Interethnic Conflict

AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56

Interethnic Conflict under Racial Subordination: Japanese Immigrants and Their Asian Neighbors in Walnut Grove, California, 1908-1941

EIICHIRO AZUMA

Eiichiro Azuma is a curator at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. He has a master's degree in Asian American studies from UCLA. He is presently Assistant Professor of History at University of Pennsylvania. [email protected] ______

Before World War II, Japanese immigrants, or the Issei, played a subordinate socioeconomic role in American capitalism. Under the dual oppression of race and class, they were forced to compete with other minority groups for limited opportunities in every aspect of their lives. Accordingly, conflict and confrontation dictated the relations between Japanese immigrants and other peoples of color. Yet, the issue of interethnic conflict is a neglected topic in Japanese American history. The few existing studies take limited approaches. They either concentrate on the sporadic incidents of clashes over economic interests,1 or they deal with the conflict primarily as the reflex of international political crises.2 Moreover, they lack the careful consideration of the specific local social contexts that produced such frictions. None of the studies has explored the diversified forms of interethnic conflicts that Japanese immigrants had within a specific local political economy.

A series of interethnic conflicts that involved Japanese immigrants in Walnut Grove offers an excellent case study. Situated in the Sacramento River Delta of California, Walnut Grove is a small farming community where a white elite monopolized the town property and surrounding agricultural fields and occupied the top tier of a racial hierarchy. Other residents, virtually all Asians, were placed in a subordinate position to serve the economic interests of white landowners. Ever since the 1870s, the delta community had experienced the successive influxes of Chinese, Japanese, East Indian, and Filipino immigrants who satisfied such economic roles. Within the context of interethnic competition, Japanese residents had troubles with all these immigrant groups in one way or another.

Utilizing primarily Japanese language sources, this essay will first review the political economy of Walnut Grove which conditioned ethnic division and then trace the origin and nature of the Sino-Japanese conflicts in the 1910s and 1930s. I will also examine the Issei economic struggle with East Indian laborers and Chinese American farmers, and the ambivalent relationship of Issei with Filipino immigrant workers.

Japanese Immigrants and Walnut Grove

Less than a decade after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 put a stop to most Chinese immigration, Japanese immigrants entered the Sacramento River Delta as the alternative cheap labor. During the first decade of this century, the Japanese became the dominant immigrant group in Walnut Grove. According to the United States Census manuscript schedule, during the 1900s the Japanese population almost doubled from 295 to 530, while the Chinese population dropped drastically from 1,142 to 416 in Walnut Grove and the neighboring Isleton.3 AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56 Japanese immigrant laborers were preferred by local white landowners and farmers, since they accepted lower wages than white and Chinese laborers. In 1891, the Japanese reportedly received only eighty cents to ninety cents a day, and the whites and the Chinese $1.25 and $1.00 respectively.4

During the first decade of this century, many Japanese immigrant farmers appeared in Walnut Grove. Most were former laborers who had successfully accumulated capital and learned farming methods. In 1904 the Sacramento River Delta, including Courtland, Walnut Grove, and Isleton, already had 356 Japanese farmers. Within a year, the figure grew by 56.7 percent to a total of 558 farmers. 5 At the same time, the acreage under Japanese cultivation shows a rapid expansion from 2,010 acres to 7,124 acres.6 After 1905, the majority of the farmers raised asparagus, making Walnut Grove well known as the heart of California's asparagus industry. Nevertheless, all Japanese farmers in Walnut Grove were sharecroppers and cash tenants, for a white elite monopolized the ownership of land in the area. Under stringent leasing contracts, white landowners gave Japanese tenants virtually no autonomy in cultivation and harvesting and no right in the shipping and marketing of crops.7 Thus, despite their dominance in the process of actual crop production, Japanese farmers were at mercy of their landowners.

The white residents never attempted to expel the Japanese from Walnut Grove, not because they regarded the immigrants as equal members of the community, but because the use of Japanese tenants was economically beneficial for them. A Japanese farmer told a reporter of the San Francisco Chronicle:

When Japanese farmers took (sic) this river land it was worth $25 to $50 an acre. Because of the development we have done the land is now worth from $200 to $300 an acre. It brings a cash rent of $20 to $30 an acre (to landowners annually). Under the share system landowners are realizing from $60 to $70 an acre.8

Other than economic relations, whites sought no association with Japanese residents. From their perspective, the Japanese were socially and culturally inferior and unacceptable to their community. Given the dispersal of Japanese farming population in rural agricultural fields, the Issei farmers posed no problem. On the other hand, the merchants who lived in the central commercial district were potential threats. In order to maintain social distance, the whites forced them to reside with the Chinese in a segregated residential quarter located across the Sacramento River and assigned their children to the segregated “Oriental School” from 1908.9 In this fashion, white racism relegated the Japanese to a subordinate position with the Chinese, and formed the background to the conflict between the two groups.

Striving with Chinese “Evils”

The Sino-Japanese conflict essentially occurred over the support of the white elite, which held sway over the survival and welfare of ethnic minorities in the delta. The Walnut Grove Issei considered their Chinese neighbors responsible for tarnishing the good reputation of Japanese people and destroying their harmonious relationship with the local whites. Residing in the crowded Chinatown, the Japanese had always feared being identified with the Chinese whom they saw as “inferior.” After the 1906 San Francisco school incident in which the city's board of education ordered Japanese students to attend a segregated Chinese school, that fear increased. Both the Japanese government officials and community leaders believed that the ultimate consequence of such an incident would be Japanese exclusion from the United States. Therefore, they endeavored to nip further anti-Japanese movements in the bud by bettering the living conditions of Japanese immigrants, so that white Americans would accept them as equally civilized people.10 Japanese government officials were the first to make Walnut Grove an issue. Hanihara Masanao, second secretary of the Japanese Embassy, who traveled throughout the western states in 1908 to inspect the Japanese immigrant lives, depicted the Walnut Grove Japanese community in disgust: “The Japanese and the Chinese AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56 lived together in filthy, winding alleys crisscrossing each other ... and lewd women and lazy men were loitering around day and night disgracing the reputation of Japanese people and the nation.” In his opinion, almost all Chinese establishments were gambling houses where “the Chinese fattened themselves by squeezing dumb Japanese laborers.” 11 A year later, the Japanese Consul also visited Walnut Grove from San Francisco. Stunned by the spectacle of the town, he harshly accused the residents of leading a life as low as the Chinese, thereby allowing anti-Japanese exclusionists to contend that “the Japanese are as unassimilable as the Chinese to American society.” 12 The Walnut Grove Japanese leaders immediately joined in the criticism. Only three days after the consul's visit, a newspaper correspondent published an article castigating a “shameful life” that his fellow residents had lived. He continues:

White people now think that we are as filthy, as disorderly, and as immoral as the Chinese, since we have lived just like them. It will take a great deal of determination to vindicate us. [Without doing that,] it is absurd to demand we be treated better than the Chinese ... 13

Another leader suspected that Japanese students were segregated from the white counterparts and forced to attend the Oriental School with the Chinese because “Japanese children are vulgar in language and uncultured in behavior, living alongside the Chinese.” 14

In order to clean up their community, the Japanese of Walnut Grove had to combat what they considered as a “menace”: the prevalence of Chinese gambling. In their opinion, it was a pernicious evil which corrupted the moral fiber of the residents and seasonal laborers. Hoping to eradicate such a vice, the community launched a series of awakening campaigns. First, some farmers and merchants jointly held a “moral reform speech contest” in June 1908, at which a San Francisco leader and three immigrant journalists made anti-Chinese speeches. A Nichibei Shimbun reporter, for example, warned hundreds of audiences not to patronize Chinese gambling houses because “the Chinese plot to drive the Japanese out of Walnut Grove after squeezing the last penny out Of you.” 15 In addition, the Japanese Producers Association of Walnut Grove (JPA) tried to stop Japanese laborers from losing money. Receiving the support of fifty-eight whites, the JPA first petitioned police authorities to prohibit the operation of such businesses in Walnut Grove. It then hired a special watch to keep an eye on the movements of Japanese laborers. This measure forced Chinese gambling houses to close down for a while, and caused the arrest of several Japanese gamblers.16 From 1910, the local Japanese association, a successor of the JPA, also launched anti-Chinese gambling campaigns every summer after asparagus field hands completed their work. Yet it never attained a tangible success.

