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173 stories matching china
- The Geary Act and America's Broken Promises
An 1892 editorial confronts the xenophobic legislative push to abrogate treaties with China, highlighting the hypocrisy of American foreign policy.
- Seattle Fights for the China Trade
Local business leaders scramble to ensure Puget Sound, not Portland, becomes the primary terminus for a new trans-Pacific steamship line.
- The First Direct Shipment from China
The arrival of the American ship Mercury in Puget Sound signals the start of a massive new trade route.
- A Railroad Clerk's Side Hustle: 150 Pounds of Opium Land in Tacoma
M. M. Perl, chief clerk to a Northern Pacific superintendent, imported prepared opium from China aboard the Kingston—while federal agents seized a rival shipment under an 1881 treaty.
- The Letter Lost in the Cracks
For twelve years, a village woman waited for a lover who never called, unaware that her promise to join him in China had been trapped behind a post office counter all along.
- Hidden Gold at the Depot
Three Chinese men are detained at the Northern Pacific depot while attempting to return to China, revealing a small fortune sewn into their clothing.
- The Consul’s Advice: How to Sell to China
Consul General John Goodnow advises Tacoma merchants that success in the Orient depends on cultural sensitivity and precise adherence to local conventions.
- The Bureaucratic Limbo of the 'Mogul' Passengers
Chinese laborers who returned from China face legal hurdles and suspicious scrutiny from federal authorities in Seattle.
- Six Years Away Was Enough to Cost a Man His Claim to America
A Seattle Chinese merchant's brother is ordered deported after a commissioner rules that a long absence in China is proof he never really lived here.
- The Groom, the Bride, and the Exclusion Act
After being ordered deported, a Chinese merchant successfully fights the federal government to reunite with his wife.
- The Right to Belong: A Seattle Immigrant’s Plea
Denied citizenship by a court, a Chinese resident explains his life, his work, and his refusal to cut his queue as he navigates exclusion in 1886 Seattle.
- Calls for Segregation in North Yakima
Local property owners threaten to turn their own buildings into 'China tenements' unless Chinese residents are restricted to a specific district.
- A Local Merchant’s Grand Tour of China
Gee Hee, a prominent local Chinese capitalist, returns to Seattle after three years abroad, bringing tales of Chinese industrialization and failed railway schemes.
- The Forced Deportation of Mrs. Lee Fook Bow
Customs officials seized the steamer Umatilla to enforce a federal court order, ultimately compelling the shipping company to return a Chinese woman to China under the restrictive immigration laws of 1892.
- The Chinese Girl Barred From the Y.W.C.A. Pool
In a 1926 essay, a Chinese writer catalogues American prejudice—segregated Y.M.C.A.s, a church donor’s daughter turned away from a swimming pool, and lecturers who twist China to fit their biases.
- The Shadowy Arrival at Port Townsend
Federal authorities intercept two young Chinese men smuggled into Washington Territory as 'contraband,' exposing the illicit human trafficking trade operating under the noses of border officials.
- The Intellectual Meritocracy of the East
In an era of intense anti-Chinese sentiment in the West, a Snohomish lecturer finds a startling, counter-intuitive argument for the superiority of Chinese governance: a rigorous, education-based civil service.
- The Exclusion Act in Seattle Courts
A Chinese resident is denied U.S. citizenship despite his education and church membership.
- The Tribune Demands Its Senators Back Chinese Exclusion
On the eve of the Geary bill vote, Olympia's paper pressures Washington's senators to keep Chinese laborers out — and takes a swipe at any candidate who hires them.
- Seattle Paper Warns Chinese Money Could 'Cede the Pacific Coast to China'
An 1880 editorial attacks Chinese campaign contributions to Garfield, casting the Pacific coast as a racial prize.
- Legal Resistance to Deportation
Attorney Marshall K. Snell challenges the illegal detention of three Chinese merchants by federal authorities in Tacoma.
- A Japanese Diplomat Comes to Seattle, and Likes What He Sees
Chancellor M. Odagiri toured Puget Sound to choose a consulate site, praised Seattle's buildings and Lake Washington, and predicted Japan would beat China in the war then under way.
- Sent Back to China: Two Men Ordered Out of Walla Walla
Wong Look and Ah Doan were taken from the county jail to Seattle and a steamer for China after a federal commissioner found them without the papers required by the Chinese Exclusion Act.
- The Unwarranted Detention of Chinese Miners
Four Chinese men are arrested and detained in Seattle while passing through to their homeland.
- Seattle's Unstable Foundation
Filling in the city's tide lands and marshy spots creates a precarious base for new buildings.
Also about this, in other words
- Olympia’s Paper Cheers a Harsher Chinese Exclusion Act — and Calls for Expulsion
The Olympia Tribune backs a federal bill barring Chinese merchants and artisans, then goes further: deport every Chinese resident to “give work to better people.”
- The Seattle Correspondent’s Gaze on China
A disorienting, 1877 report from a Seattle newspaper explores the rigid social hierarchies and gender dynamics of the Qing Dynasty through a lens of Victorian fascination.
- 1885 Editorial Urges Chinese Exclusion in Washington Territory
A committee of Seattle citizens formalizes their campaign to purge the city of Chinese laborers, framing their economic anxiety as a struggle for the 'Caucasian race.'
- The Labor Panic of 1877
A Seattle editorial weighs in on the xenophobic rumors of coal mine labor imports, framing the struggle between capital and the working class.
- The Fallout of the Anti-Chinese Expulsions
A witness recounts the inhumane treatment of Chinese merchants who were brought back to Tacoma to testify after being violently displaced.
- The Hypocrisy of the Anti-Chinese Movement
An editorial rebuke to Seattle businessmen who exploited anti-Chinese fervor for public clout while quietly retaining their labor, amid rising local tensions.
- The Chinese Expulsion Crisis at the Seattle Waterfront
Federal authorities arrest thirty Chinese laborers arriving from British Columbia, highlighting the intense racial tensions and labor politics of the 1885 Washington Territory.