MANZANAR Historic Resource Study/Special History Study

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF JAPANESE/JAPANESE AMERICAN COMMUNITIES OF EVACUEE ORIGIN (continued)

Los Angeles County

1869-1930s. The first Japanese to come to the Los Angeles area probably arrived as early as 1869 and took up residence in San Marino at the Molino Viejo, or Old Mill. The census of 1870 records two young men, "T. Komo" and "I. Noska," aged 18 and 13, respectively, who were employed as servants in the household of Judge E. J. C. Kewen that resided at the Old Mill. The two Japanese men apparently left the area by 1880, because the 1880 census did not list any persons having Japanese ancestry.

In 1880 Los Angeles, the largest settlement in southern California, had a population of nearly 11,000 persons, but apparently none of these people were Japanese. Dependent primarily on agriculture, Los Angeles also had some small industry. Southern California, however, had a superlative climate, railroad communications with the eastern United States were bringing people during the mild winters, and Los Angeles was becoming a popular tourist destination during the 1880s. The realization that many people would eventually settle in the area caused a sharp skyrocketing of land values in Los Angeles and other southern California settlements. Land prices climbed steadily and by 1884 the Los Angeles economy was beginning to boom.

That year some 24 or 25 Japanese men moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles to take advantage of the area's growing scarcity of labor. During the height of the boom years (1887-88), there were about 70 Japanese in Los Angeles who had come to the city in search of work. Perhaps, the most famous was Charles Kame, who was probably Shigeta Hamonosuke. He was the first independent Japanese businessman in Los Angeles, so far as is known. About 1886-87 he opened a restaurant on First Street, near the center of the downtown area, and did well enough to sell out two years later. Before 1890 he had left Los Angeles, perhaps to return to Japan. During this period, other Japanese engaged in carpentry, the bamboo business, and Japanese art stores in the city.

By 1888 a Japanese boarding house, known to Americans as the Japanese YMCA, was established about a block from Kame's restaurant. It is likely that the majority of Japanese in the city lived there during the late 1880s. By 1889, with the collapse of the Los Angeles real estate boom, the boarding house had gone out of existence, and the Japanese population in the city had declined to about 40 persons.

After 1893 the number of Japanese residents in Los Angeles increased year by year until there were at least 150 by 1900, and a tiny but moderately prosperous Japanese community emerged in the city. This period witnessed the rise of a Japanese "restaurant era" in the city, the number of such Japanese-owned restaurants rising from two or three in the early 1890s to 16 in 1896. The restaurants were the most significant Japanese economic activity in the city before 1900, outdoing the Japanese-owned art and curio stores and bamboo furniture stores. By 1900 there was a shoemaker, a barber, and a bathhouse owner who were Japanese. In 1896 a new boarding house was opened, and in 1898 a hotel was opened. Virtually all Japanese living in the city were employed by these businesses. In 1897 the Japanese Association of Los Angeles was established.

In 1896 the Santa Fe Railroad hired a few Japanese workers in Los Angeles, and by 1899 the Southern Pacific followed suit and used Japanese workmen. These laborers engaged in such work as track maintenance and boxcar cleaning.

Terminal Island, an island in Los Angeles Harbor about three-quarters of a mile wide and three and one-half miles long, had become the headquarters for the fishing industry in southern California by the turn of the 20th century. A dozen Japanese abalone fishermen settled on the Island around 1901. Other fishermen came after the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, and by the summer of 1907 several hundred Japanese fishermen had moved to the island, many of them having emigrated from fishing districts of Japan with previous experience in that line of work. Between 1907 and 1910 three fish canneries began operation, and many one -story fisherman's houses were built by the canneries [16]. According to the 1910 census, there were 4,238 Japanese in the Los Angeles City, of whom 3,372 were men fifteen years old or older and 531 were women in the same age group. Of the total Japanese population, 3,937 had been born in Japan and 301 had been born in the United States. Of the 4,225 Japanese whose ages were known, only 127 were more than 45 years old.

During the period between 1910 and 1915, the Japanese residents in Los Angeles continued to expand throughout the city into small enclaves outside the downtown area. Some Japanese established nurseries and other business ventures outside the downtown area.

During 1910-15 "Little Tokyo" emerged near the center of Los Angeles City, boasting a steadily increasing number of Japanese-owned businesses in what had become the principal Japanese retail shopping area. Approximately 135 rooming houses of various sizes had been established in city by 1915, because the majority of Japanese were bachelors who generally lived in hotels or boarding houses. Of the 7,444 Japanese in the city by 1915 some 2,000-3,000 lived in "Little Tokyo." The American Bank in the area hired a Japanese cashier, D. Kiyowara, between 1909 and 1913 to take care of Japanese depositors. In 1913 the Yokohama Specie Bank opened a branch within a block of the Japanese retail district.

