Tokunosuke Abe
Tokunosuke Abe was a Japanese American businessman and a key figure in the commercial tuna fishing industry during the early 20th century. Born a descendant of samurai and arriving in Seattle in 1906, he quickly made a name for himself in the agricultural and fishing sectors, ultimately becoming the office manager of MK Fishing Company in San Diego. Under his leadership, MK Fishing significantly contributed to the tuna fishing industry by introducing innovative techniques and employing a primarily Japanese workforce, which at one point accounted for 90% of California's tuna harvest.
Abe was not only a businessman but also a staunch advocate for Japanese American rights, actively defending against numerous legislative efforts aimed at excluding Japanese fishermen from California’s tuna industry. His efforts were pivotal in overcoming discrimination and fostering solidarity within the fishing community. Despite facing mounting challenges during the rise of anti-Japanese sentiment, Abe established a successful fishing fleet with his company, the Southern Commercial Company, after MK Fishing went bankrupt following the 1929 stock market crash.
Tragically, Abe's life was cut short in 1941, just before World War II led to the internment of Japanese Americans and the seizure of their businesses. His legacy, however, remains significant in the history of commercial tuna fishing in Southern California, a thriving industry he helped establish, which eventually declined in the late 20th century due to various economic and environmental factors.
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Subject Terms
Tokunosuke Abe
Japanese-born activist, business executive, and entrepreneur
- Pronunciation: TOH-koo-NOH-skeh AH-beh
- Born: 1885
- Birthplace: Iwate, Japan
- Died: January 3, 1941
- Place of death: San Diego, California
Businessman Tokunosuke Abe made his name in the commercial tuna fishing and canning industry, which he helped build into a major source of revenue for San Diego, California. Throughout his career, he was a staunch defender of the rights of Japanese Americans.
Areas of achievement: Activism, business
Early Life
The descendant of samurai, Tokunosuke Abe arrived in Seattle, Washington, in 1906, a twenty-one-year-old married high school graduate. Abe worked at a number of different jobs, saved his money, and moved south with his family in 1909. Living and working in Los Angeles, he attended Woodbury’s Business College (now Woodbury University), where he earned a business management degree with an accounting specialty. In 1916, he landed a job as secretary to the San Diego Japanese Vegetable Growers Association, a farmers’ collective. Abe helped expand production at the collective and worked to protect its members from racial discrimination.
In 1919, Abe took a job as an accountant and office manager at MK Fishing Company. MK Fishing, the brainchild of Japanese-born entrepreneur Masaharu Kondo, presented a fresh challenge for Abe. Kondo, a former teacher at Tokyo’s Imperial Fisheries Institute, had come to Southern California in 1912, holding corporate investment money from Japan. His goal was to develop the fertile but underutilized fishing grounds along North America’s southwest coast. Within years of his arrival, Kondo had negotiated an exclusive fishing concession with the Mexican government. San Diego-based MK Fishing harvested, processed, shipped, and canned tons of lobster and abalone meat and abalone shells from Turtle Bay in Baja, California, located four hundred miles south of the US border. By 1920, with the capable assistance of Abe, Kondo was ready to expand operations into commercial tuna fishing.
Life’s Work
In 1920, canned tuna was a novelty. A protein-rich meat substitute during World War I, tuna remained in demand in the United States after the war. To meet the demand, MK Fishing hired Japanese contract fishermen who introduced several techniques—including the use of bamboo poles and barbless hooks, chumming (spreading live bait to induce tuna feeding frenzies), and refrigerated boats—that revolutionized American commercial tuna fishing.
By the early 1920s, half of California’s tuna fishermen were Japanese and produced 90 percent of the annual harvest. In addition to overseeing operations as MK office manager, Abe had already begun fending off discriminatory efforts aimed at removing the Japanese from American tuna fishing. Between 1919 and 1933, seven racially motivated bills were introduced in the California legislature. All failed, thanks to individuals like Abe, who coordinated efforts among fishermen, American canners, and the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) to protest and ultimately defeat the proposed laws.
Having widely expanded its business, MK Fishing floundered following the stock market crash of 1929. Kondo left for Japan to seek additional capital but never returned to San Diego, and the company went bankrupt. Abe risked everything he owned to honor the company’s financial obligations. Within two years, he had paid off old debts and built a new enterprise from the wreckage of MK Fishing: the Southern Commercial Company. By the late 1930s, he was operating twenty-five boats and serving as head of Southern California’s largest private fishing fleet.
In the meantime, Abe began to face the rising tide of anti-Japanese sentiment. The Native Sons of the Golden West, Asiatic Exclusion League, California Fish and Game Commission, Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), and other entities created numerous issues relating to citizenship, residency, licensing, espionage, and subversion in attempts to drive the Japanese out of the tuna industry. Once again, Abe, with backing from Caucasian canners, the tight-knit fishing community, and the JACL, stood up to the opposition. He went to court numerous times between 1933 and 1940, defeating a series of proposed bills that blatantly discriminated against first- and second-generation Japanese American fishermen. When, in early 1941, Abe died of a stroke at age fifty-five, Japanese American fishermen lost their most visible defender.
Significance
World War II did what legislative manipulation could not: end Japanese involvement in the lucrative tuna fishing industry. Following the Japanese attack of the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, all Japanese Americans on the West Coast were interned in government-run camps. Japanese-owned fishing boats—including those operated by the Southern Commercial Company—were seized without compensation, refitted for wartime, and used to patrol coastal waters.
Nonetheless, commercial tuna fishing continued to thrive in Southern California for decades. For a time, San Diego had the world’s largest tuna fishing fleet and was the global industry leader. Fishing generated tens of millions of dollars for the local economy. The industry began to decline in the 1970s. Overfishing, a result of using purse seines (miles-long nets that scooped up tuna and everything else), caused tremendous resource waste and made longer voyages necessary in order to find fish. The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, which aimed to protect dolphins that swim with tuna and become entangled in fishing nets, also limited the industry’s productivity. Major American canners, such as Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea, and StarKist, ultimately agreed to buy only certified “dolphin-safe” catches. To circumvent restrictions, many fishermen registered under foreign flags. Many canneries relocated overseas to benefit from tax incentives and lower labor costs. By the early 1990s, following seventy years of prosperity, the commercial tuna fishing industry, which was pioneered by Tokunosuke Abe and other Japanese fishermen, had essentially ceased to exist in California.
Bibliography
Ellis, Richard. Tuna: Love, Death, and Mercury. New York: Vintage, 2009. Print. A compendium of information about the world’s most popular food fish.
Hasegawa, Susan Snyder. Japanese Americans in San Diego. Charleston: Arcadia, 2008. Print. A collection of oral interviews, photographs and other documentation detailing Japanese American contributions to the local economy, particularly in the tuna fishing industry.
Yoo, David K. Growing up Nisei: Race, Generation, and Culture among Japanese Americans of California, 1924–1949. Champaign: U of Illinois P, 2000. Print. A study of second-generation Japanese Americans, including an examination of the Japanese tuna fishing community at Terminal Island.