Farming the Water: Japanese Oyster Laborers in Washington State and the Creation of a Trans-Pacific Industry

Kathleen Fry

Japanese immigrants labored on Washington's oyster beds in the first four decades of the twentieth century, a time when the industry solidified and yet faced serious threats to its survival. When America entered World War II, six out of the eight largest oyster operations in the entire state employed Issei and Nisei nearly exclusively. While some Japanese immigrants acted as industrial workers, others were independent producers, owning and operating their own oyster lands and canneries, though doing so meant they had to skirt restrictive anti-alien land acts and confront racial antagonisms emanating from the larger community. More importantly, it was through the work of Japanese immigrants in the early 1920s that the oyster industry was saved after years of over-exploitation on the tidelands resulted in the near removal of the natural resource. After systematically testing the oyster beds along Washington's coast and comparing the results against what they knew to be the ideal conditions in the oyster beds of their home prefecture, two Issei laborers determined that they could successfully propagate Japanese oysters in the state's waters. Japanese immigrants, then, were more than merely wage-earners; they transplanted not just their bodies and physical energy but their specialized knowledge to Washington's oyster industry. The subsequent planting of the non-native oysters sparked a debate regarding the scientific wisdom of placing a potentially dangerous species into Washington's waters. Significantly, that discussion took on a distinctly eco-racist tone as detractors labeled the seed oysters a "new Japanese immigration peril" and claimed their profound fertility would choke out the natives. In spite of the opposition, the Japanese oyster thrived in Washington's waters and its introduction revived the failing industry. Thus European American oyster growers found themselves dependent on a new intra-Pacific business with Japanese seed exporters, while Japanese oyster growers in the state became pivotal mediators in facilitating that trade. This project reveals how race and immigration, environmental concerns, and labor and global politics converged on the shores of the western Washington communities that harvested and marketed oysters.

Farming the Water: Japanese Oyster Laborers in Washington State and the Creation of a Trans-Pacific Industry

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