In August 1915, a consul was appointed for the Japanese community of Los Angeles. The first man to be chosen for the post was Ujiro Oyama, who established his consulate in the German-American Bank Building in downtown Los Angeles. The consul was a significant figure for the Japanese, because they would be denied American citizenship until 1952. As aliens, they were obliged to depend upon the Japanese government whenever they had difficulties in America, and the representative of that government was the consul.

In 1916 there were about 3,000 Japanese domestic workers in Los Angeles, of whom 2,660 were employed by Americans and about 400 were employed by Japanese. There were about 1,000 other service workers in Los Angeles, such as delivery boys and porters in stores. Japanese firms employed 848 such men. They usually worked for grocery or dry goods stores, hotels, laundries, or restaurants as errand boys and runners.

In 1916 approximately 349 Japanese were employed by Japanese-owned manufacturing firms, such as a recently-established box factory and a paper carton factory. American-owned manufacturing plants employed 126 Japanese. The railroads employed about 140 Japanese laborers in Los Angeles, the principal employers being the Pacific Electric, Santa Fe, and Southern Pacific railways.

In 1916 the approximate Japanese population in Los Angeles County was about 15,000. There were probably well over 8,000 Japanese in the labor force of the county, more than half of these being engaged in agricultural pursuits. Though several hundred, perhaps thousands, were self-employed in small businesses, corporations, and partnerships, the majority were wage-earners.

In 1916 there were about 300 Japanese gardeners in southern California, most of whom were in the Los Angeles City. Japanese-style gardens became popular in the city during the 1920s, and the type or kinds of plants which went into the gardens were often selected by the gardeners themselves. Rock gardens in southern California were apparently a Japanese innovation. Wishing to be near their work, Japanese gardeners began to congregate in little settlements of their own in the suburbs. As they cared for the semi-tropical flora which helped to make southern California distinctive, they contributed uniquely to their adopted home, leaving their mark on the city and county landscape.

Japanese farming in Los Angeles County received a setback in 1913 when the state's Alien Land Law was passed. This law was aimed at the expanding Issei-dominated Japanese agricultural pursuits, because only aliens ineligible for citizenship were prohibited from owning land. At the time land owned by Japanese in Los Angeles County amounted to some 3,828 acres. Only Imperial County, where irrigation canals had made desert cultivation possible since 1901-02, rivaled Los Angeles County in the extent of Japanese-owned acreage. There were 3,514 acres owned by Japanese in that county when the land law was passed. In the six other southern California counties only 1,080 acres were owned by Japanese. The average value of Japanese-owned land in Los Angeles County was about $192 per acre, for a total value of Japanese-owned lands of approximately $732,000.

While the Alien Land Law was a setback for Japanese farmers, they developed innovative means to farm without owning land in fee simple. Leased land was made available after some question of legality was resolved, at least to the satisfaction of California's jurists, and in time it was decided that minor children (Nisei) could own land with their parents as guardians.

The preference for farming among first generation Japanese reflects their cultural traditions and economic backgrounds. They could not compete effectively with white Americans in large scale farming endeavors which required heavy outlays of capital, organization, and business skill. In small cropping, however, such as vegetables, berries, and certain varieties of deciduous fruits, the Japanese found their optimum advantages. They were well adapted to a system of agriculture demanding maximum use of hand labor. The arduous labor associated with raising vegetables and berries never appealed to the Caucasian American, and Japanese control of this facet of farming in the county was as much due to the unwillingness of white Americans to enter this field as it was to the competitive strength of the Japanese. The Caucasian farmer, with his taller stature unsuited to the long hours of squatting and stooping required in truck farming, was at a physical disadvantage. Family enterprise, so characteristic of the farm economy in Japan, was carried over to the United States. Women and children commonly labored in the fields and contributed substantially to the farm income. Moreover, women and children could be effectively used in small crop farming because of the general lightness of the commodities and the need for more delicate skillful handling in the planting, weeding, picking, sorting, and packing processes. [17]

By 1916 Japanese farmers were cultivating 15,800 acres of land in Los Angeles County, the majority being leased land. About 80 percent of the vegetables handled by the Los Angeles produce companies were grown by Japanese, and the produce companies distributed 90 percent of the vegetables consumed by Los Angeles City. Thus, approximately three-fourths of the fresh vegetables consumed in Los Angeles were grown by Japanese farmers. The peak for Japanese farm production in Los Angeles County was reached in 1912, the year before passage of the Alien Land Law, when $8,816,000 of produce was grown by Japanese in Los Angeles County and a total of $9,471,725 was produced by Japanese in all of southern California. With the advent of World War I and the rise in price of such crops as beans and sugar beets, the Japanese agriculturists moved outside Los Angeles County in order to grow more specialized crops. In 1916 Japanese in southern California grew $15,000,000 in produce on their farms, of which $5,100,000 was grown in Los Angeles County.

