A “get out of jail free” card is an informal expression that refers to something that allows someone to avoid punishment or an undesirable outcome. The term originated from the board game Monopoly, where it’s a card that allows a player to get out of jail.
Figure 1. The Get Out of Jail Free card from the Monopoly game.
The last several Friday Footnotes have looked at various approaches to addressing the farm labor shortage that occurred during World War II. Some of these were using captured prisoners of war, altering the school year, and government programs such as the Victory Farm Volunteers. Today, we look at another approach to alleviating the farm labor shortage during World War II – releasing Japanese Americans from prisons (politely labeled as Internment Camps).
Shortly after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941some 120,000 Japanese Americans on the west coast were rounded up and sent to internment camps. It did not matter if they were born in America or what their profession was, they were treated like criminals with no right to appeal and were imprisoned. Nearly two-thirds of those imprisoned had owned farms or worked in agriculture. See the four “Raw Deal” Friday Footnotes (starting with A Raw Deal (Part 1) – Japanese American Internment Camps (5/20/2022) for more information.
The removal of Japanese farmers and farm workers had a major negative impact on the agricultural industry in California. The lead paragraph in an article titled “Farm Shortage Hurts Harvest” in the Hanford (CA) Morning Journal (March 21, 1943, p. 8) stated:
California’s agricultural industry lost $14,582,000 during 1942 due directly to the farm labor shortage, according to the California Crop Reporting Service…The figure…deals only with losses attributed to the farm labor situation and does not include the usual losses expected by the farmer in production and harvesting of perishable crops. Neither does the report include loss of production resulting from evacuation of Japanese farm workers during the 1942 season.
When the farm labor problem became exceptionally severe, the government had a brilliant idea – perhaps the imprisoned Japanese Americans in the internment camps could be released to work in agriculture! What hypocrisy! Essentially the unfairly imprisoned Japanese Americans finally received a “get out of jail free” card from the government!
A Request from the Agricultural Sector
Almost immediately after the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans on the West coast representatives of large-scale agricultural operations, particularly sugar beet growers in the Rocky Mountain states, requested that evacuees be made available for work in the beet fields and in other seasonal agricultural work. This request was made to the War Relocation Authority.
The War Relocation Authority (WRA) was created on March 18, 1942, by Executive Order of the President, No. 9102. This new civilian agency was to be responsible for “the relocation (of evacuees) in appropriate places, providing for their needs in such manner as may be appropriate, and supervising their activities.”
In response to the request from the sugar beet industry, the War Relocation Authority convened a conference on April 7, 1942 in Salt Lake City for government representatives of 10 Western States. The representatives were strongly opposed to the use of evacuees in private employment. However, the sugar beet growers persisted in their efforts to secure evacuee labor and soon thereafter, the state government representatives reversed their opposition.
Rasmussen (1951, p. 102) tells us what happened next:
On May 13, 1942, the Director of the War Relocation Authority and the head of the Wartime Civil Control Administration (an agency of the War Department) drew up a plan for releasing evacuees for seasonal agricultural work. The State governors and the local law-enforcement officials, including the sheriff, the county judge, the county prosecuting attorney, and a county commissioner signed a statement that evacuee labor was needed, and that, if released to the county and State, the officials listed above would guarantee the safety of the workers. In addition, the employer agreed to provide transportation of the workers from the center to the place of employment and return, to pay prevailing wages, and to provide adequate housing, without cost to the evacuee, in the area of employment.
Pay special attention to the phrase in the paragraph above – “the officials listed above would guarantee the safety of the workers.” We will come back to that next week.
It took a while for the program to gain traction, but by the middle of October 1942 approximately 10,000 Japanese American evacuees were on “seasonal leave” from the internment camps. They were assisting with the harvest of agricultural crops throughout the Western States. The evacuee had to obtain a leave permit to leave the internment camp.
While the Japanese Americans worked in a variety of farming operations, many of the jobs involved working with sugar beets. During World War II sugar beets became a high demand crop. Sugar was the first and last item rationed during the war. One reason for the rationing was that sugar was a key ingredient in making munitions (such as bombs) and synthetic rubber. Sugar beets were vital to the war effort and the government actively promoted increased sugar beet production.
Figure 2. World War II era Sugar Beet poster.
The recruitment of Japanese American farm workers was primarily the job of the employer. It was not uncommon to see advertisements in the newspapers published by the internees in the internment camps. Representatives from four sugar beet companies visited the Topaz Internment Camp in Utah in September of 1942 and spent several days recruiting workers (See Figure 3). This type of recruitment activity occurred in other internment camps.
Figure 3. From the Topaz Times, September 30, 1942
While most workers were paid a specified wage, the labor situation was so dire in Montana and Idaho that the Japanese workers were offered a share crop lease. The sugar companies and farmers furnished everything for growing and harvesting the crop and the workers received a share of the crop in proportion to their work. Entire families were sought. The volunteers for this type of work would receive indefinite leave from the internment camp. See Figure 4.
