A Tailor in Oakland
Kishiro in middle. Kishiro with his fellow graduates of the Mitchell Tailoring school in New York, 1908.
Kishiro Yamashita immigrated from Japan to the U.S. in the 1890s and entered a formal tailoring program in New York City and settled in Oakland, California, setting up his own tailor shop. See his life through the pictures of him and his wife and tailor buddies in the early 1900s and 1920s.
Kishiro Yamashita was a tailor in Oakland in the 1900s through the 1920s. He was born in rural Naegi, Japan, to a land-owning family with a brewery business. He was the fourth of eight children. In 1897, at the age of 23, Kishiro immigrated to the United States and worked as a domestic in a doctor's household in Alameda, California.
He eventually saved enough to enter a tailor training program, Mitchell Cutting and Tailoring School in New York City. He may have apprenticed in Oakland for a few years, and may have learned tailoring some in Yokohama, Japan before that. The picture above shows him in a formal portrait (in the center) with his colleagues who graduated with him. After the training program, he returned to the West Coast, settling in Oakland, California where he set up a tailoring business, called Yokohama Tailor Co.
What was the social climate of his life like in Oakland and how did he come to organize his own shop? Historical accounts of Asian immigrants to the U.S. during this period describe the influx of Asian workers in the railroad, cannery, sugar plantation and farming industries and the concomittant rise of anti-Asian sentiment on the West Coast of the United States (See Densho Project). Kishiro's profession sets him apart from the typical occuations of hundreds of thousands of migrant laborers. His work, tailoring primarily for the Japanese community, demonstrates that the Japanese in California had their own communities. Every farmer needed a suit for a wedding or a funeral.
Kishiro is standing at far left. This appears to be his shop in 1899.
Kishiro at far left in his tailor shop. This photo of his tailor shop shows his partners (or workers?) in the business. What were their names? There are coats hanging up that may be waiting for customers to pick them up. There is a hose dangling down that may have been used to treat the fabrics. Two men are seated. One before his sewing machine. Kishiro stands at far left with a measuring tape around his neck standing before a broad table, possibly read to cut fabric. The man seated to the right is leaning his head against a propped up arm. Who was taking this photograph? Was it a very formal photograph or more of a casual one? What are the boxes stacked up on the wall? Kishiro's reflection appears on the mirror facing him. Was this intentional, an artistic whim? Did photographers make an appointment or was this a friend of Kishiro testing out his own personal camera?
Kishiro is at center back. His wife, Tomi, is back row to the left.
Kishiro's family in Naegi. Picture taken before 1920.
Naegi, Japan
Kishiro's family had been in Naegi in the Gifu Prefecture of Japan since the 1700s. They were a land-owning family who were given privileges by the lord of the area (the daimyo) including a stipend (fuchi). Kishiro's predecesors in the mid 1700s were privileged family, and some served as a village headmen, collecting taxes, managing water irrigation, providing farm instruction and generally maintaining order.
Over six generation's time, the Yamashita family bought up more land, which they rented to tenant rice farmers and their wealth grew. The first son's descendents inherited the wealth, and by 1818 had built four rice breweries (sakaya). Unfortunately, the family also engaged in "loan-shark" activities, charging their share croppers 20 to 30 percent interest loans. (For more on this, see this excerpt from Ann Tamaki Dion research paper "Across Ryuku Waters," self published in 2003.)
Above: The picture of Kishiro's family was taken sometime before 1920. Kishiro's father, Sadashige, died in 1913 at age 64. He does not appear to be in this picture. Kishiro's mother, Fumi, might be the older woman in the photo, in the middle of the front row. She died Oct 2, 1920 in Naegi. Sadashige and Fumi's first son was Naotaro. He may be in this picture. His second wife, Tama, may be the woman in the second to the left. Naotaro's first son by his first wife was Kohei, who may be the kid to the far right. In 1913, Kohei would have been 10.
Portrait of Kishiro's father, Sadashige also known as Hikota
Portrait of Kishiro's mother, Fumi
Family Tree of Sadashige and Fumi's Family circa 1895
Kishiro was born in the sixth year of the new Meiji government, the year was Meiji 6 (or 1873). Kishiro grew up in a context that diverged from the one that had colored the lives of generations of his ancestors. The pre-modern farming system that governed his region of Naegi was built around a benevolent relationship between the lord who owned the land and peasants who worked the land. Like other feudal societies, the peasants gave the land-owner a portion of the rice harvest as rent payment. This system was slowly breaking down over the course of the 18th and 19th Centuries, during the period of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1600-1874). Merchants were steadily taking the privileged social position that the samurai class once held in earlier times. Before, farmer peasants were able to sustain themselves through famines and unfortunate growing seasons by having their taxes forgiven. By contrast, the social structures and market economy created under the Meiji Restoration or Revolution brought strict and unforgiving government officials.
