Changing Land Occupance Patterns and Ethnicity of a Japanese-American Rural Community

A Case Study in Livingston, California

Abstract

Although a considerable quantity of literature from various disciplines of the social sciences and humanities has focused on the role and characteristics of Japanese immigrant farmers in American agriculture and rural society, rather few studies have contributed to understanding of land occupance patterns of this ethnic group from the viewpoint of cultural or settlement geography. This paper is an inquiry into changing ethnicity shown in the land occupance patterns of Japanese immigrant farmers and their descendants based upon cultural geographic considerations, through a case study of a Japanese-American community in the Livingston area, California. The vicinity of Livingston, an incorporated town in the northern San Joaquin Valley, has long been an area of active Japanese colonization, known as the site of Yamato and Cressey Colonies, from the beginning of this century. The author made a field survey from February to May, 1984, observing farmhouse forms, farmstead layouts, field patterns, and entire spatial layouts including community buildings, roads, and canals, as well as interviewing farm operators and their family members.
In this Japanese settled area, we can recognize four different stages of land occupance pattern development; I: pioneer era (1906-1914), II: first establishment and prosperity by the first generation (1915-1941), III: abrupt dislocation during wartime (1942-1945), IV: reestablishment and prosperity by the second generation (1946-present).
The first stage was the period when the settlers had to adapt to the environment to survive; small and rough farmhouses, few farm buildings on the farmstead, emergency truck farming as the main source of income, and no community buildings. These situations corresponded to the unstable economy at the pioneering stage and the immature society, the majority of whose members were single men. Through this period community organizations had not been fully established, but were on their way to development under the ethnic background.
During the second stage the community reached the first establishment and prosperity by the work of the first generation (Issei); the new colonial style farmhouses were built, a definite farmstead style with barn, tankhouse, and Japanese-style bathhouse was developed, vines and other fruit trees matured, community buildings such as the Colony Hall and church were constructed, and roads and canals were expanded. The society attained full growth by an increase in the number of members with families under the developed economy. Ethnic cooperation was highly developed through this period; social, religious, and cooperative agricultural associations were organized.
The third stage was the wartime when settlers of Japanese ancestry were evacuated from the region and most of their farms were managed by a trustee organization.
The fourth stage is the period when the community was rebuilt after World War II and reattained prosperity in the hands of the second generation (Nisei); houses were reconstructed or remodelled in modern styles, new farm buldings such as large equipment sheds or crop storage buildings constructed, farm size was enlarged and field units of individual farms were dispersed spatially and became larger in number. The church was rebuilt, large cooperative facilities such as packing sheds or crop storage buildings were newly constructed. Through this period the agricultural economy of the community has been enlarged and the Nisei family society has grown up. The community organizations have strengthened their economic character, and their ethnic background has been retreating gradually; an increasing number of non-Japanese members have come to live in the community and join the cooperative farmers' association.
Through these four stages, the Japanese-Americans in the community have principally possessed strong ethnic affiliation on the basis of their residential propinquity in a small area.