Japanese Americans built Pike Place Market from day one – Seattle erased them in 1942

Wikimedia Commons/Webster & Stevens

Japanese Farmers’ Expulsion from Pike Place Market

Pike Place Market began with Japanese farmers who ran 80% of its stalls by 1907. Yet they faced harsh bias, with four pleas to the city council in the 1910s going unheard.

Still, they grew 75% of King County’s food by 1940. Then came the blow.

In 1942, President Roosevelt signed Order 9066, and these farmers were torn from their stalls. Some wore “I am American” buttons as they were sent to camps…

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