Hiro Takaoka

Kyoto, Japan

Angel Island- 1924

Historian - Mat Hurdis

            A Japanese man had two main things he could do for a job once he got there: Become a farmer or migrant farm worker or become a railroad worker in the northern pacific coast, but before that was the trip.  The trip over for most Japanese immigrants was a three-week journey in the always-cramped steerage class, which was the lowest class for ticketed passengers, which was not a Titanic vessel.  The trip was not the premier experience for most passengers trying to immigrate to America most were either a migrant worker or a Picture bride, which was a system that allowed family members of immigrants the ability to immigrate.  Workers had little money to immigrate so they were normally immigrated in steerage class for they were coming over to make money and tried to save as mush as possible, especial if were a farmer coming to by land, and due to the fact that prices were very expensive for most families.  Farmers trying to escape the intense work that went with Japanese farming went through a system in California to get land to farm, but in Hawaii most went from farm to farm as migrant farm workers.  These workers were in search of work to do and in Hawaii there was plenty for them to do, although there was plenty at times being a migrant farm worker had nothing to do and no money for bills, so some workers opted out and started their own farms.  While other workers went into railroading due to the deficit of new and strong railroad worker, since the Chinese could hardly get any immigrants into America, these workers would go up into the places were not many went before and built the transcontinental railroad, and other long railroads.  Of course all of these jobs are very hard and if you looked at it now did not pay much, it help them survive and bring over the rest of their family from the expanding power that was Japan.

            The trip over to America was one of horrible stench and cramped conditions down in the bottom of the ship’s passenger area.  Immigration was a hard and rough road plagued with bumps and acts that put pressure on immigrants.  First was the necessary amount of money was huge to most immigrants and of those people they had to band together in their family or village in order to get enough money to get to America.  Once you got onboard you did not have a good trip, one night you might get beaten and no one would care except your family.  Although immigrants dreamt of San Francisco they usually went to other ports on the pacific coast to control the flood of immigrants to America.  But after the gentleman’s agreement mostly, almost all the immigrants were returning workers and picture brides.  If you went to Ellis Island you would be out in day’s weeks at the most, but on Angel Island they would be there for weeks or moths at a time.

         Most of the worker immigrants were already set on the easier farming in America; most of them went into migrant farm work and quickly raised enough money to buy their own plot of land.  In order to have land that one could own they could do one of four ways:  Contract, share, lease, and ownership.[1]  Contract and share programs both gave one the bare essentials, seed, tools, wood, and normally a mule.[2]  In Lease and ownership one had to buy whatever one wanted including seed, tools, wood, and a farming plow (mule).[3]  Japanese farmers were very productive and fast, one fact is that from 1900 to 1920 Japanese land control increased 9750%.[4]  Another testament to this is when Kinji Ushijima turned swampland and semi deserts into a half a million dollars potato farm.[5]  Although the men were tough and worked very hard, the women had it worst off because they had to do double duty, both out on the farm and inside the house.

  “Yoshiko Ueda said: ‘I got up at 4:30 AM and after preparing breakfast I went to the fields.  I went with my husband to do jobs such as picking potatoes and sacking onions.  Since I worked apace with ruffians I was tired out and limp as a rag and when I went to the toilet I couldn’t stoop down.  Coming back from the fields, the first thin I had to do was start the fire [to cook diner].’  Ueda worked so hard she became extremely thin.  ‘At one time I got down to 85 pounds, though my normal weight had been 150.”[6]

Women had the hardest life always bending down to clean the house or to pick up crops, weeds, or wood.  Women were always complaining about the work that they had to do, and it was torture, most women that lasted to the old age had problems both bending down and standing up straight.