coolie was a pliable instrument of the monopolists and a dominating
presence in his own right.
If the Chinese were not coolies, were they inassimilable heathens? Cer-
tainly, arriving at Amer ica’s shores, the Chinese were distinct from American
citizens. They looked diff er ent (especially with their hair in long braided
queues), spoke an unfamiliar language, knew little of Judeo- Christian be-
liefs, wore loose tunics instead of button-up shirts, and preferred pork and
rice to beef and potatoes. But it was racial assumptions that made these
cultural differences seem insurmountable. Native Americans and recent Eu-
ro pean mi grants also possessed distinct cultural norms, but many white
Americans in the late- nineteenth- century West trusted that these groups
could be enfolded into the nation.66 The ubiquitous belief in Chinese racial
difference, and discriminatory laws and practices that followed from that
belief, made Chinese amalgamation difficult, but not impossible. The longer
Chinese mi grants lived in the U.S. West, the more they adapted to Amer-
ican customs, developed En glish language skills, and formed social bonds
within the white community.
Though anti- Chinese advocates emphasized their spatial and cultural dis-
tance from the Chinese, archeological studies and textual accounts make
clear that these groups were not so neatly divided. Social relations of pro-
THE CHINESE QUESTION
37
“What Shall We Do with Our Boys?” In this 1882 po liti cal cartoon by George Keller,
the Chinese coolie takes all available jobs while white juveniles stand idle. The Wasp,
F850.W18, vol. 8, no. 292: 136–137. Courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley.
duction in the U.S. West necessitated contact between white people and the
Chinese. With the Chinese working in the sixty- three industries listed by
the Trades Assembly, they could not help but interact with white coworkers,
employers, and customers on a daily basis. Chinese men bought steaks from
white butchers and joined white congregations. White women picked up
their clothes from Chinese laundries, purchased produce from Chinese veg-
etable peddlers, and sought remedies from Chinese apothecaries. White men
employed Chinese servants to watch their children, dress their wives, and
manage their house holds. A few Chinese mi grants found their way onto In-
dian reservations in the West or into black communities in the Deep South,
selling goods and alcohol, or becoming husbands and fathers. This frequent
contact across the color line did not prevent anti- Chinese advocates from
believing that the “Chinaman” fell outside their imagined American com-
munity. To do so, however, meant unseeing social real ity.67
Even that icon of Chinese spatial and cultural ghettoization, “China-
town,” was not a racially bounded space in the 1860s and 1870s. Previous
38 RESTRICTION
scholars have noted that missionary work, white slumming, and occasional
interracial liaisons existed within segregated Chinatowns.68 In fact, interra-
cial contact within Chinatowns was a much wider phenomenon. In small
Californian towns like Riverside, Eureka, Auburn, or Placerville, Chinatown
was simply a few Chinese- occupied buildings surrounded by a white-
dominated downtown. In urban centers like San Francisco, Los Angeles, or
Seattle, Chinatown was a more distinct and segregated district, but this did
not preclude all spatial integration. In Seattle, the 1880 census recorded two
hundred Chinese living in forty- nine distinct house holds. Census takers
noted sixteen mixed- race house holds, nine of which consisted of Chinese
domestics living in white family homes, while the remainder were mixed-
race boarding houses. Most Chinese in Seattle lived in racially segregated
house holds, but 84 percent of the Chinese population lived next to non-
Chinese neighbors.69 In all of Washington Territory, 81 percent of Chinese-
headed house holds could be found next door to a non- Chinese- headed
house hold in 1880. The rate of spatial integration was lower but still sizable
in Oregon and California, with 71 percent and 58 percent of Chinese- headed
house holds living alongside non- Chinese neighbors, respectively.
The same could not be said of San Francisco, where there was an unmis-
takable Chinese enclave occupying a twelve- block area in the city. In 1880,
segregation in San Francisco County was staggering, with only 14 percent
of Chinese- headed house holds living alongside a non- Chinese- headed
house hold.70 And yet, even in segregated San Francisco, a Wells Fargo
Directory reveals that Chinese businesses spilled outside of Chinatown. The
vast majority of Chinese in San Francisco lived within a racial ghetto, but
many traveled outside to conduct business.71
It is vital to recognize the degree to which Chinese were interwoven into
the multiracial fabric of the U.S. West: spatially, eco nom ically, and socially.