In 1916 there were 1,321 Japanese farmers in Los Angeles County. Of this total, 499 farmed from one to ten acres, 783 from ten to 100, and 39 had farms or more than 100 acres. Of the 499 farms under ten acres, 66 were nurseries (Japanese owned 45 percent of the nurseries in Los Angeles City) and 81 were cut flower farms. Most Japanese farmers were involved in raising vegetables or berries. There were 678 vegetable farmers and 404 berry growers, as well as 29 cattle ranchers, 29 hog ranchers, and nine poultry farmers. Only 14 farmers were growing citrus fruits or grapes.

Japanese residents in the county were also engaged in agricultural-related businesses. About ten percent of the produce companies in Los Angeles were Japanese-owned by 1915, and there were 52 Japanese-owned grocery stores.

In 1916 there were approximately 4,500 Japanese farm laborers in Los Angeles County, including an estimated 500 migrants who were in the county at different times depending upon the crops that were being harvested. Most laborers, however, remained on the same farms throughout the year. Japanese farmers employed 2,756 Japanese laborers for farm work, while American farmers employed only 81 Japanese. There were an additional 1,500 Japanese migrant laborers in southern California who worked from the Imperial Valley cantaloupe fields in early spring to the lemon groves of Ventura County in later months. Some migrants who found employment in Los Angeles County during the summer months would sometimes winter in the city from late November to late January. In the extensive citrus groves American growers employed 1,200 Japanese, while in the Japanese-owned groves 85 men were sufficient for the small amount grown by Japanese. Between 1910 and 1920 the Los Angeles Japanese community changed in several significant aspects, the most important change being the ratio of men to women. Whereas the ratio of men to women had been about eight or nine to one in 1910, it declined to two or three to one by 1920.

Another significant change in the Los Angeles Japanese community during the 1910s was the increase in the number of Nisei children who were attending American public schools. In 1916 about 200 were in kindergarten and 220 were in grammar school in Los Angeles City. While the Japanese American children in this period attended the city's public schools, most went to Issei-organized Japanese language schools for two hours in the afternoon to learn to read and write Japanese and have practice in learning to speak the language properly. [18]

The Japanese community on Terminal Island expanded rapidly during World War I and the years immediately thereafter. In 1916 Fisherman Hall was built and became the community center. A Baptist Mission was constructed that same year, and a grammar school was established in 1918. The community, which was known as East San Pedro, or Fish Harbor, grew as more canneries were constructed. Japanese fishermen moved to the island after a destructive fire on the mainland nearby; there was some migration from Monterey; and after the Alien Land Laws were passed, some farmers who had fishing experience in Japan turned again to fishing. By 1925, the growing Fish Harbor community extended into the nearby cities of San Pedro, Long Beach, and Wilmington and consisted of some 3,000-4,000 residents, the size it subsequently maintained until the war. The economy of the entire community was dependent upon fishing. Women, older men, and some children worked in the canneries as fish cleaners and packers, while able-bodied men engaged in catching sardines, mackerel, tuna, and other fish for canning. The Japanese fishermen included individuals who were crew members having no occupational property, equipment owners, and boat owners. By 1931 the Japanese controlled 30-40 percent of the total amount of fish landed in Los Angeles Harbor, including 70 percent of the albacore, 60-70 percent of the bonita, 75 percent of the mackerel, 35-40 percent of the sardines, and 30-35 percent of the tuna.

The fishing fleet on which the Japanese worked operated from the docks in Fish Harbor and took on supplies there. Tuna Street leading to the wharf, was the business center of the Japanese community. It was lined with Japanese shops, grocery stores, pool halls, barber shops, soft drink parlors, a dry goods store, a meat market, restaurants, and other service facilities. Most numerous were the restaurants, serving both island residents and many cannery workers who came from the mainland. The businesses were operated as family enterprises by Issei who lived in rooms behind their shops. Some of the buildings were owned by Nisei, but the land could not be purchased and had to be leased from the Los Angeles Harbor Authority. Separated from the remainder of the Japanese community in Los Angeles and somewhat isolated on the island, the main language of the island's residents was Japanese, and traditional Japanese patterns of behavior, customs, and attitudes continued to thrive, particularly among the Issei. Many Japanese cultural and sport activities, such as judo, kendo, sumo, and Boy's Day celebrations, remained popular on the island, reflecting continuing Japanese traditions. [19]

An academic study of the Japanese/Japanese American community in Los Angeles in 1937 presented the results of a census conducted by the Japanese consulate of Los Angeles two years before. According to the 1935 census, the population of Japanese origin living in Los Angeles County totaled 32,714. Of this total, 58 percent were Issei and 42 percent were Nisei. Several Japanese concentrations were located within Los Angeles City. The largest and most concentrated Japanese community, with a population of 4370 was centered approximately one block east of the Los Angeles City Hall in downtown Los Angeles. The center of this community, known as "Little Tokyo," was the business and cultural center of the Japanese communities in southern California. In this section most of the buildings were owned and virtually all of the stores were operated by Japanese. Almost all of the leading Japanese associations and organizations had offices in the area. A whole range of Japanese articles were found in Little Tokyo, including curiosities, dry-goods, books, magazines, foods, herbs, and toilet articles. Japanese from many parts of southern California went to Little Tokyo for shopping, community meetings, socialization, and amusement.

