IT WAS MR. MORIYAMA who told Amarjeet what he should be scared of, when Amarjeet visited him on a Sunday in April 1920. Mr. Moriyama had heard that Assemblyman Jones had taken the podium at city hall to declare that almost three thousand Orientals had cultivated farmland in the Valley. “Take heed!” the assemblyman warned. “Take heed those numbers don’t increase!”

In May, the Fredonia newspaper ran an editorial titled “The Hegemony of the White Race.” The California Oriental Exclusion League moved into an office off Main Street and began lobbying to restrict access to farmland. They hosted dinners, convincing the county supervisors to write a letter to the governor. The old 1913 law excluding the Japanese from farmland had been ineffectual, they argued. Now the state legislature introduced a new bill. Behind fancy legal jargon, behind its show of fairness, it closed the old loopholes. All that was needed was for real Californians to vote in the November election to approve it.

A few days later, the paper ran a headline that read: “Tri Color Map Shows Asiatics.” A red, white, and blue map segmented the Valley with blade-sharp lines, showing the land that the Japanese and Hindus farmed. Red depicted Moriyama’s farm, blue for Jivan Singh’s next door. Lands cultivated by Anglos appeared in white. The colors splashed like an indictment beyond the boundaries of Fredonia to Brawley and El Centro, Calexico and Calipatria.

The red and blue sections cover more than 75,000 acres, the article under the map stated. It is known that a large portion of the Oriental Holdings have escaped observation. Amarjeet first saw the map at the feed store, but soon he would see it everywhere: behind the counter in the General Store, in a pamphlet for Senator Phelan’s reelection campaign, on the windows of the barbershops and the Chamber of Commerce and the Western Union office.

“Time to fight,” Amarjeet said, sitting at the Moriyama’s kitchen table, reading the article for the third time.

“For what is there to fight?” asked Mr. Moriyama.

Wasn’t it obvious? “Time to fight for your place in the Valley,” Amarjeet said. “Your home.”

Mr. Moriyama said nothing, merely looked at him. Amarjeet knew what he was thinking. If Harry were alive, they wouldn’t have been in this situation. Harry had been a citizen. He would have been immune to an Alien Land Law. He would have protected them.