Japanese residents of Sacramento prospered despite exclusion laws and local prejudice until World War II changed the ethnic terrain of the county. In 1916, the year this ad was published in the Sacramento City Directory, the introduction claimed that it contained "30,665 names, exclusive of married women, single girls who have no occupation, and children, and also Japanese and Chinese." There must have been some slip-up, because Ben Akahori's ad for farm land sales featured prominently in the opening pages, and other Asian merchants who ponied up the cost of inclusion were not left out. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of those excluded from the directory listings worked hard to provide the fruit and produce that fed the rest of the state and country. The same City Directory that failed to note them tells the true tale of the Japanese in Sacramento County who supported two newspapers, a theatre, and dozens of other businesses within a block of Mr. Akahori's offices.
