Forsaken Fields

By the thousands they came to America in search of a dream. They would be the same. First generation Japanese many journeyed to California and became successful farmers. What they saw right off was the opportunity that made life so much different than it would have been here and they overcame discrimination legal obstacles and helped California's agri business grow and prosper. Then came more to 120000 Japanese-Americans were unjustly incarcerated. Murtha they are the dream of the day that you know get out there the world you know. What girl dashed dreams and for sinking feeling for ever changed the course of history for Japanese American farmers in California. There is a diary you wrote. Hard work and persistence interrupted and irreparably altered by national policy based on fear and ignorance.

Forsaken fields is brought to you by the Henry and the more you took a harsh charitable foundation. Union Bank of California and the members of cavy i.e. how I'm going to hero Japanese settlers began coming to California during the late 1800s. And by the turn of the century thousands of Japanese were making a living as farmers here in the Central Valley and in other parts of the West and from Japan they brought an intense work ethic and appreciation for nature and a will to succeed. The Japanese have a great respect for nature and children grow up with it and children all the children know what a Haiku poem is you know and they know what a pine tree is. And the flowers and I think it was kind of a natural for them.

By 1910 Japanese farmers were in a group. California agriculture responsible for successful potato and rice crops. And an empire of strawberry crops. In 1942 Japanese Americans were reportedly controlling 68 million dollars worth of California farmland. Earned a reputation for being a great innovator. You see the land farmland sitting there that other farmers have rejected as not farming that they quickly you know went to work and found ways to make the land very productive. And then on top of that they showed great ingenuity. For instance in the floor an area where you see the growing of the grapes and then figuring out that now they can plant strawberries down between the rows are great so they're they're making the land twice as productive despite their productivity. Japanese American farmers faced racial obstacles and hostilities

in Sacramento County. Children of Asian descent were isolated and forced to attend the segregated school in this building behind me. Three other northern California towns also opened up segregated schools. Japanese American farmers face more isolation and discrimination. When the California legislature passed the alien land law in 1930 and essentially. Preventive aliens who are not eligible for citizenship from owning land in California. And they phrase it that way as a euphemism and is clearly directed at Asian Americans because they were the only ones who couldn't become citizens of the United States. Many Japanese American farmers found loopholes in the law and purchase land in the names of their children or a friend who were American citizens. I remember my father. Saying. We borrowed. The name of a citizen.

And. Many foreigners did that or some of them belong to. Corporations. Still the alien landlord did discourage many Japanese American farmers from becoming anything other than laborers. The law was clearly designed to prevent them from becoming a competitive threat in the farming business. Japanese are only farming 2 percent of the improved lands here in California. You know it's not like they control all of the land here and there just a very minuscule amount of land here and yet such a reaction against Japanese indicates that there was quite a bit of hostility. Against the group that essentially came here wanted to fulfill the American dream. If any one of em change the course of Japanese American history in California it was a bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7

1941. Following the attack. Rumors immediately circulated that Japanese living in the US were saboteurs. There were even allegations that Japanese farmers secretly planted crops in a way that threatened national security just because. North. Korea. And brode planted north. New claim to. Repurpose a plan to grow up so the enemy could see. The French are important strategic area and that's been said over and over. On February 19th 1942. President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9 0 6 6 which ordered 120 people. Use ancestry to evacuate the West Coast they would be herded into internment camps in remote areas of

the country. Personally I think it a lot to do with not only prejudice but the competition's Bishan of farming I don't know about that city people but the country people that this was good will you limit it in competition. Many Japanese had only a handful of days to settle their personal affairs before going to camp. They were forced to sell their homes and farms for a fraction of what they were worth. The vultures came room Soco of. Buyers now come around and buy a refrigerator for $10 washing machine for 5 10 hours when everything a brand new refrigerator returned ours and this friend of mine across agree took a sledgehammer and rang the door and here you can have it you so upset and so angry. Those words can take. On rare occasions. Trusted Caucasian friends offer to take care of the

Japanese farmers property. Some of these friends even saw the models they were shipped away to camp offering them hope and support. At the time we boarded the train wreck and they were in arms. If you don't. Wish us good and return. And we can never forget and I could never forget the people who said we would return soon and I know you will for sure. For. Many farmers though left their homes and crops behind not knowing what the future held or if it had anything to return to my father's primary concern with he had just started some crops and they were just getting started and. He had no idea.