In 1918, the crusade against Chinese gambling became zealous and effective. With the United States entry into World War 1, anti-foreigner sentiments took over the nation. Japanese immigrants leaders felt all the more necessary to purge their community of Chinese “evils” to avoid suspicion and ill-feeling from white Americans.17 In June, eight Walnut Grove leaders had a meeting with Japanese Association secretaries from Fresno, Stockton and Sacramento and discussed the state of gambling in each community and possible countermeasures. Based on that discussion, the Walnut Grove Japanese Association decided to use a method of social ostracism to control the behavior of Japanese residents. The community leaders formed an anti-gambling committee and adopted four anti-gambling guidelines, which warned both Japanese laborers and merchants not to take part in or tolerate gambling in the face of severe punishment. According to these guidelines, the association would turn over gamblers to the local police, notify all other local associations of their conducts, and publish their names and photographs in immigrant newspapers. It also ordered Japanese boardinghouses not to accommodate gamblers and all Japanese stores to prohibit Japanese gambling, or hanafuda.18 Attesting to its commitment, the Japanese association spent $246.84 in the anti-gambling campaign from July to August, a sum which accounted for 13 percent of the total expenditures in that year.19 AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56 Unlike the previous attempts, the 1918 campaign was a success. According to the Ofu Nippo, it forced Japanese gamblers to move to the Stockton area by early July because they could not gain access to Chinese gambling houses in Walnut Grove. Observing the gamblers fleeing from the town and losing their patronage, some merchants even repented having done “such a stupid thing.” 2 0 Furthermore, the 1918 campaign saved Japanese laborers a lot of money. The Shin Sekai reported that they had deposited over $100,000 at the local white bank by mid-July. A bank clerk told the Shin Sekai reporter, “every year Chinese gambling-house proprietors brought back to us the wages paid to Japanese laborers. This year, the Japanese deposited a lot of money in this bank. They also made large remittances to Japan.” 21

In 1919, the anti-gambling committee resorted to more tactics of social pressure. It installed “an informer box” in the town, and as local watchdogs, all Japanese residents were encouraged to inform on chronic gamblers. The committee also told the entire community that it would report the names of gamblers to their native villages in Japan.22 Because gambling now carried the risk of disgracing their families in Japan, many laborers understandably refrained from patronizing Chinese gambling houses.

In Walnut Grove, the anti-Chinese gambling campaign climaxed in 1920. Shortly after the harvest season, a dozen members of the Japanese Salvation Army visited the town. They stood at every corner of Chinatown with Japanese residents to keep gamblers away from the area. Chanting anti-Chinese gambling slogans, they marched throughout Chinatown. Angered by the demonstration, the Chinese threw pebbles, fireworks, and muddy water at them.23 After that, nearly two hundred Japanese residents united to establish the Walnut Grove Alliance against Gambling.24 The emergence of this independent organization reflected the determination of the community to wipe out Chinese gambling. However, the alliance did not have an opportunity to function. The 1920 Alien Land Law undermined the foundation of Japanese agriculture in the delta, and at the same time, the massive influx of young Filipino immigrants into Walnut Grove took place. These social changes generated a rapid decline in the population of Japanese laborers and a corresponding reduction in Japanese patronage of Chinese gambling houses. With the alliance dissolving in March 1924, the anti-Chinese gambling campaign virtually disappeared from Walnut Grove.

Concurrent with the anti-Chinese gambling movement, the Issei leaders considered the possibility of segregating their community from Chinatown in order to escape from the adverse influence of Chinese immigrants. Judging from the existing documents, the idea was first introduced by the Japanese Consul in 1909. Before the community leaders, he declared that the establishment of a new Japanese quarter would prevent Japanese immigrants from being corrupted by Chinese “evils” such as gambling.25 The leaders discussed the idea in passing, but it never became a real possibility until 1915.

A devastating fire which occurred on October 7, 1915, gave the Issei of Walnut Grove an opportunity to work on the establishment of a genuine Japantown. Starting from a kitchen of a Japanese boardinghouse, the fire burned down the entire Chinatown within a matter of two hours. It reduced thirty Japanese houses to ashes and made approximately one hundred and fifty Japanese homeless. To provide shelter for the victims, the Japanese association set up tents on the Japanese language school playground.26 Despite initial confusion, the residents began planning the reconstruction of their town quickly. On the day following the fire, they convoked a mass meeting and resolved: “We shall segregate ourselves from the Chinese at this occasion.... Anyone who defies this decision shall be punished.” 27 The Japanese association promised to provide necessary assistance to the self-segregation project and issued a special newsletter called the Kawashimo Jiho.28 In its editorial, the secretary argued that the entire Japanese immigrant society expected the people of Walnut Grove to atone for their “past shameful life.” He also pointed out that other Japanese communities sent many letters of sympathy and contributions to Walnut Grove, not because they felt obligated to, but because they wanted the residents to establish a nice, clean Japantown. In order to gain the sympathy of their fellow countrymen, he argued, they had to stop living together with the Chinese once and for all. AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56

In less than a month, the Walnut Grove Japanese put their hand to the project. At first, the town residents were divided in opinion. One group contended that the site for a new Japantown should be Alex Brown's land. Being close, to a railway station and surrounding farms, it had more commercial advantages. Although the site adjoined the original Chinatown, this group thought that they could separate themselves from the Chinese by building a fence. Another group preferred the land of George Locke located about half a mile northeast of Walnut Grove. While this site was more distant from the old Chinatown, its remoteness had commercial disadvantages. In addition, it would cost the residents a large sum of money because the landowner required them to bear two-thirds of the expenditures necessary for the development and construction of living quarter.29

The town residents chose Brown's land as the site of the new Japantown. In addition to financial consideration, underlying the decision was what the Japanese residents called “the Chinese conspiracy.” Ever since the fire, Japanese community leaders had harbored a suspicion that the Chinese were waiting for the Japanese to decide where to resettle before them in order to open their businesses, especially gambling houses, inside the new Japantown.30 In the Issei's opinion, Chinese merchants, after learning that the Japanese were interested in Locke, hastily signed lease contracts on the most convenient lots on Locke's land, which contributed to the Japanese choice of Brown's land. Japanese saw that the Chinese who resettled in the old Chinatown were a group of merchants who later returned from Locke to Walnut Grove for the commercial benefit.31 Although the establishment of the two Chinatowns was in fact a product of a long-term conflict between the Sze Yap and Heungshan peoples in the Cantonese population, the Issei interpreted the actions of the Chinese as against the interests of the Japanese community.

