanar. We were told that we would be allowed to take only as much as we were able to carry with us. We, and I know many other families too, packed only enough to last for the summer and early autumn of the first year. Somehow winter weather was forgotten in the hustle and mad cap way of packing. Everyone felt that he would be lucky if he got away with his life. Therefore packing was done in a rather crazy, absent-minded fashion. All selfishness and personal thoughts were forgotten. We felt as though we were going to another world. People sold their belongings at outrageously low prices unthinkingly and some persons simply left their refrigerators, stoves, and valuable belongings standing. When persons stored their things in the churches and temples, they probably thought that they would be as well protected there as in any other place. As you have undoubtedly seen in the newspapers, vandals have stolen or destroyed much of the stored goods left in these places. Some Caucasians did travel from door to door, asking if anything was for sale. . . .

Finally the day of departure was at hand. My Caucasian girl friends gave me a farewell party and we told each other that I would be back soon. The day before departure, we drove around our community to see all the familiar landscape. . . . We were very depressed — depressed to be literally pushed out of this place, our home for over twenty-two years. ... I tried to assure myself and the others that we would be back very soon. There was no reason why we should be kept in the camp when we were trustworthy. Why, we would be back by Christmas, 1942.

Yes, this evacuation is the first discrimination that I ever felt. And I felt it hard. We were evacuated and the Italians and the Germans were free. Many persons who were not anti-Japanese, that is, Caucasians, thought that evacuation was the best thing for us. Their argument was that we would be protected from mob violence. The way they spoke, it seemed as though they could not trust their fellow Americans. Isn't America civilized? . . .

The evacuee went on to describe her early experiences at Manzanar and their impact on her attitudes. She noted that her family rode on one of the 20 Pacific Electric and Greyhound buses that transported evacuees from Burbank to Manzanar on April 28. As they entered Manzanar, "a dust storm, the worst one that we ever encountered, met us." Their

hearts sank as we saw rows and rows of dismal tar-papered pre-fabricated barracks and wondered whether we were asleep or experiencing some horrible nightmare. The whole episode of evacuation still seemed unreal. The people who came to greet us were very hardy to come against the wind and the dust. They wore huge motorcyclist's goggles, bandannas, boots, and dusty clothes. We were examined by a doctor before we were allowed to get off the bus. We were officially inducted into this camp after we received our army blankets and were assigned to our quarters. Upon reaching our home to be, we found that we had to share our little room of 20' x 25' with another family. Counting all heads in both families, there were eight of us. The first night we slept on the floor. Tears slipped down my checks as I tried to sleep to overcome my disappointment. . . .

The evacuee related her struggles as she adjusted to her surroundings:

The first month of readjustment was the hardest. Although I was among many persons, I was still very lonely. Very homesick and miserable. Only the mountains were of comfort to me because they reminded me of the mountains back home. Because I am more of a small town girl, I suppose, the closeness of quarters seemed to make me wish for fresh air. It seemed as though I were going to suffocate. . . .

I hated the sight of everything here. In the beginning of last year [1942], the rooms were not lined with plaster board and linoleum. Whenever the cold spring wind blew down from the snow covered Sierra Nevada mountains, the blast of cold wind would come into the rooms through the large holes and spaces between the floor boards and the walls.

I know that I am not as bitter, lonely, nor as high strung as before. Until very recently, I tried to study to make the time go faster, but I could not sit still for a long enough period of time without the desire to be on the go. I was too restless. I did not even try to make friends here at first, but later I did. . . ." [99]

San Fernando Valley

Opler prepared two studies on evacuees at Manzanar that had come from the San Fernando Valley, approximately 20 miles north-northwest of the Little Tokyo-East Los Angeles area. One study, dated March 20, 1944, concerned the history and evacuation experiences of the Japanese flower growers, and the other, dated October 30, 1944, discussed the prewar community and evacuation experiences of the vegetable farmers in the valley.

For his study of the flower growers, Opler interviewed 17 representatives of the 32 Japanese growers in the valley, all of whom had been evacuated to Manzanar. The flower growers had approximately 600 acres under cultivation. They owned about 400 acres of land, cultivated and uncultivated, the remainder being leased. Most of the business was carried on with Eastern shippers, although some flowers were sold through Los Angeles area outlets.

During the early 1900s some of the Japanese who migrated to southern California worked as gardeners on the estates of wealthy Caucasians. While working, they experimented with flowers, a "natural tendency because of their love for beauty in nature." After finding that flowers grew well, some Japanese "decided to grow flowers in the Montebello, Glendale, and the beach areas." At first they worked on a small scale, packing flowers "into large woven suitcase-like containers which were carried to the street car line." By "street car they traveled to Los Angeles to sell the flowers." They "made a good income and others heard of their good fortune so they, too, decided to grow flowers."

During World War I and the early 1920s the business of growing and selling flowers increased substantially. It was discovered "that the San Fernando Valley, because of its dry climate, was particularly suitable for flower raising in the winter and early spring when fresh flowers are very scarce and difficult to grow elsewhere." Thus, some Japanese moved to San Fernando from other parts of southern California to raise flowers.

The San Fernando Valley florists developed a distinctive community. According to the report, they

lived far apart from each other because they had to move to different localities in order to seek fertile land as well as good climatic conditions. Unlike the farmers, the flower growers could not live on one piece of land for more than 5 to 10 years. If they did, they would have to invest too much money in fertilizer, so that more money would be spent than they would make. . . .

In order to start a 10 acre field, one would need $5,000 to $6,000 for seeds, fertilizer, water pipes, etc. Unlike the farmers who irrigate by ditches, the florists need pipes, hoses, and sprinkling systems.

Opler observed that "hired laborers were necessary." In the early days. "Mexicans and Filipinos worked part time for 50 cents an hour while Japanese laborers worked full time for room and board and $120 a month."

The Japanese florists were generally well received in the San Fernando Valley both prior to Pearl Harbor and between that time and the evacuation. The children attended public schools and took an active part in school affairs where prejudice "did not exist to any extent." Outside the school "the social activities of the younger set revolved about social clubs which they formed among themselves" for socials and athletics. The children attended a Japanese language school on Saturdays, "but the school hours usually turned into an occasion for the young people to have more social life." The Japanese community gathered once a year on July 4 for a picnic. This was "about the only time they could get together, for there was so little leisure time."

According to the report, when outsiders saw the florists, "they think that flower raising is a very profitable business." They "even envy the way the members of the family work side by side out in the fields raising beautiful and fragrant flowers." The growers, however, did "not have time to enjoy the fruits of their labor, for they are too busy working, crawling on the ground to pick weeds even when their backs and knees ache."

Approximately one-third of the flowers were sold through retail outlets in Los Angeles. The most significant such enterprise was the Southern California Flower Market, Inc., located on Wall Street between Seventh and Eighth Streets in central Los Angeles. Virtually of the Japanese flower growers were members of this market, which had 159 members before the war. The supply departments sold farm equipment, supplies, and seeds to the members at wholesale prices. In addition to this market, there were three other markets on the same street, two of which were run by Caucasians, while a smaller market was operated by the Japanese. The Caucasians usually sold roses, gladioli, bulb flowers, and greens, while the Japanese markets sold annual and perennial cut flowers, such as carnations, asters, chrysanthemums, anemones, snap dragons, gardenias, roses, and potted plants. Individual annual gross incomes for the flower raisers amounted to $5,000 for those who had 5-10 acres and $10,000 to $20,000 for those with 10-20 acres. Several of the flower growers, who operated farms having more than 50 acres, grossed $50,000 a year.

The Junior Floralculture Society was organized about 1933 by the Nisei sons and daughters of the members of the Southern California Flower Market. The chief purpose of the organization was sponsorship of social get-togethers, which were held once a month. Besides socials, educational lectures were given, movies were shown, and field trips were conducted. The children of the San Fernando Valley flower growers were active participants in these events. The Issei took care of market business at members' meetings.

Two-thirds of the cut flowers from San Fernando Valley were shipped to southern, eastern, and midwestern cities such as Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and Cleveland, and several cities in Texas. Shipping of flowers proved to be more profitable because the flowers were ordered beforehand and the growers knew that their flowers would be sold. There were seven shipping concerns, two of which were run by the Japanese.

The San Fernando Valley flower growers were impacted seriously by the 8 P.M. to 6 A.M. curfews enforced after Pearl Harbor. Previously, the San Fernando growers had taken their flowers to Los Angeles market some 20 miles away between 3:30 and 5 A.M. However, the curfew, as well as downtown traffic encountered during the later hours, delayed the growers in getting their flowers to market. As the time passed after the opening of the market, the prices of the flowers would go down. As a result of the curfews, their competitors sold out and Japanese growers were left with many of their flowers. Some of the growers, rather than dumping their flowers, often took them to local hospitals.

Travel restrictions were introduced after Pearl Harbor requiring that travel permits be obtained. Each time a new restricted area was announced, another permit had to be obtained designating new routes to be used by the growers. Police often stopped the flower growers on the way to market, checking their travel permits and drivers' licenses, further delaying their arrival. Business began to lag, and by March 1942 only a handful of the 159 members appeared at the market each day.

During the first week after Pearl Harbor, the Issei were not able to attend the markets by themselves. Nisei, Filipino, Mexican, or Caucasian laborers were asked to drive them to the market and also to sell the flowers. Later Issei were allowed to drive to the market, but were allowed to stay only for the purpose of conducting their business. They were prohibited from holding meetings after business hours.

In summarizing the impact of the evacuation on the San Fernando florists, Opler observed;

Some of the San Fernando growers think the voluntary evacuation would have worked out if they had been given more time and if they had been given more trust. Others say that they had spent all their money on their land because they never thought that they would have to move, so that naturally they could not move voluntarily.

Some say that losing the time that had been put into their work is a bigger loss then the property or money that they have lost, for it takes years to gain experience, to prepare the land and to raise good seeds.

Due to the evacuation, the flower growers have lost much but many of them do not know really how much because some left their equipment and household furniture on the farm, thinking that they would be allowed to return shortly. Some have sold these belongings at a great sacrifice since. As for the flower crops, most were sold, but at sacrifice prices. The farm machinery was also either kept and stored in the barn or sold for ridiculous prices. . . . Those who sold their machinery, farm equipment, or stock could not get fair price for them as a rule. [100]

On October 30, 1944, Opler prepared a second report on a group of evacuees at Manzanar from the San Fernando Valley. This report, based on interviews with the representatives of 14 farming families, concentrated on the pre-evacuation and evacuation experiences of the truck farmers in the valley.

Japanese farmers had settled in the San Fernando Valley during the early 1900s. By 1941 Japanese farmers were living in or near the valley settlements of Van Nuys, Canoga Park, Burbank, Roscoe, San Fernando, Pacoima, North Hollywood, Saugus, Sunland, and Hansen Heights. The Japanese did not live in concentrated groups in the valley, but were dispersed because of the need to move about for better land on which to grow their vegetables. Most of the Japanese in the valley had been gardeners, nurserymen, store clerks, and domestic workers prior to becoming farmers. These farmers did not come from the same districts in Japan, but were "a mixed group as far as their backgrounds in Japan were concerned."

The Japanese in Burbank, North Hollywood, and Pacoima raised bunch vegetables, such as carrots, green onions, and turnips. Lettuce, cabbage, cantaloupes, and tomatoes were grown in Canoga Park, San Fernando, and Van Nuys. A few farmers raised strawberries and potatoes. Farmers usually planted about three types of vegetables to minimize the risk they would be taking if one crop failed during the year. Irrigation was necessary because of the generally dry arid climate. The average cost of water per farmer during the summer months was about $150.

The farmers in the valley did not make "much money," but "the people were able to live and were sure of being able to eat." The farmers depended upon Mexican, Italian, and Filipino laborers "to work their farms." The Mexicans "were hired in large numbers," because "they were good natured." During the years before the war, Nisei children had "grown up" and "graduated from schools," so they were able to help on the farms, but until then the only time the children were of any assistance was during the summer and during Christmas and Easter vacations." Women worked in the fields, took care of the children, and did the housework. The wages paid the laborers depended upon the crops that were in season. For instance, the wages for carrots were less than 35 cents an hour, the average wage for other crops.

