At the start of my Signature Work process, I submitted documentation to the UC Davis Institutional Review Board to obtain an exemption for my interview protocol. Once approved as having adequately minimized risk to my interviewees, I could move forward in establishing my research method. Additionally, I conducted informational interviews with legal scholars, academics, and a librarian early in the process. These initial conversations helped me establish my data collection framework and identify the various intersections between water rights and property ownership restrictions that I wanted to highlight. 

My research primarily consisted of interviewee outreach and reviewing scholarly articles and historical documents. Notably, I visited an exhibition on the hardships faced by the Japanese community at the Historical Society in Winters, CA. Through interviews, I spoke with various multigenerational Japanese American farmers and professionals in the fields of water and immigration law, environmental advocacy, and local water governance. I tracked these conversations in a spreadsheet, and generated transcripts after each recorded interview to support my data analysis. 

This project required synthesizing multiple types of data.  For my interview data, I gathered the most relevant quotes and organized them by theme. This process allowed me to link data from my interviewees back to my primary research goals.  I then integrated key quotes into narrative sections on the Alien Land Law, incarceration, land and water impacts, and systemic inequality. Additionally, I drew upon scholarly articles and census data to understand historical trends in Japanese American immigration and agriculture.  In my thesis, I provided background information on California water rights, the Alien Land Law, the incarceration of Japanese Americans, and the intersections between these topics. An appendix includes prominent laws and cases related to my study area in chronological order.  

I presented my research at the Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Conference on the UC Davis campus. This oral presentation allowed me to share details about my thesis process and answer questions from the audience. I also was invited to guest lecture to Professor Tracy Winsor’s undergraduate Environmental Law class. During this longer presentation, I provided more extensive background on my inspiration for the research topic and the legacy of Japanese Americans in the California agricultural industry.