Hole In The Wall

カリフォルニア州サンノゼ在のソフトウェアエンジニア。

サンノゼ日系移民と苺。

今年はサンノゼジャパンタウン、125周年なんだそう。NPRで知る。

聴いていておやっと思ったのがこのくだり。

Many of the American-born nisei, like Jimi Yamaichi, wanted out of farming. But younger children followed their parents onto new fields, raising labor-intensive crops they could produce on small plots of land.

Leon Kimura was one of those children, back in the 1950s. “I picked 10 crates of strawberries to get money to buy my first Timex watch,” he says.

And where did Kimura go to get the watch?

“I came to here to Japantown to Jackson Jewelers [now defunct],” Kimura says. “There always was a feeling that this was home for the JA community.”

Eventually, as the rise of Silicon Valley made land more expensive, the strawberry industry moved south to Watsonville and Salinas. The flower business moved overseas.

 第2次大戦後、収容所から戻った日系二世たちが猫の額ほどの土地で始めたのが手のかかるイチゴ栽培。これがその後サンノゼ地価上昇のため今でもイチゴ農園が主要産業なWatsonvilleなどに移ったんだそう。

これからの季節、WatsonvilleのGizdichとか、イチゴ狩りが真っ盛りになるけれど、その影に戦後の日系移民の尽力があったことを誇りに思う。