The Open Campaign of Exclusion
Local businesses leveraged anti-Asian sentiment as a marketing tactic, pressuring residents to enforce racial segregation in the food service industry.
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.
Portland Restaurant leads. Don't patronize Japs and Chinamen when you can eat at the Portland.
“Don't patronize Japs and Chinamen when you can eat at the Portland.”
This advertisement is a jarring artifact of the era's state-sanctioned and socialized anti-Chinese movement. While Walla Walla’s demographic landscape has evolved, this rhetoric serves as a direct reminder of the systemic efforts to economically and socially ostracize Asian communities in Washington Territory and beyond.
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