Two Opposing Views About Chinese Exclusion

 The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which lasted until 1943, was passed to prevent cheap Chinese labor from depriving Americans of work. Additional justifications included racist xenophobic views that the Chinese were inferior, unassimilable, devious, unhygienic, and immoral, to name a few.

However, there were notable defenses of the Chinese such as Colonel Robert Green Ingersoll's argument in 1899 against the unjust exclusion that fell on deaf ears. Green was a free thinker, abolitionist, and considered the foremost orator and political speechmaker of late 19th century America.

    In contrast to Ingersoll's defense of the Chinese, an article published in the Birmingham newspaper on January 3, 1911, p.17 argued for continuing the exclusion of Chinese. Using the caricature of the Chinese as a cheater who outmaneuvers two white men trying to cheat him in a card game in a poem written in 1870 by Bret Harte, Plain Language From Truthful James that was more widely known as The Heathen Chinee. The 1911Birmingham article invoked the image of the devious untrustworthy "heathen Chinee" created way back in 1870 to depicts the many sneaky ways the Chinese devised to gain entry illegally into the country. 

  

  

Many of the arguments were specious. If the Chinese were 'unassimilable,' it was not an inherent trait of the Chinese but a condition imposed by the racist barriers that denied Chinese naturalization, opportunity to testify in court, and the denial of their bringing wives and children from China, among other impediments. The closing claim, without evidence, that the Chinese had 10,000 copies made of landmarks to aid immigrants in answering questions from immigration officials was a smear against the Chinese.

Chinese Sunday School in Birmingham, Alabama, 1903

 

   This 1903 newspaper account of the Chinese in Birmingham, Alabama, caught my attention for several reasons. It showed that despite the harsh and discriminatory treatment of Chinese across the country in 1903 that began decades earlier and continued for many subsequent decades, there were efforts by Christian churches, even in the Deep South, to convert these "heathens" to Christianity through Sunday School classes.

    The Second Presbyterian Church provided 15 teachers for  15 Chinese students of unspecified ages.  It was felt that the 1:1 ratio would expedite their acquisition of English.  That might be a valid point but, I was surprised that there were as many as 15 Chinese children in Birmingham at all!  The 1900 census showed only 5 Chinese, all adult males, and the 1910 census showed only 10 Chinese adult males. No women or children were listed in either census. This discrepancy probably is due to poor enumeration that failed to record any Chinese children, or women, if there were any.

   The pastor cited the importance of this outreach "because the Chinese are subject to many temptations peculiar to American cities." He did not cite specific temptations but implied that Sunday School experiences would protect them. As an aside, he did not seem to recognize how effectively Chinese parents discipline their children to behave.

    A final argument by the pastor for the value of Sunday School experiences for Chinese children was that when they retire and return to China, they may play a role in the evangelical goal of spreading the Gospel in China. 

     The evangelical mission in Birmingham was by no means an isolated one, but one that could be found increasingly in towns, large and small, across the country by 1900.

El Paso Chinese

    By the early 1870s, a great depression hit the United States and unemployed Americans blamed the cheap labor of the rapidly growing number of Chinese immigrants. Consequently, the  Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 barred Chinese laborers from entering, and for those already in the country from becoming naturalized U.S. citizens. 

    The Chinese in El Paso found illegal means to bring in their countrymen. Chinese were thought to have built tunnels to smuggle Chinese across the Mexican border from Juarez into El Paso. 

       In 1881, the first 1200 Chinese arrived in El  Paso to work on the Southern Pacific Railroad connecting El Paso and California.  After construction was completed, some workers moved on to work in other places in the U.S., some returned home to China, but others remained in El Paso.  Evidence that a large Chinese community developed in El Paso is seen at the Concordia Cemetery, which has a sizable section for burials of Chinese.

      Sam Hing was a Chinese operating in El Paso as a labor contractor recruiting Chinese laborers looking for work on the  Southern Pacific work crews. Hing became one of the most prominent, influential, and successful Chinese.  By 1900, Hing, having moved to Mexico, was reputed to be worth as much as $15 million.  

     Hing attributed his financial success to his dedication to work and smart investments. However,  he is alleged to have treated the Chinese laborers he hired like slaves so his financial gains were at their expense.  Two laborers about to be deported testified about the horrible treatment they received working for Hing.

An El Paso newspaper article written in 1940 about the early days of Chinese in El Paso did not cite the year but noted that Sam Hing eventually moved from El Paso to Mexico with his fortune and married a Mexican woman.