Beginning in 1913, anti-Japanese political pressure brought about alien land laws that prohibited Japanese immigrants from owning or leasing agricultural land in western U.S. states. The motivation was both racial and economic: proponents argued that the West Coast was “white man’s country,” and they resented how the Issei transformed poor-quality land into prosperous produce farms.
The wording of the laws was evasive. Most stated that “aliens ineligible to citizenship” could not purchase or lease farmland. The phrase is from federal immigration law that granted U.S. citizenship to “free white persons” and “persons of African descent” (former slaves). Since Asians could not become citizens, the land laws applied only to them.
The Issei could at first get around the prohibitions by renting land from sympathetic non-Japanese, or by purchasing land in the name of their children, who were U.S. citizens. Later, even harsher land laws made their lives difficult and sent a strong message that their adopted country did not want them. The alien land laws were not repealed until the 1950s or even later.
Issei picking strawberries（1910）
Kent, Washington
Courtesy of the University of Washington Libraries
Excerpt from Densho Archive
My father and his friends—there were four families--purchased about 50 acres of land in the village of Thomas, Washington. This was swamp land. I remember they were building drainage ditches, they were dynamiting stumps off of the land. They cleared it and year by year, the four families built houses on their sections of the land. The alien land law was in effect, and what had happened was they bought the land in the name of the eldest child. It was about 1920 or so, and the enterprising prosecuting attorney of King County had his eye on the governorship. He began to use land cases to build up some notoriety. He had prosecuted a lot of Issei farmers. In this particular case, he argued that these farmers had used subterfuge in order to acquire the property. Their property, and the houses that they built on it, were confiscated. So they had to turn around and lease the land and the house from the State, who had confiscated the property.
Professor Emeritus, San Francisco State University, a founder of ethnic studies