On October 19, Japanese leaders entered into negotiations with Alex Brown. Brown agreed to all the terms the Japanese proposed except one: the construction of a fence between the Japanese and Chinese quarters. In all probability, Brown thought that such a fence would reduce business activities between the two and hence the profitability of his estate. Consequently, Brown and the Japanese decided to lease an edge of Chinatown from Sperry Dye and to use that space as a natural border.32 According to the final agreement made on November 1, Alex Brown was responsible for the installation of water supply, sewerage, and fire extinguishers, as well as the subdivision of his land into twenty-seven residential lots on which Japanese tenants were to build their own houses. Brown also agreed to construct seven commercial buildings along a levee, to which fourteen Japanese stores later moved. In order to separate the Japanese quarter from Chinatown, a sixty-five foot wide park, later called C Street, was laid between the two.33

Even after the segregation of the Japanese quarter, the residents still endeavored to keep their town free from Chinese influence and moral corruption. They passed a resolution to prohibit gamblers and other vagrants who patronized Chinese gambling houses from entering the Japanese town.34 When there was a renegade who defied the policy of self-segregation, they made an example of him. The person in question was a Wakayama. In late 1915, Wakayama opened a barber shop in the Locke Chinatown. The Walnut Grove Japanese Association resolved to sever all connections with him and to inform his home village of his misdeed, although these sanctions were lifted later in return for Wakayama's public apology.35 Notwithstanding the outcome, this case showed the real possibility of social ostracism and understandably inhibited other potential renegades. For the ensuing several years, Japanese residents remained in their own living quarters,36 and as the anti-Chinese gambling campaigns achieved a measurable success after 1918, the Chinese “evils” were no longer a critical issue for the Japanese community.

Economic Rivalry under Racial Subordination

Competition over limited economic resources was another dimension of interethnic conflict in Walnut Grove. Concurrent with their struggle with the Chinese “menace,” Japanese immigrants clashed with East Indian AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56 laborers who increasingly appeared on the local asparagus farms. A few years prior to the 1910s, the delta region started to experience a “shortage” of Japanese field hands. A Japanese consular official who toured the area pointed out two reasons: the rapid development of California agriculture and the impact of the 1907-1908 Gentlemen's Agreement between Japan and the United States.37 The former resulted in the dispersal of the laborers throughout California, and the latter caused the overall decrease in the Japanese labor population by stopping the entry of new immigrant laborers to the country. Between 1911 and 1912, the number of Japanese field hands working on asparagus farms sharply dropped from some four thousand to eight hundred in Walnut Grove.38 This allowed new East Indian immigrants to enter the local labor market. Moreover, the farmers, whether Japanese or others, preferred to hire them, for they worked for much lower wages than Japanese laborers.39 Before long, East Indian laborers replaced the Japanese counterparts and came to dominate asparagus work in the delta community.

In December 1914, Japanese merchants discussed this matter for the first time. Alarmed by the report that East Indians had comprised 80 percent of the total labor force in that year, they unanimously called for a community- wide campaign to recruit Japanese asparagus field hands. Acceding to it, the Japanese association quickly resolved to publish job announcements in the Japanese immigrant press for the 1915 season. In order to assist in the recruitment campaign, the association also established an agricultural department which consisted of elected leading farmers.40

Viewed from the Walnut Grove Japanese perspective, East Indians had became the “greatest enemy” to their community. The Japanese association secretary 'argued that not only did East Indians take away Japanese jobs on the delta farms, but also attempted to steal farm leases from Japanese farmers. In his opinion, white landowners, in seeing East Indians dominate the labor force, came have the misconception that East Indians were more adept at agriculture than the Japanese. In other words, the secretary was more concerned about the changing white view of the Japanese than the numerical predominance of East Indian laborers. His viewpoint reflected a sense of racial hierarchy existing in Japanese minds. White landowners, who occupied the top tier, controlled every facet of the Walnut Grove political economy. The Japanese, though beneath the whites, thus saw themselves occupying the second tier above other Asian “races.” The Japanese perceived the East Indians as maliciously taking over the Japanese position in agriculture. Alarmed over the idea of “Nihonjin Muyo” (Japanese not necessary) that he observed was spreading among white landowners, the secretary warned the residents, “Hindus have all been the enemy of our working class countrymen. Now, they are also the enemy of our local farmers. If so, what else can they be but the enemy of all Japanese?” 41

The predominance of East Indian laborers also posed practical problems for the Japanese of Walnut Grove. From the farmers, point of view, East Indians were not as good agricultural workers as Japanese. Despite lower wages, they frequently inflicted losses upon the farmers because of their “inefficiency .”42 On the other hand, Japanese merchants suffered a huge drop in sales as East Indian laborers increased in number. Because East Indians seldom, if ever, patronized the Japanese grocery stores, boardinghouses, and restaurants, their proceeds dropped by over 50 percent between 1913 and 1914 .43 Due to this deleterious influence on the local Japanese economy, most town merchants participated actively in the campaign to recruit Japanese laborers.

The job advertisement for Japanese asparagus laborers appeared in the 1915 New Year edition of the Ofu Nippo. It had a decidedly nationalistic character. With a caption reading, “The Grave Problem in the Walnut Grove Japanese Community: Clash with East Indians,” it gave readers an impression that the Japanese had entered an all-out war with East Indians. It also urged anyone willing to defend the economic interests of Japanese immigrants to rush to Walnut Grove, without even mentioning the terms of employment. Whether true or not, white landowners were listed as co-sponsors of this advertisement, which implied the presence of an “united” front by the whites and the Japanese against the “intruders”: East Indians.44 This patriotic appeal AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56 worked so well that Japanese asparagus field hands increased in number to constitute approximately 70 percent of the total labor force in 1915.45

After 1916, the recruitment campaign featured not only newspaper ads, but also the active involvement of the Japanese association secretary and local merchants. In 1917, for example, the secretary personally helped to make twenty-three separate labor contracts for Japanese field hands in a month.46 Since employment was on a group basis, he presumably sent hundreds of laborers to Japanese farms. Meanwhile, two Walnut Grove boardinghouse proprietors traveled to Stockton, Fresno, and Del Rey with the secretary to recruit Japanese laborers, while two others went to Oroville.47 To institutionalize the recruiting role of local merchants, the Japanese association established a labor department in 1921. Boardinghouse proprietors served exclusively as committeemen with this department.48 Given the crucial role of the boarding houses as an employment agency in the agricultural labor contracting system,49 this labor department was a decisive solution to the shortage of Japanese labor.

During the early 1920s, the Japanese of Walnut Grove found their agricultural interests under another threat. When the state deprived the Issei of crucial rights in agriculture, Chinese Americans attempted to remove Japanese immigrants from the delta. In 1920, the California voters enacted the amendment to the 1913 Alien Land Law which prohibited not only the ownership of land but also any form of leasehold by Japanese immigrants. In face of this law, the Walnut Grove farmers had no other choice than to resort to cropping contracts under which they worked for their landowners in receipt of crop-shares. Then, in July 1921, State Attorney General U. S. Webb announced that he considered such contracts to be a form of lease and hence illegal.50 This announcement spelled disaster in the eyes of Japanese immigrant farmers. The Japanese were on the verge of losing their position as farmers in the delta agriculture, which in turn gave an opportunity for Chinese Americans to take their place. In August 1921, a group of American-born Chinese formed the American Chinese Cooperative Farmers and started a campaign “to drive Japanese farmers out of the delta agriculture at the time of contract renewal.” 51 With the financial support of an affluent Chinese immigrant, the organization sent its members throughout the delta to distribute anti-Japanese pamphlets to white landowners. Their publications claimed that the landowners would get fined, imprisoned, and even lose their land cultivated by Japanese immigrants and that Chinese Americans were lawful citizens entitled to lease land. The Chinese American propaganda was so effective at first that nearly all landowners refused to renew their contracts with the Japanese farmers.52

For their part, the Walnut Grove Issei launched a counterattack in the end of support. The local Japanese association promptly printed English handouts which maintained that a method of a cropping contract should be interpreted not as a form of a lease, but as an employment agreement whereby a farmer would receive a designated share of crops as his “salary .” 53 The association secretary also visited the rural areas to explain the Japanese interpretation to white landowners in person.54 Given the two opposing positions of Chinese Americans and Japanese immigrants, the landowners held a meeting at which they “thrashed out the legal questions and defined their attitude on the matter.” 55 According to a Japanese leader, “the whites have all realized that Walnut Grove agriculture cannot do without Japanese farmers. They now come to us with sympathy. . . .”56 Because of a growing interest among the landowners, the secretary toured the remote farms again in mid-October.57 These measures enabled the majority of the Issei farmers to renew their contracts for another few years.58

The Chinese Americans persisted in their attempt to take over Japanese agricultural interests, adopting a sort of scare tactic to alienate white landowners from their tenants. Hiring a white lawyer, the American Chinese Cooperative Farmers sent the district attorney a letter in which they accused Japanese farmers of violating the alien land law in every possible way. In January 1922, they officially filed a complaint against forty-seven white landowners who allegedly leased their farms to the Japanese. In response, the district attorney called AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56 grand jury investigation in Courtland, Isleton and Walnut Grove.59 Such an investigation might actually have exposed some legal problems, but the local law-enforcement agency did not take up the complaint after all because several test cases against the alien land law brought by the Japanese were still pending in the United States Supreme Court. Having done all they could do, both the Chinese and the Japanese waited quietly for the court decision, but the result turned out disastrous to the Japanese in the end. On November 19, 1923, the court upheld the ban on Japanese lease including cropping contracts, which left the “open season” for Japanese tenancy in the delta.

