In last week’s Friday Footnote we learned that Japanese Americans who were placed in internment camps during World War II were released for “seasonal leave” to work on farms and in other agricultural pursuits because of the labor shortage. While farmers and agribusiness needed the Japanese American farm workers, the question is were they welcomed into the farming communities? In this Footnote we explore how the Japanese American farm workers were received.
Not in My Neck of the Woods
In Delaware in 1944 about 100 farmers were against bringing in Japanese American farm workers because they would be “a menace to our wives and children.” (See Figure 1). There was no explanation as to why they would be a menace.
Figure 1. The Long Beach Sun (California), March 6, 1944.
The Salt Lake Tribune described a situation when three Japanese farm workers who were dining in a Provo café were attacked by a group of white youths. As a result of the altercation, the police have pledged full protections for the Japanese Americans in the county. The article further stated there was a serious labor shortage and if the Japanese workers were not protected, they would leave and not be replaced leaving farmers without needed help (See Figure 2).
Figure 2. The Salt Lake Tribune. June 6, 1944
Even some newspaper editorials were designed to provoke angst about the Japanese workers. The Livingston County Daily Press and Argus (Howell, Michigan) contained the following in a February 3, 1943 editorial (page 10):
Farmers have made it evident that they need experienced help and that Japanese nationals or who have you, are of little use unless they understand operation of farm machinery and are capable of hard work. You can show a man how to shift gears and steer a tractor within a few minutes, and to a Washington bureaucrat that may be a complete course in machine farming. However, the uninstructed worker on the farm is often more of a handicap than an asset as under the burden of getting things accomplished in the available time there is little opportunity to teach the amateurs.
Apparently, the editorial writer did not realize many of the Japanese were experienced farmers. The insinuation that the Japanese were not hard workers was evidence that the editorial writer had never been engaged in sugar beet work or strawberry production which was the epitome of “stoop” labor. Some of the other disparaging quotes in the editorial were:
- The Japanese even in peacetime have long been unpopular on the Pacific coast and have definitely lowered American standards of living…
- Bringing outside workers to Michigan to assist in sugar beet production has raised many problems in some communities…
- Any infiltration of even those Japanese presumed to be safe persons can be dangerous here, let alone social relation problems. These people would be unhappy in any area where they would constantly be regarded with suspicion and doubtless the percentage of them that could make a real contribution to farm production would be negligible.
The Governor of Oregon, Charles Sprague, sent a telegraph message to President Roosevelt on October 16, 1942 stating that “Japanese evacuees, now in Pacific coast war relocation camps should be compelled to work or be told they will be deported after the war.” Wow! The Japanese must be FORCED to work or be DEPORTED. Since most of the Japanese were American citizens and were born in America I wonder where Governor Sprague would deport them? The gist of Sprague’s message to Roosevelt was published in the Statesman Journal of Salem, Oregon on October 17. 1942.
Some of the other statements made by Sprague were:
More than 200,000 tons of sugar beets in eastern Oregon and western Idaho will be lost unless additional help can be secured during the next four weeks. In the meantime the greatest pool of labor in all the west exists within a day’s ride of where the labor is required.
This labor is to be found in the war relocation camps for Japanese evacuees from which efforts to obtain voluntary recruitment have been a dismal failure. According to information give me today only 6,000 of the 15,000 Japanese at Tule Lake pretend to do any work. About 9,000 live in absolute idleness and grouse about the food and treatment accorded by the Government.
