THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
Oral History Office
SUBJECT: Japanese Texans
INTERVIEW WITH: Scrapbook of Henry Kawahata
DATE: May 13, 1979
PLACE: Rio Grande Valley Trip
INTERVIEWER: Thomas Walls
TAPE 30 SIDE A
Walls : This material is taken from the scrapbook of Henry
Kawahata. I am going to read in some of the entries because
they want to charge fifty cents for each copy and I don't
want to pay that.
Mr. and Mrs. Kawahata are at t he ribbon cutting ceremony for
the Hidalgo Chamber of Commerce.
It says here, "Western states have no salad monopoly. It
couldn' t be done but t hey did it so choice lettuce crop is
harvested on upper Valley farm. Hidalgo: Here is
photographic denial of the oft-repeated phrase, 'You can't
plant l ettuce successfully in the Ri o Grande Valley' . Jimmy
Kawahata, right, is busily harvesting luscious lettuce from
25 acres his farm near Hidalgo and he's obtaining a yield of
250 to 300 crates an acre. Kawahata ships the salad
necessity in his own trucks to San Antonio and Houston where
Kawahata Scrapbook 2
he says Valley lettuce claims better prices than that from
Arizona and California. Pictured with the grower are Mayor
Horrace Atchison of McAllen and center, Henry Kawahata, the
farmer's son."
"Packing Plant turns out Winter Crop of Lettuce. Hidalgo:
Workers for Jimmy Kawahata, Hidalgo, are busily preparing
his record lettuce crop for shipment to San Antonio and
Houston as soon as (as shown in the upper picture) excessive
leaves are eliminated and the firm heads of lettuce packed
in crates between layers of ice. Thirty pounds of ice goes
into each crate which is taken to market by Kawahata's own
truck. In the lower photo a field hand is cutting lettuce
Kawahata invest harvested money crop termed Valley's best in
t wo decades."
"Ambitions of Valley agriculture to find use for waste
vegetables and citrus fruits are discussed in December issue
of Progressive Farmer of Southern Agriculture magazine . The
article written by the publicity department of the McAllen
Chamber of Commerce is entitled 'Valley will quit wasting
vegetables and citrus waste'." It's not very important.
Letterhead here is: "Robert B. Green Memorial Hospital, owned
and operated by Bexar County, San Antonio, Texas. March 17,
1944. Mr . J . M. Kawahata, Hidalgo, Texas.
Kawahata Scrapbook
Dear Mr . Kawahata , I wish you thank you for your generous
supply o f cauliflower which you provided this hospi tal with
recently. It was very kind of you to make t his gift to us .
3
You may be assured that the caul iflower will be put to good
use . Harr iette M. Willeford, Dietician"
Here's one from the Salvation Army i n San Antonio, March 22,
1944. "Dear Mr. Kawahata, I take t he pleasure this time to
thank you for t he kind donation you gav e us of c auliflower .
Th ey were very much appreciated. God bless you.
Sincerely yours, V.M. Bansyckle, Adjutant"
Okay this August 28th, 1949. "Scienti fic Farming Pays For
A&M Educated Henry Kawahata" It says h ere, "Along about 1917
an early Japanese American moved t o the Rio Grande Valley
and began vegetabl e farming. Back in the late thir ties or
e arly f orti es he was told t hat growing l ettuce or
cantaloupes was next to impossible here because of insects,
unsuitable weather for such del i cious delicate crops and
numerous other reasons. But Jimmy Kawahata just nodded his
head and k ept on planting. And it t urned ou t as the r esult
of his practicality , good judgmen t and stubbornn e ss he did
what the rest o f t he farmers l aughed off as impossible.
