Journals

’" Hata: G~orge Shima: "The Potato King of California’.’ 55

George Shima: "Thee Potato King" of California Don and Nadine Hata

George Shima, circa 1920. (From Toshio and Masao Yoshimura,)

ONE of the most successful entrepreneurs in the Shima’s birthplace, the town of Kurume, lies near the history of California agriculture died of a stroke in strategic port city of Fukuoka on the southernmost April 1926. Among the pallbearers at his funeral were Japanese home island of Kyushu. Shima’s family was David Starr Jord’an, Chancellor Emeritus of Stanford moderately successful as landowners and farmers, and University, and James Rolph, Jr., Mayor of San Fran- his experience with the labor-intensive and ’high-yield cisco. Numerous other dignitaries attended to honor methods which had evolved in land-scarce Japan the man known as the "Potato King." He left an estate would serve him well in America.3 But America was estimated at between $15 and $17 million and a record still far removed from young Shima’s thoughts. The of public service and leadership which stands as a Japan of his childhood experienced turbulent changes classic example of the "Horatio Alger" path to the . which saw the restoration of Imperial rule and the American dream. But the name of George Shima, formation of a new government. In 1868 the young whose Empire Delta Farms once spanned 6,000 acres, Emperor Meiji issued a terse five-article Charter Oath is missing from histories of California and the West. which set the nation’s future priorities. While much has been written about Japanese Ameri- Those who chartered Japan’s entry into the modern cans during and ~fter their World War II incarceration, world believed that their country’s survival and the Shima and other Issei, first generation immigrants elimination of extraterritoriality clauses in fore.ign from Japan, seldom appear as individuals in the cul- treaties demanded national unity, a modern industrial tural mosaic of our pioneer past.’ economy, and a positive image as a modern society.’

George Shima was born in 1864, ten years after the The Meiji Charter Oath therefore promised "de- signing of the treaty between the United States and liberative assemblies," elimination of social class Japan which ended two centuries of official isolation distinctions, and the rejection of "evil customs of the (sakokt~). No birth records refer to "George Shima" past." It also included a final expectation that because he was born Kinji Ushijima and changed his "knowledge shall be sought throughout the world." name after he immigrated to the United States.~ The latter was intended to create amodernnation state

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on the Western model, and it served as an exhortation Japanese in the United States prior to 1882. The federal for young Japanese to seek an education applicable to Chinese Exclusion Law encouraged Japanese laborers the modern world, and to expect upward social mobil- to move to the Pacific slope region as reports reached ity? In practice, the available opportunities were far Japan and Hawaii about the vacuum in virtually every exceeded by those who qualified, and within a year job category filled by Chinese. Workers were wanted after the promulgation of the Charter Oath, hundreds of as stoop farm labor and in fishing, lumbering, mining, lapanese began to emigrate as contract laborers on and railroad construction. The growing Japanese pop- Hawaiian sugar plantations, ulation also required services such as boarding houses,

Young Shima did not follow the HawaiianToute that dry goods stores, groceries, and restaurants, and most many Issei took, for reports of their experiences indi- important, bilingual contacts to link potential employ- cated that plantation life was harsh and opportunities ees to prospective employers. Thus the labor con- were limited. The new Meiji government took an in- ~ tractor was an indispensable figure in the immigrant tense interest in the treatment of its citizens in Hawaii, it community. That role provided opportunities for in large rheasure due to the concern that failure to do so ’ Shima and other Issei to use their EngLish in jobs with wouid resu!t~in a lack of proper respect in _the eyes of better pay and status. the Western nations.~ Officials in Tokyo and~ consular The.willingness of Japanese laborers to accept lower outposts wouldlC0ntinue to carefully mrnitor the i wages enabled them to secure employment easily, in

. treatment of their:,citizens as they moved beyond. rural areas. Urban. manufacturing jobs in such areas as Hawaii to the Wes~Crast. . ’ shoes, clothing, and cigars were closed to the Issei

....~. ~ " While nearly ~30~,000 Japanese laborers emigiated as because of the availability of white laborers who had dekasegi or "bird.s of passage" .to Hawaii by the eve of replaced Chinese workers in these industries after the

~ the Sino-Jap’anese War of 1894-1895, Shima had spent i 1882 law. With urban employment and upward mobil- his time l~arning Japanese and then studying Chinese " ity in the cities closed to them, many Japanese turned classics as he moved from Fukuoka to Tokyo. The to rural agriculture where there was agrowing demand passage of compulsory education legislation in 1872 for farm laborers.’° had a direct impact on.Shima, who only had learned to -. Shima left the San Francisco area in 1889 and headed read and write Japanese a year before. In 1875 he ieast to the Stockton-Sacramento delta where attended elementary school for the first time. By the time he left for Tokyo in 1885, Shima also had learned

