A Slave to Yellow Peril the 1886 Chinese Ouster Attempt in Wichita, Kansas
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Winter 2002 A Slave To Yellow Peril The 1886 Chinese Ouster Attempt In Wichita, Kansas Julie Courtwright University of Arkansas, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Courtwright, Julie, "A Slave To Yellow Peril The 1886 Chinese Ouster Attempt In Wichita, Kansas" (2002). Great Plains Quarterly. 2351. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2351 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. A SLAVE TO YELLOW PERIL THE 1886 CHINESE OUSTER ATTEMPT IN WICHITA, KANSAS JULIE COURTWRIGHT Wichita's war on the Chinese began in 1886. cott against Chinese businesses. Citizens at Although a small war in comparison to other tacked the "yellow peril" on the streets while anti-Chinese outbursts in the American West, the Wichita Beacon condemned them in black the persecution and violence against the city's and white. small Asian population was nonetheless terri Kansas in the nineteenth century, includ fying and significant to those who were the ing Wichita, was considered a social barom focus of the racist demonstrations. In an at eter for the United States on issues such as tempt to follow the national anti-Chinese women's rights, prohibition, populism, and trend of the late nineteenth century, which innovative industry.2 The conflict between the Chinese called the "driving out time,"! labor and Chinese Americans, however, was groups such as the local assemblies of the an issue in which the state was less progres Knights of Labor and the Women's Industrial sive. Although violence against immigrants League in Wichita, Kansas, organized a boy- was not as severe as in other states because of lower Asian population densities and a con spicuous absence of significant economic competition, the people of Wichita neverthe KEY WORDS: Chinese Americans, immigrants, Kansas, racial conflict, Wichita, "yellow peril" less played a part in the widening hostility of the 1880s. The nineteenth-century anti-Chi Julie Courtwright is a doctoral student in American nese sentiment and ouster attempt in Wichita history at the University of Arkansas. Her research is not only a reflection of local racist senti interests include Kansas history and western history. ment in the city, but a dark example of the Her recent publications include, "Want to Build a influence of national trends on the normally Miracle City!: War Housing in Wichita," appearing progressive and individualistic "Peerless Prin in Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains (Winter, 2000-2001). cess of the Plains." Labor groups and city lead ers decided to employ a preemptory strike against the small and unobtrusive Chinese [GPQ 22 (Winter 2002): 23-33) population in the city. The infiltration of Asian 23 24 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, WINTER 2002 labor and influence so prominent elsewhere, Palumbo-Liu, is largely what gave rise to "yel argued the Wichitans, would not occur in their low peril."5 city. Therefore, they had to strike against the The belief that Chinese immigrants could few Chinese already inhabiting Wichita be not be assimilated into American culture ex fore the city became yet another mecca for acerbated fears. According to John Kuo Wei migrating Asians in the American West. In Tchen, author of New York Before Chinatown: effect, the city of Wichita, which was exposed Orientalism and the Shaping of American Cul to extensive and influential national newspa ture, 1776-1882, white perceptions of the Chi per coverage of anti-Chinese activities, be nese changed drastically between the founding came a "slave" to the influences of widespread of the country and the passage of the Chinese yellow peril. Exclusion Act of 1882. In the Revolutionary At first, white Americans identified the period "China was an imagined place of fabu Chinese as simply another group set apart from lous luxuries, an advanced civilization" that themselves, similar to American Indians and the founders emulated. Chinese goods were African Americans. Whites assigned innate respected and valued.6 But as immigration con characteristics to Chinese men similar to those tinued, whites feared that sojourner Chinese imposed upon black men. They were thought men would decide to permanently settle in to be heathens, morally inferior, childlike, the country. The Asian culture, once admired lustful, sensual, and a sexual threat to white from afar, became a threat to whites when women. Unlike black men, however, the Chi Chinese families wanted to make their homes nese were also viewed as intelligent, quiet, in their adopted country. and peaceful. After the emancipation of the By the late 1800s, white Americans walked slaves, many whites believed that Chinese a tightrope of fear regarding the Chinese. They agricultural workers should be used as "models were, on one hand, cheap and useful labor in of discipline" to help reform black laborers the West and South after the emancipation of "spoiled" by freedom. Others, however, de the slaves. Chinese men usually came to the spaired at the thought of giving the South and United States without their wives and there West over to the Chinese after the Indians fore could work for low wages and live in inex had finally been contained on reservations. pensive barracks. In 1875 officials passed the Some even talked of establishing similar re Page Law, which ostensibly prohibited the serves for the Asian immigrants.3 immigration of "immoral" Chinese women. In Ultimately, however, according to histo actuality, however, the law was used to ex rian Ronald Takaki, the Chinese became a clude almost all Asian women, thereby pre different threat in the minds of white Ameri serving the Chinese men's willingness to live cans than had African Americans or Indians. in sparse conditions and work for minimal Because the Chinese were thought to be more wages. "The addition of unemployed women intelligent and competitive than other races, and children," noted George Anthony Peffer, they could, whites reasoned, usurp the posi "would have forced male immigrants to press tions of white laborers and "suck the blood for higher wages, upsetting their employers' from Uncle Sam." Furthermore, whereas payroll structures."7 But although Chinese la whites saw Indians and black people as part bor was useful, whites feared that once allowed of the past, "in the white imagination," noted in, the Chinese would take over the entire Takaki, the Chinese and the majority of their labor system. As conflict between labor and immigration numbers "were located in the capital escalated at the end of the nineteenth future."4 In fact, the great number of poten century, Chinese labor became more and more tial immigrants living in China and the pos of a threat to disgruntled white workers. sibility they would take over the labor force The city of Wichita hosted a small group of in the United States, maintained David Chinese residents in the racially explosive A SLAVE TO YELLOW PERIL 25 1880s, despite its landlocked status and con society.1O They could, however, maintain that siderable distance from California, where the belief about the Chinese. In some cases, for majority of Chinese settled. We can speculate eign-born whites led anti-Chinese action, on the reasons for relocation to Kansas using which began in earnest as early as the 1870s. the national situation as a guide. In Califor In Los Angeles, for example, twenty-two Chi nia, the Chinese worked in crowded, unhealthy nese were killed during a two-day riot in 1871. sweatshops and factories making items such as Later, in 1876, an anti-Chinese meeting of shoes, clothes, blankets, brooms, and other the Sacramento Order of Caucasians attracted household goods. As anti-Chinese mania in 4,000 participants.ll creased, however, many workers were driven After the passage of the Chinese Exclusion out of manufacturing in western cities, where Act of 1882, however, violence and discrimi boycotts made Chinese goods virtually unmar nation greatly accelerated. When President ketable. Chester Arthur signed the act on 6 May, many The resulting job search led many men to sinophobes saw the new law as an affirmation the profession of laundering, which was in high of anti-Chinese sentiment and were encour demand and was a fairly sure and quick way to aged to act on their feelings. According to make money. Although not a traditional oc Asian American historian Andrew Gyory, cupation for men in China, laundry work be "the Chinese Exclusion Act set the precedent came common among male Chinese in the for ... broader exclusion laws and fostered an United States, in part because of the scarcity atmosphere of hostility toward foreigners that of Chinese women to labor in the profession. would endure for generations." The law itself Prominent in California, the laundry business, actually "legitimized racism as foreign according to historian Sucheng Chan, was policy."12 even more important in other states because The vehicle for this perceived policy was, the demand for the profession allowed it to in large part, the Order of the Knights of La be a