ABSTRACT
Located on the West Coast of the US, California is the site of the most in-depth encounters and interactions between Asian and Latin American immigrants and their descendants in any region across the country. Southern California faces East Asia across the Pacific Ocean and Latin America across the US-Mexico border. Racism in California entailed a logic unique to the history of the Pacific Rim region in that it developed through linkages between the racialization experiences of Japanese and Mexican immigrants. Highlighting this transpacific aspect of racism in California, this chapter analyzes debates about the so-called “Mexican Problem” and explores the mechanism of racialization in Southern California, particularly Los Angeles County, in the late 1920s. In Clements's categorization, Mexican immigrants were “Mexican peons” with desirable characteristics as foreign workers. Japanese immigrants, whose compatriots had already been banned from immigration, were also carefully observing the nationwide debates about the "Mexican Problem".