Chinese American farmers seemed to have taken advantage of such a situation. Although no comprehensive statistics are available, a few lease contracts made by Chinese Americans, which suddenly appeared in the Sacramento County record book after the Supreme Court ruling, testify to that fact. On December 1, 1923, Jue Chong and Bing Chong, both citizens of the United States, leased a 170-acre orchard for ten years, while Henry L. Yuen leased a forty-acre asparagus farm for four years (in December 18.60 In both cases, their landowners had used Japanese farmers previously. Doubtless, Alien Land Law offered an opportunity to many other Chinese American farmers in the delta as well. After 1923, the Japanese farming population reduced by half within only three years, and their acreage decreased by a quarter between 1920 and 1926.61 Thereafter, the majority of Japanese immigrants submitted themselves to working as farm foremen under employment agreement which they considered as the approximation of mere laborers. They put up with such a comedown because they thought that it would be only temporary. The Issei believed that their American-born children, the Nisei, would restore the strength and return to the status of actual farmers by virtue of the American citizenship.62

Indispensable Menace

The Issei's relation with Filipino immigrants was more complicated than their relations with Chinese and East Indians. Their quest for dominance in the delta agriculture co-existed with economic dependence on Filipino laborers. This seemingly contradictory situation made perfect sense to the Issei who came to see interethnic competition in the light of the Nisei's maturation. At first, Filipino immigrants emerged as competitors to Japanese farm laborers. In the middle of the 1920s, Walnut Grove suddenly found Filipino immigrants pouring into the local asparagus farms. At that time, the Philippines was still a territory of the United States, so that the people were considered American nationals and free to move to this country despite the 1924 Immigration Act which prohibited the immigration of Japanese and other Asians. Drawn into a labor vacuum created by the law, the California's Filipino population jumped from 2,674 to 30,470 between 1920 and 1930.63 Like their Japanese counterparts of twenty years ago, they were young single men willing to accept low wages and work hard. Older Japanese laborers were no match for such new immigrants.

Walnut Grove Japanese strove to defend their influence in the local labor market as they had done at the time of East Indians. In early 1924, the Japanese association carried out an extensive campaign to recruit Japanese asparagus field hands, spending more than twice as much money as in the previous years.64 Realizing that it was not enough, the Issei leaders then started the campaign three months earlier for the following season.65 Nevertheless, time and money could not prevent the massive influx of Filipino immigrant laborers into Walnut Grove. In 1929, the Japanese community finally gave up even trying to recruit Japanese laborers “because almost all asparagus field hands consist of Filipinos.” 66 A year later, a Japanese source reported that the number of Filipino laborers reached as many as nine thousand in Walnut Grove.67 On the other hand, Japanese field hands accounted for less than five percent of the Filipino counterparts, marking a virtual demise of Japanese labor force in the delta.

The dominance of Filipino laborers created a new interethnic relation based on economic dependence. Unlike East Indians or Chinese, Japanese residents could not simply rid their community of Filipino immigrants. Not AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56 only farmers were unable to operate their farms without the help of Filipino laborers, but also merchants could no longer manage their stores unless they catered to the new immigrants. In fact, as early as 1927, an Issei journalist depicted that Japanese grocery stores throve largely on their clientele. According to him, the Walnut Grove Japanese district looked almost “a battlefield” where “an avalanche of Filipinos” surged into the stores every weekend of the asparagus season.68 Stanford University psychologist Edward K. Strong, Jr., who studied the delta community in 1930, also noted that the major, if not the only, source of income for Japanese businesses was the sale of food provisions to Filipino labor camps.69 Thus, Filipino immigrants were not economic competitors any longer, but an indispensable part of the delta's Japanese economy.

However, Japanese dependence did not make Filipino immigrants either their friends or comrades. The Issei regarded it as only a temporary resort to eke out a daily living. They anticipated that their children would restore the influence that they once had in the local labor market. At that time, the idea of entrusting the Nisei with such a task was widely entertained within Japanese immigrant society at large. For example, the Nichibei Shimbun, a leading immigrant newspaper, held a new year essay contest in 1933, for which the readers were asked to write about “The Expansion of Filipino Influences and Our Preparation.” The newspaper selected three prize-winners and published their essays which shared the identical thesis: the Nisei's mission to win the interethnic competition. One of them, for instance, contended:

The time has already passed for the Issei to compete with Filipinos. It is obvious that those in their forties and fifties have no contest with those full of youthful vigor.... Thus, I say, let the Nisei take the lead in our struggle with Filipinos.... The Nisei, though most are still under twenty years old, are superior to Filipinos in both intelligence and physical ability, so I do not have the slightest doubt in their final triumph.70

The Issei thought that it was their moral obligation to make their best effort to enable the Nisei to fulfill their mission. For that purpose, Walnut Grove Japanese actually implemented what they called the Kibei Undo [Kibei return campaign], which intended to bring back the American-born Japanese living in Japan (Kibei) .71 Between 1931 and 1932, there were fifteen Kibei returnees to the delta community under this program.72 Such youths were expected to be an integral part of Japanese farm labor.

In 1935, the concept of the Nisei as the leader in struggle with Filipinos suddenly became all the more crucial and realistic. In July President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Repatriation Act into law, which was designed to remove Filipino immigrants from the country. The law provided Filipinos with transportation to their homeland at the expense of the federal government on the condition that they forfeit the right to reenter the United States. The government initially estimated that the program would reduce the Filipino immigrant population by half within a year.73 Given their economic dependence on Filipino laborers, the Japanese of Walnut Grove were alarmed about the law, but at the same time, they saw it as a great opportunity to make the Kibei replace Filipino laborers. Hence, they hastily resolved to address themselves to the Kibei return campaign more ardently than before.74

The renewed campaign was satisfying. During the last five months of 1935, the delta Japanese community welcomed as many as a dozen Kibei to the local labor force through the good offices of the Japanese association. The success of the campaign continued with the return of additional thirty-nine American-born youths in 1936 and twenty-three in 1937.75 According to an Issei boardinghouse proprietor, these Kibei were “the finest and most efficient workers,” and they, along with some Hawaiian-born Nisei and students, already constituted half of the entire Japanese laborers in Walnut Grove in 1938.76 In reality, these Kibei were yet to have any impact on the situation of Filipino dominance in labor market because most Filipino immigrants remained in the United States, ignoring the federal repatriation program. Nevertheless, the increase in the Kibei population and their competitiveness registered as promising in the eyes of the Issei. AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56

In the 1930s, the concept of the Nisei as the coming leaders also led to a new definition of the Filipino “menace.” Interpreting the future of the Japanese in this country purely in racial terms, the Issei believed that the purity of the blood line conditioned the Nisei's competitiveness and economic prosperity.77 In their opinion, young single Filipinos posed a serious threat to it. Japanese immigrant leaders worried that because no Filipino women were available, Filipino immigrants acted gentle and kind to seduce young Nisei girls. Unaware of their hidden motive, some girls became seemingly infatuated with Filipino men who gave presents and spent money on them without stint.78 Speaking for the Issei's fear, the Nichibei Shimbun editorial warned in this strong language:

The Japanese, possessing superior “racial” traits unparalleled in the world, are destined for ceaseless development and prosperity. On the other hand, those people (Filipinos), whose homeland contents itself with being “a third-class nation,”... would see nothing but poverty and misery in their lives. If their “lazy blood” become part of the Japanese race through interethnic marriage, it would eventually offset the racial superiority of the Japanese.... Ethnic purity is a precondition for the welfare of the second- generation.79

Old fear of economic competition now turned into the fear of destruction of “ethnic purity” by Filipino men.

