1911 Report on Japanese Immigration and Labor, in the U.S.

[Japanese American] [Immigration] Senate, Immigrants in Industries (In Twenty-Five Parts) Part 25: Japanese and Other Immigrant Races in the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain States (In Three Volumes: Vol. II) Agriculture. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1911. First edition. Original red cloth boards with gilt text on spine. 1031 pages. 8vo. The topics discussed in this report covers primarily immigrant labor in agriculture and allied industries which includes; California agriculture, grower contracts, the issues of race and the hiring and labor costs of other racial groups, a comparison of various races employed, factory labor in California and Colorado, also covers farmers of Mexican, German, Portuguese, Greek, and Italian descent, but the primary focus of many of the chapters are on Japanese Americans. Asian-American farm labor started as early as the great Chinese migration of the late 1800s in which Chinese farmers introduced irrigation in Northern California. In the late 19th century, Japanese farmers were hired en mass to work at sugar plantations in Hawaii. In 1903, Japanese and Mexican Americans formed the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association, the first time members of different racial groups formed a cohesive labor union. The book acknowledges the high percentage of Asian agricultural labors with more than 25,000 men in the production of sugar beets alone, "they also do most of the work in the truck gardens and berry fields...of still greater importance is the very general employment of immigrants as hand laborers in the orchards, vineyards, hopyards, berry fields, and large vegetable gardens of California." Statistical tables show various immigrant laborers and their wages. Wear to board covers, tear to title page. Binding is tight, text and pages clean. Overall very good condition. (Inventory #: 21192)