The Rice Bowl

While his children were struggling with bridging their two worlds, Otoosan was busy working to support his family during the down turn in the economy and still provide for the well being of his mother and Shigeno in Japan. It was only a year after the Black Thursday that signaled the crash of the stock market that the children had returned to.

After World War I, rural America had lost more than 30% of their value, homes foreclosed, factories idle, millions without work, and families in need of basic necessities. Then the Dust Bowls of the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle added more misery to the fading economy. Farms abandoned and Americans from the Midwest started their migration to California seeking to find work or anything to sustain their families. However, the influx of people further exasperated the crumbling job market. Americans against Americans, an ugly scene occurred at the State’s border. California State Representatives alarmed at the ever-increasing migration, issued orders to stop the itinerants at the State border – no Okies or Arkies allowed to enter California’s border. In 1937, California passed the “Anti-Okies Law” forbidding any person, agent, or corporation from providing aid or help to indigent person not a resident to California.

Some moved to the San Joaquin Valley seeking employment as fruit pickers and farm hands. Work was scarce and the farms would exploit children with low wages instead hiring adults. Unlike seasonal workers who moved after harvest, the new crowd remained instead of migrating. They came to this region destitute and because they could not make decent wages, they lived in squalor, in tents, in shantytowns, and anywhere they could rest their weary bones. Out of this misery came John Ste...

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...t raise animals for food. Once a week, an Issei man would stop by with a truck selling fish and tofu set in a bed of crushed ice to keep the food fresh. Often her mother would buy whole mackerels and the family would cook them over coals from burning discarded grape stumps. As soon as the fish began cooking, stray cats appeared from nowhere and watch from a safe distance for a share of the fish scraps. Later, the meat diet changed when her brothers were in high school and joined the 4H club. They raised chickens that became meat and eggs for the family. George was the most adventurous one of the brothers. She watched him as he picked unripe pears, wrap them in paper, and secretly hide them in the barn from others. Still, eyes were watching closely, for the rest knew about his tricks and would check his stash to see if any were ripe enough for them to snitch a few.