Saké Barrel Divers 

The mariner brings a spirit of work and focus to any job. A fisherman brings faith. Together, these traits form a citizen of the oceans. In the middle chapters of world nautical history, specific characteristics from the tenacity of the Japanese fisherman/sailor have profoundly shaped the American mariner. Sailor’s knowledge is transformative. Knowledge of techniques, sources of best practices, the intuition and faith, are guidelines to living on the ocean. Like flotsam and jetsam, what doesn’t work on this tide might be the solution on the next. The American mariner at the turn of the century could be characterized as being in a period of transition. The Japanese fisherman had a thousand years of uninterrupted practice at fishing and sailing. Their fortitude and skill became the envy of the white population in Southern California during a time of Jim Crow. Anger and racism persist today among a few, but it is clear the heritage of the Japanese fisherman and sailor added a beneficial facet to the American marine character.
Japanese fisherman sailed down the west coast of American past Point Conception and found the Channel Islands. The Japanese showed great courage and determination to build a new life based on ancient skills. Japanese on the Channel Islands began harvesting abalone at the turn of the century. The Channel Islands lay a few miles off Santa Barbara. Both Japanese and Chinese abalone competed fiercely for the abalone, a delicacy much loved in Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo and China town. The railroad brought many Chinese and Japanese laborers to Southern California. However, the Japanese that made the mark were the sailors and fishermen. 

Japanese fishermen began diving for abalones, first as free divers from surface floats and later, more successfully, as hard-hat divers. They used old rice wine casks as floats to rest on after each dive. Taking a few deep breaths, they would dive to the bottom and return to the surface with their catch. They quickly earned the nickname of saké barrel divers because of their unusual technique. Abalone are snails with a large foot used for grasping a rock. They feed off the kelp and the organisms that live in and around the kelp. Often an urchin will attach itself to the heavy shell and offer camouflage. Once a diver spots an abalone, he swoops in and tries to lift it off the rock as quickly as possible. This can be done with some success. If the Abalone locks, it’s meaty foot to the rock, a bar will be needed to pry the foot off the rock. It is not a simple task, especially free diving. 

In 1900, county ordinances were passed that made it illegal to gather abalones from less than twenty feet of water. These regulations were racially motivated. The regulations completely halted Chinese commercial abalone operations. Undaunted by the new regulations, the Japanese dominated the collecting of the abalone in a short time. 

“Avalon. Catalina is up in arms. She has been invaded by Japan. A lot of little brown men, with a small sloop, appeared at Empire a few days since, and are preceding to skin the rocks of the abalones. These Japs are divers. They wear goggles with which they locate the abalone as they swim along the surface, and making a spring, they emulate the ‘hell diver’ and disappear to wrench the inoffensive shellfish from its hold on the rock by a quick thrust of an iron bar. Practice has made these men able to remain underwater an inconceivable length of time, and they seem to be as much at home in and under the water as the shag...” LA Times. April 21, 1903. Soon the albacore was over fished. One of the last remaining drying camps was White Point. The Japanese were routed by police and forced to leave. Unable to dive for albacore, the fisherman took up residence on Terminal Island in Los Angeles harbor. 

Shifting gears, the Japanese fisherman took to purse seine fishing for tuna. 

Japanese fishermen built small rowboats to explore the San Pedro Bay for tuna and used 6-foot poles for their catch. By 1907, the Japanese fishing village of Fish Harbor was established with its first houses built on pilings along the shore of the main channel. Within a few years, the Japanese population on Terminal Island had increased to 600. The tight-knit community, living in isolation, developed their own blend of Japanese and English, referred to as “kii-shu ben”, a dialect from the Kii district in Wakayama, the township where many had immigrated. 

While small motorboats increased the distance traveled for their catch, Japanese immigrants devised an unprecedented fishing technique. They would send an advance boat to scout for schools of albacore tuna and catch the anchovies and sardines the tuna followed for live bait. 

Then, a fishing vessel with a team of fishermen would release the bait and spear the tuna using short bamboo poles with hooks while standing on the steel walkways near the hulls and toss them on to the deck of the boat. Because of local fishermen’s high yield of tuna, several fish canneries opened on Terminal Island. 

