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Father created a partnership to grow and ship vegetables

When you don’t own any land, all you can do or the best you can do is to share crop with a landlord and you pay your rent through the crops that you grow. What I can recall was that the sharecropping was with a Swiss family, a Giatanini family in Salinas. They’re Swiss immigrants, but they controlled some of the land. 

Together with about six or seven Issei Japanese, so about nine of them together formed a partnership to go into the farming business to grow and to ship vegetables. My father felt that there was no way that you could prosper at any way or accumulate anything unless you were not only a grower but also a shipper. And so therefore at an early age, that’s why he never finished his education. To grow and ship vegetables.


agriculture farming sharecropping

Date: March 22, 2018

Location: California, US

Interviewer: John Esaki

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Tom Yuki was born on June 29, 1935, in Salinas, California. His father belonged to a farming partnership before World War II and was able to continue the business while incarcerated at Poston, Arizona, with the help of his business partner via telephone and telegram. After returning from Poston, the family moved to Los Gatos, California, and continued with their business. Tom went to the University of Santa Clara and joined the military, assigned to France as a Quartermaster officer. He was working as a contract administrator in a corporation when his father died, leaving Tom to take over the business as managing partner of Yuki Farms. Tom has served as board member to many organizations including his current role for the Japanese American National Museum. (December 2018)

Haruo Kasahara
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Sings traditional plantation labor song (ho-le ho-le bushi) in Japanese and Hawaiian

(b.1900) Issei plantation worker in Hawai'i.

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Wally Kaname Yonamine
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Training for football by carrying 100-lb bags of grass over mountains

(b.1925) Nisei of Okinawan descent. Had a 38-year career in Japan as a baseball player, coach, scout, and manager.

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Wally Kaname Yonamine
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Working in cane fields as teenager to supplement family income

(b.1925) Nisei of Okinawan descent. Had a 38-year career in Japan as a baseball player, coach, scout, and manager.

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Mitsuo Ito
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Daily life in his childhood

(b.1924) Japanese Canadian Nisei. Interpreter for British Army in Japan after WWII. Active in Japanese Canadian community

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Mitsuo Ito
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Sugar-beets farm in Alberta

(b.1924) Japanese Canadian Nisei. Interpreter for British Army in Japan after WWII. Active in Japanese Canadian community

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Alice Sumida
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Learning to do farm labor at a sugar beet farm

(1914-2018) Founder of the largest gladiolus bulb farm in the United States.

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Bill Hashizume
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Father’s success in farm business

(b. 1922) Canadian Nisei who was unable to return to Canada from Japan until 1952

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Bill Hashizume
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Yobiyose system in Canada

(b. 1922) Canadian Nisei who was unable to return to Canada from Japan until 1952

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Francis Y. Sogi
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Starting work at five years old

(1923-2011) Lawyer, MIS veteran, founder of Francis and Sarah Sogi Foundation

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Margaret Oda
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Father's role in starting the Wailea Milling Company

(1925 - 2018) Nisei educator from Hawai‘i

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Shunji Nishimura
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Repaying Brazil by educating the technicians (Japanese)

(1911-2010) Founder of JACTO group

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Shunji Nishimura
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Delivering know-how to the next generation (Japanese)

(1911-2010) Founder of JACTO group

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Emi Kasamatsu
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Nikkei contributions to Paraguayan agriculture (Spanish)

Nisei Paraguayan, Researcher

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Toshio Inahara
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Encouraged to go to college

(b. 1921) Vascular surgeon

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Ryoichi Kodama
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Experiences in the farmlands (Japanese)

Kasato-maru immigrants

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