The majority of the Japanese farmers leased pieces of land averaging from 10 to 50 acres in size, although one or two farmers had more than 160 acres. The farmers moved every 5 to 8 years, the longest period for most farmers staying in one spot being about 10 years. They moved because the land required "rest," the landowner decided to sell his property, or the lease was acquired by someone else. During the years prior to World War II, some Nisei had begun to purchase land in the valley, but "until then the Japanese farmers were Issei who were not able to buy land."

About half of the crops were shipped to Eastern markets, while the other half were sold through local Los Angeles wholesale produce markets. The farmers preferred to have their products shipped, because they received better prices and were assured of having their crops sold. Vegetables that were shipped were handled in two ways. One way was to have the vegetables taken to the shipper for packing and weighing. The other way was to construct temporary packing sheds on farms by the shippers. There were about five packing houses in the valley at the time of evacuation in 1942. By 1941 there were about 20 Japanese wholesale houses in the Los Angeles produce markets. To sell their vegetables at the wholesale produce market houses in Los Angeles, the San Fernando farmers leased "doors," which ranged in price from $1,500 to $3,000 annually. The houses loaned money to the farmers to facilitate their agricultural operations.

The San Fernando Valley Japanese farmers formed several associations to promote profitable market prices, encourage better understanding between the growers and laborers, and promote harmonious business relationships between Caucasians and Japanese. In 1917 Nogyo Kumiai, the San Fernando Valley Farmers Association, was organized. Later in 1926 Sangyo Kumiai, the Industrial Organization, was formed. It had between 100 and 120 members. In 1930 the Japanese farmers of southern California decided to form an organization to promote mutual self-help. All Nogyo and Sangyo Kumiais were united to form a Nokai Renmei, or Union of Agricultural Associations, in Los Angeles.

When rumors of evacuation began to circulate, some San Fernando Valley Nisei, who did not think such orders would affect them, acquired the leases for the "doors" that the Issei leased. When evacuation orders included the Nisei, they had little time to sell their leases or store equipment. Thus, many of them "suffered a total loss" as a result of the evacuation. Opler summarized the losses of the San Fernando Valley farmers and the closely allied Japanese wholesale houses:

The 20 markets lost tremendously. Six went bankrupt because of the evacuation;

stores sold at cost; no money came in for the lease value; many of the farmers were not able to repay their back loans; merchants had to pay for the guaranteed fertilizer, lumber and rent. At the very best the houses broke even if the banks helped.

Opler also summarized the impact of Pearl Harbor and evacuation on the lives and livelihoods of the San Fernando Valley farmers. Based on his interviews, he observed:

The farmers and all the other people were confused and frightened and did not know what to do after Pearl Harbor. There were rulings that came in stating that aliens were not to go to the wholesale markets. Consequently the Nisei and persons of other nationalities were hired to haul vegetables to the markets. The aliens did not suffer much except that those who formerly had taken their vegetables to the markets had to spend money to pay for the services rendered by the haulmen. But before long this restriction was lifted and life was almost normal again.

Many persons were said to have received letters and notices from the United States Department of Agriculture stating that they should go ahead and prepare to harvest their crops. The farmers did not think they would be evacuated until the harvesting was over because they lived so far from the ocean and they were in a valley surrounded by mountains. The farmers went ahead with their planting and thinning of crops, and put in fertilizer. When orders for evacuation came, some people thought they would be taken away for about a week or at the longest, a month. They did not pack their belongings but left them. Many had Caucasians look after their things.

The Caucasians in the Valley were very good to the people. One of the reasons for this might be that the majority of the Caucasians who lived in the Valley worked in the city. A few had stores or farms. The Japanese farmers did not offer any competition to them. The mayor of San Fernando, and the chief of police, and the manager of the Los Angeles War and Power for the Valley were said to be exceptionally good to the Japanese residents.

The children of the Japanese farmers attended the San Fernando, Canoga Park, North Hollywood, Burbank, and Van Nuys high schools, or went to elementary schools in these districts. Those who attended Japanese language schools went to the one in San Fernando, the biggest of the three, or to North Hollywood, or Glendale. [Approximately 6 persons from the valley had been picked up by the FBI for their association with these schools.]

The American schools treated the children well, even after the outbreak of war. And there was no discrimination. There might have been some prejudice out of school but not enough to hurt the feelings of the people.

The Caucasian neighbors were good to the farmers. They are true to them even now. At the time of evacuation, one of them offered to lend money to an evacuee family. Many, with solicitude, offered to help the evacuees. . . .

The San Fernando Valley people were evacuated on April 26, 27, and 28, 1942, from Burbank. The people had to get to the point of departure early in the morning. These mornings were cold. The Caucasians who lived in that section offered their homes to the evacuees to stay in while they waited for the arrival of busses which would take them to Manzanar. The evacuees who came from the country districts and these particular Caucasians probably had never met before, but, because there was no ill feeling, homes were opened to them and some persons served the evacuees coffee. . . .

Although the unlucky persons lost much, those who were lucky did not lose greatly except on the last crop that they could not harvest. But what the older people regret the most of all is that this happened just as they had come to a stage when the Nisei were old enough to help on the farm and the elders were able to take life a little easier. At last good farm equipment had been collected and from this point on they thought the way would be smoother than ever before. The children would have been able to do better and bigger farming because of their knowledge of the English language, because of their educational background in business, and because they were able to get along with Caucasians. In other words they were at last on an equal footing with the Caucasians. The older people were ready to watch and enjoy the restful and more hopeful years roll by.

But the evacuation destroyed all of that. Now the old people as well as the young must start from scratch. . . . [101]

Florin

One of the last groups to arrive at Manzanar consisted of a contingent of 399 rural Japanese/Japanese Americans from Florin, an all-Japanese agricultural settlement established in the Fair Oaks vicinity just east of Sacramento during the early 1900s. Many of the early Japanese settlers in the Florin community were burakumin (literally, "people of the village"). In Japan these people constituted a class of "untouchables," comparable to those in India, who typically slaughtered animals for meat butchers, prepared meat, worked with leather, tanned hides, or made shoes. They were considered inferior, because they broke the Buddist edict against killing animals and were thus shunned by other Japanese because they were unclean. The majority of the Florin people were small -landowners, the Issei having purchased the land in the names of their Nisei children. The chief crops raised in this community were grapes and strawberries, and the size of the farms averaged about 20 acres.

