Alien Land Law of 1913

The Alien Land Law of 1913 made it illegal for aliens (immigrants), who were not eligible for citizenship, to own land in California. In addition, the aliens could not lease any agricultural land for more than three years. Although the language of the law applied to all such aliens, Japanese immigrants were the targeted group. Governor Hiram Johnson signed the bill into law on May 19, 1913.

The impetus for the bill resulted from the prejudice against the Japanese that started in the 1880s. The intensity increased after 1907, as the Japanese began to move from being farm laborers to farm owners. This shift brought the Japanese into a more direct conflict with the white growers. Also, more Japanese were immigrating to California. Before 1900, there were few Japanese immigrants, but by 1920, there were approximately 72,000 Japanese in California.

Many white Californians expressed fears that the Japanese would not assimilate due to their style of clothing, their religion, the fact that they spoke a non-European language, and generally did not blend into society.

As an example of Californian's prejudice against the Japanese, in 1906 the San Francisco school board passed rules segregating the Japanese students (some of whom were born in the United States) from the rest of the students. This in spite of the fact the city of San Francisco had received $100,000 from the government of Japan in earthquake-emergency aid. The Japanese government lodged a formal complaint against this discrimination. The severity of the diplomatic note caused a brief war scare in Washington and led to the intervention of the federal government into the school situation. The U.S. government caused the San Francisco school board to modify its policies to readmit Japanese children so long as they could speak some English and were not too old. As a follow-up to this incident, the United States and Japan entered into a gentleman's agreement whereby Japan agreed to only issue passports to nonlaborers.

To circumvent the Alien Land Law of 1913, many Japanese immigrants bought land and placed it in the names of their native-born children. The Japanese devised this and other ingenious mechanisms to artfully maneuver around the repressive law.

Anti-Japanese forces came to view the 1913 act as ineffective and submitted a ballot proposition during the 1920 elections. This measure, the Webb-Haney Act, passed by a three-to-one margin. The provisions of the 1920 act denied aliens ineligible for citizenship the right to lease farmland or even to sharecrop.

In 1952, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Fujii Sei v. State of California, found the Alien Land Law to be unconstitutional.