Mantsuchi and Sojuro Nakamura: Japanese Immigrant Farmers in California’s Central Valley
Mantsuchi Nakamura was born on February 27, 1877 in Hiroamachi, a small village in Yamaguchi-ken on the isolated Yanai Peninsula of western Honshu, during the time of the Meiji emperor. He was the eldest of seven children. His granddaughter-in-law, Katherine Peters Yamada, notes that many of the people in this region were quite poor in the late 1800s. Despite its isolated location, 420 men from Yamaguchi-ken responded to contractors from the Hawaiian government who were recruiting Japanese laborers for the rapidly expanding sugar industry.
Ineligible for the draft because he was too short, Mantsuchi went to Hawaii sometime around 1900, …