i the stocky Japanese gained a reputation as a Chinese, but no English, as it was not taught at either ~ speedy worker, and on more than one occasion he the public or private schools he attended. His goal was was challenged by the Americans to a potato- to become as great a scholar in Chinese classics as his: picking contest. In this friendly rivalry Shima Fukuoka mentor, Wataru Esaki. Unfortunately for invariably came out on top, despite the fact that Shima, his lack of preparation in English resulted in ~ his white competitors often surreptitiously re- his failing the entrance examination to Hitotsubashi moved his sacks from his row to theirs in vain University. Impulsively, Kinji Ushijima decided to go attempts to even the score. This early capacityfor hard work, he himself said, gave him his firstto America to study English.7 impetus to further effort. He thought: "If I canShima arrived in San Francisco in i889 at the age of out-pick the Americans, I can also out-grow26, with less than $1,000, and like others before him, ! them.’"’ found employment as a domestic servant. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Law had created a scarcity of do- mestic servants and the archetypical "Japanese He soon moved from .farm worker to labor con-tractor. But the delta provided other potential for hisschoolboy" who worked for one or two dollars a week evolution as an entrepreneur. Shima observed thatplus free room and board was in great demand?

whereas the delta was already a well-established ag-Shima’s daughter recalled her father describing his f’u’stjob: ricultural region, large areas were under-utilized due

to periodic flooding of the low-lying areas by the I had been on break from college and was helping Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. Prime farming my mother clean the house. My father, observing land commanded exorbitant prices of $150 or more per the way in which I was sweeping, took the broom acre. Waste lands such as swamps and flooded islands from me, exclaiming, "let me show you the were offered for as little as $3 to $5 per acre, or at even proper way to sweep. After all, it was my first job lower pric~s if large properties were involved; leases

in this country.’’9 were available for whatever the lessee was willing to pay.

His stint as a schoolboy taught him other things that Shima and other former student friends started a would’ pay dividends ~ fluency in English and a 15-acre farm near Woodbridge. By 1899 they had knowledge of how to interact with Americans. moved from moderate success with beans and began to

A few hundred students comprised the majority of experiment with potatoes. It took nearly ten years of

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Hate: George Shima: "The Potato King of California" ~57

Sacks ot potatoes with George Shima’s Obel, circa wW. I. (From Toshio and Masao Yoshimura.)

trial-and-error to learn how to master the potato in the Between 1889 and 1913, he reclaimed more than 28,800 environment of the delta region. Although the potato acres of mosquito-ridden wastelands made fertile by was a staple element in the American diet, few Issei centuries of silt deposits that had formed the delta.~5 were willing to risk time and capital in the crop. But land reclamation was only the first step for Shima. Moreover, its marketability and appeal to. Japanese. The selection of crops was no less challenging. was limited, and profit would depend on direct com- His initial efforts at raising rice were only mar- petition with non-Issei farmers. But potatoes could be ginally successful.~ Problems with mites, rot, and grown in the cheap "tule" marshes and swamps of the mildew, and lack of insecticides, required refining delta, and by 1899 Shima and his friends began to plant strains appropriate to local conditions. Shima reclaim some 400 acres on Bradford Island,’Z continued to experiment with potatoes, and he became

By 1900 Shima began to pull together sufficient convinced that properly reclaimed land could produce capital, eventually including .such non-Japanese two profitable crops per year. Potatoes were more sources as the Fleischacker financial interest in San resistant to dampness and cold than wheat or barley, Francisco, to embark on a massive construction of and with reasonable care, 40 to 50 bushels per acre dikes around the flooded islands of the lower delta near could be harvested in each crop. He also saw the great Stockton.’3 It was forbidding terrain; "the whole place potential for potatoes as a non-perishable vegetable for was infe’sted with malaria and shunned by American shipment to distant markets. By 1900 his leased hold- farnlers.’’t4 But Shima was tenacious in the face of ings were estimated at 1,000 acres under his own name numerous setbacks. His workers first constructed and an additional 2,000 acres in joint tenantship with dikes around the low-lying islands, dug transverse the Rindge farm holdings. His .cash crops in that year ditches and installed pumps to pour the excess water included fruits, berries, and vegetables, such as onions back into the rivers, and employed dredges and heavy, and potatoes, t.~ Potatoes eventually would dominate as machinery to deepen natural channels to lower the he sought the advice of agricultural experts at Stanford water table. As land was diked and drained, it was then University and the University of California at Berke- steam-plowetl and lay fallow while reeds and bush ley for seeds as well as planting and harvesting tech- were allowed to rot and further enrich the soil. The niques. By 1909 he was knownas the "Potato King" of result was one of the largest land reclamation efforts on California. the West Coast. Even today, the farmers of the delta By that time, many other Issei had accumulated wage a constant struggle against the high tides and sufficient savings to invest in their own farms, and floodwaters. The aging and decaying system of dikes with this growing transformation from rural pro- and levees has not been replaced due to high costs, and letarians to farm owners, they were perceived as an each year the waters eat away at Shima’s legacy, unprecedented threat to the Anglo capitalists’ control

