When Japanese American teenager Fred Oyama learned in 1944 that San Diego County authorities were seizing 8 acres of farmland he owned there — a gift from his Japanese immigrant father, Kajiro — there was little he could do about it: He was living in Utah, where he and his family had been forcibly evacuated to avoid being incarcerated in a World War II camp.
Fred Oyama was just 6 years old in 1934 when he was recorded as the title holder of a small parcel of farmland that Kajiro paid for in Chula Vista, California. Under the state’s Alien Land Law, only Fred, who was born in the U.S., was entitled to own land or become an American citizen. The state later accused Kajiro of illegally bypassing the law and seized Fred’s land. With the assistance of passionate civil rights lawyers, the Oyamas appealed in court, ultimately persuading the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse California’s ruling in a condemnation of the state’s racist tactics. Although the landmark 1948 ruling in Oyama v. Californiadid not fully knock down the Alien Land Law, it paved the way for its dismantling and set a historic precedent that would advance civil rights in the U.S. for decades to follow.
The historic ruling restored Fred Oyama’s faith in his birth country, his daughter, Phyllis Oyama, told The LA Local…