California’s Historical Alien Land Law: Racial Xenophobia and Home Ownership

This article uses a racial xenophobia framework to examine the impact of California’s Alien Land Law on home ownership of Asians during the early part of the twentieth century. Racial xenophobia is a compounding of two forms of marginalization, which led to the enactment of a law targeting Asian immigrants. Drawing on historical micro-level data, the analysis finds that the law adversely hurt all Asian groups, although the motivation for the prohibition was rooted in the anti-Japanese movement. Moreover, the law created differences in home ownership among people of color, with Asians being at the bottom during the study period.