“America has power, but not justice.
In prison, we were victimized as if we were guilty.
Given no opportunity to explain, it was really brutal.
I bow my head in reflection but there is
nothing I can do.”
It is one of more than 200 poems carved into the walls of the Angel Island immigration station by Chinese detainees. Called the Ellis Island of the West, the station was built in San Francisco harbor in 1910 to control the entry of Asian immigrants into the U.S. /2
Angel Island processed a half million immigrants from 80 countries during its 30 years of operation. Most were from China and Japan. Some 175,000 were detained there due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which strictly limited immigration for Chinese people. /3
The average detainment was two weeks, but some immigrants were held up to two years as they appealed deportation decisions. They were treated like convicted criminals — forced to stay in their dorms, not allowed to have visitors, their papers and mail examined. /4
The immigration station was relocated to the mainland in 1940, and the Army began using Angel Island to detain Japanese immigrants. The station was abandoned after WWII and the island became a state park. /5
The station was to be demolished until park ranger Alexander Weiss discovered writings on the walls in 1970. Written in many languages, they express the frustration and suffering of the detainees. The barracks were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997. /end
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I went back to school in my early 40s and completed my bachelor’s degree in economics. This was 2005 to 2008, when W was in office. In 2006, W proposed an immigration overhaul involving a significant number of deportations. /1
My international economics professor brought up W’s proposal in class, railing on for minutes about how horrible this idea was. He was normally even keeled but almost shouted. “Just try to get a roof put on your house or yard work done! There won’t be any fresh produce!” /2
After he got over his tirade, he went on to explain what significant numbers of deportations would do to the economy: cause a significant rise in inflation and drop in GDP. Keep in mind that W’s proposed deportations were a small fraction of what Trump is threatening. /3
The Great Recession of 2008-2009 was just 15 years ago, but many people seem to have forgotten how bad it was for everyday Americans. People struggled for years while the top 1% got even more fabulously wealthy. Let’s take a look at what happened and why. /1
Repub policies created the perfect environment for economic collapse. Deregulation allowed banks to take increasingly greater risks, engaging in hedge fund trading, buying toxic assets and offering subprime mortgages to low-income buyers. /2
Then the housing bubble burst, with prices plummeting by more than 20%. Millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosure, while millions of others raided their 401(k)s just to stay afloat. The stock market lost more than 50% of its value by the time W left office. /3
As Trump prepares to take the stage tomorrow at New York’s Madison Square Garden, let’s remember Isadore Greenbaum, a Jewish plumber’s helper, cab driver, hotel worker and waiter from Brooklyn who defied thousands of American Nazis at the same venue in 1939. /1
On Feb. 20, 1939, the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi organization, put on a “Pro American Rally” at MSG, ostensibly to celebrate George Washington’s birthday. The backdrop for the stage was a 30-foot-tall banner of Washington flanked by American flags and swastikas. /2
Some 22,000 people attended the rally, wearing Nazi armbands and waving American flags. Some carried posters with slogans such as “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian America.” Stormtroopers with uniforms almost identical to those of Nazi Germany patrolled the aisles. /3
Most people would say the stock market crash of 1929. That was probably the No. 1 factor, but the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 made it worse. The act raised tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods by almost 60%. /1
Smoot and Hawley proposed the tariffs to offset overproduction. The U.S. economy had made significant gains in production, contributing to a surplus of farm produce. However, manufactured goods were more valuable, and U.S. exports were rising faster than imports. /2
Corporate executives and industrialists practically begged Hoover to veto the bill. Henry Ford called it “economic stupidity” while J.P. Morgan CEO Thomas W. Lamont called it “asinine.” But Hoover caved to his Repub colleagues and signed the legislation. /3
Today in history, 1906: White residents of Atlanta riot based on false reports that Black men had assaulted white women in four separate attacks. Over the next few days, the rioters kill at least 12 Black Atlantans and devastate the city’s Black community. /1
Atlanta newspapers had reported the false stories of the assaults, inflaming whites who already resented the city’s growing African American population. Atlanta’s Black population had increased from 9,000 in 1880 to 35,000 in 1900. /2
African Americans had established a thriving salon society and held political office during Reconstruction, leading many whites to embrace Jim Crow laws. One candidate in the 1906 Democratic gubernatorial primary ran on a platform of disenfranchising African Americans. /3
Today in history, 2007: The United Nations adopts the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), proclaiming that Indigenous peoples have a right to their way of life and prohibiting discrimination against them. /1
#ResistanceRoots
Indigenous people had been struggling for almost a century to gain recognition within international institutions. In 1920, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (also known as the Iroquois Six Nations) applied for membership in the League of Nations but was never accepted. /2
In 1974, representatives from 98 Western Hemisphere Nations formed the International Indian Treaty Council. The U.N. recognized the council as a non-governmental organization with consultative status — a measure of progress. /3