This article discusses Japanese Americans and Japanese citizens in Houston and Greater Houston. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, there were 3,566 people of Japanese descent in Harris County, making up 1.3% of the Asians in the county. In 1990 there were 3,425 ethnic Japanese in the county, making up 3.1% of the county's Asians, and in 2000 there were 3,574 ethnic Japanese in the county, making up 1.9% of the county's Asians. Patsy Yoon Brown, the director of the Japan-America Society of Houston (JASH, ヒューストン日米協会 Hyūsuton Nichibei Kyōkai), stated in 2013 that the Japanese American community in Houston had about 3,000 people, and that, as paraphrased by Minh Dam of the Houston Chronicle, is "a relatively small number compared to other Asian-American communities in the area". History A few Japanese, mostly working as laborers, were present in Houston by 1900, and due to a lack of required English knowledge some Japanese in Houston opened small restaurants that catered to working-class people and served inexpensive American meals. In the 1890s a man named Tsunekichi Okasaki, who took the American name "Tom Brown", opened a Japanese restaurant in Downtown Houston, which employed many recently arrived Japanese Texans. Sadatsuchi Uchida visited Houston in 1902. There, city leaders of Houston told him that they were interested in allowing Japanese people to operate and own rice colonies. In Japan Uchida talked about the information with friends and published literature in that told about the rice-growing opportunities. Seito Saibara arrived in 1902, or 1903, and after meeting newspaper editors, bank presidents, and a Southern Pacific Railroad "colonization agent", he purchased land on a railroad near Webster, Texas, using Uchida's advice. He used a type of rice that could grow well in Texas, the shinriki grain. Saibara took his wife and 14-year-old son with him to Texas. Saibara convinced Japanese men to work for him, and paid bonuses for men who brought wives with them. Saibara was the first Japanese person who Uchida had convinced to establish a rice plantation in Texas. The Webster farming colony was in size. After the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, prominent Japanese people visited his colony and other Japanese attempted to start rice farming. Sen Katayama, a socialist, started a rice colony and failed, while Rihei Onishi, a journalist, succeeded with his venture with his cousin Toraichi. Shinpei Mykawa, who had visited Texas in