A Chinese Merchant Challenges Tacoma's Exclusion Laws
Years after the violent 1885 expulsions, a local merchant risks arrest to assert his right to work and peddle in the city.
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.
Since the Chinese expulsion in 1885 no Chinese peddlers have been allowed here. Loo Sing, of Portland and San Francisco, who has considerable of a fortune, yesterday insisted upon a peddler's license being issued and was refused. Heretofore the few Chinese peddlers who have ventured into the city have been driven out by citizens. Loo Sing today began peddling without a license and was arrested. He put up $10 cash bail, and claims he will sue the city for damages on the ground that it has no authority to discriminate against Chinese. It will be a test case if pressed.
“Loo Sing today began peddling without a license and was arrested. He... claims he will sue the city for damages on the ground that it has no authority to discriminate against Chinese.”
This act of resistance occurred only seven years after the infamous 1885 forced expulsion of Tacoma's Chinese population. Loo Sing's legal challenge serves as a poignant reminder that even during the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act, individuals continued to fight for their civil rights and presence in the Pacific Northwest, pushing back against systemic state-sponsored racism.
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