Farming became the major economic foundation for the Japanese population in California, and they saw it as a way to prove their productive abilities and to establish a sense of permanency in their new nation.

[11][7][8] The Japanese possessed the right to lease and own land in the United States for residential and commercial use based on the 1911 American treaty with Japan.

Many Japanese immigrants, or issei, circumvented that law by transferring the title of their land to their American-born children, or nisei, who were US citizens.

During the 1920s, there was a general decline in the agricultural economy in California and elsewhere in the United States, which would have partially contributed to the sudden downturn in Japanese farming.

Although the Alien Land Laws made farming more difficult for them, the Japanese still managed to maintain a fairly high level of economic success in the agricultural industry.

The outcome of this case did not alter California's alien land laws, and the parents, Japanese immigrants Jukichi and Ken Harada, remained ineligible for citizenship for the remainder of their lives.

The majority opinion held that Fred Oyama's rights as a U.S. citizen to take and hold property had been violated by the state of California.

[7][13] The Alien Land Laws were invalidated in 1952 by the Supreme Court of California as a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in Sei Fujii v.

The California District Court of Appeal had decided in 1950 that the Alien Land Law was in violation of Articles 55 and 56 of the United Nations Charter.

The Supreme Court of California then ordered the case transferred for hearing and settlement, as it was determined to be a sufficiently important question of law.

Because of this, the bill was decidedly directed at Asians and specifically at the Japanese, who had become a strong presence in the agricultural labor market as well as in the control of farms.

The Alien Land Laws were part of a larger trend of attempted discrimination against the Japanese through policy in California during the early 20th century.

Arkansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Utah, and Wyoming followed with the passage of Alien Land Laws during the World War II years.