User:Kuyttewaal/sandbox

Legislation such as the Swampland Reclamation Act of 1861 was enacted in California to put perceived empty and wasted lands to use and stabilization. Much of this involved draining the Delta wetlands and building levees to regulate flood control in places like Locke. Mainly poor Chinese immigrants were hired to do this backbreaking reclamation work. Through contracted labor often equaling less than one dollar a day per worker, they built hundreds of miles of levees in waist deep water where malaria still rampaged, reclaiming a total 88,000 acres. Most of this reclaimed land was used for cash crops, including asparagus, potato, sweet potatoes, white beans, pears, and apples. Chinese immigrants in Locke started patterns in California agriculture that are continued today in the Sacramento- San Joaquin region, including contracted labor, tenant farming, share-cropping, and the piece wage system. Chinese communities congregated in solidarity under difficult labor and social conditions fostered by legislation such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, creating community gardens that maintained cultural relevancy in the form of growing Chinese cabbage, snow peas, leafy vegetables, winter melon, and tomatoes.