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of California agriculture. Moreover, economic condi- to members were established. Group cohesion as w6~}.~

tions were linked to other nativist and xenophobic as external hostility were key factors to survivalan~ arguments against the Issei, and the convergence of success outside the mainstream.’~ ~.~~-- calls for action created a series of highly publicized Leadership of the Japanese community orgah~- crises which began with the segregation of Issei in the izations was initially dominated by representatives 6~_~ public schools of San Francisco. the overseas Japanese business community, such a~~

After the 1906 earthquake, the San Francisco School American branches of Japan-based banks and cor:~_ Board ruled that Japanese students would be required } porations involved in trans-Pacific commerce. Asto attend a segregated facility for Asians. The Japanese i sei immigrants moved from the ranks of laborers to~ government intervened with a strongly worded protest i urban and rural entreprenem’s, however, they began to demanding equal treatment for its emigrants, and ai form a new hierarchy of leadership in the Japanese diplomatic crisis ensued.’~ The policy was rescindedi American population. In 1909 George Shima became": through the personal intervention of President Them1 the f’trst president of the Japanese Association dore Roosevelt, whose interest was not rooted in altru- ! America, a coalition of more than 50 Issei community ism.’9 Roosevelt perceived the San Francisco schoolt groups, and kenjinkai which was attacked by nativists incident as only one dimension of an expanding anti-~ii as evidence that Issei were agents of Imperial Japan.z~ Japanese movement on the West Coast, and he in- The role of the Japanese Association and its local volved himself in negotiations which led to the.:_3~! branches in Japanese communities throughout the Gentlemen’s Agreement in 1908.z° Japan voluntarily Pacific slope #egion was much less sinister or sub- agreed to restrict emigration of laborers and honored ~ versive than nativist "warnings" portrayed them. It is its promise by establishing strict screening procedures .... true that the associations had a semi-official relation- for emigrants, ship with the Japanese government, based on the fact

The total number of Japanese arriving in the con-°!~ that Issei were "aliens ineligible to citizenship," a tinental United States declined by about 30 percent ~ cmegory of permanent non-citizen resulting from t.he during the period 1908-1913, but the entry of numerous

~! limitation of naturalization to "white persons and

women led to nativist accusations of Japan’s non- ~ persons of African descent." The Japanese govern-feasance, and demands for more stringent immigration

:):1

merit used the various Japanese associations to handle restrictions,z’ The issue ofshashin-kekkon or "picture" the bureaucratic paperwork required by the Gentle- brides" would add more fuel to the anti-Japanese men’s Agreement and Japanese law for permission to movement, and propel George Shima into an Issei . leave and return to the United States.z’ The local leadership role. In 1907 the Native Sons of the Golden associations also promoted conduct among Issei which West joined the cause of the Asiatic Exclusion League would provide a positive image of all Japanese. The by attacking the practice of "picture brides" which ~ Japanese associations complied with their bureau- allegedly subverted Yankee courtship rituals and re~

’~1 cratic assignments, but they also evolved as advocates

inf0rced the alleged "unacculturability’" of the lssei,z’ of the skills and rights that the Issei and their The earlier nativist charges against the Chinese in , American-born children, the Nisei, would need toAmerica had accused them of being unacculturable , survive in the face of increasing hostility. Thus the because they were largely male laborers without wives associations promoted "Americanization" by sup- or children. Many Issei were determined to plant per-" ~ porting the learning of English and educational manent roots in America; thus they circumvented the ~ achievement, and campaigned .for Issei citizenship and Gentlemen’s Agreement by exchanging photographs civil rights. While the leaders of the associations were with women who were willing to emigrate, marrying linked to the Japanese consulates, and outwardly re- them by correspondence.~ Such methods were not i sembled "typical ’Estkblishment’ types,’’z8 Issei like uncommon among other lonely bachelors in pioneer - } George Shima were committed to establishing roots fn areas, but nativists warned that the Issei intended to America. "breed like rabbits" and inundate the West Coast with By 1909, as the anti-Japanese movement coalesced children who would be American citizens by toward a climax in the 1913 Alien Land Law in Cal- birthright.24 ifornia, George Shima was sufficiently well-off to pur-

The Issei were by no means passive or disorganized chase a home at 2601 College Avenue in one of the best in the face of mounting discrimination. Issei from the residential sections of Berkeley. But money could not same ken or prefecture formed kenjinkai (prefectural purchase respect, even in a cosmopolitan university associations) and other organizations similhr to asso- community, and Shima soon found himself under clarions among first generation European immigrants, siege. Reporters from newspapers in Berkeley, neigh- Thus welfare and employment groups, trade guilds, boring Oakland, and even across the bay in San Fran- women’s auxiliaries, ethnic churches and newspapers, cisco heard the insinuations and Vici.ous gossip, and language schools, and voluntary credit systems (tan- they lined up to cut down the Issei who had succeeded omoshi) which provided loans and investment capital according to the Horatio Alge.r model. The protest

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ttata: George Sh#na: "The Potato King of California". 59

a home, what must it have been like for his less pros- perous compatriots?’’3°

Indeed, Shima’g experience in Berkeley reflected the hypocritical thrust of the anti-Japanese movement which attacked the Issei for marrying and raising fam- ilies, seeking to learn English, and desiring upward mobility. Pressure began to increase for legislation to avoid the Japanese "takeover."