The next largest Japanese enclave in Los Angeles was located just east of Little Tokyo in Hollenbeck Heights, sometimes also referred to as Boyle Heights or East Los Angeles. In addition to the 2,554 Japanese who lived in this area, members of other minority groups, including blacks, Russians, and Mexicans, also resided there. This area was "the most convenient residential district for any Japanese business men" who had "offices or stores in 'Little Tokyo'."

The academic study described other areas of Japanese concentration in Los Angeles. These areas included:

Another section of Los Angeles where Japanese, together with Negroes live, is the Thirty-Fifth Street district, which covers an area bounded by Vermont Avenue, Western Avenue, Jefferson Boulevard, and Thirty-seventh Street. This district has an adjoining area enclosed by West Twenty-eighth Street, Jefferson Boulevard, Western Avenue, and Arlington. In these two areas live 2,235 Japanese.

Two other more or less distinct Japanese communities are found about West Tenth and Virgil Avenue in which 3,000 Japanese live. There is also a Japanese community in Hollywood. Here, the area is large, but the population is not dense. This area extends from Hollywood Boulevard to Melrose Avenue, and from Van Ness to Highland Avenue. It is almost ten blocks square, but only 723 Japanese live in it.

In addition to the above, there are several small Japanese districts in the City of Los Angeles, such as the Christian Church district which is situated about East Twentieth Street and South San Pedro Street; Belvedere District, and Vernon District; but the number of Japanese living in each of these is less than 500.

The study also discussed the characteristics of the Japanese residents and enclaves in the city and their demographic relationship to the wider community. It noted:

In general, the Japanese are tenants, paying their rents punctually and keeping the houses clean. However, because of the unwillingness of the owners and the antagonistic attitude of American neighbors, as well as the more or less unconscious inferiority complex of the Japanese, the Japanese feel uncomfortable in new neighborhoods where Japanese are not found. They therefore, usually move into districts where other Japanese have already settled. Thus the existing districts become more congested and noticeable.

Geographically, the Japanese communities, in general, are located in somewhat low areas, at the foot of a hill, in a valley, or the like. Another significant point is that the houses in which Japanese live are old and small; formerly those sections were inhabited by Americans of the middle class, but the gradual migration of racial groups, as well as the city development, had made the former residents move to other sections, seeking better environment. [20]

In 1935, the same year that the aforementioned census was conducted by the Los Angeles Japanese consulate, the National Labor Relations Board surveyed 157 farms in the Los Angeles County, estimated to comprise 10.1 percent of the county acreage devoted to vegetables and berries. The board reported on the Japanese-operated farms;

Among the smaller farms a great deal of the work is done by the Japanese growers and their families, whose assiduity and intensive culture of their land are reflected in a greater volume output per acre. These smaller farms, with their family reservoirs of labor, lend themselves more readily to the production of money crops which require greater care and attention, such as strawberries and celery. . . .

On the farms of 10 acres or under, the family does 75.2 per cent of the labor, while on the farms of over 100 acres, the per cent of work done by the family is 34.2. This latter percentage for work done by members of the family on farms over 100 acres in size seems inordinately high, but the underlying explanation of this is that a large number of the bigger farms are cooperative enterprises run by as many as eight families working together. [21]

1940. The 1940 census indicated that the Japanese population of California had decreased from 97,456 in 1930 to 93,717 in 1940. The number of Japanese in Los Angeles County had increased slightly from 35,390 in 1930 to 36,866 in 1940. Of the 1940 population, 30,112 (81.7 percent) were classified as urban and 6.754 (18.3 percent) as rural. Of the urban population, 23.321 lived in Los Angeles City. and of this total, 14,595 had been born in the United States and were citizens, while 8,726 or 37.4 percent were foreign-born or aliens. [22] The leading suburban communities in Los Angeles County that had more than 1,000 Japanese residents included the Compton, Downey, Inglewood, and Pasadena townships. The Los Angeles County Japanese population contained almost a third of all Japanese and Japanese Americans in the United States, and it was by far the largest prewar Japanese population center in the nation. [23]

