Back in the Day, Immigration Demagogues Denounced Not Mexicans, But Chinese Jeff Jacoby - Boston Globe
go to original September 19, 2016

“The Wasp,” a weekly magazine in San Francisco that frequently published Sinophobic propagand, published this piece by George Frederick Keller in 1882. (Oakland Museum of California)

The largest mass lynching in the United States took place in Los Angeles on Oct. 24, 1871. It was a ghastly eruption of lethal racism, but the victims — 18 men and boys, dragged from their homes and summarily hanged or shot — weren’t black. They were Chinese, and they were murdered by a mob, nearly 500 strong, that included some of the city’s leading citizens.

“Their first victim was an elderly, inoffensive Chinaman, whom they seized and dragged headlong through the streets, beating and abusing him at every step,” the Los Angeles Daily Mirror later recounted. At the corner of Temple and New High streets, the lynch party tied a noose around the old man’s neck and hauled him up. “The rope broke and the unfortunate wretch, innocent of any wrong, asked for mercy from his cruel tormentors. This was denied with jeers, and he was again hung up; this time successfully.”

Fear and loathing of immigrants isn’t a new phenomenon. Today, much of that animus is directed toward Mexico, and Donald Trump has made it the cornerstone of his presidential bid.

But it’s worth looking back to the decades after the Civil War, when hostility toward the foreign-born focused especially on the Chinese. Politicians, demagogues, and the press denounced Chinese laborers with unvarnished contempt and advocated fervently for sealing the border to keep Chinese migrants out.

Read the rest at Boston Globe

Related: Smuggling Chinese Across the U.S. Border Is More Lucrative Than Smuggling Mexicans (Council on Foreign Relations)

Related: Cultural Events Mark 450 Years of China-Mexico Relations (Xinhua)

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