The gathering momentum of nativists in the ~an~i- Japanese coalition in the years 1908-1913 cannot be explained by the size of the Issei population, for their total numbers were never large enough to significantly affect wage rates or dominate land holdings2’ .The Gentlemen’s Agreement had succeeded in reducing the numbers of Japanese emigrating as laborers, and the Issei never exceeded two percent of the total popula- tion of California, and less than one-tenth of one per- cent of the entire United States.

The reasons for the growing outcry which led to ~the 1913 Alien Land Law in California alsoinclude the pervasive influence of nativism and xenophobia. Shima and other Issei, although few in numbers~ were perceived as being too successful, and therefore be- came "indispensable enemies" for their alleged threat to Anglo socio-economic supremacy in California and the West Coast2~ The emergence of Meiji Japan as a modem nation with imperial aspirations also fueled xenophobic fears that the Issei were an advance guard of a new "Yellow Peril," a threat to national security. As the battle lines were drawn, George Shima.became a prime target of the anti-Japanese, coalition and a

George Shima, circa 1920.(From Toshio and Masao goshimura.) sPOke.sman for the rights of Issei. As the numbers of Japanese farm laborers grew, so

did the numbers of those who were able to purchase or movement demanded he move to an "Oriental" neigh- lease land from group-sponsored savings through tan- borhood. Fame turned quickly to notoriety as the" omoshi, careful purchases, and hard work. The per- newspapers printed headlines about the "Yellow Peril ceived threat from Japanese leaseholds and ownership in College Town," "Jap Invades Fashionable Quar- of farm land was recounted by Chesl~er A. Rowell, a ters," and "Jap Puts On Airs.’’z~ close confidant of Governor Hiram Johnson, soon after

Shima had not altered the ambiaiace of his neighbor- the alien land law of 1913 was passed. hood. Illustrations of his residence show that the exter- It was in the Sacramento delta that Shima, described ior facade and stirrounding grounds were in keeping by Rowell as "the richest Japanese in California," with the architecture and landscaping of the corn- controlled several thousand island and delta acres, munity. The adjoining lot which he .purchased was operated "his own fleet of river boats to handle his planted with rare shrubs and plants imported from crops," and employed "a small army of Japanese, Europe as well as Asia. Shima’s response to the racist Chinese, and Hindus." He not only sold his own crop uproar was elegantly effective. In answer to charges of potatoes but was "engaged in speculative oper- that he and his family wouId ruin the racial homo- ations on the potato market." Furthermore, Rowell geneity of the neighborhood, the Potato King erected a said, Shima was active in the Stockton Chamber of high fence with the explanation that it "would keep the Commerce and had invested in various properties other children from playing with his." Then he do- there. Rowell claimed that the impact of Shima’s farm hated $500 to the University of California’s Young and others would have been "insignificant" if it had Men’s Christian Association. Money made the differ- not been for the "race issue." The real problem, he ence, even if it came from a "Jap," and Shima was insisted, was posed by Japanese farm workers who accepted as a public-spirited member of the com- provided the labor for Anglo farmers raising berries, munity. But as one authority on’the history of the Issei sugar beets, grapes, nursery products, vegetables, and has noted, ,if even a millionaire has problems finding citrus and deciduous fruits. These laborers, said

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Rowell, "practically dominate the labor of the charac- ~:. -: :~ teristic agricultural and horticultural production of California," and they could do so because they were willing to serve as migrant laborers filling the vacuum caused by the decline in Chinese labor. Equally im- portant was their peculiar ability to perform tasks requiting squatting2~

Along with the shift of Japanese to rural areas came a .~ sharp increase in anti-Japanese sentiment in areas like the Central Valley. Pressure to pass such legislation continued to mount after Republican HiramTohnson was elected in 1910. Governor Johnson, who had pub- licly avoided taking sides on the issue during the ~ campaign, found himself dealing with legislat.ors who i in 1911 introduced 27 anti-Japanese bills, including i one that specifically prohibited "aliens ineligible to citizenship" from owning land.34 Georg~ Sl~ima’s r~sicl~n¢~ in B~rk~l~, ~A, circa 19On.Shima wrote to the governor several times in 1911. Toshio and Masao ¥oshimur.aJ After expressing his pleasure at Johnson’s victory, Shima informed him that the "Japanese Question"~ was resolving itself. Not only was immigration de- the Pacific coast through superior knowledge,creasing by some 7,000 to.8,000, but even the "’yellow better foresight, and greater dating. No linejournals" were no longer discussing the qtiestion..~i of business was "safe" from il~e" yellow Shima said: :1 invasion27