Urban Settlement: Distribution — By 1940 the Japanese residing in Los Angeles County were centered in seven relatively compact communities. The most prominent of these settlements, according to Nishi in his doctoral dissertation, entitled "Changing Occupance of the Japanese in Los Angeles County, 1940-1950," was "the Central area with its well known 'Little Tokyo' centering on First Street and extending eastward to Central Avenue and westward to Los Angeles Street." [24] According to Bloom and Riemer in their published study, entitled Removal and Return, the Little Tokyo area was the small triangle of highest concentration within Central area-Little Tokio [Tokyo]. Within a few blocks of the intersection of East First and San Pedro streets were to be found cultural, religious and professional services for the Japanese American population of Southern California. On holidays and Saturdays, Japanese Americans congregated in Little Tokio [Tokyo] from all over the region, much as rural dwellers visit the county seat. Hotels and restaurants for Japanese Americans without families were in Little Tokio [Tokyo], and just outside were numerous eating and lodging places run by Japanese Americans for transients and the residents of a deteriorated area. [25]

According to Nishi, the Issei constituted a limited market and the Nisei preferred to shop in the larger business centers of the city. Therefore, the economic bases of Little Tokyo were threatened until the exclusively Japanese-oriented businessmen broadened their trade to include more non-Japanese customers. Around this core of concentrated Japanese business and professional activities was a gradual spreading out of shops, offices, and residences especially to the south and also slightly to the cast and west.

The six other concentrations of Japanese in Los Angeles, according to Nishi, "were primarily residential communities, often including a small business section with a grocery store handling a variety of Japanese foods, a barber shop, drug store or general merchandise store, other miscellaneous shops and services, and invariably, a local language school and church." The primary function of the small business center was to cater to the needs of the Japanese in the vicinity.

Four separate areas of Japanese concentration immediately surrounded Little Tokyo. They had a less varied line of shops and offices because of their greater reliance on the Little Tokyo center. One of these areas was a large concentration known as the Boyle Heights-East Los Angeles area that was virtually adjacent and to the east of Little Tokyo. This area, which exhibited "great ethnic diversity, had a large number of Japanese Americans in trade, especially produce trade." "It had the advantage of providing a place of residence not actually in Little Tokio [Tokyo] but readily accessible to it." Two smaller areas to the west and southwest of Little Tokyo, known as the "Westside" or "West Jefferson" and "Olympic Areas" were compact communities of tradespeople, particularly produce operators, and many contract gardeners serving middle-class white homes nearby. The Hollywood-Virgil Area northwest of Little Tokyo resembled West Jefferson and Olympic in occupational characteristics, but was less compact. These smaller points of Japanese concentration each had retail shops and service establishments for the ethnic community.

Two areas in Los Angeles City were further removed from Little Tokyo and thus formed distinctive and relatively independent communities. One or these areas was West Los Angeles, located east of Santa Monica and north of Venice and Culver City. In this area Sawtelle had a large population of Japanese contract gardeners who served the middle-and upper-class homes of Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and West Los Angeles. The other area was the Japanese community in the Los Angeles Harbor vicinity, covering portions of San Pedro, Wilmington, and Long Beach. In this area of concentration, which included the Terminal Island community, the Japanese population worked almost exclusively in fishing and fish canneries. The western half of Terminal Island, Los Angeles City Census Tract 294, had almost all of the island's residents, a total of 3,831. Of this total, 2,253 (59.8 percent) were classified as "other nonwhites," most of whom (2,051) were Japanese.

In addition to the seven areas of concentration in Los Angeles City, areas to the north and east of the city in the foothill communities of Glendale and Pasadena contained small scattered enclaves of Japanese gardeners and domestics serving upper-class residences. Scattered Japanese floraculturalists and farmers were found in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. [26]

Urban Settlement: Occupational Structure — The prewar occupational structure and socio-economic characteristics of the Japanese in Los Angeles reflected the values as well as the limitations of the Issei. The Issei, who generally adhered closely to Japanese cultural institutions, transplanted traditions, social practices, folkways, and language, established strong patriarchal family organizations. Capital and financial control were in their hands and many substantial business enterprises were developed by them. Closely-held family businesses, at a time of restricted opportunity, served as tight little economic units. Over a period of several decades the Issei had achieved occupational stability and an assured economic position in the Japanese community but no socio-economic pattern had emerged for the younger more Americanized and acculturated Nisei. [27]

The 1940 census reported 17,005 employed workers of Japanese ancestry in Los Angeles County, of whom 29.2 percent were native-born males, 43.0 percent foreign-born males, 13.6 percent native-born females, and 14.2 percent foreign-born females. [28] The large urban and rural non-farm Japanese population tended to enter small businesses where a considerable degree of independence could be enjoyed. The predominance of the Japanese in growing truck and market crops carried over into marketing as they controlled distribution and sales of those agricultural products. The bulk of the farm produce grown in the county was handled in two large wholesale markets — Union Wholesale Terminal Market at Seventh and Central Avenue and the Los Angeles City Market at Ninth and San Pedro Streets — located in the aforementioned "Central Area - Little Tokyo" area in the downtown section of Los Angeles City. The estimated value of business conducted in the Los Angeles City Market was $30,000,000 in 1930 and $50,000,000 in 1934. Of these sums, the Japanese were responsible for $16,000,000 and $35,000,000, or more than one-half of the total. Caucasians, Chinese, and Japanese shared in the ownership and management of the City Market, whereas the Japanese participated in the business transactions but were not represented in the management of the Terminal Market. In 1934 an estimated $10,000,000 of the total $70,000,0000 business in the Terminal Market was attributed to the Japanese. [29]

