UC Irvine

Asian farmers from India's Punjab province were among those affected by California's Alien Land Law. Although it was Japanese success in California agriculture which stimulated passage of the first law in 1913 and its strengthening in 1920 and 1923, the law became applicable to Asian Indians in 1923. Local records and interviews from the Imperial Valley, where these Punjabi farmers were concentrated, show the strategies they employed to continue farming and the patterns of local support and opposition. There were similarities, but also significant differences, between the Japanese and Punjabi responses to the Alien Land Law.