You Can't Farm Here
Before the war, almost half of America’s Japanese community engaged in agriculture. Their growing success made them targets of jealous neighbors and agricultural rivals.
To limit Japanese American farmers’ growth in agriculture, legislators in several states passed “Alien Land Laws.” These laws prevented first-generation Issei from owning land or entering into long-term leases. Some Japanese families got around these laws by purchasing land in the names of their U.S.-born children, who were citizens. In response, legislators tightened laws to prohibit such arrangements. It was not until after World War II that the Supreme Court ruled that alien land laws were unconstitutional.
Solidarity in Farming
Workers united across ethnic and racial lines through farm labor organizing. In 1903, the Japanese Mexican Labor Association (JMLA), one of America’s first multiracial unions, went on strike at the American Beet Sugar Company in Oxnard, California. Communicating through interpreters, 1,200 workers protested reduced wages and payment in company store credit rather than cash. As the strike grew, the company agreed to the union’s demands.
The JMLA requested a charter from the American Federation of Labor (AFL), the largest workers union in the country, to formally recognize the union. AFL President Samuel Gompers granted membership to Mexican workers but would “under no circumstance accept membership of any Chinese or Japanese.”
The Mexican American members refused to move forward without their fellow workers. However, the AFL stood its ground, and the new sugar beet union quickly dissolved. Even so, this event reflects a powerful example of interracial solidarity.
Japanese farmer harvesting cauliflower near Centerville, CA, in 1942. Shortly after this photo was taken, the farmer was sent to an incarceration camp. Photograph by Dorothea Lange. Courtesy Library of Congress.
