"My family lost our farm during Japanese incarceration. I went searching for what remains."

[Nevilledog]

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Mother Jones
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The Murai family lost their farm during Japanese incarceration. Now, as the number of living survivors dwindles, they risk losing their stories too. @ruthcmurai set out to document her family's memories that remain:

motherjones.com
My family lost our farm during Japanese incarceration. I went searching for what remains.
When Executive Order 9066 forcibly removed my family from their community 80 years ago, we lost more than I realized.
1:00 PM · Sep 22, 2022

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2022/02/my-family-lost-our-farm-during-japanese-incarceration-i-went-searching-for-what-remains/


West of Sacramento, in a rural community called Broderick, my grandfather Shigeki, and his brothers, Yoshimi, Tadao, and Hideo, were farmers. We were told the land they worked was leased by my great-uncle’s in-laws, the Abe family, who were glad to have the labor of the young and fit Murai brothers. They were quiet men, industrious and skilled. The work was difficult and they must have savored the occasional breeze off of the Sacramento River. The Murai brothers were of the Nisei generation, born in the United States to Japanese immigrants (Issei), but my grandfather was raised and educated mostly in Japan before he returned to work this land, to earn a living, to build a life. His story was not unusual. In 1940, 45 percent of employed Japanese people on the Pacific Coast worked in agriculture. Californian Issei and Nisei farmers dominated the wholesale and retail fruit and vegetable markets in the state.

I know very little about this farm. My family left it behind for good in 1942, when my grandfather was in the Army and his brothers were incarcerated along with thousands of other Japanese Americans during World War II. The land never belonged to our family, but the house they left behind had been built lovingly with the help of the Japanese community in the area after a fire had destroyed their previous home. When they left home, the house was still relatively new, and they had been excited for the memories that would be made there. But many of the children they imagined raising in that house would instead grow up in incarceration camps.

This week marks the 80th anniversary of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which authorized the secretary of war to round up as many as 126,000 Japanese American men, women, and children who lived on the Pacific Coast, after the Pearl Harbor attack stoked fears about Japanese American loyalty. For many years, this era was referred to as Japanese internment. But that term is inadequate, since it describes the imprisonment of foreign nationals, and over half of those detained were American citizens.

The anti-Japanese sentiment that allowed for such a drastic action to take place did not spring up suddenly after Pearl Harbor, but had been simmering for decades, stoked by white labor and business groups resentful of Japanese workers and farmers. Japanese Americans who were forced off their land lost property worth an estimated $3.7 billion in today’s dollars, and $7.7 billion worth of income.

*snip*

[central scrutinizer]

1. Recommended read

Stubborn Twig by Lauren Kessler, 1994

Stubborn Twig is a classic American story, a story of immigrants making their way in a new land. It is a living work of social history that rings with the power of truth and the drama of fiction, a moving saga about the challenges of becoming an American. Masuo Yasui traveled from Japan across the other Oregon Trail—the one that spanned the Pacific Ocean—in 1903. Like most immigrants, he came with big dreams and empty pockets. Working on the railroads, in a cannery, and as a houseboy before settling in Hood River, Oregon, he opened a store, raised a large family, and became one of the area’s most successful orchardists.As Masuo broke the race barrier in the local business community, his American-born children broke it in school, scouts and sports, excelling in most everything they tried. For the Yasuis’ first-born son, the constraints and contradictions of being both Japanese and American led to tragedy. But his seven brothers and sisters prevailed, becoming doctors, lawyers, teachers, and farmers. It was a classic tale of the American dream come true—until December 7, 1941, changed their lives forever. The Yasuis were among the more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry along the West Coast who were forced from their homes and interned in vast inland “relocation camps.” Masuo was arrested as a spy and imprisoned for the rest of the war; his family was shamed and broken. Yet the Yasuis endured, as succeeding generations took up the challenge of finding their identity as Americans. Stubborn Twig is their story—a story at once tragic and triumphant, one that bears eloquent witness to both the promise and the peril of America.

[erronis]

4. Thank you for that reference - I'll look for it in my library.

https://www.supersummary.com/stubborn-twig/summary/

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[erronis]

3. There are many well-known tales: Snow Falling on Cedars, Corner of Bitter and Sweet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Falling_on_Cedars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_on_the_Corner_of_Bitter_and_Sweet

This seems to be a starker and less palatable (to western tastes). Thank you.

[Codifer]

5. This hits close to home.

Probably less than a half a mile from my home.

Not one of the finest moments for the United States.

[Raine]

6. Terminal Island Japanese Fishing Village San Pedro

Last edited Thu Sep 22, 2022, 09:48 PM - Edit history (1)

they had a nice community but it was taken. Los Angeles' busy port there now and a prison but they gave them a small area for a memorial and sign about the village.

[albacore]

7. Years ago, I videoed an interview I did...

...with our school accountant, and showed it to my students every semester after that.
The school where I taught is in a rich suburb of Seattle, and some of the most expensive homes - with waterfront and views - are built on the land that was stolen from her family in the Japanese-American diaspora.

The only hint of bitterness I saw was her comment that "The homes in that area have wonderful lawns... that ground was so fertile."

[Demovictory9]

9. A few non Japanese took care of property for their Incarcerated Japanese neighbors

And returned it to them..i remember reading..

A truly shocking time in history..

[betsuni]

10. My family moved to a small town on Puget Sound when I was seven and I didn't

know until decades later that the popular public beach used to be a strawberry farm owned by a Japanese family. Went to the Puyallup Fair and didn't know the fairgrounds were the first stop for Pacific Northwest Japanese families before being taken to camps. I have an old copy of a great book, "Nisei Daughter" by Monica Sone describing it. Out of print, I'm sure. So much history (of the local Indian tribes and when all the Chinese people disappeared, too) that nobody talked about then.

[betsuni]

8. K&R

[Hekate]

11. KnR