On October 30, 1943, Opler prepared a report on "The Florin Evacuation," based on an interview with an Issei evacuee from Florin. According to the Issei, the Florin farmers

were the stay put kind. They had worked hard on the same land for many years. They didn't believe in going hither and thither to farm. This type of farmer usually hits a very good year once in a decade, and that good year was the very one when they had to evacuate. Just before evacuation the farmers in the Florin section were already thinking in terms of new cars and new tractors as the market prices for fruits were reaching new ceilings.

These farmers had but to pick the crops to realize their fortunes when the notice to evacuate came. The strawberries were ripe and ready to be picked. The grapes were later crops but everything was in readiness for harvesting. The Florin farmers saw their fortune whisked away right under their noses. . . .

.... The remaining work was simply to irrigate and to tie the vines up when the crops were to be harvested. In other words all the essential work and effort and investment had been previously put in.

After they arrived at Manzanar, some received letters telling them that grapes were bringing eighty dollars per ton. That meant if one acre yielded ten tons, each acre would have brought in eight hundred dollars. The strawberry price was also better than in ordinary times.

The rural Florin people, according to the Issei evacuee, were generally conservative and traditional people. They "brought up their children in the Japanese way," and the Niseis from that district were "better than average conversationalists in Japanese." The Niseis "read and write Japanese better than the average Nisei." [102]

Opler prepared a second report on 'The Florin People" on December 15, 1943, based on an interview with an evacuee woman who had married "a Florin boy whose father was one of the first to go to that section of California to farm." She observed that the "Florin people built homes, and all in all were a 'permanent community.'"

The evacuee interviewee provided a historical overview of the Florin settlement. According to this evacuee, the typical life of the Florin people before evacuation

was one of contentment and peace. They had come in, simple, ambitious people, to try to reclaim a land which the Caucasians had thought worthless and not worth the trouble to keep. These people recognized, and still admit the land "isn't so good", but to them, at that time, and even now, it was something which they could build, with hard work, into something tasting, and which they could leave to their children as a heritage, to show that this was indeed, 'a land of opportunity.'

The average head of the family, before he came to Florin, worked for about three years in back-breaking labor, as a railroad section hand to save enough money to stake himself. Many of the people came here with practically nothing in the world but the clothes on their backs, and hope in their hearts. They tried first to make a little money so that they might go back to Japan for their wives if they were married, or to be married. After returning for their wives, they came back to America to farm, for in their travels as section hands, they saw likely places that they could farm.

With what little money they had after returning to America, they and their wives came to Florin, to work for the farmers around there. They became sort of share croppers, and eventually bought out the majority of the Caucasian farmers. But all this didn't happen over night. It took years of labor with their hands, and much sacrifice to get even a small plot of land. But that was one thing they were used to — hard work. And they were ambitious, ambitious for themselves, and for their children. Once they got that plot of land, they felt they 'belonged.'

Almost immediately, they planned for the future, to think of building more stable homes, able to withstand the years. They built homes, painted them white, trimmed with green or any color they had a mind to. They planted lawns, trees, shrubbery and all in all made it a place to live in and in which to raise their children. With the years, they began to get out of the 'red', paying the last payments on the land. When the day came when they actually owned the land (through their citizen children), it was a day of rejoicing, for after their back breaking labor, they now had something to show for it, and there was no chance of being thrown out.

The evacuee described the sense of pride the Florin people took in the improvement and beautification of their property. She noted:

Since they owned the land they lived on, their first thought was for the improvement of their living conditions. They built homes to last, even planning for additional room space if it is needed. Usually it is, because the eldest son, after he marries, is expected to bring his bride home, and here raise his family. As the family increases, more room space is necessary. When the additional rooms are built on, they are not stuck on haphazardly, but with an eye to permanency.

There was always someone in the house with time enough to tend a flower garden. Plants, flowers, trees, and grass were kept in perfect condition. The trees were shade trees, so that in the summer, if they had any spare time, they could go out and lie on the lawn, under the shade of the trees for a while. Many families had elaborate fish ponds, cemented, and filled with whatever fish they managed to get. To them, a garden is not complete without these ponds. Great pains were taken in the building of them, so that there would be no chance of them cracking. No two ponds were alike in size or shape. Everyone had his own idea as to the manner in which they should be built. So, naturally, the outcome of these were quite elaborate and beautiful.

The evacuee also commented on the sense of ownership that characterized the Florin people and described their conservative financial approach to life as well as their gradual acceptance of modern conveniences. She observed:

Between 1925 and 1930 the majority of the Florin people had the land paid for, and were now working for 'themselves.' They started to save money for needed farm equipment, which, until now they felt they could not afford. Till then they had been doing the work literally by hand, or the more fortunate had horses to do the real hard work. But they knew motorized equipment would help them considerably, so they saved the money for it. When they had the money saved, they bought whatever they needed for personal convenience and comfort and not until then. They believed in buying only what they could afford, even when it came to household equipment.

When the new modern kitchen appliances came out, like refrigerators, electric mixers, etc., the men wanted their wives to have them, but only when they could afford it. Somehow, they didn't believe in the installment plan. They believed if you needed and wanted a thing bad enough, you will be willing to make a little sacrifice here and there to save for it. But buy it they did, and many of them had all the modern appliances, bought and paid for. It all leads back to the feeling of 'ownership.' In the old days, they were so insecure, and had to work so hard for what little they had, and they knew and realized the value of ownership. If you owned and paid for something, you had it, and nothing, they thought, could take it away from you. They planned to stay here for the rest of their lives, to die here, and leave their property to their children, along with the lessons they taught of hard work, of earning what you make, keeping what you have, and knowing the value of the land.

The evacuee described the devastating impact of evacuation on the ideals and sentiments of the rural Florin people. She commented:

Just before evacuation, many of them were making more money than they had in the previous years. . . .

