Term Paper on "Farming the Home Place"

Term Paper 3 pages (1028 words) Sources: 1 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Farming the Home Place -- Tilling the American Land, Before and After Internment

In 1909, nearly half of the immigrant Japanese population within the United States worked in agriculture. These farmers were often called Issei farmers, a Japanese word that came to specifically designate these first-generation tillers of the soil. (Masumoto, p.23) Learning of this community's tie to the land made the later internment and displacement of Japanese-Americans, which wrenched these farmers not simply from their personal homes, but also from the regional area of the United States that was the source of their community's livelihoods, seem particularly unjust and poignant. Even early on in their life in America, first-generation Japanese farmers faced tremendous discrimination and opposition to their efforts. For example, Sakaguchi Mashu, a "picture bride" and her husband, were forced to continually move so they could make their living tilling the land, because the mandatory, legally enforced tenure of every Asian farmer was only three years, according to the alien land laws designed to limit Japanese farming. (Matsumoto, pp.17; 23) However, even during this early period of legal discrimination, because of the construction of collective agricultural organizations, like the Cortez Growers Association (CGA) the Japanese-American farmers had a sense of community, a sense of community cruelly displaced by internment.

Given the history of tremendous struggle during the pre-internment period, the social and economic damage created by internment was a psychological as well as an economic blow. For example, many "picture brides" initially experienced difficulty making the transition between the more secure community provided in their Japanese homeland. Picture brides went to a foreign land to marry men they had never met, in marriages arranged by their families. Despite the inevitable culture shock, these Japanese farmers were determined to prosper. There was tremendous hostility on the part of large farms and labor unions representing the workers at such farms, against smaller, Japanese farmers. (Matsumoto, p.24) This economic divide became racially coded, and the tensions these bodies felt was vented in explicitly anti-Japanese terms, which led to legal limits upon Japanese immigration and farming that were to foreshadow the later internment efforts. This hatred provides evidence, were further evidence needed, that the executive order permitting the internment of Japanese-Americans was rooted in racial hatred, not national security needs. The War Relocation Authority and Executive Order #9066 creating the camps and allowing the displacement and internment was not merely a terrible fate -- it was an act that specifically declared the civil rights of American citizens null and void, on a federal level, simply because of their place of national origin, despite the contributions these farmers had made to America in the form of agriculture, and the legal obstacles they had already weathered. (Matsumoto, p.93)

The key to the community' survival during the leanest years of early economic development, a time of toil, lean meals of miso soup, and constant anxiety about economic survival was a strong sense of community involvement and common ethnic solidarity in an otherwise hostile land.

The land was harsh in terms of its arid ecology and also in terms of… READ MORE

How to Reference "Farming the Home Place" Term Paper in a Bibliography

Related Term Papers:

Farm Subsidies Thesis

Farm subsidies were introduced in the U.S. In 1933 after years declining agricultural production.

Subsidies were seen as a way of helping out the farmers due to highly unpredictable nature… read more

Thesis 3 pages (937 words) Sources: 10 Style: MLA Topic: Agriculture / Food / Culinary

---

Home Front During WWII America Essay

World War II Home Front

The Home Front

World War II was a conflict which raged across the planet, from Europe to the Pacific, and everywhere in between. Battles were… read more

Essay 5 pages (1676 words) Sources: 4 Topic: World History

---

Benefits of Cooperative Advertising Among Farm Credit Institutions Term Paper

E-Mail Survey Sent to Farm Credit

Systems Institutions

Figure 2 Results from Received Questionnaires

Figure 3 Questionnaire Response Institution #1

Figure 4 Questionnaire Response Institution #2

Figure 5 Questionnaire Response… read more

Term Paper 30 pages (7610 words) Sources: 1+ Topic: Advertising / Marketing / Sales

---

Animal Farm Term Paper

Animal Farm

George Orwell in his novel Animal Farm uses the sort of characters and structure that would be familiar in ancient Greece in the stories of Aesop. Aesop's fables… read more

Term Paper 3 pages (1110 words) Sources: 1 Topic: Literature / Poetry

---

Protecting the Farm Industry Term Paper

Protecting the Farm Industry

This work will examine reasons for protecting the farm industry and will research the history as well as the origin of protectionism in the farm industry.… read more

Term Paper 8 pages (2234 words) Sources: 1+ Topic: Agriculture / Food / Culinary

---

View 100+ more related papers  >>