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In 1915, Jukichi and Ken Harada purchased a house on Lemon Street in Riverside, California. Close to their restaurant, church, and children's school, the house should have been a safe and healthy family home. Before the purchase, white neighbors objected because of the Haradas' Japanese ancestry, and the California Alien Land Law denied them real-estate ownership because they were not citizens. To bypass the law Mr. Harada bought the house in the names of his three youngest children, who were American-born citizens. Neighbors protested again, and the first Japanese American court test of the California Alien Land Law of 1913-The People of California v. Jukichi Harada-was the result. Bringing this little-known story to light, The House on Lemon Street details the Haradas' decision to fight for the American dream. Chronicling their experiences from their immigration to the United States through their legal battle over their home, their incarceration during World War II, and their lives after the war, this book tells the story of the family's participation in the struggle for human and civil rights, social justice, property and legal rights, and fair treatment of immigrants in the United States. The Harada family's quest for acceptance illuminates the deep underpinnings of anti-Asian animus, which set the stage for Executive Order 9066, and recognizes fundamental elements of our nation's anti-immigrant history that continue to shape the American story. It will be worthwhile for anyone interested in the Japanese American experience in the twentieth century, immigration history, public history, and law. This publication was made possible with the support of Naomi, Kathleen, Ken, and Paul Harada, who donated funds in memory of their father, Harold Shigetaka Harada, honoring his quest for justice and civil rights. Additional support for this publication was also provided, in part, by UCLA's Aratani Endowed Chair as well as Wallace T. Kido, Joel B. Klein, Elizabeth A. Uno, and Rosalind K. Uno.

International developments and pressure from Washington contributed to Attorney General Webb’s handling of the Harada case and to a marked decrease in anti-Japanese agitation in California during the Great War. Even though it was already obvious to some California officials that the 1913 Alien Land Law was ineffective in limiting Japanese landownership and that new legislation would be required to check further acquisition of land by the Japanese, widespread anti-Japanese sentiment in California did not resurface until after the armistice between the Allies and the Germans was signed on November 11, 1918. Seeking reelection in 1920, Senator James Duval Phelan,

Word of the coming court test of California’s Alien Land Law soon spread throughout the state. On the East Coast, details of the case were published in a brief front-page article in the New York Times on Friday, October 6. Other similar reports of the lawsuit were appearing in hometown papers across the country. In the nation’s capital The Washington Post also published an article about the anti-Japanese litigation pending against the Harada family in California. Surrounded by nosy reporters seeking information about his character and background by speaking with his new neighbors and others in town who knew little

Ever since her brothers had entrusted her parents’ urns to her at Topaz, Sumi had made certain they were always close by. In lonesome moments in her cold and dimly lit barracks apartment in what some might have regarded as unlucky Block 13, having them near had provided Sumi with a strange sense of comfort. Now, in the middle of May 1944, she was finally carrying them away from Topaz, traveling by train from Delta to Chicago. Sumi still worried about what lay ahead but she was also curiously optimistic about leaving the desolation and sadness of her family’s recent

The Washington Restaurant was the first to go. Because the family did not own the Eighth Street building in which their small business was housed, a real estate listing and sale were unnecessary. Letting only a few know the restaurant was for sale, they quickly sold its contents and fixtures. However, like most Nikkei families at the time, they were forced to make hasty decisions and lost money on the deal. Harold recalled: “We sold it for $150 and, . . . as I recall, it was to a Latino couple . . . The restaurant had a large .

All in all, life in this California town had been hard but good for the Haradas. Standing at the great front window of his Washington Restaurant on some slow afternoons, Jukichi could watch the steady progress of his adopted hometown. After hearing stories of less civilized places from his Issei friends and other acquaintances—stories that suggested the United States still had a long way to go to realize its ideals of freedom and equality for all—the growing city of Riverside was a good place to live and raise a family. When Jukichi, Ken, and Masa Atsu had come

Perhaps Jukichi was thinking of his own father, Takanori Harada, who had been adopted by another family in Japan more than half a century before, when he unexpectedly adopted a Japanese American boy who had recently lost both parents. When he brought the boy home to Lemon Street, he was responding to a family tragedy in the Southern California Nikkei community in the summer of 1928. On August 11, busy residents of the City of Angels read details of the sensational story on page three of their Saturday morning paper: Obsessed by an insane fury, Yoshitaro Hashimura, Japanese gardener of

By mid-morning on this winter Sunday, December 7, 1941, Saburo Kido had already left his family’s home at 1804 Stuart Street in the East Bay community of Berkeley, where he had been living for the last four years with his wife, Mine, and their three young children, daughter Rosalind and sons Laurence and Wally. Shuttling over to meet friends across the bay in San Francisco, once again Saburo was away from his family while taking care of community business on the weekend. In a few minutes, perhaps riding on a ferry or hitching a ride in a friend’s car, Saburo,

Faith in the possibility of upward social mobility rests at the heart of the American immigrant experience. The wish to provide one’s family with a new house on a nice street among good neighbors is still a cherished American tradition. Like others who came to live in the United States, immigrants from Japan adapted to their new American home by applying and modifying the cultural traditions and behavioral habits of their native land. Their early dedication to moving up the social and economic ladder also shaped the cultural experiences of their American-born citizen children. The compatibility of key aspects of