The Forced Exodus of Whidbey Island’s Chinese Community
A campaign of economic exclusion and harassment leads to the near-total disappearance of Chinese residents from Whidbey Island by 1892.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The movement to drive out the Chinese from Whidbey Island, which began last summer, has been carried out so vigorously that of the 480 Chinese who lived on the island less than a year ago, only eighteen or twenty remain. C. E. Mann, special Chinese inspector, explained the exodus to a Post-Intelligencer reporter: 'The property owners have refused to rent land to the Chinese any more, and as nobody will employ them, they have had to leave. The eighteen or twenty who remain have nothing to do and are living off the stock in a small store they have on the island, but that will soon be exhausted and then they will have to go, too. The ranchers are taking to cultivating the land themselves instead of leasing it to Chinese.' Furthermore, a predatory culture of extortion has emerged; smugglers who bring Chinese laborers across the boundary often employ 'spotters' to blackmail their own clients for more money under threat of reporting them to authorities. Many individuals in the town survive by such methods, bleeding those who arrived seeking work.
This article highlights the systematic, state-sanctioned, and vigilante-driven erasure of Chinese laborers from Washington’s rural economy in the late 19th century. It serves as a stark reminder that 'nativist' housing and labor exclusion is a persistent pattern in Pacific Northwest history, mirroring modern tensions surrounding the displacement of vulnerable populations.
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