Jimmy died early in 1946 where he left behind a son, Henry,
who has the same doggedness, practical ity and ability to
raise crops just a litt le bit better than the next man most
Kawaha ta Sc rapbook 4
of the time . This year Texas A&M educated Henry Kawahata
already has chalked up no small amount of three bales to the
acre of cotton. And on much of his 450 acres of cot ton
growi ng land the fourth picking is not yet on its way. 'Al l
those 450 acres are not yielding three bales each' Kawahata
hastens to explain. 'The way I figured it now I will make
between a bale and half to a bale and three-quarters with an
over- all average counting the fertilized and non-ferti l ized
lan d . ' Most people are apt to give credit to these spots of
three barrel breaker cotton to fertilizer. Kawahata says i t
just all this combi nat ion fertilizer . The right amount of
water and correct timing at the break point. About forty
percent of Kawahata's Hi dalgo farm area is fertilized. He
figures he paid about $21 per acre for sixte en-nitrogen,
twenty- phosphoru s, zero mixture of fert i l izer. 'On
fertilized land I'm making anywhere from a barrel and half
on old land or land where I haven't made the right
combination of poison water and ferti l izer to three barrels
an acre where everything came out fine .' Kawahata
irrigated at least twice during the season which was really
too litt le, to five or six times which is about right. On
the unfertilized land he estimates that the average yield
will be between a half bale to one bale per acre, one and
half to two and half bales on fer t i l ~zed land . Kawahat a
also is continuing his father's melon and lettuce
businesses, Valley Industries , which the late Kawahata
Kawahata Scrapbook 5
produced . " No, "pioneered", excuse me. "He has seen the
lettuce industry here grow from a few acres to almost sixty
times its size in only three y ears. 'In '46 there were
about 500 acres of lettuce in the Valley' Kawahata said.
'My family had about 250 acres of that. The next year
there was all about 5000 acres here and we still had only
the same 250 acres . From what I hear about this year's crop
there is between 20 and 30 thousand acres in the Valley' he
said . The Kawahata family was a l so instrumental in
developing a type of lettuce that kept a tighter head .
Kawahata has some pretty definite ideas about the Texas
melon industry h owever. 'There's no denying that Texas beats
California in the market each year simply because the
growing season here permits us to get our products to the
Eastern market earlier', he said. 'Fr ankly we have a not so
good reputation for our packaging the melons are not is the
top qual ity. We have all the money we need for packaging
all the crates, l abor but we just don't have t he know-how.
Most of labor using crating melon does not know a thing
about it. They have never done that type of work before.
California, however that built up more s emi-skilled labor
for the crating business.
how.'
Some day we will have that know-
Since lettuce is ordinarily subject to a combination of
heavy insect infestation and continued warm weat her which
virtually ruin the crop, Valley farmers have never gone to
Kawahata Scrapbook 6
the production of lettuce main scale. The Kawahatas have
planted lettuce for t he past ten years in annuall y
increasing quantities. Last year they harvested fifteen
acres with the yield of about 175 to 200 crates per acre . It
sold from one dollar to two dollars per crate depending on
t he quality . Growi ng costs average between twenty-five to
t hirty d ollars per acre . What the opening price in the crop
was this year its owner said they would not know until the
first harvest had been marketed .
'Cost of growing can taloupe s in the Rio Grande Valley is
small but the fickle weather often spoils an apparently
bumper crop.' That's t h e observati on of Jimmy Kawahata who
has been growing cantaloupes near Hidalgo fo r nearly twenty
years. Kawahata has twenty acres of the melons planted this
s eason and began harvesting t his week. The first shipment
today went t o Houston. Kawahata expects t o get two dollars
a crate for the fir s t melons. 'Weather conditions have been
ideal ' he sai d 'and we hope to have a good yield . We need
dry weat her and l ots of sunshine to mature the melons . ' He
figured his cost of production ... "
Okay . "Th e Friday after Pearl Harbor apparently a young
Japanese appeared before a Rotary Club meeting at McAllen
a nd stood as a member of that organization and made thi s
s t atemen t taken from the Associated Press story in t he San
Antoni o Express. 'While I am of Japanese extraction I am
Kawahata Scrapbook 7
born American. All of my sisters were born in America. In
this war with Japan I and for my family salute the Stars and
Stripes and pledge allegiance to United States of America.'"
From San Antonio Express, "McAllen Jap Salutes Flag, Pledges
Allegiance f or Self and Family . McAllen, Texas, December
1 2th. A young Japanese born in the United States stood
before the McAllen Rotary Club to make a statement. The
youth was Henry Kawahata, son of Jimmy Kawahata, for years
one o f the upper Valley's most successful and widely known
farmers . Henry is also a successful farmer in his own right
and is now a student at Texas A&M College. He has been a
member of the Club for seven months. He walked to the
speaker's table and addressed the Club. 'While I am of
Japanese extraction I am born an American . All of my
sisters were born in America. In this war with Japan I am
and for my family pledge - salute the Stars and Stripes and
pledge a llegiance to the United States of American.' And
then he snapped to attention and saluted the flag at the
table. The rafters truly rang."
(In car} Harry Shimotsu's sister is Dorothy, I think it' s
Dorothy Nagai in Houst on, Texas. I am going to try to look
her up when I am there. She is the one that should know all
the info, all the l atest on the older Shimotsu man, their
f ather.