From DiscoverNikkei.org
Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center, Oregon Nikkei history: A Brief Summary
(2006)Racism and Discrimination
The successes of the Japanese immigrants did not go unnoticed in Oregon. As Japanese tenant farmers began to buy land, influential white citizens began lobbying to restrict land ownership. Anti-Asian sentiments among the majority population were not new. Japanese immigrants, along with other Asian groups, were barred from becoming U.S. citizens - even as European immigrants were encouraged to take the pledge of citizenship. The first Alien Land Bill was introduced in the Oregon State Legislature in 1917. In 1923, the bill passed the Senate unanimously and the House with only one dissenting vote. The law prohibited "aliens ineligible to citizenship" from owning, or even leasing, land in Oregon. In Portland, these "aliens" were also barred from operating pool halls, dance halls, pawnshops or soft drink establishments.
Within the year, the United States Congress passed the Exclusion Act, halting immigration from Japan. Faced with this unrelenting discrimination, many first-generation immigrants left. Even as the number of Japanese women increased between 1910 and 1920, overall Japanese population in Oregon dropped by more than 30 percent by the late 1920s.
Oregon in the early decades of the 20th century reflected the attitudes and political biases of the rest of the country. Ku Klux Klan and organizations with similar philosophies were well established and exerted influence on all levels of Oregon’s community life and political leadership.
In 1925, a predominantly Caucasian mob of about fifty men forced a group of Japanese saw mill workers out of their homes and jobs in Toledo, Oregon. Gunfire and fistfights were involved, and Japanese workers and their families fled in fear for their lives. English and Japanese language newspapers in the West Coast actively covered the incident. The grand jury did not find sufficient grounds for indictments. However, the 1926 civil suit filed by the Japanese workers resulted in a judgment in their favor, creating one of the earliest instances of a civil rights case in the United Sates.