The lands owned by the Japanese are only 11,000 Many others shared this 1913 description of Shima, acres. What a small acrage [sic] they have in this whose activities in the San Joaquin delta were called State. Speaking of the vast area of California, it i an example"of the range of the spectacular features ofmight be well to say that no Japanese have land in the so-called Japanese menace." He was "the one Jap California. It might be reasonable, perhaps, if ~. in California who has made a heroic success of farmingJapanese were increasing to raise such a ques- and whose wealth is stated in figures running from half tiom But, as I have said above, they are de- a million to two million dollars.’’~ creasing and their questions are solvin.g . A racist factor in the demand for exclusion was thatthemselves. ~ .Issei never would be able to disappear into the great

i American melting pot. Skin color and shape of eyes In the. same letter, Shima referred also to the Panama- could never be hidden. And to make matters worse, Pacific International Exposition which would be held in San Francisco in 1915. San Francisco, he predicted, Instinctively the mass of the white resents the

" would never become as great as New York without proud; erect bearing, the immaculate clothes, the trade with Japan. He warned that the Japanese gov- i ’ exquisite manners of the successful, well-bredernment and people were watching events in Cal- Japanese, who in the estimate of the mob, always ifornia with great concern. "The question," he said, remains a "Jap" immigrant29 can "be easily settled if we regard each other as brother and sister ....We wish, bu.t good will and The 1913 law placed a three-year limit on the lease of peace between us.’’~ But Johnson, as well as members i agricultural land and prohibited land purchases by of both parties, joined the mounting public outcry "aliens ineligible to citizenship." But the Issei against against Issei farmers and laborers. In May 1913, the whom the law was specifically directed found it rela- Alien Land Act was passed and signed by Johnson, tively easy to circumvent: land was leased and put- who claimed Credit for its success2" chased in the name of their Nisei children who were

Public sentiment behind the enactment of the Alien U.S. citizens by birthright,’° Land Law reflected the widely-held conviction that The years between 1913 and the end of World War I Issei entrepreneurs like Shima had been too successful saw a temporary hiatus of the anti-Japanese move- in proving that they were more than "the white man’s ment. In March 1919, however, U.S. Senator James D. match." Nine days before Johnson signed the law, it Phelan resurrected the issue as he opened his campaign was reported that: for re-election in California. By the end of the year, the

.. anti-Japanese forces in the state had joined together Three times in succession Shima, (he Japanese behind the Native Sons’ proposal to secure a "law that grower, virtually cornered the potato market of will make it impossible for Japanese to get possession

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~" hima::~" "The Potato King of California ..... ~ 61’

---~ ~oil. This concerted move to strengthen the porters came forth, but not enough to make a ~..dien Land Law was supported not only by nativ- difference.44

_=~nizations, but _b,y the American Legion, labor The 1920 initiative was successful, and the ne~wly ~~d California s farmers. It was the fear of formed Japanese Exclusion League of California

haon from Japanese farmers, not from cheap pushed for passage of the 1924 National Origins :Act. ~in the cities, that posed the real threat, for by the They helped mastermind the portion of that federal

~’~of the war, most Issei farmers and agricultural immigration law that excluded "aliens ineligibleI t9 ~-~- ~ were either on their own land or working for citizenship." Japanese immigration virtually ceased ~ other. And they now claimed ten percent of the until the law was relaxed in 1952.4-‘

~-ket price of all California crop.at A little more than a decade after Shima died in J926, :~In 1920, the antl-Isse~ coaht~on gathered enough his widow and children moved to New YorK, well ~tures to place the propos,e,d new alien land law on before Executive Order 9066 caused the for~rd evacu-.

~ ballot. It would prohibit aliens ineligible to citi- ation and incarceration of all Japanese Americans.. -----~ns p from buying or leasing property in the names during World War II. In 1975, a half a century after hig ~of their children or through a corporation,az Shima death, 400 persons attended the dedication of the ~iauthored a pamph[e,t entitled ",A_n Appeal to,,Justice." Shima Center at San Joaquin Delta College in S(~ck- ~’:H¢ supported the Gentlemen s Agreement and op- ton, named in honor of the Issei pioneer whose exper-

posed the practice of "picture brides." Furthermore, rise and tenacity helped develop the agricultural po- he stressed the Japanese Association of America’s tential of the region,a" In 1982, a local newspaper attempts to "foster Americanism among the Japanese article noted that George Shima had left a watch pre- in California" and that the state’s Issei had "never sented to him by a fellow delta rancher and former shirked their duty" when it came to patriotic or charit- partner, Lee Philips. The inscription read: "To the able actions and contributions. How can Americans; man who does, from the man who tries.’’aT It was a he asked, ignore their own traditions of fair play to fitting epitaph for an Issei argonaut who linked the Far deny "peaceable, industrious and law-abiding" East to the Far West.48 Japanese neighbors equal protection of the law?a~ Sup-

Dr. Donald T. Hata, Jr., is Professor of History at California State University, Dominguez Hills. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Southern Cal- ifornia. His book Japanese Americans and World War H, co-authored with Nadine Hata, is in its fifth printing.

