O\\'n inherited philosophv and standards of life, its 01vn peculiar races ..... his death and his orthodoxy'h'ith their O\Vn eyes (although the Sikhs in. (~alifornia had .... J ~1,'-l,q ). \\.lten tht'v talk about being Hindu. these descendants do not.
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EXPLORATIONS IN CRITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
EDITED BY AKHIL GUPTA AND JAMES FERGUSON
;;
DUKE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
DURHAM
~ND
LONDON
1997
FINDING ON€ S OWN P~ACE 0
119
( igg i:17). I will try to show, briefly for the Japanese and more fully for Finding One's Own Place: Asian Landscapes Re-visioned in
KAREN
R~ral
California
L..EONllRD
Most immigrants from Japan and India's Punjab province to California in the early twentieth century ended up working in agriculture, settling in small to\vns in the state's agricultural valleys. It is probably safe to say that specific conditions of climate, soil, and topography in their new settings did not strongly resemble those in the agrarian regions fron1 which tht"y can1e in Japan and India's nortlnvcstern Punjabi-speaking region. Yet in several striking instances. these irr1migrants' representations of their nev. .· homes stressed si1nilaritiesresernhlances ~to their homelands. These similarities 1nav haYe been invented (l-lobsbawm and Ranger i983) and their elaboration can be seen to fulfill needs, although a functionalist explanation does not capture the complexity of the process. Clearly, these representations helped shape collective identities in the ne\v country, delineating ne\v communities (Okihiro ig88) grounded in California and based on categorie.ing l ~I I.'~: c:alifnrnia LtJ~-islaturt>, Sena re l '.l;):) j ..-\r a tilll(' \\·hell inl(TJlLti-ri;1,;.::l· bt't'.\.Ct:'11 Sc~1ndi1L1\·ian ~1nd (~ennan innni.~L1nrs \\as
FINDING ONE·s OWN .PLACE
121
thought to be causing a decline in the caliber of the midwestern farming population (Brunner i 929), miscegenation between racial groups in California was feared and made illegal. In studies of intermarriage done in the_ 1930s and i 94os, the "yellow-brown" category was created
to include Orientals and Mexicans (Leonard 1993:i49). Thus members of both groups were largely seen as Asian, noncitizens, nonmarriageable- as overwhelmingly "other." Differences between them were also recognized: the Japanese were called "japs" and "blanket boys," the latter a reference to the bedding carried on the migratory labor circuit, v..'hereas the Punjabis were called "Hindoos," East Indians, and "Rag-heads," the last a reference to the turbans V..'orn by the Sikh majority omong them (Allen 1945; Johnson 1922). And the Punjabis and Japanese did not draw on each other in their reformulations of identity, although the Japanese did draw on Chinese history. I am grouping them together here because they made similar use of Asian landscapes ind political representations in their ne\v lives in California; the co1nparison is useful and suggests further research to be dOne in A. sivley likened to the historical three kingdoms of c:hina in the third century A.O. But \vhy did Ft~jioka locate his
90 I, the first anrl only house in the frontier to\vn of Iinperial \vas a
