On a more serious note[1]<\/sup>, really interesting connection between Japan and the establishment of the rice industry in Texas. We know many of the people or descendants mentioned in this article . They put up with a lot of bad stuff in the 1900\u2019s but aren\u2019t bitter, made a good life for themselves and fight for racial\/social justice through JACL.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n [1]<\/sup> We were discussing the specific nutritional properties: rice .v. potatoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elder G’s second cousin, Google AI, gave us this overview:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Texas is a major rice-producing state in the United States, ranking fifth nationally. Rice production in Texas supports the economy, provides jobs, and helps feed the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Production statistics<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n History of rice production<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Rice farming in Texas<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Rice production in Texas began in 1853 in southeast Texas. By 1903, the acres of cultivated rice in Texas was second only to Louisiana and together accounted for 99 percent of rice production in United States. While other states have surpassed Texas in rice production, it remains a significant Texas crop into the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n […] Rice production is the fourth largest among cereals in the United States, after corn, wheat, and sorghum. Of the country’s row crop farms, rice farms are the most capital-intensive and have the highest national land rental rate average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rice production was not merely unhealthy but lethal.[…]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [ed. note: it is important to keep alive the tragic reality of slavery in America. It’s history is being censored by malignant forces.]<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Inadequate food, housing, and clothing, malaria, yellow fever, venomous snakes, alligators, hard labour, and brutal treatment killed up to a third of Low Country slaves within a year. Not one child in ten lived to age sixteen. However, in the 1770s, a slave could produce rice worth more than six times his or her own market value in a year, so this high death rate was not uneconomical for their owners. Enslavers often stayed away from rice plantations during the summer, so slaves had more autonomy during these months. Rice plantations could produce profits of up to 26 percent per year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n […] […] However, commercial production began only in 1912 in the town of Richvale in Butte County. Since then, California has cultivated rice in a big way, and as of 2006, its production of rice was the second largest in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [2]<\/sup> The Gullah have a fascinating language, culture, and cuisine. Dating back to the 1800s, rice cultivation was quite low until it witnessed a remarkable surge in the 1900s. What led to this change? The answer lies in the invaluable contributions of Japanese immigrants who greatly influenced Texas rice production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the early 1900s, a Tokyo lawyer named Seito Saibara<\/strong> made a significant impact on rice production in Texas. As the youngest and only Christian member of the Japanese parliament, Saibara was invited by the Japanese consul on behalf of the Houston Chamber of Commerce and the Southern Pacific Railroad to teach rice production techniques to local farmers in Texas. Heeding the call, Saibara arrived in Texas in 1903, determined to make a difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their first crop, harvested in 1904, was grown from seed imported as a gift from the Emperor of Japan<\/strong>. This successful venture allowed Saibara to distribute the high-quality seed to farmers in Texas and Louisiana, fostering the growth of the rice industry in the region<\/p>\nstorymaps.arcgis.com<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Elder G does a great job of putting this into perspective….<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1902<\/strong>, at the request of the Methodist Church<\/strong> in the U.S. (and with encouragement from American agricultural officials), Seito Saibara<\/strong> came to Webster, Texas<\/strong>, near Houston, with the goal of improving rice cultivation in the Gulf Coast region. Texas farmers were struggling with the crop, and there was hope that Japanese expertise could improve the yields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the story takes a beautiful international turn\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Saibara made the journey, he brought with him a gift from Emperor Meiji of Japan<\/strong>: a special variety of Japanese rice seeds<\/strong>, selected for their quality and suitability to the Texas climate. It was seen not just as an agricultural exchange, but a gesture of goodwill between Japan and the United States<\/strong>\u2014an early 20th-century bit of soft diplomacy, wrapped in rice grains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These seeds turned out to be a game-changer<\/strong>. The Japanese variety thrived in the Gulf Coast\u2019s warm, wet environment. Within just a few years, Saibara\u2019s rice yields were far greater than what local farmers had been able to achieve with traditional strains\u2014reportedly over two times more per acre<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seito Saibara<\/strong> (\u897f\u539f \u6e05\u6771, October 11, 1861 \u2013 April 11, 1939) was a Japanese parliament member, politician, administrator, colonist, and farmer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Apart from his missionary activities, he is credited with having first established the rice industry on the Gulf Coast of the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n [\u2026] From Elder JJZ: On a more serious note[1], really interesting connection between Japan and the establishment of the rice industry in Texas. We know many of the people or descendants mentioned in this article . They put up with a lot of bad stuff in the 1900\u2019s but aren\u2019t bitter, made a good life for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[120,19,135,49,26,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","category-food","category-history","category-japan","category-texas","category-the-lowcountry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46616"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46652,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46616\/revisions\/46652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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By the 1880s, commercial rice production spread from southwest Louisiana and into southeast Texas. Transportation infrastructure fostered the growth of modern commercial rice production in Texas, primarily due to the full operation of the southern transcontinental railroad and its acquisition two years later by the Southern Pacific Railroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a>
Feb. 14th, 1910<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWikipedia<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
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Most plantations were run on the task system, where a slave was given one or more tasks, estimated at ten hours’ hard work, each day. After they had finished the tasks to the overseer’s satisfaction, they could spend the remainder of the day as they chose, often on growing their food, spinning, sewing their clothes, or building their houses (slaves were typically supplied with nails and five yards of cloth per year). The task system, and the unwillingness of free people to live in rice-growing areas, may have led to the greater survival of African culture among the Gullah[2]<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rice cultivation in California in particular started during the California Gold Rush. It was introduced primarily for the consumption of about 40,000 Chinese laborers who were brought as immigrants to the state; only a small area was under rice cultivation to meet this requirement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\nWikipedia<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/?p=25370<\/a> (Gullah Geechee culture and cuisine)
https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/?p=33071<\/a> (Gullah Geechee Bible translation)
https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/?p=13898<\/a> (Hoppin’ John and Gullah culture)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nThe Japanese Pioneers in Texas Rice Production<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nHere’s the heart of the story:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\nSeeds from the Emperor:<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
The legacy:<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nSeito Saibara<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Saibara left Texas with his wife and spent fifteen years in South America, where he established colonies along the Amazon River, before returning to Japan. Ill health caused him to return to Texas in 1937. He died, still a Japanese citizen, in Webster<\/strong> on April 11, 1939, and was buried at the Fairview Cemetery. The rice farm was carried out by Kiyoaki and his sons Robert, Warren, Harvey and Eddie Saibara. Seito Saibara would later be declared one of the 100 Tallest Texans<\/strong> by the Houston Chronicle newspaper.<\/p>\nWikipedia<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"