Dr. Nadine I. Hata is Dean of Behavioral and Social ~-~ ~.~ Sciences at El Camino College, Torrance, CA. She holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Cal~ ifornia and has published in the field of the Japanese American experience.

NOTES 1. Roger Daniels, "American Historians and jima was also shortened for this purpose as kuoka Kenjinshi [History of the Japanese

East Asian Immigrants," in Norris Hund- well. Toshio Yohimura, George Shima. Po- from Fukuoka Prefecture in America] (Los ley (ed.), The Asian American, The His- tato King and Lover of Chinese Classics Angeles: Zaibei Fukuoka Kenjinshi Hen- torical Experience (Santa Barbara: Clio, (Japan, 1981), 1-7. The Americanization of san Jimusho, 1931). 1976), 2. his name is an interesting example of ac- 3. Thomas C. Smith, The Agrarian Origins of

2. His .original given name was Seikichi, commodation in an era when nativists were Modern Japan (Stanford University Press, which was changed after he entered a pri- accusing Japanese and other Asian immi- 1959), 212-213. vate middle school in 1881. Apparently an- grants of being "unacculturable." Brief 4. The new leadership behind the emperor wasother student had the same family and given biographical sketches of Kinji Ushijima committed to whatever was necessary for names, and Shima resented being confused and other pioneer Issei in America from Japan to avoid the fate of China, in which a with the other boy who was not very bright. Fukuoka Prefecture are found in two reactionary government was faced with in- The name given to Shima by his teacher Japanese-language compilations by Tsu- ternal turmoil, incapable of resisting West- meant "to restrain yourself," a warning negoro Hirota: Zai-Bei Fukuoka Kenjin to ern incursions on its borders, and impotent that Shima’s mentor hoped would serve him Jigyo [Japanese from Fukuoka Prefecture in protecting its citizens abroad. Akira well in the future. In America, he was prob- and Their Enterprise in America] (Los Iriye, Across the Pacific, An Inner History ably called "George" by his Anglo friends Angeles: Zaibei Fukuoka Kenjin to Jigyo of American-East Asian Relations (New who could not pronounce "KtnjL" Ush~- Hensan Jimusho, 1936); and Zai-Bei Fu: York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1967),

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1-32. published by the University of California 24. The anti-Japanese movement worried~ 5. Hugh Borton, Japan’s Modern Century Press in the near future; the tentative title is the Nisei, second generation JapaneSe_:

(New York: Ronald Press, 1955), 72, 171, "Planted in Good Soil: Issei Contributions America, would pose a more dange~ 175, 178; William L. Neumann, America to U.S. Agriculture." threat to Anglo control than their Isse~ Encounters Japan, From Perry to Mac- 11. Jean Pajus, The Real Japanese California ents who remained "aliens ineligibl~, Arth~ur (New York: Harper and Row, 1963); (Berkeley: James J. Gillick, 1937), 84. citizenship." and Edwin O. Reischauer, The United 12. The demand for staples caused by the 25. Ivan H. Light, Ethnic Enterprise in States and Japan (New York: Viking, Spanish-AmeTic.an War also helped ica: Business and Welfare among Chine’~ 1957), 188. Shima’s efforts.i Yoshimura, 58; Kaizo Japanese, and Blacks (Berkeley: Uni~.~

6. Contract laborers to Hawaii were permitted Naka, "Social arid Economic Conditions sity of California Press, 1972), 57; and J~.~ to emigrate on the condition that they Among Japanese Farmers in California" Modell, The Economics and Politics of R~ receive free transportation for themselves (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of cial Accommodation, The Japanese of~_ and their children, free housing and medi- California, Berkeley, 1913), 37-47. Angeles, 1900-1942 (Urbana: UniversiW.~- cal care, and a maximum ten-hour working 13. Shima’s funds also came from the Yo- Illinois Press, 1977), 91-93. Kenjinkb- day. Hilary Conroy, The Japanese Frontier kohama Specie B.a~k, the forerunner of Cal- assisted the 10,000 Japanese left home~_in Hawaii, 1868-1898 (Berkeley: University ifornia First Bank. It has also been reported in the wake of the 1906 earthquake and of California Press, 1953). that during the ~ost-World War I de- in San Francisco. ~James Stuart Olson, Th~