In 1936 it was estimated that about 500 Japanese were employed in the Terminal Market and some 700 in the City Market. They were engaged in every phase of the marketing business: commission merchants who sold farm produce on a commission basis; dealers who sold produce bought from farmers at wholesale; brokers; cash buyers; hauling men; office workers and book-keepers; and cashiers. Approximately 70 to 80 percent of the Japanese employed in the two produce markets were Nisei. Thus, while larger numbers of Issei were involved in farming, higher proportions of Nisei were found in produce marketing, their proficiency in English permitting them a wider choice of occupations. Aside from farming, retailing vegetables and fruits was the most important single occupation of Nisei men in the county. One survey, for instance, found that 3,110 or 75 percent of the total number of Nisei employed in the city in 1934 worked in some phase of produce marketing. Of this number 2,750 operated retail fruit and vegetable stands, 203 engaged in wholesale marketing, and another 157 in the retailing of produce in chain-markets. Issei employed in produce marketing numbered 1,097. About 1,000 retail fruit and vegetable stores were operated by Japanese in Los Angeles County, or 75 per cent of all such stores, with five as the average number of employees. [30]

The growing and marketing of flowers in Los Angeles County was also Japanese-controlled by 1940. To a lesser extent the same chain of control from producer to wholesaler and retailer was evident in the nursery business. The Japanese flower growers organized the Southern California Floral Market Association (incorporated in 1914), establishing a floral market in Los Angeles on Wall Street near Seventh. In 1934, an estimated $1,500,000 to $2,000,0000 business was conducted at this market. [31]

By 1939-40, there were 64 Japanese retail florists in Los Angeles City. In addition, there were 13 in Glendale, 10 in Pasadena, 5 in West Los Angeles, and a number of others in scattered districts around the city. [32]

By 1940 Japanese-owned independent grocery stores or markets, specializing in Japanese foods and products, were a distinctive occupation in the ethnic enclaves in Los Angeles. Because of market limitations, however, these stores were generally restricted in number and growth. [33]

Cafes and small restaurants provided employment for significant numbers of people in the Japanese community in 1940. Some 928 persons were employed in eating and drinking establishments. The majority of the eating places serving Asian foods were concentrated in Little Tokyo. Of the 56 restaurants that were listed as Japanese food houses within the city in 1939-40, 51 were in Little Tokyo and the other five were close enough to be considered within the sphere of that community. This concentration demonstrated the dependence of Little Tokyo on the Japanese trade. In addition there were 223 cafes, restaurants, and bars operated by Japanese who were listed in the Los Angeles City Directory. [34]

Wholesaling and retailing were the most significant urban occupations of the Japanese in Los Angeles. Although much of this trade was narrowly based on the limited Japanese consuming market, there was an apparent trend toward enlarging the scope to include white Americans and other races. According to the census, 5,831 or 34.3 percent of the employed workers 14 years old and over in the county were reported to be in the wholesale and retail trades. This occupational distribution was not unusual considering the motives and factors underlying the type of work they might consider entering. Beginning with the earliest immigrant groups, the Japanese strove to become independent farm operators or owner-operators of a small business or trade and, until such economic status could be attained, they continued the struggle for improvement. [35]

The fishing industry provided a significant area of employment for many Japanese on Terminal Island in the Los Angeles Harbor area. The 1940 census reported 768 Japanese American fishermen on the West Coast. Almost all of them (740) were in California, and over 70 percent (556) were in Los Angeles County. The rolls of the Southern California Japanese Fishermen's Association, to which most of the fishermen belonged, listed 537 members in December 1941. Of these, 373 were Issei and 164 (30.5 percent) were Nisei. While able-bodied males engaged in fishing operations, as previously noted, women, older men, and some children worked in the canneries as fish cleaners and packers. [37]

The Japanese in Los Angeles, with their tradition of love of nature and their appreciation for gardens, engaged in gardening enterprises. Various estimates during the years preceding World War II indicate that there were between 1,500 and 2,500 Japanese gardeners in the city, several hundred being employed on large estates as gardeners or caretakers. One study estimated in 1941 that approximately "a fifth of all independent [Japanese] male workers in Los Angeles County, i.e., those classified as employers or own-account workers, were contract gardeners."37 The majority of these gardeners were older Issei. Less than 30 percent of the contract gardeners were Nisei, and one-fifth were Issei under 45 years of age. Although the average income was low ($100-$300 per month in 1940) and the work was considered menial, the independence enjoyed by the Issei gardeners and the relatively small capital investment required to begin business operations made this occupation appealing. [38]