The agriculture officials at Tule Lake responded to Governor Sprague two days later and sent a copy of their letter to President Roosevelt. They said there were actually 14,472 Japanese at the Tule Lake Internment Camp. Of these:
- 9,412 were under 18 years of age
- 1,060 were over the age of 60
- 800 were employed on the 2,500 acre Tule Lake farm and were growing food for five other internment camps
- 500 were employed in constructing barracks at the camp
- 400 were janitors and garbage collectors
- 800 were working in transportation and warehousing
- 350 were cooks and kitchen workers
- 410 were firemen, internal security and civic workers
- 100 were employed in the camp hospital
- 600 were employed in miscellaneous jobs in the camp
The Governor’s claim that 9.000 Japanese lived in ”absolute idleness” was shown to be “political misinformation.” The three authors of the rebuttal letter continued “Since when has it become the policy of these United States to FORCE any person or group or persons to work? We understand that forced labor is an AXIS principle, not a DEMOCRATIC principle.” The letter can be viewed at https://downloads.densho.org/ddr-densho-423/ddr-densho-423-156-mezzanine-ed788956c5.pdf.
In New Jersey, Edward Kowalick faced “antagonism” from his neighbors for employing Japanese Americans on his farm. Because of the tension, he had to let the five evacuee farm workers go. Who stepped in to fill the void – local high school students recruited by the vocational agriculture teacher. See Figure 3.
Figure 3. The Central New Jersey Home News (New Brunswick), April 23, 1944
However, not all Americans were against the Japanese American workers. The New Jersey situation mentioned above raised the ire and bile of numerous citizens. A letter to the editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer called the actions of the New Jersey farmers opposed to the Japanese farm workers “frightening and disgusting.” The letter concluded with the statement that “…food is plowed under and a crop of bigotry is reaped.” See the entire letter below in Figure 4.
Figure 4. The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 18, 1944.
Well, Perhaps
The situation in Marengo, Illinois made national news in 1943. The Curtiss Candy Company of Chicago owned 4,000 acres near Marengo, Illinois (60 miles northwest of Chicago). On this land they planned on maintaining a beef cattle herd of 1,000 animals, to raise 10,000 hogs and 50,000 chickens per year. They also planned to have 120 acres in potatoes and an additional 110 acres devoted to truck crops.
Because of the labor shortage, the company had brought in three Japanese workers in mid-April of 1943. The three workers had been vetted by the FBI and their activities before internment and after internment had been thoroughly checked. An official with the War Relocation Authority stated, “These boys are American citizens, they are University of California boys, excellent farmers and we selected them for the Curtiss job because they were the three best farmers in their camp.”
The Curtiss Candy Company had plans to bring in 13 more Japanese American workers. According to the Belvidere Daily Republican (April 27,1943) these 13 men were heading to Marengo and were bringing their own farm equipment. See Figure 5.
Figure 5. Belvidere (IL) Daily Republican. April 27, 1943.
According to an article in the Marengo Beacon/Republic-News (April 29, 1943):
These 16 Japanese-Americans are college graduates, trained along agricultural lines. They are all Christians. They are loyal Americans and are so certified by the F.B. I. One of the men is one of 11 brothers and sisters and five brothers are in the U.S. Army.
However, the locals were outraged because they had not been consulted about this decision. Because of the outrage in Marengo, the three Japanese Americans were removed after working on the farm for about a week and were assigned other duties in the company headquarters in Chicago.
On April 27, 1943 representatives from the Curtiss Candy company attended a meeting of the Marengo Kiwanis club and explained the situation. The Kiwanis Club went on record unanimously in favor of allowing the company to employ Japanese Americans on their farms. Part of the motion that was passed stated “all citizens of this country are entitled to the privileges of citizenship without respect to color, creed or antecedents.”
On the same day of the Kiwanis Club meeting, the pastors of the five Protestant churches in Marengo met and issued a statement. Some of the items in the statement read (Marengo Beacon/Republican-News, April 29, 1943):
Marengo has become the scene of an unfortunate incident which is of intense concern to us, both as American citizens and as Christian ministers. We regret the false reputation given our community in a portion of the press…We regard them [Japanese Americans] as citizens of our country who, under the Constitution, have the same rights granted all other citizens. We know that they are descendents of immigrants from a country with which we are now at war. Millions of our best citizens are immigrants or children of immigrants from countries now our enemies. The people involved in this incident are not aliens or enemies, themselves. They are American citizens, loyal to this country. This relocation program is part of a federal program, and to oppose it is questionable patriotism.
