“Life Lessons from the Farm”
I was blessed to attend the JANM (Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles) event held at Tanaka Farms, Irvine last month. JANM was celebrating the 30+ years of the museum and their continuing mission to share Japanese American history coast-to-coast, and worldwide. Thanks to the generosity of Glenn and Shirley Tanaka, it was hosted on a lovely summer evening at the farm’s event center with a spectacular sunset view over the hills of Irvine. This is not the typical farm that I grew up on. Tanaka Farms has grown great produce, educated hundreds of classroom tours, celebrated milestones at their event center, and been a great agricultural learning lab for this once farming, but now very urban community. A special treat was being able to pick the most delicious blackberries ever and sip on sake as we enjoyed the view.
And in true Japanese American farmer tradition, Glenn gave us each a canary melon as “omiyage,” a gift! It was so delicious and sweeter still the memories of our farming traditions. I was reminded of my childhood when we would pack up flats of the best strawberries, bag up the freshest and straightest green beans, parcel out bag fulls of navel oranges with a few lemons and avocados on top for our friends. Then the delivery would begin after dinner, one house after another as our seasonal visit and gift of produce and friendship. It was like my dad’s “hobby” as even when he retired, he grew vegetables and Japanese varieties in the backyard to share!
Life Lesson: Give of what you have and share. We never showed up at friends empty handed.
I’ve known Glenn Tanaka for decades as we went to Garden Grove Japanese School on Saturday mornings, 9am - noon, September through May, grades 1-6 when we were kids.
Some might think “Wow, how studious they were to go to school 5 days a week and then a half day of Japanese language instruction on Saturday morning!” Maybe that is true for some, but the truth is closer that farming family kids didn’t have to go to work on the farm until after lunch on Saturdays! I have to admit that the 6 years of Japanese School helped me get easy As in college Japanese language classes and gives me a distinct advantage doing my daily Japanese practice on Duolingo. But even more, our parents were committed that we would learn some basic Japanese language, even if that meant that the kids were missing from the Saturday morning work crew.
This is the same Garden Grove Japanese language school that my dad and his siblings attended as children in the 1930s. My grandfather was one of the officers of this humble wood building that had 2 entrances with 6 separate rooms, one for each grade. It was located on Sherman Street, near Main Street, Garden Grove (just across the street from the current Costco), on land once owned by a Japanese family. This is also the area where a family built a tofu factory before WWII. My grandfather’s role with the Japanese School became one of the reasons that he was seen as a “community leader” and arrested by the FBI on May 14, 1942. He would end up in a Department of Justice facility in Santa Fe and Lordsburg, NM for over 3 years as a WWII P.O.W. on American soil.
Life Lesson: Instilling the Japanese family heritage and language into the next generation was important; important enough to give us Saturday mornings off.
A family friend and I were talking about our childhoods and realized that working 7 days a week was normal. Although this was normal as children, our Sansei generation is the first to mostly leave that lifestyle behind. This is a frequent immigrant story - doing whatever it takes to get work, establish a stable household, and provide for your family 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Summer also meant that as farm kids, we worked most of 7 days a week, and after school during the school year. I got reprieves by going to First Baptist Church every Sunday all year long for Children’s Sunday school. Yep, more school!
Our summer family vacation was a few days between ending strawberry season and the start of picking green beans or squash. It’s amazing how far you could get from Southern California in 3-4 days driving in the station wagon, with an ice chest full of sandwiches, fruit, and sodas. We could go as far as you could drive in 2 days, sightsee, and 2 days coming home. Staying in motels was an adventure, saving the packaged soaps and shampoos. Despite the shortage of time, our family vacations included the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, San Francisco. There must have been a few years where we got more like 5 days to get to Lassen CA where the strawberry plant cuttings came from, and Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks in Utah. It wasn’t until my high school graduation, after we ended strawberry farming, that our family actually took a full week’s summer vacation before I started college. That might have been the first time my dad had a full week off ever.
Life Lesson: The more you work 7 days/week, the more you appreciate and are grateful for a few days OFF! When I hear people complaining about working Monday-Friday, I can’t help but think they’d never make it on a farm.
Even though decades have passed, our Japanese American farming family ties still exist. Most of us don’t farm any longer, but when we meet up, we talk about the history we have in common. My Issei grandpa Seima and his long time friend Roy both came to California from Kochi, Japan in 1917 and farmed their whole lives. I’ll always remember Grandpa Roy bringing us 3 CRATES of celery (I think it was 24 packed - 72 heads of celery! ) right before Thanksgiving each year. Then because we couldn’t use all that celery, we’d passed his celery to all our friends! And now, as Sansei, I’m friends with his oldest granddaughter and we talk about old farm stories and remembrances of our grandfathers and dads who were also close lifelong friends.
Farmer Glenn Tanaka, Phyllis, and I…Many decades of family
Farmer friendships and history right here!
Before 1940, Japanese American farmers produced an estimated 33%-40% of all vegetables grown in California, including the majority of the tomatoes, celery, strawberries and peppers. This is often cited as the economic reason for the WWII incarceration as other farmers’ jealousy and greed grew. Our Japanese American agriculture history is a big part of US agricultural history, stories not to be lost. Glenn Tanaka also started collecting these Japanese American family farm stories as his “Walk the Farm” tribute to our early immigrant farming families. It’s a great reminder of our significant Japanese American history and the legacy of our Issei and Nisei generations!
Key Life Lessons: Give of what you have; Share the Japanese heritage and history proudly; Be grateful for work and days off; Community and Friendships are priceless!
Visit https://tanakafarms.com for information on visits, tours, and special events!
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