Every layer of the Salad Bowl needed a large, cheap, movable workforce, and each wave of workers was followed by a law. Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Dust Bowl, Mexican, and now Oaxacan and guest workers each arrived in turn. The Tanimura family is followed through the Alien Land Laws and wartime incarceration. In 1942 Salinas also became headquarters of the emergency rubber program, built on a desert shrub called guayule.
Who's who
- George Minoru TanimuraFarmer who led his family, was held at Poston, then rebuilt
- Eijiro TanimuraIssei farmer who leased the Knight Ranch through a citizen intermediary
- Claus Spreckels+2 more episodesSugar baron whose beet factory drew Japanese labor in 1898
- Rufo CaneteFounder of the Filipino Labor Union; his camp was burned in 1934
- William B. McCallumSalinas manager of the Intercontinental Rubber Company's guayule work
- Robert Emerson+1 more episodeCaltech plant physiologist who carried guayule cuttings to Manzanar
- Sidney OsbornArizona governor who refused guayule work at Poston
- John Steinbeck+4 more episodesWrote the 1936 "Harvest Gypsies" series on migrant labor
Where it happens
- Salinas Rodeo Grounds, CaliforniaAssembly center holding about 3,600 Japanese Americans in 1942
- Poston, ArizonaCamp where Salinas Japanese families were sent
- Manzanar, California+2 more episodesCamp where incarcerated scientists grew guayule for rubber
- Chualar, California+2 more episodesSite of the 1963 bus-and-train disaster killing 32 farmworkers
- Alisal, CaliforniaSalinas district settled by Dust Bowl families
- Castroville, California+2 more episodesKnight Ranch, where the Tanimuras farmed from 1923
Timeline
- May 6, 1882The Chinese Exclusion Act is signed.
- 1913California's Alien Land Law bars ownership by those ineligible for citizenship; tightened in 1920.
- August-September 1934Filipino lettuce workers strike, and Canete's labor camp is burned.
- March 5, 1942The Emergency Rubber Act makes Salinas headquarters of the Emergency Rubber Project.
- 27 April-July 4, 1942About 3,600 Japanese Americans are held at the Salinas rodeo grounds before transfer to Poston.
- September 17, 1963A farmworker truck is struck by a freight train at Chualar, killing 32.
Still debated
Counts of those held at the rodeo grounds vary slightly by source, and the claim that only 25 of about 300 Japanese American families returned is unverified. No source shows any Salinas-area Japanese American worked on guayule, and the 1934 strike is called broken or successful depending on which month a source stops.
Connected episodes in other series
How Foresters Built the Allied War MachineGround Truth: Forest Service Research · Episode 6Also features Robert Emerson
The Human Machine Behind C&H Sugar: Hawaiʻi's Plantation Labor SystemBackyard Empire: The U.S. in Latin America · Episode 12Also features Claus Spreckels
Alfalfa, Almonds, and Why Saudi Cows Drink California WaterCalifornia and Water · Episode 4Also features John Steinbeck
Forced Out: Japanese American Incarceration and the War's Mirror ImageLiberty Ships, Closed Doors · Episode 7