The crops being good, and the money coming, they felt they could invest more of their money in new and modern farm equipment, new cars, and give the house a new coat of paint. All these things had materialized, and they had barely had time to enjoy them, when they were notified that they were to be evacuated. Many of them, after years of nursing the old car along, had bought new cars. Not extravagant cars, but modest Chevrolets, Plymouths, etc. Not only had they bought new cars, but tractors, pick-ups, and other needed equipment.

After planning for years for these things, to have to give them up so suddenly, and many times at a loss, was a great blow to them. These things were paid for and were as good as cash on hand, and to sell them at loss, sometimes at a figure that was not even half what they were worth, was shocking to their long years of frugal living.

But aside from the things they had bought, and owned, they had their farmers' pride at stake. At the time of evacuation they had their crops planted and they were ready to be harvested. To see them lying in the fields, rotting just because they were not allowed to pick them, hurt them just as badly as evacuation itself. They begged to be allowed to pick them, not thinking of the money involved, for they said they would wait for it at the convenience of the Association, for to a farmer to see the crops lying on the ground, not harvested, is to see his life going to ruin.

Perhaps they were too attached to the land, but that is the way of most of these old people. They had come to this land of opportunity, from a country where their lot was much worse, and by hard work and sacrifice, they had managed to save a little to keep themselves and their children. They did not ask for anything that they didn't deserve. They were always willing to help their neighbor, and be law-abiding people, for they knew that in this country they had seen the realization of their most cherished hopes.

But evacuation was the dashing of their hopes, for many of them know they are too old to start over again, and they know they 'can't take it' as they used to in their youth. And too, something has gone out of them that they can never again recapture. I guess you would call it ambition, but I would say faith — faith in an ideal. They believed if you worked hard enough, and were law-abiding, doing nothing to shame their race, they would be left in peace and contentment, but that has been taken away, not only from themselves, but their children, and they see their children growing day by day more discontented and disheartened — and worst of all — unambitious. [103]

Stockton/French Camp Area of San Joaquin County

The last large contingent of evacuees to enter Manzanar were those from the French Camp area, a small farming community south of Stockton in San Joaquin County in the northern section of California's Central Valley. On April 22, 1944, Opler prepared a report, entitled "Autobiography of a Nisei From the Stockton Area," detailing the experiences of a young man from that vicinity. The majority of the report, according to Opler, "was taken down by me exactly as it was dictated."

Born in San Francisco, this Nisei had lived with his family in San Raphael, a small community north of the city on the west side of the bay, from the age of 2 to 19. His father had operated an independent gardening business. As the only Japanese family in San Raphael, he and his family members had not experienced discrimination. After graduating from high school, he went to work first as a general farm laborer and later as a warehouse and ranch foreman and mechanic in the machine shop of the Weyl-Zuckerman Company, a large farm on McDonald Island in the San Joaquin River in the Stockton/French Camp area. The principal crops raised on the farm were potatoes, sugar beets, and onions.

The Nisei discussed some of his prewar experiences on the company farm. He noted:

.... This was the first time I ever met any Filipinos. Well, to me they were just the same as other people. I had no feeling of discrimination against them. I didn't know what the word discrimination meant until I got on this job. Then I found out. Then for the first time 1 found out that my looks were different from some other people's. The Japanese people on the farm told me so. They told me that 1 should not mix too much with Caucasians and that I should learn to speak Japanese.

Then they discriminated against me themselves. This was a Kibei group. They are not all bad but I just happened to run into the wrong ones, I guess.

.... Their reasons for their advice to me were that no matter where I go I won't be treated as a Caucasian anyway and won't have the rights that a Caucasian has. They would make fun of me and would not accept me in their circle. . . . This was mostly because I couldn't speak Japanese. I told them that I couldn't help it; it wasn't my fault. My parents had just never brought me up that way.

Also I found out for the first time that Japanese people gossip. My parents never gossiped. I was taught not to. But here the old Issei would come around and tell me this and that. It was the first time I realized that Japanese people were like that.

After working on the farm for three years, the Nisei had saved enough money to purchase, along with his brother and brother-in-law, "a five-acre plot with a house on it at French Camp." His parents and two sisters moved from San Raphael to the newly purchased property, while he stayed and worked on the Weyl-Zuckerman Company farm. His father was in poor health, and thus farmed only part of the five-acre property, raising "chickens enough to meet the family expense."

The Nisei described the Japanese community in the French Camp area and his family's experiences in the community. He stated:

In French Camp my mother joined the Parents-Teacher's Association. She had been Vice-President of P.T.A. in San Raphael before this. Two of my sisters were going to school in French Camp.

My two younger sisters' lives have been a little different from mine. They were sent to a Japanese language school as well as to public school. They got along and mixed quite well with the Caucasian children in French Camp, however.

We are Presbyterian. My father was a Buddhist in Japan but he didn't pay any attention to the Buddhist religion. He is a Presbyterian now. My mother is a Presbyterian too. We have been Presbyterians for about 20 years. My mother was a Buddhist when she came to this country but she changed too. Although we think all religions are the same, stand for the same things, it is better to know one well than to know none of them well. . . .

The average person of Japanese ancestry in French Camp was a farmer. In Stockton the Japanese were business men. They ran hotels and restaurants. Some were doctors and lawyers. Some were produce men, I guess.

As for their living accommodations and way of living in French Camp, the average was fairly good. They brought up their children in the American ideas as much as possible, as much as they knew how to, I guess. There was a fairly good-sized Japanese community.

The farmers raised quite a few strawberries, carrots, and other things. It's truck farming. They sent things to the Stockton market, shipped up to San Francisco and all the way down to Los Angeles. Also, they shipped to Sacramento. . . .

The Nisei's brother was one of the first Japanese Americans in the French Camp community to volunteer for the U.S. Army in January 1941. Commenting on the reaction of his family and community, the interviewee observed:

When conscription first started I noticed that the nisei group were all for it. Quite a number of Kibei group were against it. The idea was that they didn't like the idea of army life at all. Some of the Kibei came over from Japan to avoid the draft there. I know one Kibei fellow who went mentally unbalanced worrying about conscription. But some Kibei were for conscription and even volunteered for the army. As for the Issei, they didn't give too much thought to conscription but they were proud that the nisei were able to join the U.S. Army. . . .

