Norm’s family was lucky in one respect: a white attorney named J. B. Peckham was incensed by California’s long-standing policy of not allowing people of Asian descent to own land, so he created a workaround. He would purchase property in his own name, allowing the Asian family to pay him for the mortgage, and when a family’s oldest child, a U.S. citizen by birth, turned twenty-one, he would legally transfer the property to them. On paper, Peckham appeared to be one of the wealthiest men in Santa Clara County, California. In reality, he owned the properties in name only. He gave the dream of
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