Nikkei in the Pacific Northwest: Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians in the Twentieth Century

3. Becoming "Local" Japanese: Iseei Adaptive Strategies on the Yakama Indian Reservation, 1906-1923

3 I BECOMING "LOCAL" JAPANESE Issei Adaptive Strategies on the Yakama Indian Reservation, 1906-1923 GAIL M. NOMURA In 1932,.in the midst ofthe Great Depression, the Yakima Valley Japanese American community in the state of Washington planted seventy-four flowering cherrytrees in theJapanese sectionofTahoma Cemetery, a public cemeteryadministered bythe cityofYakima. The establishmentofa Japanese public cemetery had been the first collective ethnicactivity for Yakima Valley Japanese immigrants, the Issei (first generation). In 1903 they had bought three blocks of land in the Yakima city-administered Tahoma Cemetery to establish this Japanese public cemetery. By1904 eight of their compatriots were buried there. The Japanese graves marked the permanent presence of Japanese in the Yakima Valley and the commitment of those who immigrated to remain in the valley until their death.l The flowering of the cherry trees at the cemetery each spring symbolized the stunning "appearance" of the Yakima Valley Japanese American ethnic community. In their community history written in 1935, the Issei declared, "Year after year, when spring comes to Tahoma Cemetery, cherry blossoms, the symbol ofthe Japanese spirit, bloom in profusion and glorycovering the tombstones ofour deceased compatriots. It is at such times that our hardworking compatriots in the Yakima Valley are reminded anew of their great mission , impressedbythe importanceoftheir responsibilities, and inspired with hundredfold courage to strive for the prosperity of the people."2 This essay examines the adaptive strategies and political mobilization of this JapaneseAmerican communitycenteringon the Yakama3 Indian Reservation in central Washington in the period from when the first leases were issued in 1906 to Japanese immigrants to 1923, when the Department ofthe Interior more stringently restricted their leasing rights. Racialized discrimination and exclusionist pressuresto restrict Japanese immigranteconomic BECOMING "LOCAL" JAPANESE 45 livelihood led to the formation of ethnic identity and organized action to protectand promote their collectiveinterests. I analyze the rhetoric ofwhite exclusionistswho, in ignoringthe Native Yakamarights to control theirown land, asserted their white privileges as "Americans" to farm Yakama reservation land. They campaigned to exclude Japanese immigrants from farming on these same reservation lands on the basis that the Issei could never become "American" and posed a threat to the nation as colonists who represented the vanguard of Japanese imperialist expansion to U.S. soil. This study argues that the Issei were not merely passive victims of this widespread West Coast anti-Japanese exclusion movement, but rather were proactive in asserting their rights and perspectives. Issei leaders analyzed the exclusionists' racist accusations and devised strategies and measures to counter these allegations while deploying their own discourse for inclusion into "America" and, in this study, the YakimaValley. Barred from legal naturalization, the Japanese "naturalized" themselves into the Yakima Valley community as "local" Japanese, cultivating an ultimately tenuous but widespread communitysupportfor their continued presence in theYakima Valley. Settlement on the Yakama Indian Reservation The Yakima Valley was created by the flow of a river through the million acres of land in what is now central Washington State. Despite the rich lakebed soil, theYakimaValley's six to nine inches ofannual rainfall is inadequate for agriculture. However, by the closing of the nineteenth century, large-scale irrigation projects helped to realize the rich agricultural potential of the fertile but rain-poor land.4 The irrigated Yakima Valley became the "fruit bowl" of Washington, producing apples, peaches, pears, cherries , and grapes, as well as potatoes, onions, hay, hops, sugar beets, and asparagus. One ofthe major croplands in the Yakima Valley lay within the borders ofthe Yakarna Indian Reservation. Established by theYakamaTreatyof1855 between the confederated tribes and bands of the Yakama Nation and the United States, the Yakama Reservation encompassed 1,200,000 acres of land. In 1920 there were almost three thousand Yakarna living on the reservation . In the early twentieth century, the federal government encouraged the leasing of reservation lands at low cost in exchange for improvements to the land which would revert back to the Yakama allottee. In addition, federal landwas exempted from countytaxes, and Yakama Indian allotments GAIL M. NOMURA were guaranteed a certain amount of water. The superintendent of the Yakama Indian Agency handled the leasing of most of the Yakama allotments , and a few Yakama, approved by the agency to be "competent" to manage their own affairs, were allowed to farm or lease their own lands. The U.S. Department of Interior's Office of Indian Affairs issued regulations and approved leases.' Besides the Yakama Indians and whites, Japanese farmed on the...