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According to [[Stanford University]] historian Albert Camarillo, the Peralta family struggled to keep their land after the incorporation of California into the United States after the [[Mexican–American War]]. Camarillo claims the family was the victim of targeted racial violence. He writes in ''Chicanos in California'', "They lost everything when squatters cut down their fruit trees, killed their cattle, destroyed their buildings, and even fenced off the roads leading to the rancho. Especially insidious were the actions of attorney [[Horace Carpentier]], who tricked Vicente Peralta into signing a 'lease' which turned out to be a mortgage against the 19,000-acre rancho. The lands became Carpentier's when Peralta refused to repay the loan he believed was fraudulently incurred. The Peraltas had no choice but to abandon the homesite they had occupied for two generations."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Camarillo |first1=Albert |title=Chicanos in California: A History of Mexican Americans in California |date=1979 |publisher=Boyd & Fraser |isbn=978-0878351282 |page=16 |edition=1 |url=https://archive.org/details/chicanosincalifo00albe |access-date=29 July 2020}}</ref>
=== Development of Chinatown ===
During the 1850s—just as gold was discovered in California—Oakland started growing and further developing because land was becoming too expensive in San Francisco.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Hometown Chinatown : the history of Oakland's Chinese community|last=Armentrout|first=Ma, L. Eve|isbn=9781138862791|location=New York|oclc=898926053|date = 2015-02-27}}</ref> People in China were struggling financially as a result of the [[First Opium War]], the [[Second Opium War]], and the [[Taiping Rebellion]], so they began migrating to Oakland, many of whom were recruited to work on railroads. However, the Chinese struggled to settle because they were discriminated against by the white community and their living quarters were burned down on several occasions.<ref name="Iris">{{Cite book|title=The Chinese in America : A Narrative History |last=Iris |first=Chang |date=March 2004 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=9780142004173 |location=New York |oclc=55136302}}</ref> The majority of the Chinese migrants lived in unhealthy conditions in China and they often had diseases, so plague spread into San Francisco even though the Chinese were thoroughly inspected for diseases upon their arrival to San Francisco.<ref name="Iris"/>
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