Agriculture

Many Issei (first-generation Japanese immigrants) began as sharecroppers. Others sought to buy land, but the Issei had to overcome obstacles preventing them from competing with white farmers. California and other states passed alien land laws prohibiting Asian immigrants from purchasing or leasing agricultural land. There were ways around the discriminatory laws: an Issei father could put the property in the name of his American-born child, or issei could form corporations in which a majority of the shareholders were American citizens. Despite the alien land laws, Issei farmers played a significant role in West Coast agriculture. In the years just prior to World War II, Japanese American families grew 35 percent of the produce in California. By the 1920s, Japanese Americans supplied 75 percent of the produce and half the milk to the Puget Sound region.

Industry and employment (481)
Agriculture (769)

Related articles from the Densho Encyclopedia :
Seabrook Farms

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769 items

img Painting of farmers harvesting watermelons (ddr-manz-2-67)

Caption: "The resients [sic] transformed dusty semi-arid land into green truck farms, growing vegetable crops of all kinds. I sketched this scene of workers harvesting large, ripe, sweet watermelons."

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-manz-2-67/

img Painting of farmers harvesting okra (ddr-manz-2-69)

Caption: "Farm workers harvest crop of Manzanar grown okra."

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-manz-2-69/

img Painting of a biologist working with guayule (ddr-manz-2-71)

Caption: "A biologist hybidizes [sic] Guayule trying to produce plants superior in quality then those existing now."

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-manz-2-71/

img Painting showing guayule harvesting (ddr-manz-2-8)

Caption: "The first successful growing of - guayule rubber plant cuttings."

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-manz-2-8/

img Painting of the Manzanar farm (ddr-manz-2-68)

Caption: "Manzanar Farm."

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-manz-2-68/

img Illustrations of guayule leaf types (ddr-manz-2-70)

Caption: "Guayule shrub and leaf types. Some of the leaf types can be used to distinguish one strain from another."

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-manz-2-70/

img Three people on a farm (ddr-densho-2-9)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-2-9/

img Two Japanese Americans picking strawberries (ddr-densho-2-26)

Shown here are Peggie Yorita and Sho Nakagawa of the Yamashita Shipping Company in a strawberry field.

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-2-26/

img Woman in a tomato field (ddr-densho-2-21)

Peggie Yorita holds a bucket of tomatoes from her parents' farm.

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-2-21/

img Tractor working an agricultural field (ddr-fom-1-798)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-fom-1-798/

img View down a dirt road (ddr-fom-1-5)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-fom-1-5/

img Pig farming at Minidoka (ddr-fom-1-20)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-fom-1-20/

img Harvesting with a tractor (ddr-fom-1-45)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-fom-1-45/

img Tractors working agricultural fields (ddr-fom-1-790)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-fom-1-790/

img Man inspecting crops in a field (ddr-fom-1-28)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-fom-1-28/

img Farmers working in the fields (ddr-fom-1-792)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-fom-1-792/

img Men and women tending crops (ddr-fom-1-22)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-fom-1-22/

img Women harvesting potatoes (ddr-fom-1-47)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-fom-1-47/

img Farmers working in the fields (ddr-fom-1-821)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-fom-1-821/

img Dining hall workers in front of Farmers' Dining Hall 46 (ddr-fom-1-25)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-fom-1-25/

img Men and women tending crops (ddr-fom-1-33)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-fom-1-33/

img Construction on irrigation (ddr-fom-1-799)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-fom-1-799/

img View of a farm growing beans (ddr-fom-1-890)

WRA caption on reverse: "A view of a farm a few miles south of the Minidoka War Relocation Authority center. Beans are growing in the foreground."

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-fom-1-890/

img View of agricultural fields (ddr-fom-1-783)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-fom-1-783/

img Farmers working in the fields (ddr-fom-1-781)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-fom-1-781/