Students, families and friends gather for a group portrait at the Holland Union Gakuen, Clarksburg’s Japanese Language School, early 1930s.
This exhibit tells the story of Clarksburg’s Japanese American community through the voices, photographs, and personal histories of the families who built their lives along the Sacramento River. Drawn from the archives of the Holland Doshi Kai and from family collections, these materials offer a deeply personal view of a community shaped by migration, hard work, resilience, and continuity across generations.
Beginning in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Japanese immigrants—many arriving first as single laborers—established roots in the Delta. The Holland Union Gakuen (Japanese Language School) became a vital center of cultural life, where children learned language, values, and identity while growing up as Americans. Social gatherings, religious traditions, and shared labor tied families together and created a vibrant, interconnected community.
Ai Iseri’s passport photo, issued in 1919 as she prepared to travel from Nagasaki to the United States, most likely just after her marriage to Tsugeo Iseri. The Iseris farmed on Merritt Island and the Holland District in Clarksburg.
The Iwasaki family, circa 1921. Issei parents Shikajiro and Tsuya with their Nisei children—back row, left to right: Nathan Moichi, Edwin Shiro, Fred Yoshio, George Kenji; front row, left to right: Satoru, Hanako, Chiyoko, Tomiko. The family farmed in Freeport and Clarksburg.
Executive Order 9066, issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and followed by Civilian Exclusion Orders, authorized the forced removal and incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry, most of them American citizens.
That community was profoundly disrupted during World War II, when Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from the West Coast and incarcerated in camps, allowed to take only what they could carry. Families lost homes, farms, businesses and most of their possessions. Yet even in the face of displacement and loss, they maintained cultural traditions, supported one another, and rebuilt their lives after the war—many returning to Clarksburg to start over.
The stories presented here reflect both shared experiences and individual journeys. Through them, this exhibit highlights not only the history of exclusion and resilience, but also the enduring legacy of a community that helped shape the agricultural economy and cultural fabric of the North Delta.
Sam Sakata, one of the five Sakata sons who founded the Sakata Bros. and farmed Prospect Island.
Clarksburg native Mutsuo Nishida celebrates his sumo tournament championship win in postwar Sacramento.
To arrange a guided visit for your class or group (12 minimum), please contact Steve Hiromoto at (916) 233-6725 or stevehiromoto@hotmail.com.
Donna, Sara, and Stephen Hiromoto, 2011. Patriarch Genjiro Hiromoto came to the Delta in 1898 as a farm laborer, later leasing land and building a successful farming operation.
At the start of World War II, thousands of Japanese American families were forced to abandon their homes, farms, and businesses and placed in incarceration camps. This documentary from PBS KVIE explores the profound impact on farm families and discovers how subsequent generations survived, including some who returned to farming and are thriving today.