From the 1890s through the 1920s, Japanese migrant workers came to the Santa Clara Valley for seasonal work in fields and orchards as Chinese farm labor declined after the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, and by the turn of the century single Nikkei men had established a small Nihonmachi beside San Jose’s Chinatown around Fifth and Jackson Streets with boarding houses, bathhouses, pool halls, and gambling establishments serving a bachelor society. As Japanese women arrived in the early 1900s and families grew, the community expanded to serve Issei and Nisei, while Nikkei farmers made important contributions to the Valley’s agriculture despite California’s Alien Land Laws of 1913 and 1920, which barred Issei from buying or renting land and forced many families to work mainly as tenants or sharecroppers. By 1930 Nihonmachi had become a family-centered, self-sufficient community with stores, a soda works, medical offices, a hospital, a service station, a saké brewery, churches, a community hall, and athletic events such as sumó wrestling and baseball, while Filipinos and Italians also joined the neighborhood; at the same time, discrimination remained severe, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Issei naturalization, and the 1924 Exclusion Act barred further Japanese immigration. After Pearl Harbor, anti-Japanese sentiment intensified, and on February 19, 1942, Executive Order 9066 led to the forced removal of more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast into ten concentration camps from 1942 to 1945, with most Santa Clara Valley Nikkei sent to Heart Mountain in Wyoming; during their confinement, others took over farm labor, land, and homes, and local governments in San Jose, Morgan Hill, and Santa Clara County passed resolutions in May 1943 opposing their return. Even so, after the war many Nikkei returned, though often having lost land and property, and through their perseverance San Jose’s Nihonmachi again became the center of Japanese culture in the Valley, with festivals and organizations renewed by Nisei and Sansei, and in the 1980s Congress and local governments publicly expressed regret for their roles in the injustices of World War II while efforts began to restore recognition and vitality to Nihonmachi.
