They did not want us.

"They did not want us as neighbors in their valleys. They did not want us as friends. We lived in unsightly shacks and could not speak plain English. We cared only about money. Our farming methods were poor. We used too much water. We did not plow deeply enough. Our husbands worked us like slaves. They import those girls from Japan as free labor. We worked in the fields all day long without stopping for supper. We worked in the fields late at night by the light of our kerosene lamps. We never took a single day off. A clock and a bed are two things a Japanese farmer never used in his life. We were taking over their cauliflower industry. We had taken over their spinach industry. We had a monopoly on their strawberry industry and had cornered their market on beans. We were unbeatable, unstoppable economic machine and if our progress was not checked the entire western United States would soon become the next Asiatic outpost and colony."

~~ from The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka