A Merchant's Defiance in Olympia
A Chinese merchant addresses accusations of smuggling, asserting his identity as a successful, law-abiding American pioneer.
In reply to an article appearing in your issue of September 16, 1893, relative to the capture of contraband Chinamen at Oyster Bay by United States officials, I desire to be heard in regard to the insult cast upon me. It is stated that certain Chinese bosses caused the disclosures that led to the capture, and it seems to designate the Chinese element here to be controlled by factions. I know that of the Chinese in this city there are a reputable and disreputable class, and I am sought to be made the object of particular interest for the reason that I have acquired some property qualifications. I came to Olympia twenty years ago, a Chinese lad 15 years of age. I have worked for a large number of the residents of Olympia and citizens of Washington as a domestic, earned my money and saved it, entered into business, laundry business first, then mercantile. I am no 'boss Chinee.' No man is holden to me for a dollar on any contract against the laws of the United States. I am not, nor have I been, a smuggler. I represent only myself and the house of which I am a member, and the honest, energetic, upright, hardworking Chinamen, as a class, in this vicinity. I mean men who earn their own living; men who are holden to the government of China for nothing; men whose lives will be spent on and whose bones will decay in American soil, if the government allows it.
“I mean men who earn their own living; men who are holden to the government of China for nothing; men whose lives will be spent on and whose bones will decay in American soil, if the government allows it.”
Hong Yek’s plea for recognition as a legitimate resident and 'pioneer' underscores the long, difficult history of Chinese-American labor and business in the Pacific Northwest. While he frames his argument through the lens of individual enterprise, it highlights the constant suspicion and racialized policing faced by Asian communities during the exclusion era.
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