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2. Maeda’s Place
- University of Washington Press
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2 Maeda’s Place OUR MIGRATORY LIFE ENDED WHEN WE MOVED back to Livingston in 1935. Papa found a place owned by a Japanese farmer named Yoshitaro Maeda. The property was part of the Yamato Colony; established in 1906, it is the only planned Japanese settlement in U.S. history. The Yamato Colony comprised a series of farms on three thousand acres located on the northeastern boundary of Livingston.There,early Japanese settlers built canals that converted arid desert land into productive agricultural property .Maeda was in the first group of these Japanese farmer-colonists, and his property, one of the largest, was in the middle of the colony. Today,descendants of these Japanese pioneers continue to tend their neat rectangular plots of grape, almond, and peach orchards. We lived on the original Maeda homestead, which consisted of a two-bedroom house, a tank house, several outbuildings, and a forbidding grove of tall eucalyptus trees.The property was located about two miles from Livingston and was connected to the main road by about five hundred feet of dirt road. It was ideal for our family and the ever growing extended family of Filipino farm laborers . A long room in the main house became the new mess hall.The tank house was a three-level structure topped by a windmill that provided the power to pump our drinking water. Two of its levels served as living space for the men, and the third level contained a large water tank. (Herb and I occasionally swam in the tank, too young to realize the dangers of swimming alone or of contaminating the drinking water.) The outbuildings were readily adapted for a bunkhouse and a community bath. Perhaps just as impor- tant, there was plenty of room for the gamecocks, a standard part of our entourage. The location was also perfect for Papa’s labor-contracting business .During our previous stay in the area,Papa made a good impression on area farmers and growers with the quality of workers he was able to supply for their harvests.Maeda’s place offered an ideal base from which to build his contracting business. Papa negotiated an agreement with Maeda: instead of paying rent, he would be responsible for meeting Maeda’s farm-labor needs and maintaining the immediate living area. We would stay at Maeda’s place for eight eventful years. These early years of my life were during the Great Depression, a time when 25 percent of the country was unemployed, banks closed,homes were lost,and food was in scarce supply.To make matters worse, after years of drought, thousands left the Dust Bowl states of Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas to find a better life in California. Disparagingly called “Okies” regardless of their state of origin,these new migrants sought work in the agricultural fields of the Central Valley. Once they arrived, however, they were met by a hostile community that was already competing with Filipinos for scarce jobs. The new migrants faced discriminatory treatment similar to that encountered by Filipinos. They were relegated to the balconies in movie houses, could not eat or sleep in reputable places,and were often chased out of town by local residents. After the passage of the Tydings-McDuffie Act in 1934, which effectively reduced Filipino immigration in ensuing years, the Dust Bowl migrants became the major source of farm labor in the CentralValley.This continued until the Great Depression ended with the onset of World War II. Farm labor in California’s agricultural belt has long been the domain of ethnic minorities; the Okies have the distinction of being the only exception to the rule. Today, these erstwhile Dust Bowl migrants are established as respected citizens in Central Valley communities, while Filipinos, their counterparts during the Great Depression, continue to struggle to assimilate into mainstream America. When I was growing maeda’s place 15 up, I thought, like many Americans, that the Okies’ plight was of their own making.I believed that if people worked hard,as my parents and the manongs did, they would pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. I now know that it is not that simple. Conditions such as those caused by the Dust Bowl and the stock market crash are outside an individual’s control. Perhaps more important, I now know that racism has been a major barrier that continues to block ethnic minorities from participating fully in American life. My experiences during the Great Depression were quite...