<Begin Segment 4>

JS: Now, could you kind of describe -- for many of us who don't know -- the details of sharecropping? What is involved in sharecropping?

ES: Well, sharecropping is the landlord owns the property and he usually lets the tenant or whoever wants the farm there on shared basis, either on percentage basis.

JS: And they would, the percentage basis was based upon the sales of the crop.

ES: Right.

JS: And then the percentage was between, divided between the sharecropper and the...

ES: Landlord.

JS: ...and the landlord?

ES: Right.

JS: How much of a difference was there in terms of the sheer...

ES: Well, I really don't know. I think it varies with different landowners.

JS: Was that something that had to be negotiated between the individual sharecropper and the landlord?

ES: Yes. Right, right.

JS: Okay.

ES: Because lot of farmers had orchard on north San Jose here, and during the harvest time, they needed help. And after the harvest was finished, they wanted to keep their men on the ranch, otherwise the Japanese will be migrant crop followers, one crop to the other. And that way, they won't have any help the coming year. So naturally, they probably gave them some marginal land that they're not farming to these Japanese immigrants to raise a few crops.

JS: And so then when harvest time came with the orchards, then this stable labor supply was there, then they would help to harvest the orchards, then?

ES: Right.

JS: Ah, so that's how the arrangement came about.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2005 Densho and The Japanese American Museum of San Jose. All Rights Reserved.