The Yamashita family was one that might have gained in this economic restructuring. They were not a samurai family who had seen their wealth and privileged position slowly deteriorate. Despite inheriting wealth, Kishiro’s father, Sadashige would eventually face financial ruin. He was also known as a bad businessman and may have been too generous with his money. Some of his grandchildren speculate that he drank away his fortune. Kishiro left home to find a profession, for his father could not support him.
To see Sadashige and Fumi's Family tree at 1905, 1921, and 1941. To see A Map of Naegi (unknown year).
Karen Tei Yamashita conducted research in Naegi in the 1970s. To see her notes on the family lineage scrolls which were first kept in the Buddhist Temples and then kept by the families during the period in which Buddhism was outlawed and replaced by Shintoism as the state mandated religion.
Photocopy of Buddhist Family lineage scrolls of Yamashita Family
Here are some pages relating to Kishiro's father Sadashige (also known as Hikota, after his forebear) Page 33 (see bottom left of page) and Page 34 of Karen Tei's notebook from this trip. See here for the first half and second half of the notebook which includes anecdotes about her trip interspersed with translations of Japanese scrolls on the family lineage.
To see all the surviving images of Kishiro's family, see the Collection Family in Japan, pre-World War II. This collection includes eight photographs of Kishiro's family. Items with the name Kohei (a cousin of Kishiro) include images from Kishiro's family in Naegi. Items with the name Murakami cover Kishiro's wife, Tomi's family in Tokyo.
Members of Kishiro's extended family. Undated photograph
Members of Kishiro's extended family. Undated photograph
Sadashige and Fumi's Family Tree at 1905
Kishiro is at left. This is taken at his Tailor Shop at 513 8th Street in Oakland. The man standing with him may be his business partner.
Yokohama to Oakland
When Kishiro was 18 years old, he and his closest brother, Enkichi, two years older were encouraged to leave and support themselves (Dion 2003). The eldest brother and inheritor of the family's fortune, Kohei, stayed with his father. Kishiro and Enkichi went to Yokohama, where Kishiro started to study to become a doctor, with the financial help of his father. However, the money soon ran out. During this period, Enkichi died suddently of dysentary at age 22.
After this tragic loss, Kishiro made his way to the U.S. He apprenticed for two years at a tailoring shop. He may have seen all of the western clothing in Yokohama, a port where wealthy businessmen from Tokyo would come to get finely tailored suits.
Japan would later aspire towards a western style of military power and colonialism, and engage in wars with Russia and China, occupying Korea, Taiwan and parts of China (Manchuria).
Karen Tranberg Hansen, professor emerita of Anthropology at Northwestern University, writes about the connections between fashion and imperialism.
"In Japan during the Meiji Period (1868-1912), the government energetically promoted modernization as a way of strengthening the country, with a twofold goal: to prevent Japan's being taken over as a colony by any European power, and to prepare Japan to compete on equal terms with Europe as a colonial power itself. The effort to emulate the strength of the West included a promotion of beef-eating (formerly nearly unknown in Japan) and a wholesale adoption of Western-style clothing, at least by urban elites."(Source)
According to Hansen, adopting western fashion was part of demonstrating imperialist notions of modernity and exerting imperial control to compete with Western imperial powers. We can see Kishiro's profession in learning how to tailor western suits as part of a larger historical and national context.
Kishiro's Tailoring Shop in Downtown Oakland. 513 8th Street. Circa 1900.
Kishiro studied tailoring in New York City at the Mitchell School. The Mitchell School was known for recruiting immigrants from around the world. He then returned across the country to Oakland to set up his own tailoring shop in Downtown Oakland, at 513 8th Street, living above Yokohoma Tailoring Co. from 1903-1918. (The complete business ownership/partnership relationship history is not clear.) By 1918, Kishiro was able to moved his family to a house a few streets away in Oakland, at 670 19th Street, which also still stands today.
Kishiro remained in the tailoring business until he died in 1932. The building where Kishiro set up his business still stands in Oakland today. There was a sizable Japanese community in Oakland at that time. The infamous earthquake of 1906 which devastated San Francisco (killing around 3,000 people and destroying 80% of the city) also forced a portion of the surviving Japanese community in San Francisco to move. Many joined the Japanese immigrant community in Oakland which was thriving. Arnold Genthe's photo of the fires in San Francisco on Sacramento Street following the earthquake of 1906 illustrate the upheaval of the earthquake. Read more about the earthquake of 1906 here.
By the 1910s, there were dozens of Japanese tailor shops, grocers, laundries, and restaurants in Oakland, serving a Japanese community of 1,500. Who were Kishiro's clients at his tailoring business? We speculated that he might have travelled to farming areas, to measure Japanese American farmers and send them their suit that they would need for a funeral, wedding, or special occasion. He may have taken in customers at his shop. We don’t know how much English he spoke or if serviced non-Japanese customers.
