Kyutaro Abiko
Kyutaro Abiko, originally named Kyutaro Kobayashi, was a pivotal figure in the Japanese American community during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born into poverty and raised by his grandparents after the death of his mother, Abiko demonstrated resilience from an early age, selling handmade goods to support his family. After running away to Tokyo, he learned English and converted to Christianity, eventually gaining sponsorship to study in the United States. Arriving in San Francisco in 1885, he worked various jobs while pursuing education and later established a successful laundry business, which he expanded into a restaurant and other ventures.
Abiko was a founder of Nichi Bei Shimbun, the most widely circulated Japanese-language newspaper on the West Coast, which served as a vital resource for Japanese immigrants, promoting their rights and assimilation into American society. His entrepreneurial spirit led to the creation of the Japanese American Industrial Company and American Land and Produce Company, which supported the establishment of farming communities for Japanese immigrants in California. Despite facing challenges from discriminatory laws, Abiko's legacy includes fostering agricultural success and community cohesion among Japanese Americans, with his initiatives continuing to influence the region's economy today. He passed away in 1936, but his contributions significantly shaped the Japanese American experience on the West Coast, and his newspaper was revived after World War II, continuing to serve the community until 2009.
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Subject Terms
Kyutaro Abiko
Japanese-born journalist, entrepreneur, and activist
- Pronunciation: KYOO-tah-roh AH-bee-koh
- Born: June 23, 1865
- Birthplace: Suibara, Niigata, Japan
- Died: May 5, 1936
- Place of death: San Francisco, California
Kyutaro Abiko came penniless from Japan to the United States as a young man. Through persistence and devotion, he established a number of interrelated businesses to assist immigrants in forming farming colonies that helped first-generation Japanese Americans set down roots in their new country.
Birth name: Kobayashi Kyutaro
Areas of achievement: Journalism, business, activism
Early Life
Kyutaro Abiko was born Kyutaro Kobayashi. His grandparents took him in when his mother died shortly after his birth, and he later adopted their surname. Abiko grew up in poverty. As a boy, he sold handmade paper and candles in neighboring villages to help the family financially. In his teens, he ran away from home, winding up in Tokyo. He worked several menial jobs while taking English lessons at a Methodist mission, hoping to relocate to the United States. While studying with the missionaries, Abiko converted to Christianity. Through the Gospel Society, he gained sponsorship to study in the United States.
Abiko arrived in San Francisco in 1885. While attending Lincoln Grammar School and Boys’ High School, he worked as a domestic servant in private homes. He later earned a degree at the University of California–Berkeley. Using his savings, Abiko opened a laundry business. He used the profits from this business to open a restaurant. By 1897, Abiko was an investor in a Japanese-language newspaper. The company merged with a competing newspaper to create Nichi Bei Shimbun (Japanese American news) in 1899. Over four decades, Abiko forged numerous connections to help ease the process of assimilation for newly arrived immigrants from Japan. His various enterprises enabled hardworking and community-oriented issei and nisei (first- and second-generation Japanese Americans) to become anchored in California. With Abiko’s help, issei and nisei engaged in agricultural pursuits throughout the state, both as laborers and as landowners.
Life’s Work
From the late 1890s, Abiko had established himself as an influential businessman in the Japanese American community. His newspaper, the most widely distributed Japanese-language publication on the West Coast, championed the Japanese American cause. Nichi Bei Shimbun provided the immigrant community with information about American customs and etiquette, reported on immigrant-related legislation, and denounced racial discrimination. Through his association with the Gospel Society, Abiko was actively involved in supporting Japanese immigrants and offered part-time jobs at his newspaper to new arrivals.
In 1902, Abiko founded Japanese American Industrial Company, which offered work in agricultural, railway, and mining industries in several western states. An early proponent of vertical integration, Abiko also founded a financial institution that made low-interest loans to immigrants for the purchase of farmland.
One of Abiko’s most farsighted enterprises, anticipating later anti-Japanese sentiment, was begun in 1906. That year he founded American Land and Produce Company, which bought land in Merced County, subdivided the property into forty-acre plots, and resold it—with bank financing—to new Japanese immigrants for the purpose of establishing farming communities. The first settlement, Yamato Colony near Livingston, was established in 1907. Two other settlements, Cressy and Cortez, were founded after World War I.
Abiko returned to Japan in 1909 to marry Yonako Tsuda, with whom he produced a son, Yasuo. Both Yonako and Yasuo would become actively involved in Abiko’s pro-immigration efforts. In 1913, the American Land and Produce Company began to struggle due to overextension and California’s passage of the Alien Land Law, which prohibited ownership or severely restricted leasing of land by noncitizens. To circumvent the discriminatory law, Abiko encouraged Japanese landowners to register property in the names of their American-born children.
Always an innovator, Abiko added English-language features to his newspaper in the 1920s and published editions in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. At its height, Nichi Bei Shimbun had 25,000 subscribers. When Abiko died in 1936, his widow and son ran the newspaper until 1942, when the Japanese who were living on the West Coast were interned and had their businesses forcibly suspended following the Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor.
Significance
Kyutaro Abiko was instrumental in establishing Japanese Americans as permanent and important contributors to West Coast society. The newspaper he founded, in continuous operation from 1899 to 1942, was resurrected after World War II. Under the auspices of Yasuo Abiko and his son Ken Abiko, Nichi Bei Times brought news and opinions of concern to Japanese Americans from 1946 until 2009, when the newspaper folded and transformed into a nonprofit entity, the Nichi Bei Foundation.
The Japanese farming colonies that Abiko fostered continue to operate into the twenty-first century and contribute millions of dollars to California’s economy. The Yamato, Cressy, and Cortez farming communities were all absorbed into Merced County communities. Descendants of the original settlers, now fully assimilated American citizens, own thousands of acres in the vicinity and harvest crops, including almonds, grapes, and peaches, each year.
Bibliography
Daniels, Roger. The Politics of Prejudice: The Anti-Japanese Movement in California and the Struggle for Japanese Exclusion. 2nd ed. Berkeley: U of California P, 1999. Print. Explores public and private efforts undertaken between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to prevent the settlement of Japanese immigrants in California.
Matsumoto, Valerie J. Farming the Home Place: A Japanese American Community in California, 1919–1982. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993. Print. Examines the Abiko-inspired Cortez Colony, detailing how Japanese settlers overcame exclusionary legislation and racial discrimination to thrive as California farmers.
Spikard, Paul R. Japanese Americans: The Formation and Transformations of an Ethnic Group. Rev. ed. Piscataway: Rutgers UP, 2009. Print. An overview that delves into the multiple causes and sweeping effects of a wave of Japanese immigrants to the United States between the 1850s and 1920s.