Santa Barbara’s Century Man

Roke Fukumura: Baseball Star, Internment Camp Survivor, Hardworking Hometown Hero

By Tyler Hayden | December 22, 2022

Roke Fukumara wearing his high school letterman jacket that still fits like a glove. | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom

Roke Fukumura is an early bird. Always has been. Five days a week for the past 32 years, he’s arrived at Tri-County Produce before dawn, more recently in an Easy Lift van because of his waning night vision. “I come early or not at all” was his response after his boss suggested he start a little later.

Standing outside the lower Milpas Street grocery store, Roke can hear the train and smell the ocean. Across the street is Cabrillo Park, where, at just 14 years old, he played semi-professional baseball. Up the road on the Mesa is where he was born on his family’s farm. Roke rarely strays far from Santa Barbara, and when he does, he doesn’t particularly enjoy it. “This is home,” he said.

Roke’s first task of the morning is to help unload the trucks. He lifts 50-pound sacks of onions like a much younger man, though he can no longer hoist them onto his shoulders. The aches and pains are too much. When his coworkers encourage him to try something lighter, like mushrooms, he shakes his head. His Japanese-American father, who raised five children almost all on his own through the Great Depression, World War II, and an internment camp, had a saying: “Bear it.”