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THE PRE-WAR JAPANESE CANADIANS OF MAPLE RIDGE: LANDOWNERSHIP AND THE KEN TIE by JOHN MARK READ B.A., University of British Columbia, 1971 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of Geography We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA June, 1975 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. The University of British Columbia Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1W5 Date \VHAJ^ S-:-J Rig. Abstract This paper is an examination of the ethnic clustering and landownership patterns of the pre-war Japanese Canadian berry farmers in the District of Maple Ridge, British Columbia. In this particular area the Japanese Canadian farmers clustered together in three dis• tinct areas and established Nokai or agricultural associations to look after their economic needs. These Nokai were both geographic centres and social centres as they were centrally located in the cluster and the Nokai building became the Japanese community's meeting place. These clusters of Japanese appear to be a product of Canadian racial prejudice and strong ethnic ties. In addition to being clustered together ethnically these Japanese Canadian farmers have a landownership pattern that displays a persistence of regional loyalty. Most of the Japanese Canadian farmers have tended to locate their farms near someone of the same prefectural origins. This geographic expression of Japanese regional loyalty in North America has never been noticed. The apparent per• sistence of this Ken-tie, as demonstrated in these farmer's landownership pattern, indicates that regional loyalty or Zen-consciousness is an important element in the set of values of the Japanese immigrant and his family. i TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I INTRODUCTION 1 II ETHNIC CLUSTERING PATTERN AND NOKAI CENTRES 6 III EARLY HISTORY OF JAPANESE IMMIGRATION TO CANADA 29 IV GROWTH OF RACIAL PREJUDICE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 49 V ZEff-CONSCIOUSNESS 71 VI SUMMARY 82 BIBLIOGRAPHY A. PRIMARY SOURCES 85 B. SECONDARY SOURCES 88 ii i i i LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1 Numbers of Landowners from Each Prefecture 27 2 Distribution of Japanese in B.C., 1940 40 3 Chinese Immigration to Canada, 1902-1912 58 4 Chinese and Japanese in Canada and British Columbia, 1931 63 i v LIST OF MAPS Map Page 1 Maple Ridge and the Lower Mainland 3 2 Japanese Landowners in Maple Ridge, 1930 4 3 Japanese Landowners in Maple Ridge, 1940 ....... 5 4 Regions and Prefectures of Japan 32 V LIST OF FIGURES Fi gure Page 1 Age Pyramids of Chinese and Japanese in British Columbia (Census of 1931) 63 vi LIST OF PLATES Plate Page I Haney Nokai (taken 1947) 15 II Hammond Nokai (now Maple Ridge Eagles Hall, taken 1975) . 15 III Buddist Church (now Christian Reformed Church, taken 1975) 16 IV Ruskin Nokai (approx. 1931) 19 Acknowledgments I wish to thank Richard Copley, my advisor, for his encouragement and patience. Thanks are also due to Dr. A.H. Siemens for his helpful comments, Dennis Okada for his invaluable translation of some Japanese language material, Mr. Doug Oike for his time and excellent memory and William Driftwood for the mapwork. Special consideration is due my wife, Karen, without whom this thesis would not have been possible. vii THE PRE-WAR JAPANESE CANADIANS OF MAPLE RIDGE: LANDOWNERSHIP AND THE KEN TIE CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The settlement of Japanese Canadian farmers in the Fraser Valley before World War II exhibited several kinds of geographical clustering patterns. On one level these farmers gathered on an ethnic basis where the criteria for grouping was their common Japanese ancestry. At this level the social and racial considerations played an important part in the formation of this type of cluster. Found within these ethnic clusters and operating on an ethnic, economic, and social scale was the Nokai with the Japanese community hall as the physical and symbolic centre. These Nokai were the foci or nodes of the different Japanese farming communities. In addition to this ethnic clustering pattern and found within it was a landownership pattern that reflected the farmer's home ken (prefecture) in Japan. This striking settlement pattern has not been described or even noticed in any of the available literature on the Japanese in Canada. This work is an attempt to describe and analyse these characteristics of pre-war Japanese-Canadian agriculture settlement in the Lower Fraser Valley. Almost one-half of all Japanese Canadian farmers operated in the District of Maple Ridge, where these clustering patterns were most 1 apparent. Maple Ridge is the study area