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 Beans growing in front of a greenhouse (ddr-densho-255-56)

Plants, probably beans, growing on poles in front of a greenhouse.

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-255-56/

img Japanese American man and girl with cow (ddr-densho-255-141)

A Japanese American man and young girl standing in the snow with a cow.

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-255-141/

img Threshing machine and team of horses (ddr-densho-255-188)

Men with a team of horses surrounded by hay. A thresher (threshing machine) is poised in the background, with "The Massillon Farmer's Friend, The Russell & Company" printed on its side.

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-255-188/

img Japanese American family on horse-drawn cart (ddr-densho-255-161)

Japanese American man and three children sitting on a horse-drawn cart in an orchard. A Japanese American woman stands to the left, while another Japanese American smoking a cigarette sits in the foreground.

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-255-161/

img Farmhouse and barn (ddr-densho-255-173)

Matted photograph of farmhouse and barn with snow on the ground.

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-255-173/

img Laborers on mounds of hay (ddr-densho-255-138)

Laborers standing on and around mounds of hay, with a pipe being channeled into the hay.

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-255-138/

img Chickens in a coop (ddr-densho-255-52)

Chickens in the doorway of a chicken coop.

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-255-52/

img House and greenhouse (ddr-densho-255-91)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-255-91/

img "Nikkei farm family scene" (ddr-densho-259-358)

Caption by Homer Yasui: "A Nikkei farm family scene, taken at one of the early Yasui farms in Summit, which is slightly north and a little west of Odell, Oregon. The farm 'family' was mostly the young Masuo and Shidzuyo Yasuis Sitting back left is, I believe, Yoshizaemon Mori...I think that standing in the center is …

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-259-358/

img Asparagus (ddr-densho-259-162)

Caption by Yuka Yasui: "Asparagus grown in Mosier [Oregon]."

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-259-162/

img Japanese American man picking apples (ddr-densho-259-254)

Japanese American man in a suit picking apples, possibly in Willow Flat, Oregon.

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-259-254/

img Issei man with visitors (ddr-densho-259-258)

Masuo Yasui with unidentified visitors.

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-259-258/

img Two Japanese American families on farmland (ddr-densho-259-247)

Caption by Homer Yasui: "Nikkei visitors to what must surely have been the Willow Flat farm both [Shidzuyo and Masuo Yasui] are dressed in their farm working clothes This photo shows the typical farm working clothes that [Shidzuyo]--and almost all of the Hood River valley Issei women of the time wore, when working in the orchards …

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-259-247/

img Issei men with team of horses on farm (ddr-densho-259-357)

Caption by Homer Yasui: "Issei man standing next to a team of horses, an Issei driver and a man standing on the driver's side of a truck loaded with boxes Those boxes look like strawberry crates."

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-259-357/

img Workers picking strawberries (ddr-densho-259-251)

Workers picking strawberries on the Yasui family farm in Willow Flat, Oregon.

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-259-251/

img Acreage of strawberry plants (ddr-densho-259-268)

Caption by Homer Yasui: "A large acreage of strawberry plants I will guess that it was taken at either Summit or in Dee."

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-259-268/

img Crew of Japanese laborers (ddr-densho-259-354)

Caption by Homer Yasui: "A group of Japanese laborers standing in the back row, and a group sitting in the front on the ground I will guess that this crew was picking applies."

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-259-354/