Save the Sakauye Farmhouse!

In February 2025, bulldozers razed the 11-acre farmstead and orchards of Eiichi Sakauye (1912-2005), a second-generation Japanese-American farmer and horticulturalist whose incarceration in the Heart Mountain concentration camp during WWII inspired a lifetime of civic leadership and education to redress the injustices of the internment. Preservation advocates negotiated with the City of San José and the developer Hanover Company to temporarily spare one building on the site, the farmhouse that Eiichi built in the 1930s, reclaimed following internment, and lived in for the remainder of his life. However, it must be relocated off-site to History Park by November 2025 or it too will be erased forever. PAC*SJ is now working closely with History San José and the Japanese American Museum of San José to raise the estimated $200,000 still needed to move the house at History Park, where it will be restored to host educational programs and exhibits honoring Eiichi Sakauye’s legacy as a farmer and educator.

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APRIL 2026: UPDATE

Thanks to incredible community support, we met our first fundraising goal and the Sakauye Farmhouse was safely relocated to History Park on March 30, 2026! But significant restoration work remains to transform the structure into a place of learning, reflection, and remembrance that honors the legacy of Eiichi Sakauye and the broader Bay Area Japanese American community. PAC*SJ is continuing to support the Japanese American Museum of San Jose and History San Jose in this next chapter, and will continue to direct all Farmhouse Fund donations to Phase Two restoration work,  which will include roof reconstruction and other exterior repairs, interior buildout of exhibition and program spaces, and site and accessibility improvements.