"Chinese coronavirus."
There's a long history in the US of govt officials muddying xenophobia with concerns about public health.
There's a long history in the US of govt officials muddying xenophobia with concerns about public health.
“Irish [were said to be] typhus carriers.. Jews and Italians and others from Southern and eastern Europe were said to bringing tuberculosis and smallpox."
~ @prof_erikalee, historian and author of
"America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States."
~ @prof_erikalee, historian and author of
"America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States."
but as immigrants from Ireland and Italy and (most) Jews were absorbed into the broader landscape of American whiteness, the stigma associated with those groups and disease fell away.
Not so Asian Americans, who as @prof_erikalee pointed out, are seen as perpetual foreigners.
Not so Asian Americans, who as @prof_erikalee pointed out, are seen as perpetual foreigners.
(Huge swaths of Italy are under quarantine, and yet you don't hear about people roughing up or harassing Italian Americans or people talking about avoiding Italian restaurants out of an abundance of caution.)
The passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 — the first time the United States ban an entire group of people because of their ethnicity — was based on the idea of the Chinese as a unique threat to the (white) American way of life.
In the years before and after its passage, there were pogroms and massacres targeting Chinese laborers all over the West Coast. Government officials claim that Chinese were unassimilable, threats to white women,* and predisposed to be carriers of disease.
*The Page Act of 1875 effectively banned Chinese women from entering the United States, and since laws forbade Chinese from marrying white women and from living outside of squalid, designated areas, many Chinese communities were mostly made up of men.
*(White people, of course, blamed them for the squalor created by segregation and said Chinese men's bachelorhood made them "deviants.")
But back to the disease thing — by the end of the 19th century, San Francisco was home to about a quarter of all Chinese in California. For the reasons mentioned above, its Chinatown was cramped and dirty and its buildings were falling apart.
Again, the Chinese were blamed for these conditions, not US racism.
And then, in 1900, a case of bubonic plague was confirmed in Chinatown. The whole district was quarantined.
As @prof_erikalee said, white people were allowed to leave the area — but Chinese were not.
And then, in 1900, a case of bubonic plague was confirmed in Chinatown. The whole district was quarantined.
As @prof_erikalee said, white people were allowed to leave the area — but Chinese were not.
(the plague was likely came aboard a rates on a ship bringing immigrants to the Bay area.)
Residents of Chinatown, wary of racist city health officials, began hiding their dangerously ill and the bodies of the dead.
it was mayhem.
over the next few years, there were several campaigns to "disinfect" Chinatown — "basements were concreted, concrete ones flooded with carbolic acid, walls washed with lye, streets asphalted, cesspools filled[...] dwellings demolished."
go.nature.com/3aJ7oIL
over the next few years, there were several campaigns to "disinfect" Chinatown — "basements were concreted, concrete ones flooded with carbolic acid, walls washed with lye, streets asphalted, cesspools filled[...] dwellings demolished."
go.nature.com/3aJ7oIL
The idea that Chinese were unique vectors for disease became a matter of immigration policy.
Erika Lee said that on Ellis Island, in New York Harbor, immigrants from Europe were subjected to what were called "six-second physicals" — a quick perusal before entry into the US.
Erika Lee said that on Ellis Island, in New York Harbor, immigrants from Europe were subjected to what were called "six-second physicals" — a quick perusal before entry into the US.
At Angel Island, the large immigration processing center in San Francisco Bay, Chinese were separated out from other Asian immigrants and quarantined in dormitories on the island for weeks. Their belongings were taken and cleaned with steam and sulfur dioxide.
the discourse re: Chinese as disease-carriers might seem paradoxical — aren't Chinese Americans held up as model minorities? — but it's still very much with us. Think of comments ppl make abt the sketchiness of the meat in Chinese restaurants or the supposed health risks of MSG.
More on all of this here:
