@crab_mac @newyorkgreen There were two phases of it. The anti-Chinese "Yellow Peril" fearmongering reached its culmination in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It revived in the early 1900s when Japanese workers began arriving in large numbers, often for rail work.
@crab_mac @newyorkgreen And this "Yellow Peril" had very specific conspiracy theories attached to it, a la Homer Lea's 1909 book "The Valor of Ignorance," about the Japanese emperor's plans to invade the West Coast. In Grays Harbor. 
@crab_mac @newyorkgreen Fundamental to these theories was the accompanying belief that all those benign-seeming strawberry farmers were secretly minions of the Emperor, treacherously "inscrutable," who would spring into action as saboteurs and enablers of the invasion when given a secret signal.
@crab_mac @newyorkgreen That was what the "Yellow Peril" of the 1912-24 period was about, and why Japanese farmers were especially loathed.
So when Pearl Harbor happened, these embedded assumptions just flowered right to life.
So when Pearl Harbor happened, these embedded assumptions just flowered right to life.