Personal service occupations accounted for more than 2,500 jobs or approximately 15 percent of the Japanese employed in Los Angeles County in 1940. Almost 1,600 domestics, serving either as day workers or resident workers, worked in the county. Such jobs were relatively numerous among both Issei and Nisei men and women. Single people were more likely to enter these occupations, although married couples frequently made their living from it. Young people, particularly those attending college, availed themselves of this form of employment, exchanging services in homes for room and board and on occasion a small allowance. Upon arriving in the United States, immigrants frequently took such jobs as temporary expedients until more desirable work could be found. [39]

Hotels, boarding houses, and apartments provided employment opportunities for nearly 450 Japanese residents in Los Angeles in 1940. Japanese-owned and managed boarding houses and hotels in the large cities on the Pacific Coast played an important role in the earlier days of immigration, often serving as employment agencies or recruiting centers for labor as well as providing jobs to migrants and a place to board. The usual custom was to reduce lodging costs by utilizing family members as unpaid laborers. In 1939-40 there were 389 such businesses in the city, the majority of which were clustered in Little Tokyo and vicinity. This community was the original nucleus of Japanese boarding houses and hotels in the city and was largely responsible for stimulating the growth of that ethnic enclave. [40]

In addition, numerous Japanese-operated cleaning establishments in Los Angeles County in 1940 provided employment for several hundred Japanese, the majority being Issei. Other personal services, such as barbers and beauticians, provided an additional several hundred jobs. [41]

Professional, skilled, and semi-skilled employment provided jobs for about 600 Japanese in the county in 1940. These positions tended to be monopolized by the Nisei, whose opportunities for pre-professional training and preparation were greater by virtue of their having attended American schools and colleges. Their education and exposure to American society resulted in an increased degree of Americanization and desire for social acculturation and economic assimilation. The Japanese in these occupational categories were generally English-speaking and had dropped many Japanese traditions. The Nisei's dislike for farming, gardening, and manual labor or taking over many business enterprises established by their parents turned them toward white-collar or professional work which they generally regarded as superior in status. Many Issei urged and aided their American-born children to train for these presumably more dignified positions and often made great sacrifices to give them the advantages of a higher education in spite of the fact that many professional fields and administrative positions continued to be closed to the Nisei. As a result of continuing discrimination in these fields, few Japanese Americans entered teaching, law, or engineering, or achieved positions of responsibility before Pearl Harbor. The patronage of those who entered professional fields, such as medicine, law, dentistry, and pharmacy, was largely Japanese, thus forcing the Nisei professionals to return to the Japanese enclaves from which they wished to leave.

Adequately trained Nisei who hoped to obtain positions in Caucasian firms or offices rather than in the Japanese community were generally unable to obtain professional employment before the war. As a result, many of them were obliged to work in fields other than those for which they had been trained. [42]

Rural Settlement — In 1940, 6,041 of the 17,005 Japanese gainfully employed in Los Angeles County (35.5 percent) were engaged in agriculture, compared with 47.8 percent for the entire state. Most Japanese were employed in family farming enterprises Unpaid Japanese family farm laborers constituted 64.3 percent of all males and 78.1 percent of all females in the unpaid farm labor categories in the county. [43]

In 1940 Japanese farmers in Los Angeles County operated a total of 1,523 farms with 28,670 acres, slightly less than five percent of the total farm acreage in the county. Approximately 90 percent of the farms were tenant-operated and another three percent were managed by Japanese. The remainder were worked by part or full owners. Cash tenancy prevailed, although it had been preceded by some sharecropping. The low proportion of farm owners, 7.4 percent, can be explained by the California land laws prohibiting aliens ineligible for citizenship from purchasing or leasing land and by the fact that in 1940 there were few American citizens of Japanese ancestry who were of legal age and thus eligible to own land. Another problem facing Japanese farmers in Los Angeles County was the unwillingness of many landowners to sell, because they anticipated speculative increases in land values with the growth of the city. High rentals were thus a unique feature of most Japanese farming in southern California and only a willingness to live below American standards, primarily by the Issei, made it possible for them to operate such high-priced land.

Accustomed to and willing to work long hours, most Japanese engaged in intensive agricultural methods. Their land holdings averaged 18.8 acres in contrast to 47.8 acres for farms in the county as a whole. The agricultural commissioner for the county later stated that "while the Japanese farm 26,000 acres they produce a croppage equal to 36,000 acres." [44] Small crops, intensively cultivated, required a heavy expenditure of labor but small requirements in land, machinery, equipment, and capital. These characteristics were typical of Japanese-operated farms. The high rent paid provided further evidence of their ability to obtain high profits per acre. Short term leases and uncertainty concerning their renewal also encouraged intensive practices.

