Alien Land Laws and Internment

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Alien Land Laws and Internment

• Asian Americans and the Law
• Dr. Steiner

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• Despite the vocal and universal opposition from
  the many residents of the road, the Jefferson
  County Commissioners voted unanimously to change
  the name. After the vote, Judge Griffith and Jodi
  Bernstein suggested a historical marker which
  would honor Yoshino Mayumi and his family.
• The Commissioners assigned Wayne Wright and Earl
  Callahan, leaders of the opposition, to head a
  committee of fellow Jap Road residents to suggest
  a new road name by July 29th 2004. To the
  disappointment of many, 65 of the residents
  decided to go with the name Boondocks which was a
  popular local catfish restaurant which closed 10
  years ago. This name was suggested to the Fannett
  residents by Wayne Wright. The Commissioners
  formally voted to rename JAP Road to Boondocks
  Road on August 2nd
• Japanese American Veterans Association website

3
Japanese Immigration

• In 1880, 150 Japanese in U.S.
• In 1885, Japanese government legalized emigration
• In 1898, there were 2000 Japanese in U.S.
• In 1900, there were 12,000 Japanese in U.S.
• By 1901, California governor is discussing the
  Japanese Problem

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Japanese Population in the United States,
1870-1940
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Dennis Kearney on Japanese Immigration, July 1892

• The foreign Shylocks are rushing another breed of
  Asiatic slaves to fill up the gap made vacant by
  the Chinese who are shut out by our laws. . . .
  Japs . . . are being brought here in countless
  numbers to demoralize and discourage our domestic
  labor market and to be educated . . . at our
  expense. . . . We are paying out money to allow
  fully developed men who know no morals but vice
  to sit beside our . . . daughters and to
  debauch and demoralize them.

6
James D. Phelan,Mayor of San Francisco 1900

• The Japanese are starting the same tide of
  immigration which we thought we had checked
  twenty years ago. . . . The Chinese and Japanese
  are not bona fide citizens. They are not the
  stuff of which American citizens can be made. . .
  . Personally we have nothing against the
  Japanese, but as they will not assimilate with us
  and their social life is so different from ours,
  let them keep a respectful distance.

7
Republican Party Platform 1900

• In the further interest of American workmen we
  favor a more effective restriction of the
  immigration of cheap labor from foreign lands,
  the extension of opportunities of education for
  working children, the raising of the age limit
  for child labor, the protection of free labor as
  against contract convict labor, and an effective
  system of labor insurance.

8
Democratic Platform 1900

• We favor the continuance and strict enforcement
  of the Chinese exclusion law, and its application
  to the same classes of all Asiatic races.

9
Asiatic Coolie Invasion,Japanese and Korean
Exclusion League (1905)

• Thousands of fair minded and well meaning people
  who were biased and ignorant on the question of
  Japanese immigration have during the last year,
  entirely changed their views on the subject. They
  have learned the truth that the Japanese coolie
  is even a greater menace to the existence of the
  white race, to the progress and prosperity of our
  country than is the Chinese coolie.

10
Asiatic Coolie Invasion,Japanese and Korean
Exclusion League (1905)

• As long as California is white mans country, it
  will remain one of the grandest and best states
  in the union, but the moment the Golden State is
  subjected to an unlimited Asiatic coolie invasion
  there will be no more California.

11
William P. Canbu,Grand President, Native Sons of
the Golden West, 1920

• California was given by God to a white people,
  and with Gods strength we want to keep it as He
  gave it to us.

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Rice Farming in Webster, Texas
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Oregon Constitution of 1857, Art. XV, sec. 8

• No Chinaman, not a resident of the State at the
  adoption of this Constitution, shall ever hold
  any real estate, or mining claims or work any
  mining claim therein. The Legislative Assembly
  shall provide by law in the most effectual manner
  for carrying out the above provisions.

16
Alien Land Laws

• In 1913, California passed the first Alien Land
  Law that was directed at Japanese immigrants. It
  passed 35-2 in the Senate and 72-3 in the
  Assembly.
• Californias population in 1913 was approx. 2.5
  million, which included 50,000 Japanese
  immigrants
• Out of Californias 27 million acres of land,
  Japanese owned 12, 726 acres in 1913

17
California Alien Land Law (1913)

• Aliens eligible for citizenship may acquire,
  hold, and convey real property in the same manner
  as U.S. citizens
• All other aliens may acquire property in the
  manner prescribed by treaty
• Any corporation of which a majority of its
  members are ineligible aliens or majority of its
  stock is owned by ineligible may acquire land as
  prescribed by treaty
• Property held in violation of statute will
  escheat to state

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States with Ineligible Alien Land Laws

• California 1913
• Arizona 1917
• Louisiana 1921
• New Mexico 1922
• Idaho 1923
• Montana 1923
• Oregon 1923
• Kansas 1925
• Utah 1943

19
Washington ConstitutionsAlien Land Provision

• The ownership of lands by aliens, other than
  those who in good faith have declared their
  intention to become citizens of the United
  States, is prohibited in this state, except where
  acquired by inheritance, under mortgage or in
  good faith in the ordinary course of justice in
  the collection of debts and all conveyances of
  lands hereafter made to any alien directly or in
  trust for such alien, shall be void. . . Every
  corporation, the majority of the capital stock of
  which is owned by aliens, shall be considered an
  alien for the purposes of this prohibition.

20
Evading the Land Laws

• Land bought by native-born sons and daughters
• Guardianships were used because they typically
  were minors
• If you wanted to lease or own land for any
  purpose you had to use your childrens name. . .
  . A set of books had to be set up for inspection
  by the state authorities in order to prove that
  you were an employee working for a wage.---I. K.
  Ishimatsu.
• But by 1919-1920, courts began refusing to grant
  guardianships and rescinding those already granted

21
Evading the Land Laws

• Borrowing names of American citizens
• Hawaiian-born Japanese (who were older than those
  born on mainland)
• Sympathetic whites such as L.M. Landsborough who
  bought six different parcels (100 acres) for
  Japanese farmers

22
Evading the Land Laws

• Dummy corporations
• These corporations just needed to have a majority
  of stockholders who were the majority of
  stockholders (often set up with native-born
  children)
• Before 1921, 416 such companies held almost
  66,000 acres

23
California Alien Land Lawof 1920

• Closed loopholes and added criminal penalties
• Denied Japanese aliens all rights of ownership
  and leasehold over agricultural land
• Ineligible aliens prohibited from membership in
  or acquiring shares in any corporation entitled
  to own land
• Ineligible aliens prohibited from acting as
  guardians for minors owning or leasing land

24
Continued Evasion of Land Laws

• Use of collusive arrangements where the Japanese
  farmer leased the farm but the formal document
  showed him acting as a salaried manager
• White landlords and Japanese farmers continued to
  evade the law

25
Terrace v. Thompson (1923)

• And, while Congress has exclusive jurisdiction
  over immigration, naturalization and the disposal
  of the public domain, each state, in the absence
  of any treaty provision to the contrary, has
  power to deny to aliens the right to own land
  within its borders.

26
Terrace v. Thompson (1923)

• Congress is not trammeled, and it may grant or
  withhold the privilege of naturalization upon any
  grounds or without any reason, as it sees fit.
  But it is not to be supposed that its acts
  defining eligibility are arbitrary or unsupported
  by reasonable consideration of public policy.

27
Terrace v. Thompson (1923)

• The state properly may assume that the
  considerations upon which Congress made such
  classification are substantial and reasonable.
  Generally speaking, the natives of European
  countries are eligible. Japanese, Chinese and
  Malays are not. Appellants contention that the
  state act discriminates arbitrarily against
  Nakatsuka and other ineligible aliens because of
  their race and color is without foundation. All
  persons of whatever color or race who have not
  declared their intention in good faith to become
  citizens are prohibited from so owning
  agricultural lands. The rule established by
  Congress on this subject, in and of itself,
  furnishes a reasonable basis for classification
  in a state law withholding from aliens the
  privilege of land ownership as defined in the
  act.

