A Brief History of Immigration to Fullerton

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

Lately, given the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants, I’ve been thinking a lot about the history of immigration, specifically to my hometown of Fullerton, California. I think that if more people knew about the history of immigration, they might favor a more nuanced and compassionate approach. 

And so I thought I’d sit down and try to write a brief history of immigration to Fullerton. Next week, I plan on interviewing professor Jody Agius Vallejo, who teaches about immigration at USC, for my podcast. Perhaps this brief history can serve as a starting point for our conversation. Here goes.

Of course the indigenous people were here first–the Kizh. They were here for thousands of years. 

Then in the 1700s came the Spanish. They didn’t exactly immigrate. They came to colonize–establishing missions and forts and towns. Los Angeles was founded in 1781, for example. The Spanish did not treat the Kizh well–disease, violence, and displacement led to an alarming population collapse. 

Then in 1821, Mexico gained its independence from Spain. What we call Fullerton became part of a Mexican ranch owned by Juan Pacifico and Maria Ontiveros.

In the early to mid 1800s, some Americans came to Mexican California. They could be called immigrants. An American named Abel Stearns came as a trader in cow hides, married a Mexican woman, and eventually acquired a lot of land, including the Ontiveros ranch.

In the mid-1840s, some Americans, including Captain John C. Fremont, came to Mexican California and tried (unsuccessfully) to foment a rebellion–this was called the Bear Flag revolt. They were asked to leave by the Mexican authorities. These Americans might be called the first “illegal” immigrants to California.

From 1846-1848, the United States went to war with Mexico because it wanted more land. This was called Manifest Destiny. Battles were fought, and the Americans won the war. California became a US state in 1850. The previous year, 1849, was the height of the California gold rush, which brought many American settlers and foreign immigrants, seeking their fortunes.

Around 1860, a Basque immigrant named Domingo Bastanchury came to the land that would become Fullerton and acquired a lot of land for his sheep to graze.

In the 1870s, a handful of immigrants came by wagon train to lands that would become Fullerton to establish farms. These included people like Alex Gardiner (an immigrant from Scotland) and Andrew Rorden (an immigrant from Germany).

In the late 1860s, many Chinese immigrated to California to help build the Transcontinental Railroad. With the railroad completed, the Chinese settled in California cities. They were met with virulent racism and violence. Ultimately, the US government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, essentially barring immigrants from China.

Fullerton was founded in 1887 by George and Edward Amerige, two wealthy grain merchants from Boston. More Americans came out west around this time, mostly on trains.

With the Chinese excluded, many Japanese immigrated to California to work in the growing agriculture industry. Unfortunately, the same pattern of racism and exclusion was inflicted on Japanese immigrants, who were eventually barred from owning land by the Alien Land Laws.

From 1911-1921, the violence of the Mexican Revolution and agricultural labor needs in California prompted many Mexicans to immigrate north to California, to the land that used to be part of their country. It was the labor of Mexican immigrants that made the Orange County citrus industry grow and thrive. Unfortunately, Mexicans in the first half of the 20th century were met by racism and exclusion, often living in segregated labor camps.

In the 1920s, a growing wave of “nativism” (a desire to protect the interests of native-born or established inhabitants against those of immigrants) led to the passage of the 1924 Immigration Act, which created national origins quotas that favored northern and western European immigrants, and barred most immigrants from Asia, and severely curtailed immigration from southern and eastern Europe. The 1924 law created the U.S. Border Patrol. Interestingly, the 1924 law did not impose quotas on western hemisphere countries. Immigrants from Mexico and Latin America could cross the border with relative ease, although they might encounter racism and exclusion once they arrived here.

During the Great Depression, many Mexicans living in the Fullerton area were subject to a mass deportation. Nine trainloads of Mexicans (including some American citizens) living on the Bastanchury Ranch were deported. The Bastanchury family was not to blame–they had already lost most of their ranch due to bankruptcy.

During World War II, with labor shortages in agriculture and industry, the U.S. government created the Bracero Program, which was basically a guest worker program for Mexicans to come to the US to work.

In 1952, congress passed the McCarran-Walter Act, which continued the national origins quotas, but eliminated the Asiatic Barred Zone (although the quotas for Asian countries were miniscule compared to countries like England and Germany).

In 1954, the U.S. government implemented Operation Wetback, another mass deportation drive targeting Mexican immigrants. Many were deported. A pattern emerged–Mexican immigrants, being the most conspicuous presence in Fullerton, were often the targets of mass deportation operations.

In 1964, the Bracero program ended, and the following year congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which abolished the (arguably racist) national origins quotas, but for the first time placed a numerical limit on the number of immigrants from the entire Western Hemisphere (120,000 per year). Although this law was celebrated as a civil rights victory, its cap on immigrants from Latin America created the conditions for illegal immigration as labor needs had not changed in the United States.

Predictably, illegal immigration from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America increased dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s. This was exacerbated by the numerous covert wars in Latin America that the United States sponsored during this time in the context of the Cold War. 

The Vietnam War and its aftermath created a large influx of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees and immigrants to Orange County, with many settling in what is now called Little Saigon. 

The 1960s through the early 1980s also saw a large influx of immigrants from South Korea to California, to such places as Koreatown in Los Angeles. After the 1992 LA Riots, many Koreans moved out of LA, to places like Fullerton, drawn by educational opportunities, jobs, and safe neighborhoods.

During the Reagan administration, congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which provided Amnesty (a pathway to citizenship) for around 3 million undocumented immigrants. At the same time, this law also increased the Border Patrol and INS enforcement.

Congress passed the the Immigration Act of 1990 which increased immigration levels and introduced new visa categories, prioritizing family-based and employment-based immigration. It also introduced the Diversity Visa lottery to increase immigration from underrepresented countries.

Meanwhile, the Republican party became increasingly associated with hardline immigration restriction, as pioneered by groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Center for Immigration Studies, and Americans for Legal Immigration (ALIPAC).

In 1994, another wave of nativism (particularly in California) led to the passage of Proposition 187, which sought to deny all government benefits to undocumented immigrants, including public education. Prop 187 backfired, though. It was ultimately deemed unconstitutional, and also inspired a generation of Latino civil rights activists, including Alex Padilla, who is now a California Senator.

1994 was also the year of Operation Gatekeeper, a beefing up of border security around San Diego, which had the effect (as all such measures do) of re-routing migrants into more dangerous terrain, where more died needlessly.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was created in 2003 as part of the newly-formed Department of Homeland Security, in the aftermath of 9/11.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was established during the Obama Administration after the DREAM Act failed to pass Congress, but the Obama Administration also deported millions of undocumented immigrants.

Donald Trump’s first administration was notable for its hardline on undocumented immigrants, and it was Trump who established a ban on travel from majority Muslim countries, child separations, and more deportations.

The Biden administration sought to streamline the asylum process with the creation of the CBP One app, but illegal crossings surged under Biden. He sought to pass a bipartisan immigration reform bill, but it too died.

And in Trump’s second term, he has ramped up ICE raids and created an environment of fear, particularly for Latinos.

Today, Fullerton’s demographics are 37% Hispanic, 29% White, 26% Asian, and 2% Black.

I know there is more to this story, a lot more. I am still learning, particularly about more recent immigration laws and policies. Hopefully, my conversation with Jody Vallejo will help fill in some of the gaps.