Their success was met with anger and violence. The Los Angeles Herald reported August 4, 1920: “Fishermen battle. Vessel blown up. San Diego, August 4. — The police today expressed the belief that ill feeling among the Japanese an Italian and Austrian fishermen operating off the Southern California coast, has led to a sea battle in which the Japanese fishing
schooner Yomato was blown up or sunk and her entire crew slain. Bits of wreckage from
the Yomato were found today. Recently, four bodies were washed ashore. How many lives were lost is unknown?” 

August 7, 1920 [LAH]: “Hunt Austrians as Jap boat wrecks. Nets on Japanese fishing craft were tucked in lockers today and the smacks themselves idled back and forth in zig-zag courses over the fishing lanes while the expressionless faces of their owners searched the sea for a sight of certain Austrian boats, wanted in connection with the sinking of the Jap boat Itzumato. Government patrol boats are plying overfishing banks in Southern California waters on the same mission, trying to find the craft and its crew believed to be responsible for the ramming of 

the Itzumato and the probable murder of its crew. Working to end the feud prevailing for weeks between Japanese and Austrian fishermen, Fish and Game Warden Paul Anderson, on board the patrol boat Albacore, came on the wrecked Itzumato off Catalina Island last night. Coincident with the report of the finding of the Itzumato, it was reported in San Diego by American fishermen that the crew of a wrecked Japanese boat had been picked up by an Italian fishing craft. Word of the Phrone Rose, an Austrian boat, has not been received for the past 10 days and authorities are now confident that this boat has met the same fate as the other, being sunk with her crew on board. The fishing boat Wanderer of San Pedro, abandoned by her crew because of a broken propeller shaft, is now believed to be a derelict at sea, according to the latest reports. With the finding of the wrecked Itzumato, four boats are now missing in Southern California waters, only one of which has been fully accounted for. Besides the Wanderer and Phrone Rose, a Japanese boat named Yamato disappeared last month and is believed to have been swallowed up by the sea and hew crew murdered in the Jap-Austrian warfare.” 

The Japanese were in the right in these conflicts. The Austrians and Italians were poaching the fishing grounds. No matter the right, being white won the day. No one was ever prosecuted for the murders. The warfare eventually dissipated with the loss of fishing stocks. The incidents were closely watched by the local fisherman. For Los Angeles locals, these reports were sensational news. 

Testimonies of the times:
“My father’s name is Tomekichi Takeuchi. The Japanese came from Shima-gun, Mieken, Japan. He landed in San Francisco in 1902, at twenty-two years old. He worked as a cook in a restaurant for a couple of years. Heard him mention how he threw a pie at a customer and got fired. He moved to Los Angeles, Little Tokyo, and got a job as a private chauffeur driver, off and on. Meantime, he moved to Terminal Island, called his wife from Japan. He and his friend, Mr. Heizaburo Hamaguchi, leased a fishing boat called Amazon from French Cannery. They carried, including them, thirteen crew members. They fished from near the lighthouse, to the north and much later toward Mexico.” Kimiye Okuno Takeuchi Ariga. 

“Fish Harbor on Terminal Island was on the southwestern part of the island and comprised a fishing fleet, canneries, and 5,000 Japanese men, women, and children. The adults were the first generation Issei from Japan, and their children who were born in America are the Nisei like me. The fishermen working out of Fish Harbor visited the local waters of Catalina, Santa Barbara, and San Diego to catch sardines, mackerel, skipjack, and tuna throughout the year. My father was captain of a small fishing boat and had several men working for him. My mother worked in the fish cannery, of which they were part owners. Each cannery had a very loud whistle, which was sounded when a ship came into the harbor with a catch, signaling that it was time to go to work. Most of the ladies knew what cannery was calling for work by its distinctive whistle. I recall hearing the loud whistles from the various canneries being blown one after another. This meant that many ships had come back full of fish. My mother, like all the ladies, always had her work clothes ready, because there was no definite schedule when the ships would come in. Most of the ships did not have a radio or other communications equipment. Upon hearing the whistle, my mother would drop whatever she was doing