28
Terrace v. Thompson (1923)

• The quality and allegiance of those who own,
  occupy and use the farm lands within its borders
  are matters of highest importance and affect the
  safety and power of the state itself.
• The Terraces, who are citizens, have no right
  safeguarded by the Fourteenth Amendment to lease
  their land to aliens lawfully forbidden to take
  or have such lease. The state act is not
  repugnant to the equal protection clause and does
  not contravene the Fourteenth Amendment.

29
Terrace v. Thompson (1923)

• Treaty of Commerce and Navigation of 1911
• The citizens or subjects of each of the high
  contracting parties shall have liberty to enter,
  travel and reside in the territories of the other
  to carry on trade, wholesale and retail, to own
  or lease and occupy houses, manufactories,
  warehouses and shops, to employ agents of their
  choice, to lease land for residential and
  commercial purposes, and generally to do anything
  incident to or necessary for trade upon the same
  terms as native citizens or subjects, submitting
  themselves to the laws and regulations there
  established.

30
Other 1923 Supreme Court Decisions on Alien Land
Laws

• Porterfield v. Webb, 263 U.S. 225 (1923)
• California statute upheld against equal
  protection challenge in case involving lease
  similar to one in Terrace
• Webb v. OBrien, 263 U.S. 313 (1923)
• California statute upheld against equal
  protection challenge in case involving cropping
  contract
• Frick v. Webb, 263 U.S. 326 (1923)
• California statute upheld against equal
  protection challenge in case involving sale of
  corporation owning agricultural land

31
Japanese Agricultural Landholdings in California
1920 458, 056 acres
1922 330,653 acres
1925 307,966 acres
32
Oyama v. California, 332 U.S. 633 (1948)

• Land taken in escheat action filed while Oyamas
  were interned
• One of the petitioners was Fred Oyama, a minor
  American citizen in whose name title was taken.
• The other petitioner was his father and guardian,
  Kajiro Oyama, a Japanese citizen ineligible for
  naturalization
• Majority held that California law violated sons
  equal protection rights

33
Oyama v. California, 332 U.S. 633 (1948)

• We agree with petitioners' first contention, that
  the Alien Land Law, as applied in this case,
  deprives Fred Oyama of the equal protection of
  California's laws and of his privileges as an
  American citizen. In our view of the case, the
  State has discriminated against Fred Oyama the
  discrimination is based solely on his parents'
  country of origin and there is absent the
  compelling justification which would be needed to
  sustain discrimination of that nature.

34
Oyama v. California, 332 U.S. 633 (1948)

• The fact that the father attached no strings to
  the transfer was taken to indicate that he meant,
  in effect, to acquire the beneficial ownership
  himself. The California law purports to permit
  citizen sons to take gifts of agricultural land
  from their fathers, regardless of the fathers'
  nationality. Yet, as indicated by this case, if
  the father is ineligible for citizenship, facts
  which would usually be considered indicia of the
  son's ownership are used to make that ownership
  suspect if the father is not an ineligible
  alien, however, the same facts would be evidence
  that a completed gift was intended.

35
Oyama v. California, 332 U.S. 633 (1948)

• The cumulative effect, we believe, was clearly to
  discriminate againt Fred Oyama. He was saddled
  with an onerous burden of proof which need not be
  borne by California children generally. . . . In
  short, Fred Oyama lost his gift, irretrievably
  and without compensation, solely because of the
  extraordinary obstacles which the State set
  before him.
• The only basis for this discrimination against an
  American citizen, moreover, was the fact that his
  father was Japanese and not American, Russian,
  Chinese, or English. But for that fact alone,
  Fred Oyama, now a little over a year from
  majority, would be the undisputed owner of the
  eight acres in question.

36
Oyama v. CaliforniaConcurring opinion by Black

• I concur in the Courts judgment and its opinion.
  But I should prefer to reverse the judgment on
  the broader grounds that the basic provisions of
  the California Alien Land Law violate the equal
  protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and
  conflict with federal laws and treaties governing
  the immigration of aliens and their rights after
  arrival in this country.

