Background
The 1913 Alien Land Law enacted in California limited aliens ineligible
for citizenship to only any property rights guaranteed in treaties with their
respective countries. Effectively, this targeted aliens from Japan, since they
were unable to apply for citizenship under the immigration laws at that time,
and the 1911 U.S.-Japan treaty made no mention of property rights. Violations
of the law would result with the property in question being escheated to
(confiscated by) the state. Despite this barrier, Japanese immigrants continued
to increase their land holdings in California. Several methods for
circumventing the law grew common in the years following. These included
purchasing land in the name of a child and holding it under guardianship, or
forming an agricultural corporation to hold the land. Anti-Japanese lobbyists
grew increasingly discontented, and in 1920 a new, more restrictive Alien Land
Law was placed on the ballot and passed. This new version was intended to
prevent the circumventions of the 1913 law that had become common. It stated
that when a person purchased land in another's name, it was assumed that this
was intended to bypass the law. The burden of proof was also shifted to the
defendant. The defendant would now have to prove that the land had not been
purchased as it was in order to circumvent the Alien Land Law. The Law was
challenged in 1948, in Oyama v. California. Fred
Oyama sued the State of California, arguing that his rights as a citizen had
been violated when the state confiscated the land in Los Angeles that his
non-citizen father had held in his name. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his
favor, and overturned a portion of the 1920 law. The entire law was overturned
in 1952, in Fujii v. California. During the period
that the Alien Land Laws were in effect, the state filed 76 escheat
proceedings.
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