On a late one evening at work during my bachelor days, I converse with a friend. We disagree on many issues, but we discuss the topics civilly. On this particular evening, we talk about the US currency. Here’s the issue, the first sentence in our first amendment outlines freedom of religion, specifically:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion
And much like zero is a number, freedom of religion must therefore include freedom of lack of religion. In other words, US citizens are equally free to practice agnosticism, atheism, polytheism, and just for completeness Satanism. If that is the case, doesn’t printing (or minting) the phrase “In God We Trust” on our currency, exclude the aforementioned groups? And if that’s the case, should we remove it?
However, this post will not discuss that phrase in our currency. The conversation turned late, and I wanted to leave for home. Instead of simply telling my friend that it’s late and need to leave, I turn to one of my favorite phrases with which to finish my conversations with him, “You treat me this way, after we built your railroads?“
And yes, my friend is a Caucasian man. And yes, I’m a Chinese man. This phrase agitates him… every single time. Obviously, I personally had no hand in building the Transcontinental Railroad, but many Chinese immigrants did. He responds with, “Damn it, Frank! Why do you have to say that?” Then he stampers off.
The Chinese Exclusion Act
While I learned many years before Transcontinental Railroad laborers had disproportionately higher numbers of Chinese immigrants, I did not know the extent of the friction or the abuse. Conducting this work became exceeding dangerous; many perished. These Chinese laborers became expendable. The local citizens subjected these Chinese immigrants to unspeakable discrimination.
Congress passed a law that effectively and explicitly forbade the immigration of Chinese people into the states in 1882. They didn’t even bother giving it a palatable name, they simply called it precisely that, The Chinese Exclusion Act. They originally wrote it to last ten years, but they subsequently extended it. Our US government, the same country that aspires to be The Melting Pot (the fusion of many cultures), kept this law on the books for over sixty despicable years.
Do you have the temerity to assert that systemic racism is a myth? Do you think that it was scoped to only slavery? Read the legislature; we did this. We literally signed this into law. This is not Critical Race Theory. There’s no theory about this, this fact is beyond contestation.
There are two schools of thought about why to bring up our racist history. One group insist that this is ancient history. It occurred over 140 years ago. “Let it go.” They assert that we bring this up in order to overwhelm our Caucasian children with racial guilt.
The Racial Guilt myth
I’ll approach this from the Chinese angle to make a point. There have been many evil Chinese people in history. The Chinese government has done many atrocious things. We can fill pages of with intricate details from these activities. I’m sure that many are comparable or even worse than those facts I mentioned above. If we were to follow the same line of reasoning about Caucasian children and racial guilt, then bombarding me with these indisputable facts about Chinese atrocities will similarly overwhelm me with guilt.
It doesn’t. I do not feel an iota of guilt about it. You see, I conducted none of these atrocities. I do not question that they existed, but you might as well talk about the Spanish Inquisition. I don’t identify with any of those evil Chinese people. Should I feel guilty by association? Why? Is it because I’m of the same race? Is it because they were from the same country from which my parents originate (even if my parents disagreed with these evil people?) It’s nothing that I have personally done.
It is absurd to believe that I may inherit guilt from my Chinese lineage. If it’s absurd when it’s me and evil Chinese history, why does it magically become plausible when it’s Caucasian children and evil American history? Hint: it’s not.
Forgetting history
The second school of thought about teaching history is simply because, “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.” I’ll start this discussion with a news clip from Oregon in 1970 and an exploding whale; I’m not making this up. The local authorities decided that they’d use dynamite to blow up the decomposing dead whale on the beach; they believed it would vaporize it into small pieces that birds would consume it. Instead, large chunks flew up in the air propelled by the explosives and even crushed some cars parked hundreds of feet away.
No one has tried this again. While there have been many subsequent accounts of dead whales on the beach, literally no one has tried to blow it up with dynamite. They do not want to suffer the same fate; they learned from history.
Many believe that we will not conduct ourselves in the same way that we did in 1882 when we passed the law that was literally called “The Chinese Exclusion Act”. Our moral compass has obviously developed sufficiently over the subsequent 140 years that we are now immune to the dangers of xenophobia. Has it?
In 2022, a Texas GOP candidate asserted that Chinese students should be banned from Texas Universities. In 2021, Marjorie Taylor Greene mentioned that she would deport Chinese people if she could. Trump continues to assert today that immigrants arrive here in the US to commit crimes when the numbers demonstrate that the undocumented immigrant offending rate is lower than US born citizens. I’m sure that there are plenty more than this. Are there not alarming similarities between these sentiments and The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882?
Are we, in fact, repeating history because we intentionally refuse to teach it?
What about the undocumented immigrants?
First, allow me to go on a rant. I’m Asian, not Oriental. Adult females are women, not girls. The term is undocumented immigrants, not illegals. You can go ahead and brand me with the label of ‘woke’; I’ll wear it proudly. What do you call a person who intentionally calls someone by a term that offends them? Is there a better term for that other than the generic term of asshole? Okay, rant is over.
You know what the common response I hear from my objection to calling someone an illegal? “Well, did they break the law?” For them, it all boils down to that one characterization that allows them to use that repulsive label.
You know who else broke the law? Rosa Parks broke the law when she refused to give up her seat. Harriet Tubman also broke the law. The Greensboro Four? Criminals. While not in the US, Nelson Mandela also broke the law. Many will lazily pass judgement on these immigrants with that simple question, “Did they break the law?” and label them as criminals. You know the question they never seem to ask? “Is this immigration policy fair?”
Until you’re able to discuss the details of that immigration policy and explain in excruciating detail how it’s completely equitable, I suggest you develop a healthy skepticism about the altruism of our country. Keep in mind that we, the ‘greatest country in the world’, defined immigration policy in 1882, literally called it “The Chinese Exclusion Act”, and kept it on the books for over sixty years.
Even when that nauseating law was repealed by the Magnuson Act, it then allowed 105 Chinese immigrants into the US each year. One hundred-five people for the entire country. That’s not a typo; we can fit them all into one room, and we called it ‘progress’. Do you think it was fair?