37
Oyama v. CaliforniaConcurring opinion by Murphy

• To me the controlling issue in this case is
  whether the California Alien Land Law on its face
  is consistent with the Constitution of the United
  States. Can a state prohibit all aliens
  ineligible for American citizenship from
  acquiring, owning, occupying, enjoying, leasing
  or transferring agricultural land? Does such a
  prohibition square with the language of the
  Fourteenth Amendment that no state shall deny to
  any person within its jurisdiction the equal
  protection of the laws?

38
Oyama v. CaliforniaConcurring opinion by Murphy

• The negative answer to those queries is dictated
  by the uncompromising opposition of the
  Constitution to racism, whatever cloak or
  disguise it may assume. The California statute in
  question, as I view it, is nothing more than an
  outright racial discrimination. As such, it
  deserves constitutional condemnation. And since
  the very core of the statute is so defective, I
  consider it necessary to give voice to that fact
  even though I join in the opinion of the Court.

39
Oyama v. CaliforniaConcurring opinion by Murphy

• The California Alien Land Law was spawned of the
  great anti-Oriental virus which, at an early
  date, infected many persons in that state. The
  history of this anti-Oriental agitation is not
  one that does credit to a nation that prides
  itself, at least historically, on being the
  friendly haven of the tired and the oppressed of
  other lands. Beginning in 1850, with the arrival
  of substantial numbers of Chinese immigrants,
  racial prejudices and discriminations began to
  mount. . . .

40
Oyama v. CaliforniaConcurring opinion by Murphy

• It was not until 1900 that Japanese began to
  arrive in California in large numbers. By that
  time the repressive measures directed at the
  Chinese had achieved much of their desired
  effect the Chinese population had materially
  decreased and the antipathy of the Americans was
  on the decline. But the arrival of the Japanese
  fanned anew the flames of anti-Oriental
  prejudice. History then began to repeat itself.

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Los Angeles Times headlinesafter Pearl Harbor

• JAP BOAT FLASHES MESSAGE ASHORE
• ENEMY PLANES SIGHTED OVER CALIFORNIA COAST
• JAP AND CAMERA HELD IN BAY CITY
• VEGETABLES FOUND FREE OF POISON
• CAPS ON JAPANESE TOMATO PLANTS POINT TO AIR BASE
• CHINESE ABLE TO SPOT JAP

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G.P.O. War Production Board, 1943
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How to Tell Your Friends from the JapsTime
Magazine, Dec. 22, 1941

• Virtually all Japanese are short. Japanese are
  likely to be stockier and broader-hipped than
  short Chinese. Japanese are seldom fat they
  often dry up and grow lean as they age. Although
  both have the typical epicanthic fold of the
  upper eyelid, Japanese eyes are usually set
  closer together. The Chinese expression is likely
  to be more placid, kindly, open the Japanese
  more positive, dogmatic, arrogant. Japanese are
  hesitant, nervous in conversation, laugh loudly
  at the wrong time. Japanese walk stiffly erect,
  hard heeled. Chinese, more relaxed, have an easy
  gait, sometimes shuffle

50

• Pocket Guide to China
• U.S. Army publication

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General Delos Emmons (Dec. 21, 1941)

• There is no intention or desire on the part of
  the federal authorities to operate mass
  concentration camps. . . . While we have been
  subjected to a serious attack by a ruthless and
  treacherous enemy, we must remember that this is
  America and we must do things the American Way.

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Executive Order 9066 (Feb. 19, 1942)

• Secretary of War may prescribe military areas
  to protect against espionage and sabotage
• Secretary of War may determine which persons can
  be excluded from those areas
• It isnt clear what would occur next, but that
  decision already had been made

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• General John L. DeWitt,
• Feb. 14, 1942
• In the war in which we are now engaged racial
  affinities are not severed by migration. The
  Japanese race is an enemy race and while many
  second and third generation Japanese born on
  United States soil, possessed of United States
  citizenship, have become Americanized, the
  racial strains are undiluted. . . . It,
  therefore, follows that along the vital Pacific
  Coast over 112,000 potential enemies, of Japanese
  extraction, are at large today.

58
Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association, May 1942

• Weve been charged wanting to get rid of the Japs
  for selfish reasons. We might as be honest. We
  do. Its a question of whether the white man
  lives on the Pacific Coast or the brown man.
  They came into this valley to work, and they
  stayed to take over. . . . If all the Japs were
  removed tomorrow, wed never miss them in two
  weeks, because the white farmers can take over
  and produce everything the Jap grows.