In Walnut Grove, many actual incidents in which the Nisei were victimized by Filipinos highlighted such fear. As early as 1926, some Filipinos were reported to have abducted a Walnut Grove Nisei for sex.80 In the following year, a Nisei girl was shot to death in the nearby community of Courtland because she had rejected the advances of a Filipino laborer. In another incident, a Filipino laborer took a life of a four-year-old Nisei boy inside an Isleton house after failing to sexually molest the boy's older sister.81 Given the fact that by 1930 the American-born generation increased to half of all the Japanese in Walnut Grove and that one-quarter of the Nisei were already of high school age or older, the occurrence of similar incidents looked more than probable in the years to come.82

To cope with the Filipino male “menace,” Walnut Grove Issei adopted a two-fold strategy. First, community leaders executed a program to facilitate contacts between Nisei men and women of marriageable age in cooperation with other Japanese communities in Northern California.83 The program was almost synonymous to traditional arranged marriage in Japan. Acting as a marriage counselor, the Japanese association secretary offered introductory services to any Nisei looking for a mate. If both parties lived in Walnut Grove, he simply mediated between their families, as did go-betweens in Japan. If a prospective mate belonged to another community, he represented the Walnut Grove Nisei in negotiating with the other family. The match-making activity of the Japanese association appeared to have worked quite well. Between 1938 and 1940, it helped a total of eighteen Nisei couples to form new families in the delta community .84

In everyday life, each family endeavored to keep distance between the Nisei and Filipinos. Farmers put up labor camps far from their residences, avoided long-term employment, and allowed no association with Filipino laborers other than work.85 Simultaneously, the Issei enlightened the Nisei on the Filipino “menace.” Not only did parents constantly caution children against having anything to do with Filipinos, but also imbued them with the stereotype that all Filipino men simulate kindness and tenderness in order to violate the Nisei girls.86 As a consequence, anti-Filipino biases became prevalent in the second-generation. A Nisei woman showed a fraction of them in her view: “Filipinos were (regarded as) dangerous. So we never associated with them.... Everyone was afraid of them. Once you spoke to them, they would begin to dangle after you all the time!” 87 In this respect, the Issei succeeded in planting the seeds of ethnic repugnance and hence the future conflict as they wished. AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56 War within the Community

In the 1930s, international political events created the situation of a new Sino-Japanese conflict. The dichotomy between Japanese and Chinese residents, which had originally appeared as a product of white hegemony of the delta political economy, formed the background to a kind of miniature war between the two groups whose home countries were now at war. The two groups clashed not only because of their patriotic sentiments, but they also courted the favor of white Americans for their own survival in Walnut Grove. After Japan started its militaristic aggression in China and occupied Manchuria in 1931, Chinese residents quickly staged anti-Japanese boycotts and launched extensive propaganda to support China in such cities as San Francisco and New York. Concurrent with that movement, the Locke branch of the Kuomintang, or the Chinese Nationalist Party, also distributed the English publications castigating Japan's action throughout the delta .88 Coupled with the United States position against the Japanese military action, such a campaign successfully induced the local whites to sympathize with the Chinese and to bear ill-feeling toward the Japanese .89 As Japanese residents were very sensitive to how the whites saw them within the context of racial subordination, that situation flabbergasted them and provoked them to wage a counterattack.

Beginning in March 1932, the Issei conducted a pro-Japanese campaign in Walnut Grove. The distribution of political pamphlets kicked off that campaign.90 Following it, the Japanese association arranged for a Japanese consular official to give a speech in English before the white leaders. At the exclusive gathering of local landowners and businessmen, the official explained the “truth” of the Chinese problem, presented the political position of Japan in East Asia, and justified its military aggression.91 Wives of the white leaders were another target that the Issei attempted to influence. Since they seldom attended the meeting of political nature, a special program was set up. Instead of holding a lecture or a speech, the Issei men asked their wives to sponsor a “cultural” event, to which nearly fifty leading white women were invited. Dubbed a “Japan Night,” it featured the performances of a Japanese song and dances, followed by a political speech by the consular official.92 This program successfully lured the unsuspected white women to pro-Japanese propaganda. A Japanese leader claimed that these public relations activities contributed to retrieving a “favorable” image of Japanese people in Walnut Grove.93

In the meantime, the Issei of Walnut Grove sought to teach their children about what was going on between China and Japan. In anticipating that the Nisei were destined to shoulder the future of the Japanese “race” in the United States, Japanese immigrant leaders espoused the new concept of the Nisei as a bridge of understanding between the United States and Japan.94 In their opinion, white Americans were ignorant that Japan was fighting a righteous war in China-so much so that they easily fell for the Chinese propaganda. As a bridge of understanding, the Issei envisioned the Nisei educating the American public about Japan and dispelling their ignorance. To make the children capable of such a task, the Walnut Grove Japanese Association and Japanese language school sponsored a number of educational programs about Japanese policies in East Asia, as well as its history, society and ideology. In the spring of 1932, for example, the Japanese consular official, who spoke to white landowners, explained the political position of Japan before approximately one hundred and fifty Nisei in English.95 From 1933, the Japanese language school offered special summer classes on Japanese history and morals every year.96 Shortly after the outbreak of the full-blown war between China and Japan in 1937, there was also an intensive lecture, in which the school principal presented the historical outlines of the Sino-Japanese relations, compared the socio-ideological systems of the two nations, and traced Japan's policy in Asia.97

Such programs enlarged the rift between the Nisei and their Chinese American neighbors. In one incident, Nisei grammar school students made fun of their Chinese classmates by tricking them into repeating “Japan won, China lost” in the Japanese language. Telling the Chinese that it meant the very opposite, the Nisei were amused to hear them joyfully chanting the phrase over and over.98 In another incident, Nisei boys engaged in a AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56 fight with a group of older Chinese students who had damaged the crops on a Japanese farm after the Sino- Japanese conflict. One day, catching the Chinese in the act, a Nisei boy tried to protect the farm, but he ended up being pushed around by them. Whereupon, other Nisei rushed to the scene in his defense and put down the aggressors by resorting to judo.99 Although the international crisis on the other side of the Pacific Ocean had no significant meaning to the Nisei children, it still adversely affected their relations with Chinese Americans.

