The Materiality of Anti-Japanese Racism: “Foreignness” and Racialization at Barneston, Washington (1898-1924)

Archaeologies of Japanese American labor reveal how company towns served as vehicles for racialization. Labor hierarchies at sawmill towns in Pacific Northwestern United States reified Nikkei immigrants as “foreign,” incapable of being full members of American society. Contests over “foreignness” are materialized on the landscape of Barneston, Washington. Community responses to anti-Japanese racism are visible through signage, while sawmill town owner strategies are reflected in the Nikkei’s spatial segregation. These arguments demonstrate how historical archaeology can link research in Asian American studies, racism and racialization, and company town labor to develop new syntheses of labor history.