The Chinese Must Go
Page 49
and prostitutes from all nations.
14. The Supreme Court rulings in the Head Money Cases (1884), which
challenged the 1882 Immigration Act, did cite international law as a source
of authority and declined a theory of plenary powers advanced by the
government. After establishing plenary power in Chae Chan Ping (1891),
334
NOTES TO PAGES 241–243
the Supreme Court then used the doctrine in Nishimura Ekiu v. U.S., 142
U.S. (1892), which reviewed a case of exclusion under the 1891 Immigration
Act. Yamataya v. Fisher, 189 U.S. 86 (1903) also cited plenary power in an
exclusion case under the 1891 Immigration Act. This ruling also
established that aliens had a right to due pro cess in matters of procedure.
Salyer, Laws Harsh as Tigers, 136–138, 149; Cleveland, “Powers Inherent in
Sovereignty,” 121, 137, 158. The plenary power doctrine became so deeply
engrained in American law that by 1909 the Supreme Court declared,
“Over no conceivable subject is the legislative power of Congress more
complete” than immigration. Oceanic Steam Navigation Co. v.
Stranahan, 214 U.S. 320, 339 (1909); Hiroshi Motomura, Americans in
Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 116.
15. Bill Ong Hing, Making and Remaking Asian Amer i ca through Immigration
Policy, 1850–1990 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), 17–42;
Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 21–55. Salyer, Laws Harsh as Tigers, xiii– xvi.
16. Bosniak, The Citizen and the Alien, 4.
17. Ibid., 40–53; Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and
Equality (New York: Basic Books, 1983), 38–39; Parker, Making Foreigners,
119; Peter H. Schuck and Rogers M. Smith, Citizenship without Consent:
Illegal Aliens in the American Polity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1985), 36. For critiques of this position, see Bas Schotel, On the Right of
Exclusion: Law, Ethics and Immigration Policy (New York: Routledge, 2012);
Bridget Anderson, Nandita Sharma, and Cynthia Wright, “Editorial: Why
No Borders?” Refuge 26, no. 2 (2009): 5–18; Joseph H. Carens, “Aliens and
Citizens: The Case for Open Borders,” Review of Politics 49, no. 2 (Spring
1987): 251–273.
18. Rosina Lozano, An American Language: The History of Spanish in the United
States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2018); Neil Foley, The
White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Glenn, Unequal Freedom;
Laura E. Gómez, Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American
Race (New York: New York University Press, 2008), 138–147; Gregg
Cantrell, “ ‘Our Very Pronounced Theory of Equal Rights to All’: Race,
Citizenship, and Pop u lism in the South Texas Borderlands,” Journal of
American History 100, no. 3 (December 2013): 663–690; In Re: Rodriguez,
District Court, W.D. Texas 81 F. 337 (1897).
19. “An act to provide for the allotment of lands in severalty to Indians on the
vari ous reservations, and to extend the protection of the laws of the United
NOTES TO PAGE 243
335
States and the Territories over the Indians, and for other purposes” (The
Dawes Act; The Indian General Allotment Act of 1887), chap. 119, 24 Stat.
388 (February 8, 1887). The act declared that Indians who had already
“ adopted the habits of civilized life” separate from a tribe or who accepted
allotments could be granted citizenship. On federal wardship, see Cahill,
Federal Fathers and Mothers, 32; Cleveland, “Powers Inherent in Sovereignty,”
54–81. On the decimation of Native Americans, see Benjamin Madley, An
American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016).
20. Downs and Masur, The World the Civil War Made, 3–7; Foner,
Reconstruction, 457–459, 528–529, 562–563, 582; George C. Rable, But There
Was No Peace: The Role of Vio lence in the Politics of Reconstruction (Athens:
University of Georgia Press, 2007), 191; Herbert Shapiro, White Vio lence
and Black Response: From Reconstruction to Montgomery (Amherst:
University of Mas sa chu setts Press, 1988), 11. On “paramilitarism” and its
effects, see Steven Hahn, A Nation under Our Feet: Black Po liti cal Strug gles
in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (Cambridge, MA:
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003), 238, 288, 312.
