JAPANESE

The Japanese immigrants were rice farmers in Texas.

Around 1890 several Japanese families came from the west coast of the United States to the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas.   They came for the rich fertile farmland. 

In 1902 Japan was facing severe overpopulation problems.  The Japanese government sent a man to look at the Gulf Coast of Texas as a potential immigration site.  Many Texans told him that Japanese farmers would be welcome and encouraged to settle here.   At the same time business leaders near Houston felt that Texas needed more rice farms in order to compete with southern Louisiana.  The result was that Japanese immigrants started thirty rice farms just south of Houston. 

Shoes worn by a rice farmer in south Texas.

A straw hat worn by a rice farmer in south Texas.

This is a threshing machine.
It was used to remove the rice from the plant.