Japanese Immigrant Response to the 1920 California Alien Land Law

Abstract

Japanese immigrants perceived the 1920 California Alien Land Law as a "bread-and-butter" issue (literally "life-and-death"). Seeing its enactment as a serious threat to their livelihood, they fought the law in many ways. Many scholars discount the effectiveness of the law, suggesting that Japanese farmers did not suffer from either its enactment or enforcement. They believe that the farmers successfully circumvented the law by one means or another.l Other scholars argue that the 1920 law and a post-World War I recession caused a sharp drop in Japanese agriculture during the twenties.2 No scholar, however, has studied Japanese immigrant sources fully enough to substantiate either interpretation. Nor has any scholar presented a historical account and analysis of how the Japanese immigrants themselves responded to the 1920 law. Using previously unexamined Japanese immigrant sources, this essay will reexamine the question of the 1920 California Alien Land Law and its effect on Japanese farmers during the twenties from a Japanese immigrant perspective. Statistics of Japanese farmholdings reflect the growth of Japanese