21. Hahn, A Nation under Our Feet, 413–442; Rable, But There Was No Peace,
10, 61–2; Joel Williamson, The Crucible of Race: Black- White Relations in the
American South since Emancipation (New York: Oxford University Press,
1984); Leon F. Litwack, Trou ble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim
Crow (New York: Vintage, 1999).
22. This is also the origins of “racial triangulation,” a phenomenon outlined by
Claire Jean Kim, “The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans,” Politics
and Society 27, no. 1. (1999): 105–138.
ACKNOWL EDGMENTS
I WOULD LIKE to thank Gordon H. Chang for introducing me to Asian
American history. I remember asking him, when I finished gradu ate school,
if I really had to leave the nest. He laughed and said, “ We’re bound together
for life.” I am lucky to be bound to such a mentor.
I am grateful to the Stanford University History Department for my
gradu ate education and to the George Shultz Fund in Canadian Studies, the
Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Socie-
ties for making it pos si ble. I offer special thanks to my teachers and men-
tors, Richard White, Estelle Freedman, and Albert Camarillo, who offered
unflagging support these many years. Thanks to my wonderful gradu ate co-
hort, including Lori A. Flores, Joshua Howe, Kevin Kim, Jeffery Miner,
Julie Prieto, Timothy Tomlinson, Derek Vanderpool, and Christopher
Wilkins. Stanford staff kept me afloat and insured, including Art Palmon,
Linda Huynh, and Ronda Fenton. When life brought me to the University
of Wisconsin- Madison, Susan Friedman and the Institute for Research in
the Humanities offered me an intellectual home away from home.
Karl Jacoby, my freshman advisor at Brown University, taught me to love
history, and Evelyn Hu- Dehart, my se nior thesis advisor, exposed me to the
pleasures of research. Alan Taylor explained the difference between micro-
fiche and microfilm, and between history and historiography. Rhoda
Flaxman tapped me for the writing fellows program and gave me the confi-
dence to pursue an academic career.
The ACLS New Faculty Fellows program funded me at Northwestern
University, where Peter Hayes and Carolyn Chen welcomed me to the His-
tory Department and the Asian American Studies program, respectively.
337
338
ACKNOWL EDGMENTS
I learned a lot from colleagues there, including Ji- Yeon Yuh, Kathleen
Belew, Kevin Boyle, Gerry Cadava, Caitlin Fitz, Daniel Immerwhar, Cheryl
Jue, Jinah Kim, Simeon Man, Kate Masur, Shalini Shankar, and Nitasha
Sharma. Wendy L. Wall brought me into the Kaplan Center for the Study
of the Humanities.
During the past few years at Prince ton University, I have racked up more
debts than I can know. I would like to thank my chair, William Chester
Jordan, who kindly offered me employment, twice. I am grateful to the fac-
ulty of the History Department for making this a better book and to those
who gave me comments and critiques, including Jeremy Adelman, Margot
Canaday, Janet Chen, Angela Creager, Sheldon Garon, Hendrik Hartog, Al-
ison Isenberg, Regina Kunzel, Michael Laffan, Jonathan Levy, Erika
Milam, Yair Mintzker, Philip Nord, Daniel Rod gers, Martha Sandweiss,
Emily Thompson, Moulie Vidas, Keith Wailoo, and Sean Wilentz. Hen-
drik Hartog and Anne Cheng invited me into the American Studies pro-
gram. Thank you also to Judy Hanson and the entire staff of History and
American Studies. I benefited greatly from a writing group spearheaded
by Rosina Lozano, which included James Alexander Dun, Joseph Fron-
czak, Caley Horan, Robert Karl, Matthew Karp, Ronny Regev, and Re-
becca Rix. Wendy Warren more than merits her own sentence.
