<Articles>The California Alien Land Law of 1920: Race, Americanization, and (Un)Assimilability

Abstract

This paper discusses the way in which Japanese immigrants negotiated the ferocious terrainof racial politics in the early twentieth century in the United States by examining their reactions to theAlien Land Law of 1920. Proposed as an initiative measure in California, the law was designed to closethe loopholes in the 1913 California Alien Land Law, which prohibited “aliens ineligible to citizenship”and the companies whose majority stock was held by them from purchasing agricultural land, or leasingsuch land for more than three years. The wording notwithstanding, the Alien Land Laws targetedthe Japanese immigrants in the state. This paper begins by analyzing how and why the anti-Japanesemovement reemerged in March 1920 when the California Oriental Exclusion League, the bipartisanumbrella organization of the movement, proposed the Alien Land Law of 1920 as an initiative measure.After interrogating the discourse of the anti-Japanese advocates, this paper investigates how theJapanese immigrant community reacted to the initiative measure that would not only damage theirsocio-economic life but also possibly pave the way to Japanese exclusion. Shedding light on the rolesplayed by the Japanese government, this paper fully explores the thoughts and actions of the Japaneseimmigrants against the initiative measure.