Japan and the California Problem

by T. Iyenaga; Kennosuke Sato

For three outstanding reasons the rapid progress of Japanese farmers is envisaged with serious apprehension. The first reason is found in the words of the Governor of California:

These Japanese, by very reason of their use of economic standards impossible to our white ideals—that is to say, the employment of their wives and their very children in the arduous toil of the soil—are proving crushing competitors to our white rural populations.

This statement, that the Japanese are crushing competitors of California farmers, is in a measure true, but it greatly exaggerates the situation. In California, large farms still predominate, and the average size of a farm is about two hundred acres. The size of the Japanese farm is usually small, the average being about fifty-seven acres. The contrast is due to the difference both in the method of cultivation and in the crops raised by white and Japanese farmers. The crops cultivated exclusively by white farmers are such as corn, fruit, nuts, hay, and grain, which require extensive farming and the employment of machines and elaborate instruments. The Japanese, being accustomed to intensive cultivation, almost monopolize the state production of berries, celery, asparagus, etc., which require much stooping, squatting, and painstaking manual work. Thus there is a clear line of demarkation between white and Japanese farmers based on the difference of training and physical constitution.[38]

It must also be remembered that the crops which are exclusively raised by white farmers are those which constitute the more important products of the State, a greater acreage of land being devoted to each of them. Most of the products which are monopolized by the Japanese are newly introduced kinds, total crop values of which are small, a very limited amount of acreage being used for their cultivation. This being the case, it is clearly misleading to represent the Japanese farmers as “crushing competitors” of all other agriculturists in California. Some of those who follow the Japanese methods of intensive cultivation perhaps find themselves injured by the more efficient and successful Japanese farmers, but the number of such farmers is very small.

That the Japanese work longer hours than the white farmers is true. That they occasionally work on Sundays is also true. The explanation for this is that, being discouraged from taking part in the communal life and activities, they naturally tend to spend more time in work and to seek recreation in work itself. On many of the Japanese farms it is frequently the custom to have a day off during the week instead of on Sunday for the purpose of going to town to shop or to go visiting. It is true that the women and children are often found working in the fields with the men, but this is due to the fact that in intensive cultivation there is much trivial work which children and women can undertake without undue physical exertion. The children are usually allowed to play in the fields around their parents while the parents work, and this is often represented as compelling children of tender age to engage in “arduous toil.”

We cannot, of course, ascertain how far the Japanese farmers will in the future push and drive the white farmers out if they are given a free hand; but it is certain that at the present time the sharp competition has not yet commenced on account of the clear division of labor established between the Japanese and white farmers. That the unparalleled success of Japanese farmers should give rise to jealousy and hatred among intolerant American farmers is an inevitable tendency.

The second reason given for apprehension is that the Japanese might soon control the entire agricultural land of California unless preventive measures are promptly adopted. This particular fear was by far the most powerful factor in ushering in and passing the land laws prohibiting either lease or ownership of agricultural land by an Oriental. The groundless nature of the premonition becomes apparent when a few figures are introduced. California has 27,931,444 acres of farm land, of which about half has been improved. The Japanese at the end of 1920 owned 74,769 acres and leased 383,287 acres.[39] It may be true that the lands under Japanese control are usually good lands, but they were not so invariably at the time of purchase. As a matter of fact, most of the lands which Japanese have secured were at first either untillable or of the poorest quality, and only by dint of patient toil have they been converted into productive soil. Many thrilling stories are told of the hardship and perseverance of Japanese farmers, who have after failure on failure succeeded in their enterprise. They have indeed reclaimed swamps and rehabilitated many neglected orchards and ranches. Whatever may be the nature of the land owned by Japanese, however, its amount is truly insignificant. It forms only 0.27 per cent. of the agricultural lands of California, or one acre for every 374 acres; while the amount leased is 1.40 per cent. or one acre for every 72.8 acres. This is saying that the Japanese in California, who constitute 2 per cent. of the native population, cultivate under freehold and leasehold 1.67 per cent. of the farm lands of California. When we recollect that more than half of California’s agricultural land—16,000,000 acres—is still left uncultivated, it seems almost preposterous that so much vociferation should be raised because of the very limited amount of acreage held by the Japanese.

The weightiest reason offered for the necessity of checking Japanese agricultural progress is the one which almost all leaders of the anti-Japanese movement have emphasized; namely, that the Japanese are unassimilable. If they were an assimilable race, and in the course of a few generations were to blend their racial identity with the American blood, California would have no reason to oppose their progress in agriculture. But they are a distinct people who amalgamate with difficulty, if at all. Were they allowed unhindered development in agriculture, in which their success has been most marked, in the opinion of the exclusionists, they would multiply tremendously in number and correspondingly increase in power to the extent of not only overwhelming the white population of California but also of endangering the harmony and unity of American nationality. This is precisely the line of argument which the Governor of California advanced in his letter to Secretary of State Colby. In its conclusion he states:

I trust that I have clearly presented the California point of view, and that in any correspondence or negotiations with Japan which may ensue as the result of the accompanying report, or any action which the people of the State of California may take thereon, you will understand that it is based entirely on the principle of race self-preservation and the ethnological impossibility of successfully assimilating this constantly increasing flow of Oriental blood.

Accordingly, the question whether or not California is justified in prohibiting the Japanese from the pursuit of agriculture is not to be determined by a consideration of the amount of land they cultivate or the comparative wages they receive, but by the consideration of their assimilability. We shall discuss this pertinent question in the next chapter.