Many scholars have offered me incisive comments and questions over
years of conferences and workshops. Bill Deverell, John Mack Faragher,
Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Donna Gabaccia, Hidetaka Hirota, Madeline
Hsu, Amy S. Greenberg, Karl Jacoby, Moon- Ho Jung, Stephen Kan-
trowitz, Robert Lee, Kate Masur, Sucheta Mazumdar, Mae Ngai, Michael
Pfeifer, Alan Taylor, Jack Tchen, K. Scott Wong, Elliott Young, Henry Yu,
and Ji- Yeon Yuh were especially gracious with their time and expertise.
Prince ton University and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation made
pos si ble a sabbatical year at the Institute for Advanced Study. Didier Fassin
welcomed me to the borders and bound aries seminar at the School of
Social Science, which included Joan Scott, Michael Walzer, Linda Bos-
niak, Rhacel Parreñas, Bryna Goodman, Tugba Basaran, Tod Hamilton,
Firoozeh Kashani- Sabet, Monica Kim, and other inspiring scholars. Back
at Prince ton, Sandra Bermann and the PIIRS migration group provided
another key interdisciplinary community.
ACKNOWL EDGMENTS
339
Harvard University Press stood behind this proj ect long before it was a
book. Thank you to Brian Distelberg, who first brought me to the Press, and
Thomas LeBien, who steered the book to completion. Their guidance was
essential, as were the sharp comments of anonymous readers. I have Isabelle
Lewis, Tsering W. Shawa, and Eva Fourakis to thank for the maps and
chart. John Parman and Trevon Logan shared their data and expertise on
residential segregation. During the final stages, Judy Yang, Nick Kim
Sexton, Frederick Kaj Olof Bengtsson, Daniela Blei, and Carol Noble
helped with translation, research, and copy editing. The second chapter ex-
pands on ideas first discussed in “Before Restriction became Exclusion: Amer-
i ca’s Experiment in Diplomatic Immigration Control,” Pacific Historical
Review 83, no. 1 (February 2014): 24–56. Thank you to the PHR editors and
anonymous reviewers.
I am indebted to the staff at over a dozen archives, especially Kathleen
Crosman at the Pacific Alaska Branch of the National Archives, Greg Lange
at the Puget Sound Regional Branch of the Washington State Archives, and
Rodney Ross at the National Archives. Wallace Hagaman, Karen Mulvany,
and Wingston Chan gave generously from their private recollections and
collections.
Intrepid family and friends read the entire manuscript, including Marion
Franck, Ronald Franck, Daniel Lew, Casey Lew- Williams, Simeon Man, and
Gregory Miller. Thanks also to those who helped me to live through a neck
injury, two babies, and this book, including Justin Cox, Kathryn DeLonga,
Caitlin Fausey, Jenny Greenburg, Dan Krueger, Lara Miller, Katina
Miner, Christine O’Malley, Natasha Sattin, Vinay Shamasundara, Kristin
Shutts, and Ariel Vanderpool. Through it all (and long before) I had the
support of my parents, Marion Franck and Bob Lew, and my family,
Daniel Lew, Lindsay Quass, Ronald Franck, Kristi Ng, Jean Lew, Sue Wil-
liams, Keith Williams, Seth Williams, and Allen Gillers. I hope they know
how essential they have been to my life and my work.
Thank you to Casey Lew- Williams for our hyphenated journey together.
Fi nally, I dedicate this book to the memory of my grand father, Lew Din
Wing (1922–2002). Ye Ye, when you were nine years old and found yourself
on Angel Island in an immigration detention center, you could not have
known what put you there. During our last conversation before you died,
340
ACKNOWL EDGMENTS
we talked about those thirty- four days in detainment without family or
friends. I understand now, more than I did then, the collective history that
created the shame you held as your own personal burden. I wish I could share
this history with you. And I wish you could see your family now, ever
growing, including my children, Carson Wing and Dane Stewart. The el-
dest is just now nine years old.
INDEX
Illustrations and maps are indicated by italics.