tent hotel rnn by "a C:hinaman. "'.> The Japanese \Vere a1nong those \\·ho gre\',. the first n1elon and vegetable crops in t!it~ valle~'· ino\ing fro1n tenancy to O\vnership rapidly. Yet f:ron1 rhc beginning they encountered prejudice. The econo1nic standards nf the Japanese L1rmers \Vere terrned "impossible to our \vhite ideals" (insccnrc tenants, 111any lived in poor housing and had fe\v possession-;). The Japanese birth rate and importation of spouses V·/ere closely scrutinized and \ie\ved as strategies to evade immigration restrict.ions (('.alifornia, State P.oard of Control 1~20:9-11). The pL1ctice of bringing pictun-· brides b:ornJapan \vas labeled an imrnoral .'-.ocial custorn, foreign and un-Christ.ian (Gee i976:361). After 191:3, the right ofJapanese farrners to lease and o\vn agricultural land \Vas curtailed b\- (;;tlifornia ·s .-\lien Land La,v. Aimed especially at California's successful Japanese L1rn1ers, this la1v barred aliens ineligible for l" ..S. citi;:enship froin u\vni11L; agricultural lanrl or leasing it. for longer than three \·e~1rs: antlthcr .-.\.lien Land L;n\' in 19'20 prohihited Je;1sing altogether and ,tclded ntht·r loophole-closing- pro\'i_..,ions. Thus clcspiLL" thc-ir t:~trh· 'il!CCL"-,:-;cs ;ind their ability to get. around rhe la\\. hy purtin\.'; land in ilie 11a1ne~ ()f their t'.S.-born (and thecefore riti1en) chi!dn..':1, thv \·,tllt'\" \\;h in 111c1n\ 1va\"s a hosti!t· cn\·iron1nent for the.Jap been carefully
crafted, and he hirnself refers tu it as poetic. ::\otice that Everest relocd. explained the in tersf'ction of race, citizenship. and politictil po\.ver r his v.,ray ( J ~)K '.-) J:
()nlv a
!.t'\\'
people. Hindustani. 11en· hen· ;u1d the\· had no 1·ight to training \vas not one of thern. Rather. the rnen \\·anted to inculcate rl·"pect for Sikhisin, I"iinduisrn, or lslarn. \\'hile they encouraged their children to practice ( :;t t Ii ol icisn1 \ nr \\·h;tt t'\'Cr for1n of (:J1ristian i ry t !i eir '.1-i\·es pracrict·d). 1·hus \vhe11 talkin.~· to their ·wi\·es and childcen ah1H1l r(~li.~:;ion. the hti.shands rcO!lCt'ptua!izt: can1e \'oluntarilv. ·r 1H' rt'Llli\'eh· hcll-t·duc~lled Japanese had to applY to and be appro\·crl bY their 0\\'11 gn\TrnnH:-nt. Tht· Ptu~j~1hi:-:. lv.-.s ,·d11c;1ted hut cus111op1dit~lll. ohL'll h~1d ,ilrc;1ch \·11rked o\'('J ,('-'"in British i111pv11~il '>('1·,·i1··' ,ir h~\ _jLL'-it hcc~n1.~e (jt t hci r ~1b_~cnce. 'flie "prec~1riott:-; discourse" ()f Lh< i rn n ii gr;u1 ts 111,1\· ()Jlli t
135
explicit references to the dominant culture, but that serves only to emphasize the implicit power relations, the "politics of location" of the time (Keith and Pile 1993). There is still much to learn about the changing historical configurations of "we" and "other" as the Japanese and Punjabi immigrants shaped and reshaped their senses of place and community, but certainly they made this land their own.
NOTES
This piece benefited frotn con1n1ents made hy my colleagues Liisa I\l[alkki (an early reading) and Jim Ferguson (a final reading) and uy the anonymous readers for the PrCss as well. See Gary Okihiro et al. i 988:2 r.4 -37 for Sucheng Chan's annotated bibliography. The Ami>rflsiajournal, puh!ished from the Cnin?rsity of California, Los Angeles, also puLr rhis and other clippings. \\.erncr \fcn~ki. Depann1cnt :)f L.tw. School of ()rient;il ;iud. \frican Sr11dif's. London, in a pero.onal conversation with the author. South ...\sian Diaspora Conference, Toronto, Canada, 1o December 1989. The early Punja bis in Calif()rnia found it difficult and expensivt' to ~hiµ ashes ho1nc. and n1auv ofthen1 had also let ties with relatives there lapse.
9
This infonnation derives fro1n personal observation of the Hindu plots in El Centro ,ind S;u:ran1ento.
11l
.\g·:iin, ~ee Chan·~ bihliogr;ipll\' in ()kihiro er al. 1qSS, particularlv '.!:.::~-.!ii ;1nd
I 1
( .~diJ{1rni,t·~ ,lntin1i~ce'o.;ena1i1111 hn,·~ \\,'.l't'
'-':l.+-:),1-i: and lchioka 1 '.i-"S. rlr• pped in 1'.J..IS ln1t
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