Densho Digital Archive - Eiichi Edward Sakauye Interview (denshovh-seiichi-01-0011)

<Begin Segment 11>

JS: Okay, we spoke earlier about the alien land law in 1913, I kind of like to just touch briefly about that. Could you kind of tell me what they actually were and how did they impact the Japanese farmers in the Santa Clara Valley?

ES: Well, when Japanese, early ones, that decided to settle here, they were able to buy land. But when 1913 alien land law, which stopped them from buying land, it was sort of a... see, exact word I don't know, but they, they're up against the wall. Other words, they, not able to buy land. As their children grew older, they bought land under their children's name, which the children were underage. And that's how some of the farmers was able to buy land. But otherwise, they didn't want the Japanese buying land.

JS: So there was a definite threat by, felt there was a definite threat by some folks about Japanese gaining property. How much property, how much land are we talking about here, in terms of how much acreage, say, in the Santa Clara Valley did the Japanese own as opposed to the total amount of acreage in existence?

ES: Well, I don't know exact figures, but I can point out some of the growers that did buy the farm before alien law, and persons who bought farms after the alien law under their children's name. So then 1924 came exclusion immigrant, Japanese immigrants to United States. That put a little kink in it, because some single bachelors couldn't get the wives over here, so-called marriage, arranged marriage wives over here.

JS: Now, how did these laws affect your family? I remember you said something about that.

ES: Well, the alien land law affected us because my dad was not able to increase his holdings. Now that he's made a few dollars, he wants to expand, and it was impossible to expand. So only thing he did was that I leased property under my name, and that's how we farmed large acreage. But we couldn't increase our acreage because I was still a minor.

JS: Okay.