African Americans, 3, 6–7, 9, 11, 40, 103, Anti- Chinese movement, 19–20, 118;
223, 233; assimilation, 237–238; “Negro assimilation of Chinese, 36–37; class
Prob lem,” 20; segregated anticoolie club,
division and, 139–140; effect in U. S., 214;
43; vigilante vio lence, 243; voting rights,
Eu ro pean mi grants, 119; vio lence and
30–31, 44, 235, 239, 242–243
non- violence of, 114–115, 120–121, 128–129;
Age of Steel, The, 175
Western development and, 138; women in,
Ah Hung, 111
131–133. See also Exclusion; Expulsion
Ah Sin, 72–73
Anti- Chinese politics, 19, 238–239; po liti cal Ah Wy, 78–79, 81, 85
terrorism, 115–116
Ah Yuk, 78–79, 81, 85
Anti- Chinese vio lence, 1–2, 7–8, 10–11,
Albina (Oregon), 126
17–18, 44, 263n17; before Chinese Alien and alienage, 7–10, 171, 231, 235–242,
Restriction, 17, 44–45, 50–52, 149–150;
244, 261n8; alien citizens, 228, 233–234; fear of death without traditional rites,
Chinese and others, 31, 38; Chinese
225–226; after Geary Act, 205–206;
menace, 40; colonies and status, 211;
lynching, 3–4; newspaper reports and
“illegal alien,” 5, 87, 242; inability to threats, 126–128, 135; personal effects of, naturalize for all Asians, 241; Mexicans in
224–225, 326n78; re sis tance and flight, southwest, 33; naturalization of foreign
291n4; San Jose Chinatown burned to
born, 30; naturalization of former slaves,
ground, 180– 181; Snake River, 180, 313n35;
239; states’ denial of rights, 43; treaty
U. S. legislates indemnity for vio lence and
status, 60, 183, 193, 195. See also Last Days expulsions, 102, 189, 294n26; vigilantes of the Republic (Dooner); Permanent
effect on Chinese communities, 215, 219;
aliens; Vigilantes
vigilantism and gender, 129–131,
225.
Allen, Solomon, 75
See also Seattle; Tacoma
Alley, B. F., 155
Antimonopolist movement, 32, 42, 119, 139
American Home Baptist Missionary Society, Arcata (California), 114, 127
308n60
Arthur, Chester, 49–51
Angell, James, 47
Asian Americans, 9, 232; history of, 260
Angell Commission, 47. See also Treaties
Auburn (California), 38
341
342
INDEX
Ball, H. O. , 98
Butteville (California), 206
Bancroft, Hubert, 140
Byrd, Lewis, 123
Bankers Magazine, 174
Barrel Works: Chinese workers replace
California: anti- Chinese convention, San
whites, 148–150; vigilantes and Chinese
Jose, 134–135; anti- Chinese opinion, 40;
laborers, 150–152
cheers for Chinese Exclusion Act of 1888,
Bash, A. W., 63–69, 72–76
189–190; discriminatory state statutes
Bayard, Thomas F. , 86, 107, 111, 170–174, struck down, 43; disproportionate
179, 183–184, 187–188
workforce to population, 34–35; gold rush,
Bee, Frederick A., 98
3, 21–23, 26; rec ords destruction in Beecher, Herbert F. , 81–85, 159, 229; disasters, 12; vio lence and mi grant loss,
Anti- Chinese vio lence, 229
222–223. See also Chinatown; Working-
Beith, James, 114, 127–128
men’s Party of California
Belmont, Perry, 179
Canada: border crossings, 63–65, 79; Black Diamond (Washington), 119, 121
extralegal deportation from Washington
Blake, Arthur, 53, 55, 66–78, 81, 88, 103
Territory, 79–81; smuggling from, 67.
Booth, Newton, 46
See also British Columbia
Border control, 53–55; Chinese Exclusion
Carlisle, John Griffin, 204
Act effect, 192, 196–197, 204; deportation Carson (City, Nevada), 126
bud geting crisis, 204–205; local
Census of Chinese in Amer i ca. See Numbers
immigration raids, 208; local involve-
of Chinese in Amer i ca
ment, 73; porous Canadian border, 63–68, Chae Chan Ping v. United States (1889),
198; remote control, 45, 201, 318n10;
192–193, 204, 330n106
southern border issues, 201. See also
China: boycott of American goods after