With the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of July 7, 1937, the military conflict between China and Japan developed into a full-scale war. In contrast to the 1931 Manchurian Incident, however, the Sino-Japanese War did not give rise to anti-Japanese sentiments in the delta. As soon as it broke out, the Issei acted quickly to avoid the deterioration of the Japanese image. In an effort to influence the opinion of prominent local Americans, they distributed hundreds of propaganda documents throughout the area.100 This evidently baffled Chinese residents from the start. Furthermore, it more pressing incident occurred in Walnut Grove, which not only diverted the public attention from the issue of Japanese aggression in Asia, butt also gave the Issei the best public-relations opportunity. On November 9, 1937, a Chinese gambler who lost his fortune set fire to his house, which reduced the entire Chinatown to ashes. With over eighty buildings burned down and five hundred people becoming homeless, this incident made a bad name for Chinese residents. On the other hand, the Japanese received the praise of local people in their effort to bring the fire under control.101 To highlight their services, they also organized a special guard to prevent looting and to assist the local police. Other activities further perked up the Japanese image. While the Japanese community donated one hundred dollars to the Chinese in token of their “profound sympathy,” Issei women prepared meals for all the refugees regardless of ethnicity.102 Puffed up with satisfaction and a sense of superiority, a Nisei reporter described the pitiable sight of Chinese sufferers in comparison with the Sino-Japanese War:

Strange scenes were enacted today in Walnut Grove, 6000 miles away from the Orient where a Sino- Japanese war is raging. Chinese families, who were fed rice and soup by the Walnut Grove Japanese women's club, came and thanked the Japanese with tears in their eyes for the emergency aid.103

From the Japanese perspective, they were no longer a threat, but only an object of pity. Thereafter, Chinese residents were probably too preoccupied with the re-establishment of their community to pose a threat of the anti-Japanese boycott in Walnut Grove.104

Without the Chinese propaganda, the Issei's pro-Japan movement came to take on a strong coloration of Japanese nationalism from 1938. Finding it unnecessary to worry about the local race-relations, they could freely identify themselves with the crisis that Japan was facing across the Pacific. Accordingly, the Walnut Grove Japanese devoted themselves to lending direct moral and monetary support to the Japanese military rather than propagandize to influence local Americans. An emergency committee played a central role in that effort. Beginning in the summer of 1938, it carried out various patriotic activities ranging from fundraising to victory prayer and celebrations. In response to a Japanese Consul's motion, Issei leaders first launched the so- called One-Dollar Contribution Campaign, for which everyone, whether Issei or Nisei, was expected to give up a dollar. Announcing all the names of the donors in Japanese language newspapers, they exercised enormous social pressure on the residents. Consequently, the number of the donors far exceeded the entire Japanese population of Walnut Grove.105 On their part, Issei women, too, were encouraged to collect gift packages [imonbukuro] for Japanese soldiers fighting in China. The delta community eventually forwarded the Japanese Army Ministry 1,120 gift packages and 366 letters of consolation.106

The Issei's patriotism climaxed with a series of events to commemorate Japan's achievements. On November 3, 1938, the entire community of five hundred people observed the fall of Hankow and Canton, at which they prayed for the soldiers killed in action, sang the official Japanese-government “Patriotic Marching Song,” and viewed the latest war-related newsreels and movies from Japan.107 Corresponding with the celebration of AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56 Kigensetsu, the national foundation day of Japan, in February 1939, young Issei men who were still of draftable age volunteered to establish a branch of the Heimushakai. Because they enjoyed draft deferments by virtue of their residence in America, they pledged to contribute fifty cents per month in lieu of military service. Paying the Heimushakai members also asked nonmembers for additional donations. By the end of the year, the Heimushakai remitted nearly one thousand dollars to Japan.108 Finally in November 1940, the community commemorated the so-called 2600th anniversary of the enthronement of the first Japanese Emperor, Jimmu. This two-day event featured not only patriotic festivities but also the public commendation of senior Issei's meritorious services to the community. By simultaneously paying tributes and gratitude to Japanese soldiers and Issei pioneers, the 1940 event symbolically celebrated the triumphs of both Japan and Walnut Grove Japanese community, linking the Issei's own experiences to Japan. In effect, this marked the peak of their patriotic efforts. With Japanese nationalism in complete ascendancy, these activities no longer bore a trace of the Issei's original quest for white American support. Given the absence of the Chinese threat in the delta at that time, this shift of focus precisely indicates that the local state of affairs actually had a decisive effect on the form and course of patriotic activities, which seemed to have simply reflected international political events.

Conclusion

The types of interethnic conflict that Japanese immigrants of Walnut Grove experienced with other racial and ethnic groups was fundamentally a product of their quest for survival under the white domination of the political economy. Relegated to a subordinate position, the Issei had virtually no control over their own destiny. Only under the aegis of white landowners could they remain there and eke out a livelihood. To maximize their position, it was necessary to ingratiate themselves with the ruling class by demonstrating their profitability and desirability in the local economy. Anyone who threatened to overwhelm them was nothing but a “menace” to the Japanese community. Thus, rather than combat white American hegemony in cooperation with other minorities, Japanese immigrants struggled to eliminate their influences and keep the existing sociopolitical system intact. In this sense, interethnic conflict benefited only the white elite.

Interethnic conflict also caused Japanese immigrants to construct negative ethnic/racial biases against other groups. In the racial hierarchy of the delta, such views were necessary to rationalize and justify the position of the Issei. In their eyes, Chinese immigrants offered the worst example of what not to do in the United States. The Issei suggested the “racial” deficiency argument against tile Chinese as the reason for Chinese exclusion. Thus the Japanese endeavored to differentiate themselves from the Chinese and subsequently belittled their neighbors. Various anti-Chinese prejudices of the Japanese immigrants reflected their deliberate efforts to rise above the Chinese. In a similar vein, anti-Filipino stereotypes were conveniently created to caution Issei parents and curb the Nisei's conduct, thereby protecting what they believed as their superior “racial” traits. Therefore, the Issei's prejudices served as an useful ideological crutches for struggles with their Chinese, East Indian, and Filipino neighbors.

In the final analysis, interethnic conflict also left a negative legacy for the second-generation Nisei. Before World War II, the Nisei had very distorted relations with their Chinese American and Filipino American peers. Racial oppression and exclusion made the Issei espouse the idea that the future of the Japanese in the United States lay with the Nisei. This idea then led to the view that the Issei were obligated to guide the Nisei to become able leaders. In the 1930s, the Issei actually practiced that belief by educating their children about the “menace” of Filipinos and the “truth” of the Sino-Japanese War. These efforts effectively passed on to the Nisei the pattern of interethnic relations that the Issei had created with other groups. Consequently, as Walnut Grove Nisei have testified, interethnic friendship hardly found acceptance in the community, although the Japanese attended the same school and shared the classroom with the Chinese and Filipino students. One person stated, “there was a wall between us (the Nisei and Chinese American students). We never played with each other; not even in grammar school.” 109 Another Nisei recalled that her Japanese friends strongly objected AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56 to her association with a Filipino classmate.110 Under racial subordination, the Nisei also fell into a pitfall of alienation and powerlessness. Viewed in the light of the local political economy, interethnic conflict was indeed a no-win situation for Japanese residents; it only promoted the victimization of two generations of Japanese in America: the Issei and the Nisei.

Notes

1. Yuko Matsumoto, “1936-nen Rosuanjerusu Serori Sutoraiki to Nikkei Nogyo Komyuniti,” Shirin 75:4 (July, 1992): 44-73; Charles B. Spaulding, “The Mexican Strike at El Monte, California,” Sociology and Social Research 18:6 (July-August, 1934): 579-580; and Charles Wollenberg, “Race and Class in Rural California: The El Monte Berry Strike of 1933,” California Historical Quarterly 51:2 (Summer 1972): 155-164. These studies deal with the Mexican labor strike against Japanese farmers.

2. Edwin Grant Burrows, Chinese and Japanese in Hawaii During the Sino-Japanese Conflict (Honolulu: Hawaii Groups, American Council, Institute of Pacific Relations, 1939); Yuji Ichioka, “Japanese Immigrant Nationalism: The Issei and the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1941,” California History 69:3 (Fall 1990): 260-275, 310-311; Renqui Yu, To Save China, To Save Ourselves (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992); Mei Zheng, “Chinese Americans in San Francisco and New York City During the Anti-Japanese War: 1937-1945,” M.A. Thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1990. The studies of Yu and Zheng focus on anti-Japanese movement carried out by Chinese immigrants, while Ichioka's examines the Japanese immigrant reaction to the Sino-Japanese War.

