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 $600,000 still needed to move and restore the house at History Park, where it can host educational programs and exhibits honoring Eiichi Sakauye’s legacy as a farmer and educator.
Farmhouse Fund
Learn More and Take Action!
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Learn more about the Sakauye Farmhouse on our Endangered Eight page
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Read a May 2025 joint statement from History San Jose, the Japanese American Museum of San Jose, and PAC*SJ.
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Read the Historic Resources Evaluation for the Sakauye Farm site and learn more about the approved project now under construction to replace it.
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Learn more about Eiichi Sakauye in these profiles:
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The Californian (1982)
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CalToday (1982)
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Densho Archive (Eiichi Sakauye interviews and film footage of Heart Mountain)
PAC*SJ is a registered 501(c)3 with tax id # 77-0254542. All donations to the Save the Sakauye Farmhouse project are 100% tax deductible and will be regranted to History San Jose for the sole purpose of relocating the farmhouse to History Park. In the event that the funds raised are insufficient to complete the move, all PAC*SJ donors will be notified and given the option to designate the funds for another PAC*SJ or History San Jose project, or be reimbursed.