California activists seek to preserve church land acquired by early Japanese immigrants
The words “Jesus Lives” are emblazoned across a dilapidated, unoccupied structure in Orange County. The building’s windows are boarded up. Varying shades of white and unmatched paint cover graffiti and highlight cracks in the property’s exterior.
This is the historic Wintersburg Japanese Presbyterian Church which sits on a 4.5-acre landscape that, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is among the only surviving Japanese American properties acquired before California enacted the Alien Land Law in 1913, which barred Asian immigrants from owning land.