Japanese Agriculture in Ventura County, California

Abstract

Japanese Agriculture in Ventura County, California Dale J. Stevens and Young Il Kim* Agriculture in the lowlands of coastal California is typified by . rather large farms, a high degree of mechanization, and substantial crop yields. Because of favorable climate, this is an important area for speciality crops such as winter vegetables, citrus, and cut flowers. Within this agricultural setting, a number of Japanese1 farms display some of the historic characteristics of the Oriental system of relatively small farm plots and high imput of human labor. Although Japanese farmers have adopted American farming concepts and values to a certain degree, they still retain some of their original agricultural practices. The somewhat different agricultural landscape developed by this ethnic group in alien milieu is the result of choices, preferences, selections of various methods, systems, and crops since the Japanese immigrants first came here more than eighty years ago. An analysis was made of the Japanese farming characteristics in Ventura County which provided information on assimilation of the Japanese farmer into the agricultural landscape, adaptation of Oriental methods into the American system, and modification offarming practices through cultural contact with the Occident. During the summer of 1965, using a uniform questionnaire on farms and farming methods, the authors interviewed most of the Japanese farmers in Ventura County. This survey indicated how an ethnic group adapted and utilized various customs and cultural * When this paper was read at the 29th annual meeting of the Association, the co-authors were doctoral candidates at the University of California, Los Angeles. Mr. Stevens is now Assistant Professor of Geography at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84601. Mr. Kim is Assistant Professor of Geography at Wisconsin State University , Oshkosh 54901. 1 The term Japanese is used synonymously with Japanese-American. 123 124ASSOCIATION OF PACIFIC COAST GEOGRAPHERS characteristics peculiar to two different agricultural systems. A greater understanding of this cultural group has been made possible by observing the intrinsic agricultural patterns that are traditionally retained by these predominantly second-generation Americans in spite of their high degree of Americanization. Historical Development Migrants from Japan began to arrive in southern California in the 1890's, attracted mainly by glowing accounts of high wages and great employment opportunities. Available jobs for these newcomers were largely manual labor on farms, on railroad construction, and as domestics.2 San Bernardino, Riverside, Los Angeles, and Oxnard were the major areas in southern California where Japanese settled. In the latter part of the nineteenth century anumber ofJapanese immigrants were attracted to Ventura County by its newly introduced sugarbeet industry3 which demanded a large number of laborers as refinery workers and farm helpers. From this time on, the Japanese gradually became an integral part of the area's agricultural scene. Both sugarbeet and citrus industries attracted an increasing number of workers and in 1919 Japanese in Ventura County numbered approximately 2,000.4 The influx of laborers in the county decreased in 1916 when the sugarbeet industry began to decline. During subsequent years many workers left the county. Some remained and switched to vegetable raising, no longer as tenants but as independent farm operators either buying or leasing the land. This was the beginning of Japanese truck farming and market gardening in the area. Although the newly acquired farming was profitable, the Japanese farm population in the county decreased until in 1920 there were only 40 families. Depopulation was due mainly to the California Alien Laws, first enacted in 1913 and amended in 1920 and 1923.5 These laws deprived aliens of 2 New Japanese-American News Incorporated, The History of Japanese-American in the United States, Tokyo, Dai-Nippon Printing Company, 1961, p. 503. 3 The first sugarbeets were processed in Oxnard in 1898. See Howard F. Gregor, "Changing Agricultural Patterns in the Oxnard Areas of Southern California," unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles, 1950, p. 100. é New Japanese-American News Incorporated, op. cit., p. 825. 5 Midori Nishi, "Japanese Settlement in the Los Angeles Area," Yearbook, the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers, Vol. 20 ( 1958), p. 39. VOLUME 31 1 YEARBOOK / 1969125 the right to own or to lease agricultural land. As a final effort to maintain their farms, some...