1. Goals: Relate Chicano History to recent debates about immigration Situate the Chicano experience into the history of other ethnic groups engaged in farm labor in the Southwest during the early twentieth century

2. The Immigration Debate Senate Bill 1070 requires local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws of the United States. “We’ll have less crime. We’ll have lower taxes. We’ll have safer neighborhoods. We’ll have shorter lines in the emergency rooms. We’ll have smaller classrooms.”

3. Viewpoints An alarming and unconstitutional measure that blows the door wide open to massive racial profiling The country’s most retrogressive, mean- spirited and useless anti-immigrant law… and one wonders whether Arizonans are now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques

4. Viewpoints Lets not forget the crime that comes along with these immigrants....drug smuggling, trespassing, assaults and murders of ACTUAL AMERICAN CITIZENS, pregnant women making the treck across the borders so they can have their babies in America where they will then be…on the welfare system and become a burden on the rest of our society We do not want ILLEGAL people - of any color - in this country The only way we can truly help all illegal people is to round them up and send them home.

6. Race and Immigration “If in the future racial qualities are to be improved, the improving must be wrought mainly by favoring the fecundity of the worthy type.” Teddy Roosevelt, 1913.

7. Race and Immigration “[By the end of the century] the white and European population [will be] down to about three percent. This is what I call the death of the West. I see the nations dying when the populations die. I see the civilization dying.” Pat Buchanan, 2006

8. Chinese immigrants Chinese were the largest immigrant group in CA in 1860. After 1870, their use as farm laborers increased rapidly, some estimates as high as 90 percent. Post Civil War economy in decline by the 1870s Chinese blamed for white unemployment

9. Discriminatory legislation As early as 1854 Chinese prohibited from testifying in cases to which white men were parties. “Starvation by constitutional enactment”

10. In the early 1860s, city of San Francisco passed ordinance making it illegal for any person to carry baskets on sidewalks suspended on poles across the shoulders.

11. The Chinese Problem

12. Racial stereotypes and fears

13. Chinese Exclusion Act Federal legislation: Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The Act prohibited Chinese "skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining" from entering the country under penalty of imprisonment and deportation.

14. Vigilante Justice ChineseGeary Act of 1892: The law required all Chinese residents of the United States to carry a resident permit. Failure to carry the permit at all times was punishable by deportation or a year of hard labor. Large growers refused to give up Chinese labor Violent raids began August of 1893

15. Imperial Valley’s Japanese and Punjabi Farmers, 1900-1933

17. Japanese and Punjabi Farmers 1910: About ten percent of farmers were nonwhite and about half of these farmers owned their own land. By 1910, Imperial Valley had grown to 1,322 farms, covering 223,602 acres worth $20.5 million. By 1912, Japanese farmers dominated melon production. By 1920, the Valley produced more cantaloupes than any other state in the nation. Absentee-owned land

22. What kind of challenges did Punjabi and Japanese farmers face in the IV and what kind of strategies did they develop to meet these challenges?

23. Family Life Japanese dairy farmers: The boy who barked, the girl who mooed Dorothy never speaks –Reverend Kuniwaki

24. Racist Views, Racist Laws “[Japanese farmers] make money in a place where a white man would starve to death.” California’s Alien Land Law of 1913 prohibited non- citizens from owning land but permitted 3 year land leases

25. Circumventing the Law Land title in the name of their children, Anglo friends, business partners and lawyers Daniel Leonard of Calexico’s First National Bank Cooperatives –IV Agricultural Association,1915 Japanese farmers thrive

26. Punjabi Farmers Punjabis arrive around 1910 Sept. 1910: Holtville Tribune --“The Hindu Question.” –“This parasite, the Hindu, is the most degrading” Bachelor community

27. Dangerous Border Journeys 1915: Mounted Inspectors Borders August of 1915: –56 Asian immigrants

28. Cultural Differences 1916: Funeral Pyre “a la Hindu” 1921: Poppy seeds

29. 1923 California Alien Land Law Interethnic marriages Verbal agreements with Anglo farmers, bankers, lawyers, judges. Holtville National Bank- ”Hindu Bank” Corporations fronted by Anglos collaborators Crop contracting (before 1925)

30. Violent Conflict April 1925: Pakhar Singh murders two Anglo shipping agents September 3, 1933, Hira Singh, 70, and his nephew Amar Singh, 50, found murdered in Brawley June 27, 1921 Gaudeh Singh sentenced to hang in San Quentin state prison for the murder of his wife. In November of 1933, Thacker Singh was charged with felonious assault after beating a Mexican laborer

31. Racial Propensity for Violence? The Punjab Frontier –Sikh wars 1846-1848 –WW I: 65% of Indian combat troops from Punjab province Punjab culture –Absence of defeat or submission –Violence and personal power

32. Conclusion Support networks Cultural differences Complex communities Intraethnic conflict