What was going to happen to his crop which it didn't matter if they were getting in and getting the ring and location for them to leave their crops and their life's work was heartbreaking for many Japanese American farmers son. We come to go out and have the props just coming to fruition. The Grates on the vines the strawberries red. And have to walk away and realize that those were going to be left laying out there rotting in the fields. For some people was almost more than they could bear. And in fact we know there were suicides because of people who just could not cope with the idea of letting all that hard work and all the loving care that they had and to walk where. They were they came to this country as a young man then found the opportunity of being a farmer when they were

very population and really give her dignity and then to have their board where. The subtle family were farmers in Florida near Sacramento at that time it was a so-called strawberry capital of the world. We grew up on the farm. We were poor but happy. On the farm. Farming life was torn apart. When they were

evacuated to an internment camp post in Arizona all we could take was what we could carry in a bedroom. So I. You know we left our lifetime right there. THE RELUCTANT Lee left 20 acres of productive land in the care of a neighbor while secretly smuggling into camp. A small fragment of the farm they left behind. My mom. Robin flowers and things like that we had some flour seeds some vegetable seeds with her. What happened was these he sayes. Had. Had smuggled in seeds of all kinds. I was amazed that they would think of such a thing. You know in times like that. And so they started planting seeds between the barracks. Then they got cans from the mass hauled garbage in that they got the water from the outside faucet and watered it on water that one. And people

say nothing's going to grow here. Nothing has ever. But. Nonetheless they did that and lo and behold you know it was celebration when those little plants came up in the middle of the desert. In virtually all the internment camps Japanese American farmers brought light to the desolate wastelands by growing plants and vegetables and then pretty soon. They planted flowers. Then years. And Morning Glory climbing up the black on black back seat of the tar paper. And things up to be. Quite nice. I remember that they have a transformation from a very dry desolate and growing black barracks. To. A garden being developed. I had children come over. And. I told them this is. A morning glory. I don't grow up to go. To the edge of the room. And sure Dad. And tell him to leave the. Marigolds. Astor's.

Fortune can. And. Poor bored bored plants and so on. Made you look more like I was amazed to hear about all the other camps that did the same thing it's like it's like they took their talents from California on to this terrible terrible soil and made it produce. Martin did the same thing. Roy had the same thing arc and saw all those camps knew something and and this came through in the most desolate. Desolate part of the country of the South those and the other interned Japanese farmers. These colorful bursts of nature brought home and beauty to places of isolation and uncertainty. And it gave them something to do to break up the monotony and seclusion of the camps outside the camps the agriculture industry felt the loss of its many skilled Japanese

American farmers. This unprecedented labor shortage was made worse by other farmer's hands leaving to serve in the military. We took our farmers and we imprisoned them and what happened was is that for the first time. We had to negotiate with Mexico to bring farm workers into California and really the beginning of the brasero. So because we had taken the the farmers that were there and imprisoned them. And so it's really kind of an ironic story. And another irony. Incarcerated Japanese men were recruited to farms outside of camps called into service to help harvest crops in Wyoming and Idaho. Ted Kabaka and his friends left camp to work on a sugar bee to farm the opportunity meant much more to them than money freedom. With all

the work. It's a great wealth a great fool to give each of their wealth to get out of crops in California also suffered as a result of the internments. Some fields were left fallow and neglected symbolic of the will to dreams left behind by Japanese farmers. As a warm welcome down Japanese-Americans were released and allowed to return to their home. Some. Never returned. Others were lucky enough to have a home to go back to. I think that people in Livingston and Cortez are very fortunate to have an honest man who you know made some money and had a farm to return to all the farmers that own get off of work. I think you could have much worse many families like the South weren't so lucky and found their property looted or destroyed.

I still remember coming to the farm after the war and see how torn up there was and dead trees everywhere trees some of them surviving. They pried open their rooms everything with care. Then my mother said the one thing she found was an empty coffee can and clothes hangers. This is what happened to so many people. Almost everybody in fact some of our neighbors stored the same there a stole a van stove and pianos and furniture into the little church building. The Baptist church. And. That was loaded to the ceiling. And one night the night before I came back in January for the fine. The church was burnt down. Certain elements of the American public were appalled to see the Japanese return to society and express their rage and open discrimination or

violence threaten them. People were shot at it and they would have science saying you know Japs are not here from Auburn California down to Southern California in the valley regions. There are quite a few incidences of night writing activities people shooting into the homes of Japanese Americans. There's a case for a man's farm of dynamite up in Auburn. So it was pretty tense. Or a couple of years some Japanese also experience hostilities on a more subtle level like trying to get a meal at a restaurant on Thanksgiving Day. We waited and waited and pretty soon I do with that letter in order to. Point to the door. If. So what. On earth could we do with all of.

