The Harada House is a historic house at 3356 Lemon Street in Riverside, California. Built in 1884, this architecturally undistinguished house became the focus of an important court case testing legislation permitting racist or otherwise exclusionary ownership rules. The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1990 and is currently overseen by the Riverside Metropolitan Museum.
Video Harada House
Description and history
The Harada House is located near downtown Riverside, on the east side of Lemon Street between 3rd and 4th Streets. It is an unassuming two-story frame structure, with shiplap siding on its exterior. It is fronted by a two-story porch supported by heavy posts; the second floor of the porch has been enclosed.
The house was built in the 1880s as a 1-1/2 story bungalow-style structure. It was purchased in 1915 by Jukichi Harada, in a transaction that formally placed ownership of the house in the hands of his three minor children, who were natural-born United States citizens. Harada and his wife Ken were immigrants from Japan, and were by the California Alien Land Law of 1913 not allowed to own property in California. The Haradas made a number of improvements to the property, including addition of the second story.
Neighboring property owners attempted to drive the Haradas out of the property, without success. State authorities then filed suit against the children (the named owners of the property) to bring it into state ownership. The 1916-1918 case of California v. Harada was an early constitutional test of the land law. At issue was the right of the American-born Japanese children of Japanese immigrants to own the house. That right was upheld in a local court ruling, which the state chose not to appeal. Although the Haradas were allowed to keep the property, the principle of legislation preventing ownership by aliens was also confirmed, setting the stage for further legal challenges.
The Harada family retained ownership of the property, but were among those sent to Japanese internment camps during World War II, where Ken Harada died. During that period, a Caucasian friend of the family occupied the house, and the family were able to retain ownership. In the years after the war, the Haradas boarded other Japanese families who had lost their homes; it is during this period that the upstairs porch was enclosed to provide more living space. The house was given to the Riverside Metropolitan Museum by the Harada heirs in 2004.
Maps Harada House
See also
- Alien land laws
- List of National Historic Landmarks in California
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Riverside County, California
References
- Klotz, Esther H.; Hall, Joan H. (1985). Adobes, Bungalows, and Mansions of Riverside, California (1st ed.). Riverside, CA: Riverside Museum Press. p. 335. ISBN 0-935661-11-5. OCLC 13043980.
- Rawitsch, Mark Howland (2012). The House on Lemon Street: Japanese Pioneers and the American Dream. Boulder, CO: University of Colorado Press. p. 388. ISBN 978-1607321651. OCLC 769429702. OCLC 823715335
Further reading
- Rawitsch, Mark Howland (1983). No Other Place: Japanese American Pioneers in a Southern California Neighborhood. Riverside, CA: University of California, Riverside Department of History. p. 124. OCLC 10100652.
- Reviewed in: Taylor, Sandra C. (Winter 1986). "No Other Place". The Public Historian. 8 (11): 111-112. doi:10.2307/3377093. ISSN 0272-3433. OCLC 4896688058.
External links
- Riverside Metropolitan Museum, Harada House
- University of California, Riverside; Asian American Riverside; The Harada House
- National Park Service; National Historic Landmarks Program; Harada House
- U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Harada House
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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