of this thesis. Map #1 shows the location of the District of Maple Ridge in the Lower Fraser valley. The clustering patterns are cartographically described in Maps #2 and #3 which represent the extent of Japanese Canadian landownership in Maple Ridge in the years 1930 and 1940 respectively. Two hundred and one farm households are located on Map #2 while 246 are located in Map #3. This represents 95% of all Japanese-Canadian landowners in these years in Maple Ridge. There were also some Japanese Canadian tenant farmers in the district but there is no way to identify them all and locate them accurately. My information on landownership comes from the District of Maple Ridge Municipal Tax Rolls of 1931 and 1941. Information on pre- fectural origins of these landowners comes primarily from the Japanese Canadian Citizens' Directory of 1940 and also through personal interviews with a number of former residents of this area, mainly Mr. D. Oike of Burnaby, British Columbia. DISTRICT of MAPLE RIDGE Map #1 MAPLE RIDGE and the LOWER MAINLAND Scale 1:250.000 5 miles CHAPTER II ETHNIC CLUSTERING PATTERN AND NOKAI CENTRES The theme of the ghetto or of ghettoization of immigrant and ethnic groups has been a common one in geographical and sociological literature. What we have in the case of the Japanese immigrant community in the Fraser Valley is the isolation or separation of an ethnic group in a rural setting. Of course this was not an unusual situation either, as there are many examples of religious groups clustered in farming communities in the rural landscape. But the Japanese rural clustering was not Utopian nor in any way religiously motivated. Furthermore the Japanese farms were, in the most part, so small and tightly grouped that practically every farmer had a Japanese neighbour and the total geograph• ical area of the cluster was small enough to create a village-like environment not too different from a farming village in Japan. In traditional rural Japan the village or buraku was the central functioning unit of Japanese rural society. To find Japanese farmers in Canada working within a framework that established the idea of the village as the central operational unit is therefore not surprising. The Japanese village survived through organization and cooperation. This cooperation was not just at the neighbour to neighbour level but through a system that demanded total participation of all those within that village unit. The intensive rice cultivation of Japan required sophisti• cated and carefully regulated irrigation procedures for without careful 6 7 control and distribution of their water the village could not survive. This heritage of cooperative action acted as a cohesive force within the Canadian environment and therefore allowed the Japanese immigrant farmers to adapt as a group to the Canadian agricultural situation. The Japanese Canadian farmers did not stand alone but functioned in groups, groups that had fairly clear geographic boundaries and at the same time their own governing social organizations. By examining Map #2 (p. 4), which represents the distribution of over 95% of all Japanese Canadian landowners in the District of Maple Ridge in 1930, we can see that there are distinct grouping patterns or clusterings. The western portion of the District, or what was traditionally known as Port Hammond or Hammond, is one of these clusters. Here we have a group of approximately 35 farmer-owners of Japanese origin. In the central area of the District primarily to the north of Dewdney Trunk Road but also the south of this main artery as we move east, is another centre of Japanese landowners. This group is primarily in the area known as Port Haney or Haney and numbered about 100. In the southeast corner of the District we can find another cluster. While this is a much smaller grouping than either the Hammond or Haney areas, this group can be divided into two distinct clusters; Ruskin and Whonnock. This is fairly evident in the map of 1930 and by 1940 growth in the numbers of Japanese farmers was gradually turning the bi-centred grouping into one contiguous area of Japanese farmers. By turning to Map #3 (p. 5), which represents the same area of Maple Ridge in 1940, we can see that the grouping into three dis• tinct sub-areas is still very evident. The only real difference is in 8 numbers, with most growth in the Haney and Whonnock-Ruskin areas. In 1940 Hammond had approximately 48 farmers while Haney had approximately 130 farmers and Whonnock-Ruskin had 65 farmers. It is clearly evident that these areas demonstrate a degree of cohesiveness and continuity that cannot be explained through random group• ing.

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