Category: Asians in Agriculture

Professor Wayne Maeda
Rainjita Geesler
Agricultural contributions scholar

R: Talk about the early Issei farmers and when they first started to come to this country.

The issei farmers were essentially enticed to come to Hawaii, Hawaii plays a major role on a sugar plantation. SO they recruited Japanese from Japan. About 148 or so in 1868. It was still illegal for Japanese to immigrate, but they allowed a small group to come, and it really wasn’t until 1886 that immigration was legal. So immigration begins in 1880’s90’s. Sugar plantation owners are recruiting Japanese from southern part of Japan, so once the word gets out that they can make money in Hawaii that precipitates other Japanese to continue to come to ha and california were the wages were higher. Read more...

Agriculture contributions interview with Isao Fujimoto:
Rainjita geesler

R: Talk about some of the things that contributed to a lot of Japanese owned flower and garden shops in the early 1900’s? Why so many in gardening, and owners of flower shops

1:10- a lot of it’s very strategic. Because what the immigrants faced, especially the immigrants from Japan, were limitations in opportunities, this is because of discriminatory laws. One of the more serious ones like the alien land laws. The alien land laws which were passed in about 17 western states really targeted Asians and at that time the main immigrants from Asia were from china and Japan. Read more...