Title: Japanese internment camps during World War II are a lesson in the scary economics of racial resentment — Quartz
Headings: The dangerous economics of racial resentment during World War II
The dangerous economics of racial resentment during World War II
The economics of racial resentment
A new way of farming
Ripple effects

Content: they grew different crops, on different types of land, using different techniques. ” The [Japanese immigrant] farmers generally did not replace whites, despite such allegations by anti-Japanese propaganda,” writes Roger Daniels, a pioneering scholar of immigration, in Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States since 1850. Instead, “they opened up new lands with their labor-intensive, high-yield style of agriculture as opposed to the resource-intensive, low-yield agriculture characteristic of American farming.” Their success in certain crops is truly astonishing. Japanese American farmers raised at least half of California’s artichokes, snap beans, cauliflower, celery, cucumbers, garlic and many types of onions, as well as at least a quarter of asparagus, lima beans, cabbage, cantaloupe, carrots, and lettuce, according to the USDA report. They also dominated in strawberries, apples, peaches, and sugar beets. Ripple effects
White farmers wanted to eliminate the competition. The consequences of their actions would have a significant impact not only on Japanese Americans, but on the entire country’s food supply and economic welfare. When Japanese-Americans were ordered to concentration camps, the forced removal of the backbone of so many West Coast crops dealt a big blow to America’s agricultural output.