On April 30 the Curtiss Candy Company made a decision to not employ Japanese Americans on the Marengo farm until “public opinion indicates that the presence of these United States Citizens is acceptable.”
The Marengo City Council decided to hold a community meeting to discuss the issue. The meeting, held on May 4, 1943 had to be moved from the town hall to the community building to accommodate the crowd. A representative of the candy company and an official from the War Relocation Authority spoke. A laundry owner said the Japanese had a right to work there but he wished they would find work in Arkansas or Idaho.
The farm superintendent for Curtiss said that food production would be curtailed without the Japanese. He asserted the company had been unable to hire anyone else.
After several hours of debate the citizens of Marengo voted 62 to 21 in favor of letting the Curtiss Candy Company hire the Japanese workers. (See Figure 6)
Figure 6. Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1943
Sure, Why Not?
On the opposite end of the spectrum we find accolades, especially from the farmers and companies who used the labor of the Japanese Americans. An article in The Springfield (Massachusetts) Union published on April 13, 1945 contained an interview with Charles McCallister, a WRA representative. Charles found only one farmer objected to using Japanese farm workers. McAllister reported that “The Japs concerned are loyal American citizens, have complete freedom, and have caused no complaints in their work in New England, where 450 are now employed.”
The Sugar Beet, a quarterly publication of The Amalgamated Sugar Company of Ogden, Utah in their December 1942 issue stated (on the front page see Figure 7):
The American citizens of Japanese ancestry who might have stayed in the relocation camps at leisure and at tax-payers’s expense voluntarily saved a substantial part of the crop that now flows in an unbroken stream of sugar from our warehouses to the men of the Army and Navy, to most of our states and for Land-Lease aid to our allies.
Later in this issue of The Sugar Beet we find six pages of text and pictures about the Japanese American workers. The title of the article is “Sugar Beets Have Been the Way Out for Thousands of Japanese Evacuees,” Some of the statements in the article were:
Because of uncertainty as to the attitudes of communities toward the evacuees and the fear of local unpleasant incidents, local and state officials were at first reluctant to support the program. But as the need for help became acute and the attitude of the evacuees and local communities became mutually adjusted to the situation, acceptance of the Japanese has become general throughout Amalgamated territory.
Many evacuees who accepted “trial contracts” of thirty days, or more, later sent for their families to join them for the duration or plan to return to the same communities with their families next spring.
Figure 7. Front Page of The Sugar Beet, December 1942
Concluding Remarks
The information and articles featured in this Footnotes are samples of many more that could be referenced for this Footnote.
The seasonal leave program continued through 1944. When the Japanese were allowed to leave the internment camps at the end of the war, many moved to the areas where they had worked as seasonal laborers to establish new lives. After initial reluctance to employ the Japanese Americans, the resistance typically softened over time.
Rasmussen wrote (1951, p. 105):
The program had two major results: the Japanese and Americans of Japanese descent made a major contribution to agriculture, particularly to the production of sugar beets and other crops requiring much hand labor, and the demonstrated loyalty of this group, combined with the educational efforts of several agencies, won acceptance for the evacuees in the areas in which they worked.
As I wrote this Footnote, several thoughts kept coming to mind. One thought had to do with the admonition of the FFA President at the conclusion of a FFA chapter meeting. The FFA president states:
As we mingle with others, let us be diligent in labor, just in our dealings, courteous to everyone, and, above all, honest and fair in the game of life. Fellow members and guests, join me in a salute to our flag.
The FFA President doesn’t say be courteous to those who look like me or think like me. The FFA President says to be courteous to everyone. It might not hurt to examine our agricultural education programs to make sure all students are welcome.
References
Rasmussen, Wayne (1951). A History of the Emergency Farm Labor Supply Program, 1943-1947. Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture.