Hundreds of people who share the surname Tanaka are converging on a farm in Irvine, drawn together by nothing more than a name that means “middle of the rice field” in Japanese. Tanaka Farms has logged RSVPs from 400 people across the country for the inaugural Tanaka Day, set for Saturday and Sunday, September 19 and 20, at the farm’s location at 5380 3/4 University Dr.
The event is the brainchild of Glenn Tanaka, the 69-year-old proprietor of Tanaka Farms, who organized the gathering to welcome anyone connected to the Tanaka name by birth, marriage, relation, or friendship, according to LAist. The farm has been operated by four generations of the Tanaka family, and the goal, as the outlet reports, is to bring together people connected to the Tanaka name to share Japanese American immigration stories. Glenn Tanaka told the outlet he helped create families that talk, framing the reunion less as a family tree exercise and more as a shared cultural touchstone.
A Surname Rooted in Farmland, Not Bloodlines
Attendees are united by the Tanaka surname. Tanaka ranks as the fourth most common surname in Japan, held by roughly 1.34 million people, or about 1 percent of the national population, according to demographic figures cited by Wikipedia. Japan Today discusses Tanaka’s topographical origin alongside Japan’s 1875 Meiji-era Surname Mandatory Order, which required all common citizens to register official family names. In the United States, 2010 Census data counted 7,994 residents bearing the Tanaka surname, one of the most prevalent Japanese American family names nationwide, per figures from 23andMe.
The reunion also doubles as a living archive of Japanese American immigration, which the event aims to highlight alongside the shared name. Japanese immigrants began arriving in the United States starting in the late 1800s, and the farm’s own founder, Takeo Tanaka, established farming roots in the early 20th century, according to the same LAist reporting.
Wartime Displacement Shaped the Family’s Story
The gathering unfolds against a backdrop of forced displacement that upended Japanese American farming families statewide. Japanese American incarceration during World War II affected Japanese American farmers broadly, and many were forced to sell their farm holdings at low prices during the wartime incarceration process following the Dec. 7, 1941, attack and 1942 removal orders, LAist reports. Second-generation farmer George Tanaka fled California for Utah in 1942 to avoid forced relocation to internment camps, returning in 1945 to restart farming in Fountain Valley, according to background compiled on Wikipedia…