Has Anything Really Changed?

In the early 1900s, Asian immigrants numbered in the hundreds and were a substantial presence in Bellingham, WA, (the town where I live) maintaining small communities with their own restaurants, pool halls, and shops. The Chinese were the second largest foreign-born group in Bellingham, second only to Canadians. They were, however, confined to the canneries where they worked, and not permitted to enter the city at large.

Due to sustained campaigns of racism and exclusion, little to nothing of these early immigrant communities remains in the city today (except a plaque indicating where the opium den used to be). By 1950, Bellingham, WA census numbers reported a mere eight individuals of Asian ancestry.

One of the manifestations of Bellingham's anti-Asian campaigns was the vicious Riot of 1907. Sparked by the hiring of several Asian workers at the local lumber mill, labor leaders demanded that the Asian workers be expelled as they were taking away precious jobs from white workers and driving down wages. (does this sound familiar?)

On September 4, 1907, the demands of white labor culminated in a vicious riot. White workers broke into lumber mills and pulled Asians from their work, then entered their bunkhouses, destroying property, and stealing valuables. All night, Asian workers were driven to the city limits, others were taken to the city jail by police, ostensibly for protection. Within days, the Asian community was gone.

Shortly after the riot, hundreds of white working class men, and leaders of the Japanese-Korean Exclusion League (soon to be renamed the "Asiatic Exclusion League" to encompass its growing opposition to all Asians), convened in Bellingham to hold a mass meeting and demonstration in favor of further "Oriental exclusion laws."

The 1907 riot was part of a much larger wave of anti-Asian violence happening along the Pacific Coast. These events have left an indelible stamp on the demographics of Bellingham to this day. Only since US immigration reform in the 1960s have any substantial amount of non-white immigrants returned to Whatcom County, WA.

I wonder if these events, and their lessons are included in any grade school history class?

{the plaque, pictured, is installed on a street corner in the Fairhaven neighborhood of Bellingham, WA}