7. Within a year after his arrival in Tokyo, pression, the banl refused to support him Ethnic Dimension In American Histo~ Shima abandoned his plan to beeoine a and insisted that h~ pay off his debts. Yoshi- (N~w York: St. Martin’s Press, 1979), 33~ Chinese scholar and began to study Eng- mura, 42. ’ .~ 26. Roger Daniels, "The Japanese," in Johik-o:~ lish. One factor was the "’sternness of the 14. Pajus, 85 .... i! I-Iigham (ed.), Ethnic Leadership in times." There also appears to be some dis- 15. Naka, 42. tea (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Universit-}~ agreement as to why Shima left Japan. 16. Problems with dci~. growing in the Central Press, 1978), 36-63. Some contend that he was lured to Cal- Valley were rest lved by K. Ikuta, the 27.The Japanese consular service delegated ifornia by a newspaper article that extolled "Rice Wizard,’ [ during the period the associations the responsibility to record% its advantages as an ideal place for Japanese 1910-1920. Emil T. !-I. Bunje, "The Story of marriages, births, and other vital statistics immigrants. Yoshimura, 4-7, 16, 32-33. Japanese Farming in California" because Japan, like England and France,~_ Many others had preceded him. As early as (Berkeley: U.S. W~ orks Progress Admin- had adopted the code ofjus sanguinis (dual 1872, during the visit of the Iwakura Mis- istration Project, I957), 20-22; Robert A. citizenship). " sion to the United States, a meeting was Wilson and Bill Hosokawa, East to Am- 28. Daniels, Ethnic Leadership, 43. held between members of the delegation erica, A History of the Japanese in the 29. Kiyoshi K. Kawakami, Asia at the Door, A and Japanese students who were known to United States (New York: Morrow, 1980), Study of the Japanese Question in Con- be in San Francisco. Donald Teruo Hata, 66; Bill Hosokawa, Nisei, The Quiet Amer- tinental United States, Hawaii and Canada Jr., "Undesirables:" Early Immigrants leans (New York: ~Morrow, 1969), 61~62; (New York: Revell, 1914), 148-149. and the Anti-Japanese Movement in San and California State’Board of Control, Cal- 30. Daniels, Politics of Prejudice. 10; K. K. Francisco, 1892-1893 - Prelude to Exclu- ifornia and the Oriental (Sacramento, Kawakami, The Real Japanese Question sion (New York: Arno, 1978), 43-67. Five 1920), 204-206. ] (New York: Macmillan, 1921), 44-47. years later a small group of students formed 17. Interview with Shir~a’s son, Rindge Shima 31. So many of the Japanese who arrived in the Gospel Society (Fukuinkai). There (Los Angeles, Oct,,bet, 1971), in Jay AI- 1908-1924 returned home that the net in- were other student groups, including some bert, 7. Shima’s mal[keting techniques also crease in the Issei population was less than early socialists. Yuji Ichioka, "A Buried included shipping hls potatoes in red bags 1,000 per year. Pa.st: Early Issei Socialists and the Japan- marked "Shima Fancy" which became a 32. "Labor continued to oppose the Japanese ese Community," Amerasia Journal, I, 2 well-known tradem~k. Yoshimura, 24, 28. with almost the fervor it had shown against (July, 1971), 1-25. 18. A. Whitney Griswol~l, Far Eastern Policy the Chinese. This seeming anomaly is

8. The "Japanese schoolboy" was firmly of the United S~atest(New York: Harcourt readily explainable. West Coast laboring stereotyped by 1920, when Wallace Irwin, a Brace, 1962), 347; ahd Frank T. Chuman, men had inherited a prejudice against ira- San Francisco journalist, created a tic- The Bamboo People. The Law and Japan- migrants from Asia that continued long titious 35-year old named Hashimura Togo. ese Americans (Del Mar, CA: Publisher’s after the original economic grievances Cartoons and caricatures of Togo showed Inc., 1976), 18-37. against them had disappeared."~Roger Dan- him with large buck teeth, always smiling 19. Japan had been an urtexpected victor in the iels, "The Issei in California, 1890-1940," obsequiously, ardently ingratiating, and recent Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, in Hilary Conroy and T. Scott Miyakawa speaking pidgin English. He worked in the and alarmists wailed about the Imperial (eds.), East Across the Pacific, Historical home of an American family in order to Navy’s threat to America’s colonies in the and Sociological Studies of Japanese Ira- attend school, and secretly planned for the Pacific. Thomas A. Bailey, Theodore migration and Assimilation (Santa day when he would use his knowledge Roosevelt and the Japanese Crisis (Stan- Barbara: Clio, 1972), 85. against the Yankees who had befriended ford University Pres~., 1934). 33. Chester H. Rowell, "The Japanese in Cal- him. As the Togo serials appeared across 20. Congressional Record, 59th Cong., 1st ifornia. Why Californians Regard Their the nation, Americans became familiar sess., 3749-3753. Presence as ’the Beginning of the Biggest with the outwardly polite but always .21. By this time, Shima had acquired a wife and Problem that. Ever Faced the American

’ Sneaky and cunning "Jap." Wallace Irwin, family. In 1900 he returned briefly to Japan People,’ " World’s Work, XXVI, 2 (June "Hashimura Togo, Westerner," The Sun- and married Shimeko Shimomura, Shi- 1913), 195-201. Rowell noted that of the set, XLV, 6 (December 1920), 22-23, 54, 56; momura insisted that Shima convert to estimated 55,000 Japanese in California in Roger Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice, Christianity. Their eldest daughter, Taye, 1910, some 20,000 were "farm hands" and The Anti-Japanese Movement in California was born in 1902; sonsTogo in 1904, Takuji 4,500 were "farmers." In 1909, 319 leases and the Struggle for Japanese Exclusion in 1906, and Rindge in 1908. Yoshimura, 10, were recorded in the state for a total of (New York: Atheneum, 1968), 11-12. 29, 59-60. 20,294 acres; three years later, an ad-