The Japanese people of French Camp gave him [his brother] a big send-off when he volunteered. The Japanese and the Y.W.C.A. and the Y.M.C.A. and the Japanese section of the P.T.A. helped with the send-off party. They had the party in the Japanese Community House in French Camp. . . .

Before my brother entered the army he talked it over with the family. Of course it was more or less up to him whether he wanted to volunteer or not. My parents were for his volunteering; they thought it was a good idea.

At this time the tension between Japan and the United States was already present. The Japanese as a group saw war with Japan coming. Nevertheless the Nisei felt they should volunteer and even some Kibei felt the same way. Most Nisei were perfectly willing to be drafted into the U.S. Army then even though they saw trouble with Japan coming.

The Nisei interviewee described his reactions and experiences after the Pearl Harbor attack. He stated:

When Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan it made a good many nisei like myself mentally ill. Our attitude was that Japan wouldn't be able to last one year. . . .

When I went to eat lunch in the Japanese mess-hall [at the company farm], some of those Kibei and Issei said that Japan would win the war. Soon I got into an argument with some of them and I told them to wait until the finish comes before they decide who is going to win. Since they knew I didn't speak Japanese and wasn't familiar with the Japanese way of living, they laughed at me, made fun of me and told me that my brother would be killed within one month. I know I didn't feel so very good about it, but I didn't feel like arguing since I don't argue very much. So I let them do most of the talking, but I did tell them that people like them will soon receive what's coming to them. To some of those people I asked, "Why are you here in this country if you like Japan so much? Why don't you go back if you don't like America?" They answered that they want to make as much money as possible and that the American way of living was easier and the American way of making money was easiest. . . .

Of course there were some Nisei fellows like myself. We just sat and listened and felt hurt to know that some people had such an attitude. Sometimes I felt that I should report them to the FBI. I don't know just why I didn't. Maybe it was because some of them had families and I felt sorry for the kids. I hate to see people go to jail anyway. Besides I knew they were just ignorant little people with no power. It was all talk and none of them would dare to do anything but talk.

W-Z and Company had mostly issei and kibei working for them. You see, the issei would naturally take to the kibei because they understood something about the Japanese way of living and they can talk more easily to them than to the nisei.

The Nisei interviewee then made a number of observations on the Issei and Kibei farm laborers on the relatively isolated McDonald Island and their differences when compared with the more Americanized Japanese communities at French Camp and Stockton. Among other things, he observed:

I don't like to discriminate against my own race but I will say that on the W-Z farm the issei and kibei followed too much the Japanese way of living. So when the Caucasian mechanics on the farm take a dislike to those people, I just don't blame them in a way. The Caucasian objected mostly because they thought that the Japanese were talking about them in the Japanese language. Or when the mechanic made a little mistake or couldn't get a job done on time, the Japanese foreman would report it to Mr. Z. The way I had it figured out, the Japanese issei were trying to run the Caucasians out from the Z. farm. They were trying to form a little Japan, I guess, because every little mistake the Caucasian mechanic would make would be reported. But Mr. Z. didn't pay any attention to that.

This farm was situated on an island, McDonald Island, in the San Joaquin River. Those farms out there are mostly islands. The children of these issei were isolated there and were unable to mix with Caucasian children. So they were brought up in the Japanese way. Of course they had a Caucasian teacher. But they would have Japanese flags, at least two, in their houses. They were sent to Japanese schools and they spoke nothing but Japanese except when they spoke to Caucasians to me or to my brother . . . There were about 200 or more Japanese on that island. . . The children were brought up to believe that the Emperor was a living god. They made a celebration of Boy's Day (May 5) and Girl's Day (March 3). They heard about the Emperor from the parents, who would sort of impress them, and they heard about him in the language school. There is a big difference between this group on the island and the French Camp group and the Stockton city Japanese. The last two groups were more Americanized. In French Camp or in Stockton some parents might tell the children about the Emperor, but the children would not pay any attention to it; they just don't pay any attention to Emperor.

And another thing I noticed. They disliked me at McDonald Island because I liked to attend night school and I used to read books, books that I thought would help me out, like sociology books, law books, psychology books — just about any kind that I thought would help me. I even read medical books. They didn't think it was necessary. They thought that all that studying is a waste of time. They think it is experience that counts. But what I told them was this; if anyone had an education plus experience it would help him more, but if he doesn't have enough intelligence to acquire knowledge, education won't do him much good.

They respected education, all right, this McDonald group, providing it is Japanese education. . . . They approved of learning more of Japanese history, Japanese background and anything that pertains to the Japanese Emperor. Of course they learned arithmetic and things like that. Some of them had been there on the island for a good many years. They were pretty isolated. They didn't get away much. They averaged about once a week for going into Stockton.

This is how I noticed that the two groups were different. The people in French Camp and Stockton didn't mind my not knowing Japanese. They didn't tease me about it; didn't make any wisecracks about it.

The Nisei interviewee also commented on the various minority groups on the island and the manner in which they related. He noted:

There were about 200 Filipinos on the island too. They did the same kind of work. They were not allowed to become foremen though. The Japanese foremen saw to that. Mr. Z. listened to the foremen. I was kept from being a foreman in the same way for some time. The Filipinos are foremen since the evacuation though. ...

There were quite a number of Mexicans on that farm too. There would be over 1000 Mexicans there at harvest time. A few stayed on steadily. . . .

Another thing I disliked. The Mexicans were treated as low by the issei and kibei. The nisei on the island always tried to treat them fair to make up for the way they were treated by the other groups. But only about 5 percent of the Japanese were nisei.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, according to the Nisei, "there was no trouble at all among the [various racial] groups" on the island. The Filipinos and the Japanese "got along as before." Even in Stockton "I didn't see any real trouble." "I know there were two killings, but I didn't see any riots, any mass fights or anything like that."

The Nisei interviewee did not know how the Japanese people would be treated after Pearl Harbor, but he "sort of thought that the issei would be put in camps." His observations, according to Opler, were marked by a tolerance and lack of resentment in regard to evacuation that were rare among young men of his age group. This may have been the result of his family being spared many of the personal hardships which evacuation brought to others. The Nisei observed:

.... I talked with a lot of nisei. Most said that if their parents were taken to a camp they would rather go with them than stay behind. Of course, some of the nisei said they would like to stay back and run the business, but they sure didn't like the idea of having their parents sent off without them.