Kishiro is at right. These may be his business partners or friends posing with him in a formal portrait.
Translation of Japanese Banner: California Certified Western Style Tailors Association. Kishiro is in the second row from bottom, fourth from right. Kishiro is in the second row from the front, fourth from the right.
Kishiro's daughter, Iyo, shared a bunch of her memories about the tailor shop that her dad ran along with her mom. Here is an excerpt from a 1995 oral history interview with Iyo:
Apparently he came to this country with a certain amount of money. His family had been well off at one time. With that money he went to New York to the “Mitchell Cutting School” and received this great big diploma, which I remember as a child. It was in an enormous frame in the tailor shop. That’s one of two things I remember about the shop. The other thing I remember is this great big framed mirror that occupied one wall of the front part of the tailor shop….There were other people who wanted to learn tailoring too, and so he was able to have apprentices to do the sewing. He taught them…Ernie Takahashi’s father was his partner. Of course they had to pool money but somehow they started a business. I have this picture of the tailoring shop. And little by little, by the time I was growing up, it didn’t look like this original picture. The space in the shop was the same, but he added glass showcases to hold the finished clothes. The front door was changed and the shop looked much more fancy. My father had a wonderful roll-top desk.
At first the family must have lived upstairs. It was a two-story building and I don’t think I was born in that place but I do remember growing up in that place. There was a kitchen behind the shop and my mother had to cook for these apprentices. I guess they were all bachelors, you know…And then his apprentices worked a certain number of years there and then they opened up their own shops. That’s how it was in those days. The tailoring—custom tailoring was a good business. Everyone—not just wealthy people- had their clothes made. And the Issei—they all needed a good Sunday suit, for a wedding or funeral. My father had people in the country as customers. He would take a bus and go to the country to get orders. And the other interesting thing was the Greek candy-makers. They were in the candy making business in those early 1900’s and they were his best customers, I recall.
Photograph including Kishiro and Tomi on an outing with friends. A kid is holding a Japanese flag in this photograph.
Many of the pictures saved from the early 1900s show Kishiro and Tomi with a large group of friends. Were these friends organizing in a formal way- associated with the church that Tomi attended? Or were they on outings by virtue of being in a close knit Japanese American community in Oakland? Were they connected through the Japanese Association of Tailors? Some photos appear to be taken in Golden Gate Park, in beautifully tailored suits. Some are on fields. These photos provide a glimpse into their lives, and the fun that they had.
They are relaxed and smiling, posing with umbrellas, or showing their kids. A man slouches like a dandy on another man’s shoulder, very aware of his best angles. Tomi laughs and shows her teeth, a rare site in a photograph when she almost always kept her lips closed.
The early days are more documented than the depression years, when the money for outings to Golden Gate Park no doubt ran out. One of his sons said, what killed him was the depression. What else do we know of his life up until his death? We don't have letters from him sent back to Japan or a journal he kept. Kishiro did commission two charcoal portraits of his parents (See them in the exhibit page entitled "Naegi"). Did he envision moving back to Japan after a number of years in the U.S. or did he consider his future to be fully in Oakland? What did it mean to commission portraits from abroad? Was it a way to share his parents with his kids who had never met their grandparents? Was it a way to feel close to them while living in the U.S.? Was it a common act that others had taken?
To see more photos from the Yamashita family's life in Oakland from 1900s and after his death, up until the outbreak of WWII.
Kishiro lived long enough to see the birth of his first grandchild, since he died in 1931 at the age of 58. Kishiro died amidst the hard times of the Great Depression. Some of his kids would later say that the Depression killed him. He never lived to see his family incarcerated or stripped of their home ownership during the Second World War. Japanese American wartime incarceration succeeded his death by a decade. His life as an Issei (Japanese first generation immigrant) tells the story of the years before World War II. He ended his life in debt, leaving behind photos of happier moments, picnics and outings with his wife and friends. These images portray a dapper immigrant, among his fellow tailor friends, well dressed although perhaps not entirely wealthy.
Looking at the history of Japan and looking at the photos of his family there may shed some light on the context of his family and class background. Unfortunatley, few other sources exist in the family oral history to tell us about what kind of person Kishiro was like, and how he felt about his immigrant life. Despite having a sizeable back story and lineage in Japan, we don’t know much about Kishiro’s day to day life in Oakland. When asked to describe him, one of his son simply said he was “milquetoast,” which might be to say, that his personality was less than exciting. His personality may have been subsumed by Tomi’s personality. Whether to start with him or her to tell the story of the Yamashita Family is a hard one, but we'll start with Kishiro for now.
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