Excused—0
Not Voting—0
In The Chair: President
Protests
Senators Chang and Camilleri, under their constitutional right of protest (Art. 4, Sec. 18), protested against the adoption of the amendment offered by Senator Lauwers to Senate Bill No. 14.
Senator Chang moved that the statement she made during the discussion of the amendment be printed as her reasons for voting “no.”
The motion prevailed.
Senator Chang’s statement, in which Senator Camilleri concurred, is as follows:
In 1913—110 years ago—California passed the Alien Land Law. It was broadly written to include all immigrants in its exclusion, but at the time it really was focused on Japanese immigrants—Japanese farmers. The Asiatic Exclusion League was the organization pushing this bill at the time back in 1913. They then also advocated for Californians to boycott Japanese-owned restaurants. They used signs saying things like, Save California from the Japs; Japs keep moving, this is a white man’s neighborhood. This Alien Land Law prevented immigrants—Japanese farmers—from owning land in California, and in the 1920s Japanese immigrant landowners lost over 100,000 acres of land. The California Legislature then expanded this law to exclude U.S.-born children of Asian immigrants and Asian-owned businesses.
Regardless of the Senator’s intent—I appreciate our conversation about it—we need to learn our history and we need to make sure we don’t repeat it. We need to be cognizant of the climate we’re in and the impact of the words we use in this chamber, as well as the amendments like this that could do harm. So I encourage my colleagues to vote “no.”
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: