The original Garlic King

Before there was Don or Val or Rudy, there was Jimmy.
If you’ve never heard of Kiyoshi
”
Jimmy
”
Hirasaki, the South Valley’s original Garlic King, you’re not
alone. Even some officials at the Gilroy Garlic Festival
Association don’t know his amazing story. I believe it’s time the
Gilroy community acknowledges Hirasaki’s significant contribution
to this area.
Everyone knows Don Christopher, Val Filice and Rudy Melone are
the festival’s founding fathers.
Before there was Don or Val or Rudy, there was Jimmy.

If you’ve never heard of Kiyoshi “Jimmy” Hirasaki, the South Valley’s original Garlic King, you’re not alone. Even some officials at the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association don’t know his amazing story. I believe it’s time the Gilroy community acknowledges Hirasaki’s significant contribution to this area.

Everyone knows Don Christopher, Val Filice and Rudy Melone are the festival’s founding fathers. But without Hirasaki’s pioneering the path to making garlic a commercially grown crop here in the South Valley, no crowds would show up at Christmas Hill Park this weekend to sample cuisine made from the reeking rose.

Last Saturday I spent some time with Hirasaki’s daughter Mineko Sakai and her husband Lawson Sakai at their Gilroy home to chat about the Garlic King. I hope what I learned might help readers appreciate the man more.

Hirasaki was born on Feb. 29, 1900 in Kumamoto, Kyushu, a southern island in Japan. In 1914, he immigrated to California. Living in Milpitas with his father and older brother, he worked the fields growing seeds for onions and carrots.

At age 22, he returned briefly to his Japanese hometown to marry Haruye Yonemitsu, a woman his parents had intended to be his bride since he was a child. Together, they raised three sons and five daughters in America.

Now comes the garlic connection. In 1922, Hirasaki worked for grower Luis Kimberlin developing swamp land along Gilroy’s Llagas Creek and Miller Slough to be used for producing seed crops. Like many Japanese-American immigrants, Hirasaki worked hard and bought 500 acres of this fertile farmland.

During this time, garlic was grown extensively in southern California. George Clausen, Sr., the associate director of Gentry Foods, was friends with Hirasaki and suggested the young farmer grow the herb in Gilroy.

Hirasaki’s recollection of the conversation is now recorded in a book of Japanese-American history:

“There’s a big market for garlic,” Clausen told him. “Why not try to grow a little, Jimmy?”

“But I only know how to grow seeds. I don’t know anything about growing garlic,” Hirasaki said.

The businessman praised Hirasaki as a good seed farmer. “That’s why you’ll be a good garlic grower, too,” he said.

Hirasaki took Clausen’s advice. The herb proved so profitable that Hirasaki purchased more fields. He eventually farmed 1,500 acres of garlic.

Historically, Italians in the South Valley were the first to grow garlic here. But they had done it on half-acre plots and for their own personal use. Hirasaki, however, was a local pioneer. He was the first to grow it commercially in the South Valley.

So successful did the farmer become that in the mid-1930s, he sold a portion of his property along Pacheco Pass Highway to Clausen to build the Gentry Foods dehydration plant.

Hirasaki’s odoriferous crop even received national recognition in the 1930s when Will Rogers once traveled through town and breathed in the sharp stink. In his syndicated newspaper column, the cowboy comedian described Gilroy as “the only place in America where you can marinate a steak by hanging it on a clothesline.”

During the Great Depression, Hirasaki helped out many of his fellow Gilroy residents by providing jobs. Tony Silva and George White, long before becoming city council members, drove trucks for him. And Hirasaki often took farm-grown produce such as carrots and tomatoes and celery to help feed children at Eliot School during the hard times of the 1930s.

In 1939, the Garlic King’s wealth allowed him to bring an architectural treasure to Gilroy. That year, the Golden Gate International Exposition on San Francisco Bay’s Treasure Island displayed an attractive Japanese Pavilion. Instead of seeing it go into the scrap-heap after the world’s fair, Hirasaki purchased it. Six carpenters reassembled it on his Gilroy farm. The Sakais now live in this home, which is listed as a historic site.

After Pearl Harbor, Hirasaki’s status as a leader of the Japanese-American community made him among the first rounded up by the FBI as a potential “threat” to national security. In February 1942, he was sent to the U.S. Justice Department’s internment camp in Bismarck, N.D. His wife and children were forced to evacuate to Grand Junction, Colo.

After the war, the reunited Hirasaki family returned to Gilroy to resume growing garlic. They aided many homeless Japanese Americans by providing shelter on their farm.

In 1948, Hirasaki had an exceptional crop year. With the money he made, he built a large packing shed on a dirt road south of downtown Gilroy along the railroad tracks. This Tenth Street warehouse years later would serve as the factory site for Indian Motorcycles.

Unfortunately, in 1950, hot weather ruined much of his crop. “The weather killed him (financially),” Lawson Sakai remembers. Discouraged, Jimmy gave up farming in 1951.

While other Gilroy growers including Don Christopher and Joseph Gubser began commercially producing the herb, Hirasaki spent his last years in community service.

He was active with the Japanese Community Hall in Gilroy and the Buddhist Churches of America. He also presided over a Northern California Japanese-English daily newspapers in San Francisco.

Gilroy’s original Garlic King died on Dec. 24, 1963 at Gilroy’s Wheeler Hospital from complications from an arthritis medication.

On Tuesday, I spoke with Micki Pirozzoli, next year’s president of the Gilroy Garlic Festival, about possibly establishing a scholarship to recognize Jimmy Hirasaki. I explained to her the significant role he played in making Gilroy the “Garlic Capital of the World.” A scholarship, I suggested, would help show appreciation for how he shaped the South Valley’s famous festival.

From what Mineko and Lawson Sakai told me about him, it’s certain Hirasaki would be pleased with the festival’s overall mission of improving the local community.

Lawson believes his father-in-law – like Don, Val and Rudy – might have been a major supporter of the event. “I think Jimmy would have liked it,” he said. “He was always friendly and liked people and wanted people to have a good time.”

Martin Cheek is the author of ‘The Silicon Valley Handbook.’