The Alien Land Act was barely enforced until Pearl Harbor

Evidence

In 1913 Congress passed the Alien Land Act, which prevented noncitizens from purchasing or leasing land, specifically targeting Japanese immigrants. However “one observer reported in 1934 that the law was virtually a dead letter in many if not all parts of the state. This condition continued until shortly after the outbreak of war with Japan in December, 1941.” Edwin E. Ferguson, “The California Alien Land Law and the Fourteenth Amendment,” California Law Review 35, no. 1 (1947): 72. This could help explain how this purchase occurred. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 783

Categorization

• QUESTION: If the Alien Land Act was a dead letter until 1941, what triggered the sudden enforcement spike — and does this pattern (latent discriminatory law activated by war) have parallels in other exclusions?