From DiscoverNikkei.org
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Oregon Nikkei History: A Brief Summary
Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center
Early Japanese Settlers in Oregon
Ca. 1886.
In 1880 27-year-old Miyo Iwakoshi emigrated from Japan to Oregon with her Scottish husband, Andrew McKinnon, and their adopted daughter, Tama. Although there are records of other Japanese visitors earlier, she was the first to settle in the state. She would be one of few Japanese women in Oregon for many years. She and McKinnon built a steam sawmill near Gresham, and named the new settlement Orient in honor of Miyo. The small town of Orient exists to this day. In 1891, Tama married Shintaro Takaki. Theirs was the first Japanese wedding to take place in Oregon.
By the turn of the century, over 2,500 Japanese were making lives for themselves in Oregon, nearly half in Portland. The majority had come originally as contract laborers for the railroads, logging camps and fish canneries. By 1909, over 30% of Japanese immigrants were working in agriculture. Many managed to become tenant farmers and eventually landowners. Significant Japanese farming communities emerged in Gresham, Hood River, and Salem.
By 1930, more than half of the first-generation Japanese living in Oregon were involved in agriculture, marketing crops worth 3.5 million dollars. They achieved economic success by focusing on crops ignored by white farmers. By 1941, Japanese farmers were producing 45 percent of the asparagus, 60 percent of the green peas, 75 percent of the celery, and 90 percent of the state’s cauliflower and broccoli.
Nihonmachi in Portland
For half a century, Nihonmachi, or Japantown, thrived in Northwest Portland. Japantown served as a staging area for Japanese laborers preparing to take up work on the railroads, in the salmon canneries, and in the sawmills of Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. As Japanese families began to form and settle down, they opened laundries, hotels, groceries, barbershops, and fruit stands throughout the Portland area. Still, Japantown remained a community hub, offering Japanese goods as well as legal, financial, medical and social services for immigrants struggling with English. The Oshu Nippo, Oregon News, the first Japanese language newspaper in Oregon, was published five days a week out of Japantown and distributed throughout the Northwest. By 1940, there were over 100 Japanese businesses operating within this unique community.
Japanese merchants in Portland formed groups like the Hotel Owners’ Union, the Grocery Association, and the Laundry Union. Growers’ guilds were established in the farming communities. A majority of Japanese businesses in Oregon survived the Great Depression of the 1930s. Although times were hard, the ‘30s were remembered as the "good old days" for many Japanese Americans.
Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center, a Discover Nikkei Affiliate, contributed this article to the Discover Nikkei web site.