The origins of the California-based survey of Japanese Americans
conducted in 1979-80 are found in the earlier work of one of the co-
authors of this book, Stephen Fugita. He became interested in a conflict
between the predominantly Mexican, Mexican American, and Filipino
United Farm Workers Union and the Japanese American-dominated
Nisei Farmers League (NFL) in the Fresno area of the Central Valley of
California in the early 1970s (for descriptions of the UFW-NFL conflict, see
Chapter 9 of this work as well as Fugita, 1978; Fugita and O'Brien, 1977;
Fugita and O'Brien, 1978; and O'Brien and Fugita, 1984). The conflict
erupted when the UFW, under the leadership of Cesar Chavez, made a
concerted effort to organize farm workers on ranches in the Fresno area,
including those owned by Japanese Americans. The Nisei Farmers
League emerged as a growers' response to the UFW organizing campaign.
The organization first focused on counterpicketing and later became in-
volved in political lobbying efforts in a controversial state referendum in
1976 in which the UFW and its allies were seeking to gain additional
money from the state legislature to fund the California Agricultural La-
bor Relations Board (ALRB). A coalition of agricultural interests, which
included the NFL as a major participant, was successful in defeating the

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