Kazuko Nakane's history of the early Japanese immi- grants to central California‘s Pajaro Valley focuses on the development of farming communities there from 1890 to 1940. The Issei (first-generation immigrants) (5) were brought into the Pajaro Valley to raise sugar beets. Like Issei laborers in American cities, Japanese men in rural areas sought employment via the "boss" system.
The system comprised three elements: immigrant wage laborers; Issei boardinghouses where laborers stayed; (10) and labor contractors, who gathered workers for a particular job and then negotiated a contract between workers and employer. This same system was originally utilized by the Chinese laborers who had preceded the Japanese. A related institution was the "labor club," (15)which provided job information and negotiated employ- ment contracts and other legal matters, such as the rental of land, for Issei who chose to belong and paid an annual fee to the cooperative for membership.
When the local sugar beet industry collapsed in 1902, (20) the Issei began to lease land from the valley‘s strawberry farmers. The Japanese provided the labor and the crop was divided between laborers and landowners. The Issei began to operate farms, they began to marry and start families, forming an established Japanese American (30) community. Unfortunately, the Issei‘s efforts to attain agricultural independence were hampered by govern- ment restrictions, such as the Alien Land Law of 1913. But immigrants could circumvent such exclusionary laws by leasing or purchasing land in their American-born (35) children‘s names.
1. The primary purpose of the passage is to
(A) defend a controversial hypothesis presented in a history of early Japanese immigrants to Califronia
(B) dismiss a history of an early Japanese settlement in California as narrow and ill constructed
(C) summarize and critique a history of an early Japanese settlement in California
(D) compare a history of one Japanese American community with studies of Japanese settlements throughout California
(E) examine the differences between Japanese and Chinese immigrants to central California in the 1890's