3. My computation from U.S. National Archives, Record Group 29, “Twelfth Census of the United States: Population” (manuscript), 1900, and “Thirteenth Census of the United States: Population” (manuscript), 1910, Georgiana Township, Sacramento County, California. In addition to whites, Chinese, and Japanese, there were two Blacks in 1900. The 1910 census schedule contains two separate parts; the first includes Walnut Grove and its vicinity, and the second covers Isleton and its vicinity.

4. Nakaya Shozo, “Kashu Sakuramento Heiya ni okeru Honpo Zairyumin Jijo Shisatsu Hokoku,” Imin Chosa Hokoku 8 (Tokyo: Gaimusho, 1986):167.

5. Zaibei Nihonjinkai, Zaibei Nihonjinshi (San Francisco: Zaibei Nihonjinkai, 1940):161.

6. Nichibei Shimbun, April 18, 1940.

7. For the details of Japanese leases, consult Sacramento County, Lease Book 1, 16-18; Book 1, 95-97; Book K, 217-220; Book K, 225-229; Book K, 255-256; Book K, 271-272; Book K, 335; Book K, 386-387; Book L, 9; and Book 0, 181-182; and Miscellaneous Book 11, 450-496; Book 12, 1-5, 183-186; Book 13, 490-492; and Book 14, 76-78.

8. San Francisco Chronicle, January 16, 1918, 21. This is from the special edition, “The Japanese in America.”

9. The Walnut Grove School District sent Japanese and Chinese students to a separate school in 1908 for the first time. Ever since that year, all the Asian children had been forced to attend the Oriental School until World War 11. In California, there were three other segregated public schools in Courtland, Florin, and Isleton, but Walnut Grove was the first community that segregated Japanese students from the white counterparts. AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56 10. Yuji Ichioka, The Issei. The World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885-1924 (New York: The Free Press, 1988):86; and Ofu Nippo, July 31, 1909.

11. Gaimusho, Nihon Gaiko Bunsho: Taibei Imin Mondai Keika Gaiyo (Tokyo, Gaimusho, 1972):210-211.

12. Ofu Nippo, September 15, 1909. Also see Shim Sekai, June 10, 11, and July 16, 25, 1908.

13. Ofu Nippo, September 18, 1909.

14. Ibid., October 8, 1909.

15. Shin Sekai, June 24,1908.

16. Japanese Producers Association, Nenpo (Walnut Grove, California: Japanese Producers Association, 1909), 12-13; and Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” August 11, September 1, October 11, 1908 in Japanese American Research Project Collection (hereafter JARP); and Zaibei Nihonjinkai, Zaibei Nihonjinshi, 795.

17. Ichioka, Issei:177-178.

18. Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Karoku” June 23, August 4, 1918 in JARP.

19. Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kaikeibo,” 1918 in JARP.

20. Ofu Nippo, July 13,1918.

21. Shin Sekai, July 20, 1918.

22. Shin Sekai, July 4, 1919. Concurrent with the anti-Chinese gambling campaign, the Walnut Grove Japanese community also started a moral reform movement in May 1919, which included the Americanization campaign and the Enlightenment campaign. Featuring Japanese immigrant intellectuals, journalists, and government officials, the Japanese association offered lectures to the residents. In the beginning of July, for example, Japanese Consul Ota Tamekichi and Stanford University Professor Ichihashi Yamato visited Walnut Grove for the third lecture meeting. See Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” May 4, and July 3. 1919 in JARP.

23. Shin Sekai, July 8, 12, 1920.

24. Ofu Nippo, July 13, 1920.

25. Ibid., September 15, 1909.

26. Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” October 7, 1915 in JARP; and Zaibei Nihonjinkai, Zaibei Nihonjinshi, 798.

27. Ibid. AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56 28. Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, Kawashimo Jiho, October 14, 1915 in JARP. The title of the editorial was “How Can We Requite Their Sympathy?” As the secretary stated, Japanese immigrants in other locales quickly sent monetary and material aid to Walnut Grove. For instance, only four days after the fire, the Sacramento Japanese Association donated $451.25 to the Walnut Grove residents and promised further assistance.

29. Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” October 15, 1915 in JARP; and Nichibei Shimbun, October 18, 1915. George Locke demanded $20,000 from the Japanese for the construction of a new living quarter. If they agreed on it, he promised to provide a maximum of $10,000.

30. Shin Sekai, October 13, 1915; and Nichibei Shimbun, October 12, 1915.

31. Ibid., November 24, 1915. For the details of the Locke Chinatown, see Peter C.Y. Leung, One Day, One Dollar: Locke, California and the Chinese Farming Experience in the Sacramento Delta (El Cerrito, California: Chinese/Chinese American History Project, 1984), 23; and Jean Rossi, “Lee Bing: Founder of California's Historical Town of Locke,” Pacific Historian 20:4 (Winter, 1976):358-360.

32. Nichibei Shimbun, October 18, 19, 22, 28, 1915. According to the proposal to Sperry Dye, the Japanese and Brown would pay an annual rent of $100 for the first two years and an additional annual increase of $50 for each following year. It is unknown how many acreage they leased from Dye.

33. Ofu Nippo, November 2, 1915; Shin Sekai, November 3, 1915; and Nichibei Shimbun, November 2, 4, 1915. Unfortunately, neither Japanese residents nor Alex Brown filed lease contracts at the Sacramento County recorder's office. However, an “Order Authorizing Lease,” recorded by John S. Brown, a son of Alex, in January 1924, reveals that a Japanese had leased a garage (about 30 feet by 100 feet) at $25 a month for the period of ten years, which was renewable for another ten years under the same terms. On the other hand, many contracts between the Chinese and Sperry Dye were filed after November 22, 1915. According to them, a Chinese tenant usually leased a lot of twenty-five feet by sixty feet at $6 for the period of twenty years on the condition that he furnished his own building. Given the fact that the Japanese tenant did not have to build a store by himself, Alex Brown seemed to have been a fair businessman. For the Japanese lease, consult Sacramento County, Lease, Book T, 34-35; and for the Chinese contracts, see Sacramento County, Lease, Book 0, 176-178, 221-223, and 284-286.

34. Ofu Nippo, November 25, 1915.

35. Ibid., January 3; and March 2, 4, 1916.

36. According to Ofu Nippo dated December 23, 1921, seven to eight Japanese families began to rent houses in Chinatown in that year because of the lack of space in the Japanese quarter.

37. Nakaya, “Kashu Sakuramento Heiya ni okeru Honpo Zairyumin Jijo Shisatsu Hokoku,” 168.

38. Ofu Nippo, November 30, 1915. Japanese immigrant newspapers started to run such articles as “Labor Shortage in Walnut Grove” and “Fieldhands, Wanted!” in the late 1900s. By explaining the terms of employment, these served as the quasi-recruitment ads. The local Japanese association usually requested the immigrant media to publish such articles. AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56 39. U.S. Immigration Commission, Immigrants in Industries, Part 25: Japanese and Other Immigrant Races in the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain States (Washington DC: GPO, 1911), 358. According to this source East Indian laborers received $1.20 to $1.40 when other Asian immigrants were paid $1.50 to $1.75 a day.

40. Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” December 14, 19, 1914 in JARP.

41. Ofu Nippo, December 18, 1914. The editorial was entitled “The Crisis of the Walnut Grove Japanese.”

42. Ibid., June 24, 1914.

43. Ibid., June 25, 1914.

44. Ibid., January 1, 1915. Other immigrant newspapers, Shin Sekai and Nichibei Shimbun, also published similar job advertisements in the beginning of 1915.

45. Ibid., November 30, 1915.

46. Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” February 18 to March 11, 1917 in JARP. The 1916 special meeting sponsored by both the farmers and the merchants ordered the secretary to play an active role in the recruitment effort. The association then purchased an automobile, so that he could travel to remote areas. See Nichibei Shimbun and Shin Sekai, September 21, 1916.

47. Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” January 9, 1917 in JARP. They were simultaneously members of the agricultural department.