The curfew came in and it included everyone of Japanese ancestry. So from then on we did have a feeling that perhaps we'd be taken out of our homes too.

Our family had no unpleasant experiences. We went around, we went in shows and restaurants as usual. We went to dances. . . .

In April, I think it was, the nisei had to give up contraband. I had to give up my flashlight. I had to have the shortwave cut out of my radio. I had some rifles that I had to give up. I gave them to my Caucasian friends, sort of as a souvenir or remembrance. I expected all this. Our family had no special plans for getting out of the West Coast. We didn't have any place to go. We were just going to stay there until the army moved us out.

When we knew that we were going to be evacuated, my father asked a very good Caucasian friend that he could rely on to take care of the property. The little crop we had left in the field we harvested until the day or so before evacuation. We let this Caucasian friend live in our house without any rent. The agreement is that he will keep up the property and pay the taxes for the duration. We have a written agreement with him about this. He is pretty reliable. He writes to us once in a while. He works at the paper mill in Stockton. This land is in the name of my brother and brother-in-law. It's all paid for. It was carrots and green onions that we were harvesting at the end. . . .

For a while we thought that we were going to be in a free zone and would not have to be evacuated. When the restricted area was drawn up, a highway just outside of French Camp was used as the dividing line. All on the west side of the highway were moved out in March. We happened to be living on the east, that is, the town side, and so were not affected at first. However, later the place where we were was declared a restricted zone, too, so we were moved in May — the 26th of May, I think it was.

We stored all of our furniture in one room in the house, since this man who was going to take over the place wanted to bring his own furniture over to the house. When the time came for evacuation we were supposed to leave Manteca at 4 P.M. We had one of our friends take our baggage down to the train depot and the man who is now living in our place drove us down in his car. We were stared at by Caucasians that were gathered around the depot but we thought nothing of that.

There were only 40 of us left in French Camp. In the train we were in two coaches and we were restricted; we were only allowed to go up and down within these two coaches. On the way down we played cards and various games. We didn't think anything about coming to Manzanar. There were no hard feelings. In fact we were planning our future here in Manzanar and what we would do when we did arrive. . . .

The journey took 16 hours. The trip was pleasant. We arrived at Lone Pine at 7:30 A.M. We got on a bus and arrived here at 8 A.M. The people of Manzanar were out watching us come in. We were stared at by them just as much as we had been stared at by the Caucasians before coming. . . .

The Nisei interviewee went on to describe his reactions and feelings upon arrival at Manzanar. According to Opler, his adjustment to camp life was relatively easy, probably because he had lived on a large-scale farm enterprise which housed and fed its agricultural laborers much like the evacuees were cared for in the center. The Nisei observed;

My first thought when we came was, "Well, so this is Manzanar!' I was wondering if I'd ever get tired of the place. . . .

The first thing that attracted my attention was the barracks which would be our living quarters, as I thought at the time, for the duration. . . . Still, we had to make the best of what there was. ... In fact I am inclined to believe that this sort of life is better than what some of these people had before the war. . . .

It wasn't long before we became quite accustomed to this camp life and I made a few friends while working in community activities. I was invited by various clubs and groups to their socials. In fact I believe I like this kind of life for a change. . . [104]

Bainbridge Island

The only group of evacuees at Manzanar that was not from California was the 227-person contingent from Bainbridge Island, a 200-square-mile island in Puget Sound eight miles west of Seattle, Washington. This group, evacuated under Civilian Exclusion Order No. 1, arrived at Manzanar on April 1, 1942, having been transported directly from Seattle by train because the Puyallup Assembly Center on the Washington state fairgrounds was not ready for occupancy and Manzanar was the nearest reception or relocation center to their homes that was in operation. The Japanese/Japanese-

American community on the island was evacuated because of the island's proximity to the strategic Bremerton Naval Base. At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, the island had a population of about 10,000, the majority of the residents being Caucasian truck farmers, small-town business owners or tradesmen, or white-collar commuters to jobs in Seattle. The scenic island was also dotted with summer resorts and country clubs.

Because of discrimination and frequent inability to obtain meaningful employment in Seattle, persons of Japanese descent first went to the island during the 1910s to take advantage of employment opportunities in the lumber mills, but they found the soil so rich that many turned to farming, specializing primarily in raising strawberries. The majority of the Japanese settlers had come from the Hiroshima Prefecture, a predominantly agricultural region in Japan. By 1941 there were 43 Japanese-operated farms on the island, 27 of which were owned or partly owned by Japanese and 16 of which were leased. The strawberry farms covered a total cultivated area of 620 acres. The total value of the island's strawberry crop in 1941 was $246,000, and the Japanese controlled 80 percent of the production. One-fourth of the crop was sold locally, the remainder being shipped to the eastern United States via Seattle. The Japanese strawberry farmers generally had modest incomes, employing migrant Filipino and Indian laborers to help with the farm work. [105]

At its request, the Bainbridge Island evacuees were transferred to the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho in February 1943. Thus, they were no longer at Manzanar when Opler arrived at the center to commence his community analysis studies. Among the best sources of information on the background of the Bainbridge Islanders, however, is a transcribed oral interview of Mrs. Ikuko Amatatsu Watanabe, conducted on July 24, 1974, by Arthur A. Hansen, a Professor of History at California State University, Fullerton, as part of that institution's Oral History Program Japanese American Project. Watanabe, a Nisei who had been born and raised on a strawberry farm on Bainbridge Island, provided insights into the nature of the island's prewar Japanese/Japanese American community and its experiences during evacuation to Manzanar.