9. Interview with Shima’s daughter, Mrs. 22. The experiences of women who became ditional 282 leases and 17,596 acres had Florence Taye Htori (Berkeley, CA, No- picture brides were indeed often very diffi- been recorded. He estimated that by 1912, vember 1971), in Jay Albert, "George cult; see Akemi Kikumura, Through Harsh Japanese also owned a total of 312 farms Shima ~ ’The Potato King’ "(unpublished Winters, The Life of a Japanese Immigrant amounting to 12,726 acres for a total as- paper, California State College, Domin- Woman (Novato, CA: Chandler and Sharp, sessed valuation of $609,605. The largest guez Hills, 1971), 6. 1981). amount of land owned by Japanese was in

10. Masakazu Iwata, "The Japanese Immi- 23. See KesaNoda, Yamato Colony: 1906-1960 Fresno County (4,776 acres); the largest grants in California Agriculture," Ag- (Livingston, CA: Livingston-Mercer leaseholds were in San Joaquin, Sac- ricultural History, XXXVI (1962), 25-37. Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens ramento, and Contra Costa Counties. Iwata’s expanded manuscript is slated to be League, 1981), 53-64. 34. Daniels, Politics of Prejudice, 45-51. Cal-

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~,~!~ ~ Shirna: "The Potato King of Californ?a" 63

=---~-~" ifornia Democrats were unable to elect a University of California, Berkeley. Shima was planning a permanent return to the land

--~"~s-overn°r between 1894-1938. " also wrote other statements opposing the of his forefathers, and not the briefvisitthat

Shima to Governor Hi- initiative. See, "A Farmer’s View of the he had armouneed. He already had~bu~t ai~from George_~.~.’ Letterram Johnson, I1 February 1911; Hiram. Question;" in Paul Jaeobs andSaulLandau American-style.home:!n his hom~to~ 6f (eds.), To Serve The Devil. Volume 2: Kurnme. Furthermore, he had investigated

~i! ~: ~ johnson Papers, Bancroft Library, Univer- Se, ~.: sity of California, Berkeley. Colonials and Sojourners (New York: Vin- the possibilities of establishing .farms. ,in ~; ~6. On 1 May 1913, Shima again wrote to the tage Books, 1971), 231-233. Korea (1900-190J) and. M~xie6(l~l~915)~ ==:_:~:. governor, this time specifically on behalfof 44. One such gioup was the American Commit- ’. AlthoughKoreamayn0thavebee~:guitable ~.~ ~: the Japanese Association of America, ask- tee of Justice~ whose members included in 1900, it was eminently more promising

~! ing that "justice and humanity which we clergy, entrepreneurs, leaders of service by f926 since Japan had armexed the penin-~ conceive to be the fundamental principal of clubs, and educators such a.s Dr. David sula in 1910. It is also p6~ible that’Shitiia ~ the American nation.., not [be] forgotten Start Jordan and Dr. James A. Blaisdell,

anticipated financial Sup’p~rt froiit~his"

:~-" .... at this time." Ibid. President of Pomona College. They argued friend and fellow lover of classical Chinese --~ ,’ 37. Walter V. Woehlke, "White and Yellow in that the Japanese cultivated only 1.6 per- poetry, Eiichi Shibusawa, an extraordkiary

i~i Cahforn~a,1913), 64. The Outlook CIV (10 May cent of the total farm land in California, andman MeijirunentrepreneUrmore who helped ~stabf!.sli"no with a healthy mind can believe and than I00 majoi" indu~trial"~.d

~" 38. "Personal Glimpses. California’s Hustling that this is a grave menace to the state." f’maneial institutions. See Yoshlmura for~ Japanese," Literary Digest, XLVII (July- However, the committee members also details on how Shima and. Shibusawa met, ~ - December 1913), 68. stated that if the initiative was defeated, 11-15. Finally, this hypothesis seems plans- ~ 39. Woehlke, The Outlook, 64. ,. California would be in a stronger position . ible beeatise Shima, who had been in the" 40. Daniels, Politics of Prejudice, 63; George to ask the Federal Government for pro- forefront of the fight against California eX-

:: E. Frakes and Curtis B. Solberg (eds.), tection from "Oriental immigration." The clusionlsts, was no’doubt concerned thai "~ : Minorities in California History (New ~ American Committee of Justice, "Fair the Issei and their descendants would not

York: Random House, 1971), 78-79. Play. Defeat It." fare well under the increasingly dis- 41. See Daniels, Politics of Prejudice, 81-88. 45. Daniels, Politics of Prejudice, 91-105. criminatory climate in California and 42. Ibid., 88-90. 46. Stockton Record, 4 May 1975. across the nation.

-~ 43. George Shima, "An Appeal to Justice," 47. Ibid., 24 April 1982. Hiram Johnson Papers, Bancroft Library, 48. There is specualtion that Shima actually

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