When anti- Chinese advocates depicted the Chinese as segregated aliens, they
were attempting to erase interracial encounters necessitated by daily life. No
doubt it was the frightening familiarity of the Chinese, and not just their
heathen reputation, that drove racial anx i eties. While advocates were la-
menting the heathens’ incapacity to Americanize, they also warned that the
Chinese would infiltrate white society and pollute the white race. This
imagined conquest provides the climax for Dooner’s Last Days of the Republic,
which predicts a day in the future when “[t]he Mongolian ha[s] proved him-
THE CHINESE QUESTION
39
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self a soldier, a statesman, a politician, a phi los o pher and a laborer.” As
Chinese penetrate all realms of American society, he imagines profound con-
sequences: the elite Chinese are “recognized in the brotherhood of men,”
“intermarry with the daughters of Amer ica,” and enter “the society of their
white fellow- citizens.”72
This calamity is pictured in one of the novel’s illustrations, titled “The
Governor of California.” The Chinese- born governor, still decked in all the
40 RESTRICTION
trappings of the barbaric Orient, occupies a room filled with symbols of oc-
cidental civilization. Despite his new seat of power in Amer ica, the governor
is unchanged, no more assimilated than his alien countrymen, but now he
sits tantalizingly close to a marble corbel in the shape of a nude white woman.
The heathen may not have been capable of self- government, but Dooner still
feared that he was cunning enough to wrest the United States, and its white
women, from the grasp of American men.
Much of the terror the heathen coolie provoked arose from his contra-
dictory nature, his imagined ability to be what he was not. He appeared emi-
nently stupid yet a keen trickster, slavishly obedient yet dominating at the
workplace, inferior in all matters of morality and learning yet superior in
his will to survive and succeed.73 When it came to the Chinese, Americans
did not have complete confidence in white supremacy, especially within the
newly acquired U.S. West. White citize
ns feared the Chinese would not
easily be exterminated, assimilated, or subordinated, as were the “vanishing”
Indians, “conquered” Hispanics, or “enslaved” Africans of the past.74 “If we
throw wide our doors and invite these Asiatic people to a full, free equal com-
petition with us for supremacy,” warned anti- Chinese agitators, “we shall
get worsted.”75 Because Chinese could emerge victorious from a war of the
races, white Americans had to avoid entering such a contest in the first place.
For this reason, anti- Chinese advocates believed that this alien menace could
only be stopped through exclusion.
In the 1860s and 1870s, an unwieldy grassroots anti- Chinese movement
coalesced around the call for exclusion. As it spun along the West Coast,
the movement pulled into its orbit the vast majority of white workers and
small business owners. In California, the una nim ity of opinion was stag-
gering: on an 1879 ballot, 99 percent of California voters declared they were
“against Chinese immigration.”76 Tens of thousands of white Californians
joined anti- Chinese rallies in San Francisco’s unoccupied sandlots and in
public meeting houses up and down the state. One of the most vis ible anti-
Chinese groups to emerge was the Workingmen’s Party of California, and
one of the most colorful anti- Chinese spokesmen was its leader, Dennis
Kearney.
Born in Ireland, Kearney worked at sea until he arrived in San Francisco
in 1868 at age twenty- one. After working for a steamship com pany, he opened
his own business as a drayman, hauling heavy carts across town. In the
“The Governor of California” imagines a dystopian future in which an unassimi-
lated Chinese immigrant has been elected to high office. Illustration by G. F. Keller
from P. W. (Pierton W.) Dooner’s Last Days of the Republic (San Francisco: Alta
California Publishing House, 1880). Image reproduction courtesy of Glenn R.
Negley Collection of Utopian Lit er a ture, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book &
Manuscript Library, Duke University Libraries, Utopia D691L.
42 RESTRICTION
summer of 1877, during a national economic downturn, workingmen across
Amer ica struck for higher wages and better conditions. What started as a
railroad strike in Virginia spread to coal miners in the rural Midwest, meat-
packers in Chicago, and blue- collar workers in St. Louis. The sympathy strike
in San Francisco quickly turned into a race riot targeting the Chinese. From
these violent beginnings, the Workingmen’s Party of California emerged.
Californians thronged to Kearney and the party to hear his message of
white working- class solidarity. Kearney was not a towering presence or a re-
fined speaker; he was “compactly and solidly built,” and his diatribes were
punctuated by curses and grammatical mistakes. But he had charisma.
“Drive all the Chinamen out of San Francisco and hang all the thieves and
politicians,” he told an angry crowd in San Francisco in 1877. “The monopo-
lists who have made money by employing cheap labor had better look
out. They have built themselves fine residences on Nob Hill, have erected
flagstaffs upon their roofs. Let them take care that they have not erected their
own gallows.”77 Kearney’s epithets against the Chinese rarely received re-