By 1940 the degree of agricultural intensity permitted utilization of high priced lands within the largely urbanized areas of Los Angeles County with small and fragmented holdings distributed chiefly on the ring of the city. The major areas of concentration of Japanese-operated farms were the Dominguez Hills area between Los Angeles and Long Beach, including the Compton and Downey townships, the Culver City-Venice-Santa Monica area southwest of the city along the coast, the Inglewood-Gardena-Hawthorne-Torrance area south of the city along the coast, the Palos Verdes Hills area south of the former along the coast, and the San Fernando Valley northwest of the city. [45]

By concentrating on vegetables and berries, the Japanese farmers achieved a near monopoly in those crops in Los Angeles County. Whereas Japanese farmers accounted for 42 percent of the commercial truck crops grown in California during 1941, they harvested approximately 64 percent of the acreage (29,235 of 45,475) in truck crops, 87 percent (5,565 of 6,363) of the market garden variety of vegetables, and 81 percent (1,792 of 2,225) of the berries in the county in 1941. Altogether, Japanese farmers harvested 68 percent (36,592 of 54,063) of these three categories of crops. The position of the Issei farmers had become economically stronger over the years, a factor that paradoxically made them more vulnerable to the old and ugly racist slurs that Asians were unassimible. Japanese truck farmers, in particular, more firmly entrenched than ever in the state's agricultural system, aroused widespread envy in California's agricultural areas. [46]

With few exceptions Japanese farmers rarely entered into large-scale agricultural enterprises, such as citrus fruit, ranching, dairying, or general farming. They were relatively successful in poultry production, finding a specialized and profitable field in chick sexing which they almost monopolized as a result of skill and proficiency. Of the 138 certificates granted in California by the International Baby Chick Association to chick-sexers in 1941, 96 were given to Japanese. [47]

Other specialized fields of agriculture in which the Los Angeles County Japanese predominated were flower growing and nurseries. One survey, for instance, found that flower farms accounted for over 10 percent and nurseries about 20 percent of the total number of farms in the county. [48] Flower growing and vegetable farms tended to be located in suburban districts or on the outer periphery of Los Angeles City. Although the Japanese were more numerous in the raising of outdoor grown cut-flowers than hothouse varieties, they also competed with other Americans in growing most types of cut-flowers. [49]

More nurseries tended to be located within the city limits. For example. The Kashu-Mainichi Yearbook and Directory for 1939-1940 listed 89 nurseries in the city. [50] In addition, 22 nurseries were listed in Gardena, 13 in West Los Angeles, 8 in Venice, 6 in Culver City, and small numbers in numerous incorporated cities within the county. The Japanese engaged in both retail and wholesale nursery businesses, specializing in small garden plants, ornamental shrubs and trees, and bedding plants, such as celery and tomatoes for farmers or bedding plants for flower growers. [51]

Summary: Pro-World War II Economic Trends in Los Angeles County Japanese/Japanese American Community — By 1940-41 the Issei in Los Angeles County appeared to have achieved a ceiling and were undergoing a process of retrenchment. Although their economic achievements had been rapid and substantial, very few had acquired more than a "petty bourgeois" or small farmer status. These few were powerful in the wholesale produce business, import-export trade, and finance. Most Issei males in business operated small enterprises with low capital investment that survived because of the unpaid labor of the entire family. The reserves of the business lay in the working power of the family, and the operation of the enterprise was a way of life for the entire family. The physical juxtaposition of residence and business was only one sign of this. The Issei proprietor thought of his business almost as an extension of himself.

Under these conditions, Nisei sons of men in substantial enterprises were being prepared to continue their fathers' businesses, as were sons of men in fishing and agriculture. However, some Nisei recognized that many of the stores, especially the general merchandise shops in the ethnic enclaves, had a declining patronage of Issei and were therefore based on a long-term economically unsound foundation. More acculturated, the Nisei were frustrated with traditional ways and practices of the Japanese community and anxious to broaden their contacts and economic and occupational opportunities in the broader spectrum of American society.

Before the war, the Nisei were moving into clerical, professional, and skilled and semi-skilled work. In contrast to the Issei, who strove for the security and prestige of an independent enterprise, the Nisei aspired to white-collar work and had come to overvalue the importance of a "clean" job. The Nisei population was highly educated even by the standards of California, and in college they tended to specialize in practical lines such as the physical sciences, business administration, and preprofessional training, while deemphasizing teaching, the humanities, and the social sciences — fields largely closed to them. One of the most serious frustrations of the Nisei was their inability to find work that would use their training. The Issei-dominated vernacular Japanese press in the years before the war was burdened with self-reproach about this aspect of the "Nisei problem."

The evacuation from the west coast would shatter the securities and ambiguities of the Los Angeles Japanese/Japanese American community. The meager savings of small entrepreneurs and farmers would be wiped out, and the Nisei would be relieved of the possible alternative of taking over the parental businesses and farm enterprises. [52]