This very big the big thing. It was also a struggle financially for many Japanese American farmers who returned to California. He told me she was one of the lucky ones. A family friend had watched over his property. And it was intact when he returned from the camp. Sadly though he had many friends who were unable to get loans or start over again. You buy a tractor it costs $100000 and hope to do with the hundred thousand dollar truck that you have to buy the truth behind it. OK. The boy just spent another $10000. But we're going to use it involves a lot of money. And I think. It will be hard to.

Get the money when you haven't got it. You can't you have got the collateral. Many hardworking farming families were forced to give up leave agriculture and California permanently to go back to farming if they had lost the farm and whatever was going to be really almost impossible. I just don't think economically you know it's feasible for them to then. Somehow come up with money. Startling. It wasn't. We talk about injustice. That's really a justice for a burthen. American citizen born here to be put such a position. Room for life. She knows he is a rarity. The family farm his parents built before the war is thriving and his son is taking over its operation. The majority of Nietzsche's peers were forced to look for other work. Yet few people

were willing to hire a Japanese to the Ysaye utilized their farming skills any way they could. Which opened the door to jobs in guarding the standing joke I heard about Japanese. They can get a job so they created all their own job. There was no welfare. So what did they do. They more film what is wrong and then well it's no laughing matter really. But they made a living on some of them will be going to nursery based. Medicine. That's really lift yourself up your book with your bootstraps. The internment and post-war hostilities change the attitudes of many Japanese American families. Instead of urging their children to carry on the farming tradition Ysaye parents encouraged their children to broaden their horizons.

Before the war. Kids were not very many. After high school they would stay with their family and do the fire me with. They found out that you don't have to do that anymore. You can diversify yourself. You can go to school and upgrade yourself. You can get into a different. Profession or thing you know. And so I think the attitude of the younger people changed public attitudes towards Japanese-Americans also slowly changed. Ysaye farmers were once accused of being sneaky or un trustworthy but their children who excelled in school and in general did not go against the grain became known as model minorities. At the same time other ethnic groups became the so-called bad guys of society. By the time the 50s arrived especially with the Brown versus Board of Education in 1954 the civil rights movement was in full swing. And

in that context. Japanese Americans are now view as the good guys. You know we don't march we don't protest we don't burn down anything and so we become the good guys. First second and third generation Japanese Americans more job opportunities outside of farming. Open up higher paid less physically demanding jobs. Help put the Japanese on the fast track to middle class. The mechanisation in the farming industry also made it difficult for those who chose to stay in farming to continue in agriculture. Before the war all of the tomatoes that went to the canneries or picked by hand. And. And the 50s and 60s you had the tomato picker which displace enormous amounts of workers. And so in that sense mechanization. Made it much easier for the larger farmer sustain business and much more difficult for the smaller farmers through the same

business. One casualty of the exodus from farming was a traditional Japanese American farm family. At one time farming and family went hand in hand. After the war families were evolving and fragmented. A trend prompted by internment a once incarceration happen. The parents really didn't have the kind of control over their children no longer ate together. That's. Their eating and cafeteria style and so I think this whole family began to change very. Celebrated by the term and. The subtle family returned to their fallow fields after the war on their first try to revive a neglected tortured truth. Today more than 55 years later Laura Bush

along with memories of the stress that went into that little one. Legged. Bet. The farm no longer belongs to the family. They sold it to developers several years after the war but often visits the grown. I would bring my children and grandchildren here so that they would have a feeling and an appreciation for what their. Grandparents did. These streams and the memories they represent remind the soft I was of a different kind of life a life where families work together towards a common goal. Their farm was a place for huge picnics. And an appreciation for nature. And irretrievable symbols of the past and with a heart of brothers It has become a great place her. Homeland I wish I had a couple acres in this.

Soil to this. Home home. That's. Some Japanese American families stayed in farming and remain in the business a day. The majority though were never able to fully recover from the financial and emotional wounds of the internment. There was constant concern for the future and the fear of losing everything. And once again. This was yet another reason why the fields of California will forsaken by so many Japanese after the war. Still we can never forget the legacy of Japanese American farmers left behind in California agriculture. To help make it one of you. Today. Did last. Time a nation spirit and award ethic that personifies the American dream. They tried so hard. To order a VHS copy of Forsaken fields call 1 8 8 8 8 1

4 3 9 2 3. Cost is four thousand ninety five plus shipping and handling.