When you survived incarceration, a murder attempt, and the war in Europe, you weren’t afraid of Disney.
August 15, 1998: Disney announced it had secured an option to finally buy the Fujishige family’s 52.5-acre strawberry farm in Anaheim.
For decades, that land belonged to the Fujishige family — and no matter how big Disney was, they couldn’t convince them to sell.
The story began long before Disneyland even existed. Their Issei father had purchased farmland in California before the war, working the soil with the skill and dedication he had brought from Japan. Farming wasn’t just a way to make a living — it was a source of pride, and a legacy to be passed down.
When World War II broke out, most Japanese Americans on the West Coast were forced from their homes and imprisoned in remote camps. The Fujishige family made a difficult decision to leave California for Utah, avoiding incarceration under Executive Order 9066 but uprooting their lives all the same.
In 1945, Hiroshi Fujishige was drafted into the U.S. Army from Utah. But before he ever saw combat, a shocking act of violence nearly ended his life. While stationed stateside, Hiroshi went to a dentist for routine care. The dentist, holding a personal grudge because his brother had been killed fighting in the Pacific, poisoned Hiroshi in an act of revenge. Hiroshi barely survived.
After recovering, he was sent to Europe as the war was winding down. When he returned home, he and his brother Masao bought farmland in Anaheim — adding to the legacy their father had started.
Just a year later, Disneyland opened right next door.
From then on, offers to buy the Fujishige farm never stopped. Developers, speculators, and Disney itself wanted the land. But Hiroshi and Masao refused. The land meant more to them than money — it was their livelihood, their independence, and their family’s story.
But the pressure to sell eventually took its toll. In 1986, after years of tension over the property, Masao, who was also suffering from health issues, took his own life. But it seemed Hiroshi only became more determined to keep the farm, turning down offer after offer.
By the late 1990s, with the Fujishige elders gone and perhaps with no one able to run the farm, the family finally sold a large section of the land to Disney — 52.5 acres of their original 58. On August 15, 1998, Disney announced the deal.
For the Fujishiges, the fight wasn’t about money.
Former Anaheim City Council member Irv Pickler, for one, marveled at how Hiroshi Fujishige’s “integrity” was “more important than money.”