Figure 4. The Manzanar Free Press, February3, 1943
While working in sugar beets was a major employer for the internees, there were other work opportunities across the country in and out of the agricultural sector. The Governor of Colorado wanted to hire a housekeeper in 1942 (see his letter). Even the USDA Secretary of Agriculture, Claude Wicker, wanted to employ a Japanese couple to work on his farm in Indiana (See Figure 5).
Figure 5. The Twin-Falls Idaho Times-News, October 5, 1942.
Seasonal Leave Becomes Indefinite Leave
After the initial shock of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and the knee-jerk decision to incarcerate West Coast Japanese Americans in internment camps, cooler heads started to prevail. Perhaps some of the Japanese Americans, especially the Nisei (a person born in America to Japanese parents) could be trusted and would be allowed to leave the internment camps The Nisei comprised 70% of the population in the internment camps. By allowing selected individuals to leave camp, this would help ease the overcrowding in the camps.
One of the first groups allowed to leave internment camps on a permanent basis were college age students. In 1942, a small number of Japanese Americans began to exit the camps through a student relocation program. The early student resettlement to colleges in Midwestern and eastern states was organized by a coalition of church leaders and educators led by the American Friends Service Committee. The coalition persuaded colleges and universities in the country’s interior to accept Japanese American students. It also helped the students obtain security clearance to leave camp (a complicated process) and find housing. Tuition costs were borne by the students and their families. Although many parents gave up what savings they had, nearly all the students still worked round the clock to support themselves and their studies. By the end of the war, 4,000 Japanese America students had entered approximately 600 colleges (Student Leave, Densho Digital Repository)
After the initial experiment with seasonal leave for agricultural workers the War Relocation Authority (WRA) decided to allow some of the workers to leave camp on a permanent basis. In a memo to “Evacuees on Seasonal Leave” dated August 27, 1943 the WRA announced this policy provided the evacuee had a bona fide offer of continuing employment and the person had proven himself. The other condition was the release would not cause unemployment where he was relocated and not cause a housing problem.
With the promise of indefinite leave, some of the Japanese American farm workers returned to the farmers and agricultural firms who had initially hired them as seasonal workers. But now they did not have to return to the internment camps.
As time progressed more and more Japanese Americans were released from internment camps on indefinite leave. Many worked in agriculture, but many others entered other lines of work. The two articles from The Seattle Daily Times about two years apart show this progression.
Figure 6. Article on the left from The Seattle Daily Times, December 18, 1942. The article on the right from the same paper is from September 8, 1944
One of the largest employers of Japanese Americans on indefinite leave was Seabrook Farms of New Jersey. During World War II Seabrook Farms packaged frozen foods (including the Birdseye brand) and was a major supplier for the military. During the 1940s Seabrook produced 1/5th of the nation’s vegetables. They farmed sixty square miles of rich farmland in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Forbes magazine described Seabrook as the “Henry Ford of agriculture”
However, during World War II Seabrook faced a MAJOR labor shortage. According to the Densho Encyclopedia:
Seabrook tried various measures to alleviate the labor shortage, hiring immigrants, women, students, disabled veterans, and persons deferred from the draft. The Farms even hired Jamaican workers and drew upon migrant workers: blacks from Florida and whites from West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas.
By 1944, Japanese Americans from West Coast concentration camps began to arrive for farm work as Seabrook’s labor needs coincided with the WRA’s mandate to “relocate” Japanese Americans. Throughout 1944, Seabrook officials brought in trial groups from the camps, sent recruiters to the camps, advertised for workers in camp newspapers, and placed favorable articles about Japanese Americans in local papers to calm the fears of residents about the arrival of a formerly incarcerated population. By August 1944, there were almost 300 Japanese Americans at Seabrook; 831 in December 1944 and by 1946 there was an average of 2,500 residents.
In an article in the Manzanar Free Press (the newspaper at the Manzanar Internment Camp in California) dated October 16, 1944 the benefits of working for Seabrook were listed. They included:
- Free transportation to workers who complete three months service
- Meal allowance while traveling $1.75 per day per person
- Apartments are now brick construction never before lived in. All utilities are free, including light, heat and water.
- All furniture is new – never used before
- Garden space is allotted
- No Age Limit – If you are able to work you are not too old.
- Free mid-shift lunches for workers.
- Movie admittance 10 cents.
- Community Acceptance – Six Japanese American boys on the Bridgeton football squad.
- Music while you work.
- No English language needed.
- Year around employment.
- After one year workers receive life insurance and hospital benefits.
Where do I sign up? Sure beats living in an internment camp.
Figure 7. An indefinite leave identification card.
Reactions to Japanese American Farm Workers
While farmers and agribusiness needed the Japanese American farm workers, were they really accepted into the community.? The Seabrook advertisement said there was community acceptance. Was that true? Next week we will explore that question.
TO BE CONTINUED……
References
Rasmussen, Wayne (1951). A History of the Emergency Farm Labor Supply Program, 1943-1947. Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture.
Seabrook Farms, Densho Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Seabrook%20Farms/
Student Leave, Densho Digital Repository, https://ddr.densho.org/browse/topics/102/