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Go for Broke The 442nd Regiment

• 18,143 individual decorations
• 21 Congressional Medal of Honor
• 52 Distinguished Service Crosses
• 560 Silver Stars
• 4000 Bronze Stars
• 9,486 Purple Hearts

76
Gordon Hirabayashi

• Quaker and conscientious objector
• Went to FBI office to refuse to comply with
  exclusion order
• As an American citizen, I wanted to uphold the
  principles of the Constitution, and the curfew
  and evacuation orders which singled out a group
  on the basis of ethnicity violated them. It was
  not acceptable to me to be less than a full
  citizen in a white mans country.

77
Gordon Hirabayashi

• If I were to register and cooperate under these
  circumstances I would be giving helpless consent
  to the denial of practically all the things which
  give me incentive to live. I must maintain my
  Christian principles. I consider it my duty to
  maintain the democratic standards for which this
  nation lives.

78
Hirabayashi v. United States (1943)

• The questions for our decision are whether the
  particular restriction violated, namely that all
  persons of Japanese ancestry residing in such an
  area be within their place of residence daily
  between the hours of 800 p. m. and 600 a.m.,
  was adopted by the military commander in the
  exercise of an unconstitutional delegation by
  Congress of its legislative power, and whether
  the restriction unconstitutionally discriminated
  between citizens of Japanese ancestry and those
  of other ancestries in violation of the Fifth
  Amendment.

79
Hirabayashi v. United States (1943)

• Public Proclamation No. 3
• All alien Japanese, all alien Germans, all alien
  Italians, and all persons of Japanese ancestry
  residing or being within the geographical limits
  of Military Area No. 1 . . . shall be within
  their place of residence between the hours of
  800 P.M. and 600 A.M., which period is
  hereinafter referred to as the hours of curfew'.

80
Hirabayashi v. United States (1943)

• Executive Order No. 9066, promulgated in time of
  war for the declared purpose of prosecuting the
  war by protecting national defense resources from
  sabotage and espionage, and the Act of March 21,
  1942, ratifying and confirming the Executive
  Order, were each an exercise of the power to wage
  war conferred on the Congress and on the
  President, as Commander in Chief of the armed
  forces, by Articles I and II of the Constitution.
  

81
Hirabayashi v. United States (1943)

• The actions taken must be appraised in the light
  of the conditions with which the President and
  Congress were confronted in the early months of
  1942, many of which since disclosed, were then
  peculiarly within the knowledge of the military
  authorities. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese
  air forces had attacked the United States Naval
  Base at Pearl Harbor without warning, at the very
  hour when Japanese diplomatic representatives
  were conducting negotiations with our State
  Department ostensibly for the peaceful settlement
  of differences between the two countries. . . .

82
Hirabayashi v. United States (1943)

• The challenged orders were defense measures for
  the avowed purpose of safeguarding the military
  area in question, at a time of threatened air
  raids and invasion by the Japanese forces, from
  the danger of sabotage and espionage. As the
  curfew was made applicable to citizens residing
  in the area only if they were of Japanese
  ancestry, our inquiry must be whether in the
  light of all the facts and circumstances there
  was any substantial basis for the conclusion, in
  which Congress and the military commander united,
  that the curfew as applied was a protective
  measure necessary to meet the threat of sabotage
  and espionage which would substantially affect
  the war effort and which might reasonably be
  expected to aid a threatened enemy invasion.

83
Hirabayashi v. United States (1943)

• There is support for the view that social,
  economic and political conditions which have
  prevailed since the close of the last century,
  when the Japanese began to come to this country
  in substantial numbers, have intensified their
  solidarity and have in large measure prevented
  their assimilation as an integral part of the
  white population. In addition, large numbers of
  children of Japanese parentage are sent to
  Japanese language schools outside the regular
  hours of public schools in the locality.

