Early Japanese families like the Nakashima farmed nearby. They were well liked and greatly respected. They logged, they farmed, and they created families. More than 300 Japanese helped settle Snohomish and Skagit Counties before World War I. Like most
everyone else, they were from someplace else. In 1924 the Asian Exclusion Act (repealed in 1952) banned immigration to the U.S. except for Filipinos (the Philippines were a Territory of the U.S. until 1946, ceded in 1898 by Spain). In 1942 because of Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor and the U.S. War Declaration, ~120,000 1st generation Japanese citizens and immigrants were forced into internment camps. (In interviewing a retired FBI agent, this writer heard the claim that the US had to intern the Japanese as the American Filipino population had declared war on these citizens … there is always another side to the story. The agent was in charge of the camp at Santa Anita.) The Nakashimas were also forced to sell their property (“10 cents on the $”). A History Quilt found on their barn wall (shown below) depicts the timeline of this homesite of 1,200 acres (purchased in 1937), that evolved from native forest to sawmill to dairy farm … and now a recreational site. You will find it at the end of the 30-mile-long Snohomish County Centennial Trail; it is just over the hill from the History Farm, 3 miles as the crow flies. We are building a small “Minka,” the traditional Japanese architecture for a small farmhouse of common people with an uncommon work ethic to honor the Nakashima (descendants still live close by).
https://www.historylink.org/file/240
https://www.historylink.org/File/8509
https://www.interactiongreen.com/minka/
https://cms.agr.wa.gov/WSDAKentico/Imported/WashingtonsCentennialFarms-BW-Web.pdf
https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Santa_Anita_(detention_facility)/
http://www.plc215.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Japanese-Farmers-Minka.pdf
https://www.heraldnet.com/life/discover-local-history-as-you-walk-the-centennial-trail/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_in_the_Philippines#:~:text=The%20period%20of%20American%20colonialization,of%20Philippine%20independence%20in%201946.
https://www.southsoundtalk.com/2018/12/21/the-dark-history-of-the-washington-state-fairgrounds-during-wwii/
The one immigrant group not banned by the Immigration Act of 1924 was from the:
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