In mourning 
NY Times article archive: https://archive.is/hNKKD
https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/koda-farms-rice-closing-19651726.php
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Wow, this is so sad and fits right into the other thread about sustainability in fine dining.
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I love Kokuho Rose New Crop. Iâll miss it.
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My father was in an internment camp with the Kodakâs during the War.
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Did he know them in camp? My family was in Tule, but they hardly ever talked about the people they knew there. Just about the only ones we ever heard about was the family that helped them resettle in Lodi after the war. I donât know anybody who was in Amache.
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I do not know if he knew the Kodas. My father ended up in Tule Lake, the family were not US citizens
After the war, he worked at a Logging Camp in CO. He didnât make money. Moved to an orchard in Vacaville.
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You know that Tule wasnât just for non-citizens, right? There were Issei (who were legally barred from US citizenship) in ALL the camps. My family ended up there because they were no-nos.
My fatherâs family were no-nos.
I took a year of Asian-American studies in college. All the classes were taught by a Japanese-American professor, Mr, Makoto Tsuyuki. The one semester was about the Asian-American experience in general and the other was strictly about the Japanese-American, Canadian and Peruvian experiences. Of course we read âFarewell to Manzanarâ by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houstonâ and read about the many internment camps.
The most interesting âgenerationâ to me were the Kibei Nisei. Kibei Nisei were âJapanese Americans who were born in the US to immigrant parents but spent a significant part of their early lives in Japan.â
You can find out more about them here:
I learned so much about the IMHO horrible and shameful way Japanese immigrants and those born in the states were treated and will never forget it.
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My fatherâs older brother and sisters were Kibei Niseis. I did not know of the lives of my parents/older family until after they passed.
It couldnât be helped.
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So glad to see you posting! 
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I used to think Japanese Americans had it rough during WW2, but the Japanese Peruvians really got hosed.
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Thank you.
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They certainly did!
My fatherâs family befriend an issei from Peru.
Relocated from Peru to Texas, released after the war in Texas. Abandoned.
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ISTR that the US government tried to deport a lot of the Japanese Peruvians back to Peru after the war, and Peru wouldnât take them, then tried to send them to Japan.
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It is a sad tale faced by many family-owned farms dedicated to a crop that isnât optimized for cost and profits, and of former immigrant families where the children eventually no longer want to take over the family business. (I didnât realize how remote and far down south their farms were located).
It is good to see that their brands and part of the business is being sold, but it sounds like the conglomerate is going to reduce production of the better tasting product for one that is more profitable, and use the brand. If anyone has bought rice flour, it is their brand that is dominant in the US.
I wonder what the backstory is behind their loss of land and equipment during internment. Did others seize the property?
I donât know about the Koda family, but the overall history runs the gamut. Some families were lucky and had their property worked by neighbors/friends who brought in crops, paid the taxes, and made sure when the family got out of camp that they had a working farm to return to. Others had their farms seized by counties for unpaid taxes or banks for unpaid mortgages - which were then sold - with equipment also either seized by the taxing or lending entity or else stolen by opportunistic farmers. My family lost everything going into camps, then lost everything they had acquired between 1942-46 when they left camp (the moving truck with all their belongings fell off a cliff on a mountain road, per family lore).
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Try Tamaki Gold rice. Might help you get over your loss.
