The first-ever regional treatment of Japanese immigrants in the Monterey Bay Region. The book begins with the earliest Japanese immigration into the region in the 1880s, and continues through the 1980s. The book has a unique chapter comparing the immigrant experience of the Japanese and their predecessors in the region, the Chinese. The book also has an extensive appendix that outlines the federal immigration laws affecting not only the Japanese, but all immigrants to the United States. The book also includes several little-known stories, including the December 20, 1941 attack by Japanese submarine I-23 on the oil tanker Agiworld in Monterey Bay. Also, for the first time, the book outlines the bitter racism that greeted the Japanese and Japanese-Americans as they began to return to their homes at the end of World War II. The story of the new Japanese immigrants from Kagoshima who came into the region in the 1950s and developed the cut-flower industry is also illuminated.

From fishermen to farmers to business leaders, the Japanese on the Monterey Peninsula have played a vitally important role in making Monterey what it is today. After the United States imposed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, the number of Japanese immigrants to the West Coast increased in large numbers. In 1895, one of those immigrants, Otosaburo Noda, noticed the incredible variety of fish and red abalone in the bay. He developed the first Japanese colony on what is now Cannery Row. At the end of salmon season in August 1909, the Monterey Daily Cypress reported that there were 185 salmon boats fishing the bay, of which 145 were Japanese-owned. By 1920, there were nine Japanese abalone companies diving for this tasty mollusk, supplying restaurants and markets throughout California and across the country. Prior to World War II, 80 percent of the businesses on the Monterey Wharf were Japanese-owned.

"Few people realize that bustling Chinatowns once thrived in Monterey, Watsonville, Santa Cruz, and Salinas. Just as few realize that were it not for the Chinese, the region's tourist industry and phenomenally productive agriculture might never have been. This first-ever study of the Chinese in the Monterey Bay Region traces their history from the arrival of the first fishing people in the 1850s to the contributions of present-day leaders in the community. In recovering a history made invisible by neglect and prejudice, Chinese Gold sheds light on the whole of Chinese experience in America, revealing the proud saga of a resourceful, inventive, and courageous people who pursued the American dream against incredible odds"--Provided by publisher.

"John Walton never writes predictable books, and Monterey, California, is not a predictable place; the pairing is perfect. Although rooted in Monterey, this book explores how people in general construct historical narratives. Storied Land is as thought-provoking a discussion of public history and what it means to tell stories about the past as anything that I have read."—Richard White, author of Remembering Ahanagran: A History of Stories "With deep research, shrewd analysis, and vivid writing, John Walton reveals how we live in a web of competing stories that connect future and present to a contested past. In recovering the particular riches of Monterey's literally storied past, Walton finds universal experiences of labor, resistance, loss, and silencing. His own masterful storytelling lets us develop a fuller, more humane tie to the people of our past."—Alan Taylor, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic "In the borderlands between archived event and public memory, John Walton has found a pathway to understanding the process whereby a community remembers, forgets, denies, affirms, or otherwise structures or re-structures its understanding of itself. Excavating a region and a city important to Native American, Spanish, Mexican, and American California, A Storied Land makes a welcomed contribution to California studies and the larger history and sociology of place."—Kevin Starr, author of Inventing the Dream: California Through the Progressive Era "Once again, John Walton has turned the facts about California into a compelling narrative and a profound meditation on the nature of history and collective memory."—Howard Becker, author of Art Worlds

Monterey, California conjures images of a coastal city rimmed by crystal clear waters and bolstered by tourism; yet these edenic views belie the community's often turbulent history, originating with the Native Americans who lived here for a millennium and Hispanic exploration and colonization. At each stage in the growth of this city, residents have successfully overcome the division of multiple rule, diverse nationalities, and fledgling identities to fashion a homeland in the western landscape of America that is deservingly proud of its character and history.

Written by one of America's preeminent labor historians, this book is the definitive account of one of the most spectacular, captivating, complex and strangely neglected stories in Western history--the emergence of migratory farmworkers and the development of California agriculture. Street has systematically worked his way through a mountain of archival materials--more than 500 manuscript collections, scattered in 22 states, including Spain and Mexico--to follow the farmworker story from its beginnings on Spanish missions into the second decade of the twentieth century. The result is a comprehensive tour de force. Scene by scene, the epic narrative clarifies and breathes new life into a controversial and instructive saga long surrounded by myth, conjecture, and scholarly neglect. With its panoramic view spanning 144 years and moving from the US-Mexico border to Oregon, Beasts of the Field reveals diverse patterns of life and labor in the fields that varied among different crops, regions, time periods, and racial and ethic groups. Enormous in scope, packed with surprising twists and turns, and devastating in impact, this compelling, revelatory work of American social history will inform generations to come of the history of California and the nation.