The California Joint Immigration Committee (CJIC) was a nativist lobbying organization active in the early to mid-twentieth century that advocated exclusion of Asian and Mexican immigrants to the United States. Background The CJIC was a successor organization to the Japanese Exclusion League, which was itself a successor to the Asiatic Exclusion League (AEL), originally known as the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League. Significant anti-Asian prejudice in the United States manifested first against Chinese laborers during the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s. By barring Chinese laborers, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 in effect excluded most Chinese immigrants to the United States. Shortly after the turn of the century, rising numbers of Japanese immigrants led to anti-Japanese agitation and anti-Japanese sentiment on the West Coast. In order to quell the unrest, a diplomatic compromise known as the Gentleman's Agreement was worked out between the United States and Japan. The agreement held that the United States would not restrict immigration from Japan, while Japan was not to allow further emigration to the United States. The Japanese and Korean Exclusion League was formed in San Francisco, California in May 1905, two months after the California State Legislature passed a unanimous resolution requesting that Congress “limit and diminish the further immigration of Japanese.” The resolution passed within a week after the San Francisco Chronicle began printing a series of anti-Japanese articles. The league was dedicated to excluding Japanese people from the United States and was funded mostly by the California Building and Construction Trades Council, a prominent labor union. In December 1907, it was renamed the Asiatic Exclusion League, which was then reorganized as the Japanese Exclusion League (JEL) in September 1920. The Japanese Exclusion League was a pressure group representing the interests of nativists, veteran's organizations, women's clubs, labor unions, and farmers. Its operations were led and largely financed by its volunteer special representative Valentine S. McClatchy, a former newspaper publisher. McClatchy and his friend Hiram Johnson, the senior U.S. senator for California, were the leading figures in the effort to block Japanese immigration to the United States, which was realized with the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924. McClatchy, accompanied by California Attorney General Ulysses S. Webb and former U.S. Senator James D. Phelan, testified before the Senate Committee on Immigration prior to the passage of the act. His testimony included the following remarks: “Japanese are less assimilable