Acts of Kindness

Fifty years ago, the first Japanese Americans were allowed back to the West Coast from a three-year incarceration in internment camps to reclaim their homes.

On Christmas day, 1944, the Kazuo Hiyama family returned to their farm outside of Fresno. A local newspaper photographed their homecoming. The family was smiling, talking about how good it felt to be home at last. Especially since a hero lived next door.

C.K. Oliver was not only a good farmer, but also a good neighbor. He had taken care of the Hiyama farm during the war.

Between 1942 and 1945, Oliver and hundreds of others along the West Coast took care of property belonging to the exiled Japanese Americans. There is little documentation of their acts; usually it was a hasty agreement ending in a handshake.

“We didn’t have a lease--I just sent the Hiyamas a check at the end of each year,” Oliver explains. “Yeah, there was some backtalk, but what the heck, it was the decent thing to do. I was raised to treat others as I’d like to be treated.

Individually, these “Jap lovers,” as some called them, challenged a nation filled with ugly wartime emotions. In the end, their acts of kindness spoke the loudest, especially to one Japanese American family on that Christmas day.

The Hiyama family did not simply come back to a farm. They returned to a place called home because of a good neighbor. “We were friends,” says Oliver. “I tried to work their place just like it was mine.”