Kazuko Nakane’s history of the early Japanese immigrants to central California’s Pajaro Valley focuses on the development of farming communities there from 1890 to 1940. The Issei (first-generation immigrants) were brought into the Pajaro Valley to raise sugar beets. Like Issei laborers in American cities, Japanese men in rural areas sought employment via the “boss” system. The system comprised three elements: immigrant wage laborers; Issei boardinghouses (boardinghouse: n.寄宿公寓)
where laborers stayed; and labor contractors, who gathered workers for a particular job and then negotiated a contract between workers and employer. This same system was originally utilized by the Chinese laborers who had preceded the Japanese. A related institution was the “labor club,” which provided job information and negotiated employment contracts and other legal matters, such as the rental of land, for Issei who chose to belong and paid an annual fee to the cooperative for membership.
When the local sugar beet industry collapsed in 1902, the Issei began to lease land from the valley’s strawberry farmers. The Japanese provided the labor and the crop was divided between laborers and landowners. The Issei thus moved quickly from wage-labor employment to sharecropping (sharecrop: v.作佃农耕种) agreements. A limited amount of economic progress was made as some Issei were able to rent or buy farmland directly, while others joined together to form farming corporations. As the Issei began to operate farms, they began to marry and start families, forming an established Japanese American community. Unfortunately, the Issei’s efforts to attain agricultural independence were hampered by government restrictions, such as the Alien Land Law of 1913. But immigrants could circumvent such exclusionary laws by leasing or purchasing land in their American-born children’s names.
Nakane’s case study (case study: n.个案研究) of one rural Japanese American community provides valuable information about the lives and experiences of the Issei. It is, however, too particularistic (particularism: a tendency to explain complex social phenomena in terms of a single causative factor). This limitation derives from Nakane’s methodology—that of oral history—which cannot substitute for a broader theoretical or comparative perspective. Future research might well consider two issues raised by her study: were the Issei of the Pajaro Valley similar to or different from Issei in urban settings, and what variations existed between rural Japanese American communities?
1. The primary purpose of the passage is to
(A) defend a controversial hypothesis presented in a history of early Japanese immigrants to California
(B) dismiss a history of an early Japanese settlement in California as narrow and ill constructed
(C) summarize and critique a history of an early Japanese settlement in California
(D) compare a history of one Japanese American community with studies of Japanese settlements throughout California
(E) examine the differences between Japanese and Chinese immigrants to central California in the 1890’s
答案选C，summarize可以理解，可是critique 日本第一代移民在加州的那段历史从哪能看出来啊。
请nn指点！
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