48. Ibid., January 9, 16, 1921.

49. The recruitment of Japanese farm laborers occurred under an agricultural boss system. The system had a three-tiered structure. Japanese farmers, or bosses, occupied the upper tier, while the laborers the bottom. In the middle were local Japanese boardinghouses, which distributed the laborers to the farmers. For the crucial role of the boardinghouses, see Ofu Nippo, July 18, 1911.

50. Ichioka, The Issei: The World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885-1924, 228.

51. Shin Sekai, September 29, October 4, 1921; and Nichibei Shimbun, September 29, 1921. The headquarters of the organization was in Courtland.

52. Shin Sekai, October 4, 1921.

53. Ofu Nippo, September 28, 1921. On behalf of the delta Japanese farmers, this newspaper also published a similar pamphlet compiled by a white attorney, Harvard E. White of Sacramento. For the Japanese translation, see ibid., October 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 1921.

54. Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” September 29, 1921 in JARP.

55. Ofu Nippo, October 6, 1921.

AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56 56. Ibid. Some prominent landowners personally offered assistance to the Japanese association. Also see Nichibei Shimbun, October 11, 1921; and Shin Sekai, October 12, 1921.

57. Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” October 12, 13, 14, 1921 in JARP.

58. Some landowners in Ryde on central Grand Island refused to re-enter into contracts with Japanese farmers, and Chinese Americans took their places. See Ofu Nippo, October 28, November 8, 1921.

59. Ofu Nippo, January 27, 1922; Shin Sekai, January 22, March 12, 1922; and Nichibei Shimbun, January,' 9, 1922.

60. Sacramento County, Lease Book S, 293-296, 345-348; and Book T, 5-7.

61. Zaibei Nihonjinkai, Zaibei Nihonjinshi, 798; and “Honpo Nokosha no Jokyo Chosa Hokokusho, Part II,” December 1926. No pagination. This is an unpublished report of Japanese immigrant farmers after the 1923 United States Supreme Court ruling, compiled by the Japanese Consulate of San Francisco. According to this report, there were 123 Issei farmers in Walnut Grove in 1923. The Japanese farming population dropped to 80 by 1925 and to 61 by 1926. The acreage under their cultivation decreased from 14,341 acres to 10,753 acres between 1920 and 1926.

62. For example, right after the 1923 ruling, Ofu Nippo printed the reactions of some leading farmers in Walnut Grove. Everyone of them contended that Issei farmers must devote themselves to building firm financial and material foundation to enable their children to lease or purchase land in the future. A senior merchant also urged the farmers to work under definite employment contracts rather than rely naively on landowners.

63. United States Bureau of Census, Fourteenth Census of the United States, and Fifteenth Census of the United States (Washington DC: GPO, 1922 and 1932).

64. Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” January 1924 in JARP.

65. Ibid., October 19, 1924; and Ofu Nippo, October 24, 1924. For the recruitment campaign of the previous asparagus season, the Japanese association spent $400, or nearly three times as much as previous years. Apparently, this campaign ended in failure.

66. Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” December 14,1928 in JARP.

67. Shin Sekai, May 28, 1929.

68. Ibid, March 11, 1927.

69. Edward K. Strong, Jr., Japanese in California (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1933):128- 129.

70. Nichibei Shimbun, January 1, 1933.

71. Shin Sekai, December 10, 1929; the Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” January 12, 1930 in JARP; and Nichibei Shimbun, January 21, 1930. Prefectural associations initiated AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56 this movement as a nationwide project, but because of the Great Depression, most Japanese communities ignored it. Walnut Grove was probably among a few exceptions.

72. The Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” January 10, 1932, and January 15, 1933 in JARP. The figures were cited from the annual statistics reported at the general meeting.

73. It was estimated that there were 64,000 Filipino immigrants in 1935.

74. The Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” July 21, 1935 in JARP; and Nichibei Shimbun, July 24, 1935.

75. Ibid., January 12, 1936, January 17, 1937, and January 9, 1938. The 1935 campaign involved the entire Japanese immigrant society in the United States because the issue of Filipino repatriation was not limited to Walnut Grove. For example, the Japanese Association of America in San Francisco dispatched a senior leader to Japan. Eighty-year-old Tsukamoto Matsunosuke traveled throughout Wakayama, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, and Kumamoto for three months in 1936, telling the American-born youths to return to the United States. Nevertheless, the national campaign failed overall, for the Japanese government pressed Prefectural Associations not to support the campaign, fearing that anti-Japanese exclusionists would use it as another target. For more details, consult Nichibei Shimbun, February 1, April 18, May 28, and June 3, 1936.

76. Shin Sekai, August 27, 1938.

77. See Nichibei Shimbun, January 1, 1933.

78. The Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” September 1935 in JARP. See the newspaper clipping inside. This article was written by Abe Toyoji, editor of the Shin Sekai. Judging from the fact that the Japanese association secretary inserted the article in the minute, he and other Issei leaders must have shared the views expressed in it. In a similar vein, Dr. Terami Takashi, principal of the local Japanese language school, conducted research on the interracial /ethnic marriages among the Nisei and gave a lecture on the topic at the Northern California Japanese Language School Association Conference in December 1935. His research notebook is a part of the Terami papers in JARP.

79. Nichibei Shimbun, May 5, 1937.

80. Shin Sekai, August 28, 1926.

81. Nichibei Shimbun, February 22, 28, 1938.

82. The Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” January 10, 1932 in JARP.

83. Ibid, July 21, 1935.

84. Ibid., January 10, 1939, January 14, 1940, January 14, 1941.

85. See Nichibei Shimbun, October 16, 1934, and February 28, 1938.

86. The Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” September 1935 in JARP.

87. Anonymous interview. AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56

88. Nichibei Shimbun, October 9,1931; and Leung, One Day, One Dollar: 31.

89. The Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” March 20, 1932 in JARP.

90. Ibid., March 31, 1932. The English pamphlets included: “The Truth of the Shanghai Incident” compiled by the Japanese consulate of San Francisco; and “The Facts of the Sino-Japanese Problem” by the Nichibei Shimbun.

91. Ibid., March 20, 1932.

92. Ibid., March 31, 1932.

93. Ibid.

94. In Walnut Grove, for example, Dr. Terami Takashi, the principal of the Walnut Grove Japanese Language School, talked about the concept of the Nisei as a bridge of understanding at the 1933 commencement ceremony. See Nichibei Shimbun, June 26, 1933. Yuji Ichioka traces the origin and content of the concept in detail in his essay: “A Study in Dualism: James Yoshinori Sakamoto and the Japanese American Courier, 1928-1942,” Amerasia Journal 13:2 (1986 87):57-67.

95. The Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” March 20, 1932.

96. Nichibei Shimbun, June 25, 1933.

97. Ibid., October 18, 1937.

98. Interview with Thomas T. Sasaki, Sacramento, California, May 21, 1991; and anonymous interview.

99. Anonymous interview.

100. The Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” November 1937.

101. Nichibei Shimbun, November 16, 1937. According to this source, the Sacramento Bee praised the well- organized activities of Japanese residents.

102. Ibid.

103. Ibid., November 11, 1937 (English section).

104. Shin Sekai, December 26, 1938.

105. Nichibei Shimbun, July 28, 1938; and the Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” January 10, 1939 in JARP.

106. The Japanese Association of Walnut Grove, “Kawashimo Nihonjinkai Kiroku,” March 14, 1939 in JARP. In 1933, the Japanese association also sent about 350 gift-packages to Japan. 107. Ibid., November 3, 1938. AMERASIA JOURNAL 20:2 (1994):27-56 108. Nichibei Shimbun, January 27, February 7, 12, 1939, and February 10, 1940. The Heimushakai voluntarily dissolved itself by August 1941 when the United States government froze all Japanese assets in the nation.

109. Anonymous interview.

110. Interview with Bernice Sasaki Dingley, Sacramento, California, May 21,1991.