According to Watanabe, the Japanese/Japanese American community on Bainbridge Island, while scattered throughout the island, had a Japanese American Association and a language school that sponsored quarterly socials and parties for young people. Prior to the outbreak of the war, however. Nisei were beginning to rebel against study of the Japanese language. Periodically, the community would meet to view Japanese movies, and once each summer the entire community would hold a picnic to which Caucasians and Japanese from Seattle and Tacoma would be invited. There was little overt or virulent discrimination on the island. Because of continuing discriminatory practices in some areas, however, the community stuck together and avoided places and activities where they might be put down. Despite the discrimination, however, there were no Japanese stores or restaurants, and the scattered Japanese residents generally conducted business with Caucasian entrepreneurs. Concerning the community, she noted:

... as a community, we didn't have a specific place where you could say, 'This is 'Japanese Town,' or the Japanese community. I believe there were some sixty families on Bainbridge Island at that time, and we were all scattered. In fact, I would say that ninety percent of them had their own homes; the average age on Bainbridge would be about twenty years old. Many of the Issei families had purchased land in some other person's name, because they couldn't own land themselves and their own children were too young.

Following the Pearl Harbor attack, about a dozen men, including Watanabe's father, were taken by the FBI to Seattle and subsequently interned. Regarding her own experiences as a senior in high school immediately following the attack, she noted:

.... it was an uncomfortable feeling to go to school the next day. I guess all the students had to bow their head and look to the East and give a silent prayer and such. An then, of course, the principal was talking about how he felt that there were Japanese in the group and we were all students and not to get reactionary and so forth. So it was a good thing for him to caution everybody.

Although there were some instances of hostility against the Japanese on the island following Pearl Harbor, some elements of the Caucasian population aided the Japanese. Watanabe observed:

The people that we were friends with felt real badly because they, too, didn't know. So those that would be friends for life, you really knew right then and there. .... our Christian friends and neighbors took over some of our things for us that we valued. Although I will have to say, my family had the Samurai swords due to my dad being the oldest, and I know one of those was missing. Well, those things were taken right away, unfortunately. Also, the government took our radios, cameras, et cetera. We had a couple of violins in the family and they were gone. So, unfortunately, things that just meant a lot to us were gone. But, other than that, I would have to say our Christian friends were tremendous and stayed with us and helped us in every way possible.

Watanabe also discussed her evacuation experiences. The group was evacuated on March 26 and arrived at Manzanar by train six days later on April 1. She noted:

.... 1 would have to say our evacuation was a little more humane [than that of Terminal Island], because 1 think we had approximately two weeks notice. We could only carry two suitcases, however. When you think of teenagers and two suitcases, that does present a problem. Without the head of the household and with four girls, we were kind of leery and were kind of... I wouldn't say scared, but maybe apprehensive about not knowing where we were going, for what reason, and for what length of time, and then to leave familiar surroundings, school, friends, and all our animals. ... We were fortunate enough to have a Filipino come and stay in our home. We had a newly wedded minister's daughter, and she used part of our furniture and so in that event, when we came back they were intact, too. . . .

.... we had some exploitation, but not to the same extent as on Terminal Island. Terminal Islanders had to sell everything like pianos and ice boxes for around five dollars, and people were there just for the taking and making fun. I think that's terrible! But as far as we were concerned, most of our homes were taken care of by someone who worked for us or say, maybe a young couple who didn't have a home yet. When the Bainbridge Island people came back, most of the people had their homes to come back to.

During the train trip one soldier was assigned to each of the 63 families on the train. Watanabe related:

.... each soldier was from back East someplace, because we used to kid them and talk about 'Toity-Toid' Street and all this because their language seemed so strange to us. And they, in turn, found out that we were human beings. They thought that we were the 'buck toothed' and the 'slanted eyed' people and were very dangerous. They had their guns right there with them at the beginning and all, but toward the end they knew we were just like they were. So, when we finally did part in Manzanar— after traveling together for the three or four days — I know that most of them cried.

.... The soldiers felt that this [evacuation by train] was very unjust themselves, and yet, they never knew a Japanese person personally. I think we all took a collection since we knew that a soldier's pay wasn't much, and we gave them money as gifts. They, in turn, sent us some things that they felt we didn't have. Looking at the camp, they really wept because they thought it was very unfair since it wasn't even up to the specifications that they were accustomed to; the camp wasn't finished by the time we got there.

The Bainbridge Island people were given quarters in Block 3, which had just been completed, at Manzanar. Watanabe briefly described her impressions upon arrival at Manzanar, including the unfinished camp, inadequate and crowded quarters, and sand and dust. She also observed that the volunteers from Los Angeles that had arrived at Manzanar prior to the Bainbridge Islanders "had grown beards and were unkempt." We were so unaccustomed to seeing Japanese people in that condition, that I think we were actually frightened!" Since most of the volunteers were single men, the Bainbridge girls were frightened by their abrasive manners. When they took showers, for instance, "we had to have some of the Bainbridge boys come and guard the shower houses."

Watanabe also discussed the differences between the Bainbridge Island strawberry farmers and other groups of evacuees at Manzanar. She noted:

I would have to say that the Bainbridge Islanders were freer people [than those from San Pedro, Terminal Island, Little Tokyo-East Los Angeles, and Florin]. Sometimes I feel it's not fair to bring up the Terminal Islanders and say how they were, because I know they lived in a confined area where there were all Japanese, so they had a tendency to be more Japanesey than, say, the Bainbridge people, who were the minority on the Island. Bainbridge people helped one another, I will say, as a community. It was share and share alike, where people came and helped plant the berries — this is the Japanese population I'm speaking of now.

[It was] a mutual aid arrangement, and yet there was a big party-like atmosphere. The women went to cook the feast, and the men all went out in the fields; the children helped, too, to plant strawberries. So it was quite a community-spirited group. I would have to say we worked and played together to the extent that we got to know one another a lot more. The other groups, perhaps, were amongst themselves so much that some of their spoken language might be mixed with Japanese and English, where, perhaps, Bainbridge people didn't have that problem. We were more integrated than Terminal Islanders and people from Florin, California.

.... At first, it was hard to believe that we spoke the same language. They [Terminal Islanders] spoke a little bit of pidgin English, they were somewhat rough, and they did have some of their gangs and such. But when we got to know them individually, we found out that they were just like any of us. ... Unfortunately, I think that Terminal Islanders were in this clustered group and their way of speaking and such was a little different. And the funny part is, when we went to Minidoka, our kids, just for fun, acted like the Terminal Islands [sic] kids. They went with their pant leggings like zoot suiters. Luckily, the Seattle people knew the Bainbridge people before, or they would have been frightened of the Bainbridge people coming from Manzanar. [106]