Densho Digital Archive - Jim Hirabayashi Interview (denshovh-hjim-01-0004)

<Begin Segment 4>

CO: I thought now we would go to the land case. So tell us about this important case.

JH: Yeah, well, the State of Washington passed an alien land law which prevented Isseis from purchasing land. I think on the face of it they had said that no one who, I guess, people who were not citizens could not purchase land. And inasmuch as the Isseis were not allowed to become citizens, the law was aimed at them. Initially, the alien land law was passed in the state of California in 1913. And then subsequent to that, I think the other states passed similar laws because they didn't want Isseis coming from California into their states. So that most of the western states passed an alien land law. And before that happened, however, or about the time that they were considering the legislation, my father and his friends, who belonged to this mukyokai, or non-church movement, there were about four families that got together and purchased about 50 acres of land in the village of Thomas. This land was swamp land. And I remember that even in my day they were building drainage ditches, they were dynamiting stumps off of the land. So they purchased about 50 acres of this land and then they cleared it and year by year, the four families built houses on their sections of the land. And then, about that time -- oh, I know, I think maybe the law was in effect and what had happened was that to purchase the land, they bought it in the name of the eldest child, a woman by the name of Aiko Tatsuno. She was about nine or so, and because she was underage, they had appointed the wife of a returned missionary from Japan -- a Mrs. Nora Murphy -- as her legal guardian. And they purchased the land in her name.

And then it was about 1920 or so, there was, what I understand, the enterprising prosecuting attorney of King County, who, I think he had his eye on the governorship. Began to use land cases as a means to build up some notoriety. And they had, he had prosecuted a lot of Issei farmers. And in this particular case, he argued that these farmers that established the White River Gardens, had used subterfuge in order to acquire the property. And unfortunately, they were advised by the returned missionary, Reverend Murphy, who advocated telling the truth, and therefore giving them a disadvantage in court. And their property, and the houses that they built on it were confiscated. And so they had to turn around and lease the land and the house from the State, who had confiscated the property.

I didn't know about this until I was a graduate student. This was after the war, probably 1950 or so, that I did a study of, comparative study of Japanese adapting to Hawaii, South America and the state of Washington. And in this comparative study, I heard about this thesis that a Japanese student from Tokyo had written in 1925 and so I went into the archives to find the thesis. And while I was looking through the thesis, I suddenly found a picture of my father. And there were these whole series of land cases. And I was shocked because this is the first time I'd ever heard about it. So I was furious and I went home and asked my father, says, "What about this? What is all this?" you know. And he just shrugged his shoulders, and said, "Shikata ga nai." And that was the end of it. So this is, you know, how I found out about this particular situation. The house still exists that my father built. I have a picture of him standing by the house when it was initially built. And subsequently, it was a couple of years ago, I went to visit the area and we stopped by the house and there was an apple tree, right by the house, it was full of apples... a tree that my father had planted way back then. And so I went up to the house, knocked on the door, and I says, "Could I have a few apples from the tree?" And I explained why I wanted it. And then I carried it back down to California to share with my brother. Apples, the King apple is a special variety, I guess. You don't hear of that, but it reminded us of our childhood.

EO: Can we back up... I get a little confused at the beginning of the story. About... okay, the acquisition of land, list the order of things. If the land law, alien land law was in effect, it was around that because I've been thinking about this nine-year-old girl. Could you just sort of start from there?

JH: Well, as I said, in 1913 was when the State of California passed the initial alien land law. That was the first one, I think, in the States. And then the other states subsequently passed similar legislation. Because they were afraid of Californians coming up and purchasing land in the state, in their own states.

EO: Let's just start that one again, and say what that law, what the alien... so just...

JH: Oh. The alien land law states that citizens -- I mean, people who are not intending to become citizens of the United States cannot purchase land. The law states that people who are ineligible to citizenship cannot purchase land. Now, there's a prior U.S. law that prevented Asians from naturalizing. So that the alien land law, although it doesn't specify that it's against Asians, in effect was against Asians. So in 1790 was, was when the Congress passed a law that people who were Asians could not become naturalized citizens. And at that time, it included also blacks. Subsequently, I think probably during the Civil War times, that was repealed, but the Asian section of it stayed. And that wasn't repealed until 1952, I believe. So that the land law is specifically so that Asians could not purchase land. Now, the Isseis were very enterprising, because as soon as a law came in, they figured out ways of getting around it. And so one of the ways they used was to form companies, land companies, and have it fronted by (Caucasians).