84
Hirabayashi v. United States (1943)

• As a result of all these conditions affecting the
  life of the Japanese, both aliens and citizens,
  in the Pacific Coast area, there has been
  relatively little social intercourse between them
  and the white population. The restrictions, both
  practical and legal, affecting the privileges and
  opportunities afforded to persons of Japanese
  extraction residing in the United States, have
  been sources of irritation and may well have
  tended to increase their isolation, and in many
  instances their attachments to Japan and its
  institutions.

85
Hirabayashi v. United States (1943)

• The extent of that danger could be definitely
  known only after the event and after it was too
  late to meet it. Whatever views we may entertain
  regarding the loyalty to this country of the
  citizens of Japanese ancestry, we cannot reject
  as unfounded the judgment of the military
  authorities and of Congress that there were
  disloyal members of that population, whose number
  and strength could not be precisely and quickly
  ascertained. We cannot say that the war- making
  branches of the Government did not have ground
  for believing that in a critical hour such
  persons could not readily be isolated and
  separately dealt with, and constituted a menace
  to the national defense and safety, which
  demanded that prompt and adequate measures be
  taken to guard against it.

86
Hirabayashi v. United States (1943)

• Today is the first time, so far as I am aware,
  that we have sustained a substantial restriction
  of the personal liberty of citizens of the United
  States based upon the accident of race or
  ancestry. Under the curfew order here challenged
  no less than 70,000 American citizens have been
  placed under a special ban and deprived of their
  liberty because of their particular racial
  inheritance. In this sense it bears a melancholy
  resemblance to the treatment accorded to members
  of the Jewish race in Germany and in other parts
  of Europe. The result is the creation in this
  country of two classes of citizens for the
  purposes of a critical and perilous hour-to
  sanction discrimination between groups of United
  States citizens on the basis of ancestry. In my
  opinion this goes to the very brink of
  constitutional power. Original draft of dissent
  said it went beyond the brink.

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Fred Korematsu

• Born in Oakland
• Studied welding at a trade school and became a
  shipyard welder and member of Boilermakers Union
• Began dating Ida Boitano in 1941, a
  second-generation Italian American
• Korematsu disobeyed the evacuation order,
  initially planning to go to the Midwest with Ida
• He underwent plastic surgery and obtained a draft
  card with the name Clyde Sarah, telling people
  he was from Las Vegas and was of Spanish-Hawaiian
  origin
• After he was arrested three weeks later, local
  paper ran headline Jap Spy Arrested.

89
Korematsu v. United States (1944)

• What order did Korematsu violate?
• According to the majority opinion, why was this
  order issued?
• What provides the constitutional basis for
  sustaining the exclusion order?

90
Korematsu v. United StatesMajority opinion

• It wasnt beyond the war power of Congress and
  the Executive to exclude those of Japanese
  ancestry from the West Coast war area at the time
  they did. Exclusion from a threatened area, no
  less than curfew, has a definite and close
  relationship to the prevention of espionage and
  sabotage. The military authorities, charged with
  the primary responsibility of defending our
  shores, concluded that curfew provided inadequate
  protection and ordered exclusion.

91
Korematsu v. United States

• What is the difference between the majority
  opinion and the dissenting opinions on what
  deference should be given military authorities?
• What is the difference between the majority
  opinion and the dissenting opinions on the
  question of whether racism influenced the
  decision by the military to exclude Japanese from
  certain areas of the West Coast?

92
Korematsu v. United StatesMurphy dissent

• This exclusion of all persons of Japanese
  ancestry, both alien and non-alien, from the
  Pacific Coast area on a plea of military
  necessity in the absence of martial law ought not
  to be approved. Such exclusion goes over the very
  brink of constitutional power and falls into the
  ugly abyss of racism.

93
Korematsu v. United StatesMurphy dissent

• According to Murphy, what should the military
  authorities have done differently?
• No adequate reason is given for the failure to
  treat these Japanese Americans on an individual
  basis by holding investigations and hearings to
  separate the loyal from the disloyal, as was done
  in the case of persons of German and Italian
  ancestry. Yet nearly four months elapsed after
  Pearl Harbor before the first exclusion order was
  issued nearly eight months went by until the
  last order was issued and the last of these
  subversive persons was not actually removed until
  almost eleven months had elapsed.