Silence Was Golden: How Two Japanese Laborers Escaped Deportation
A smuggler's luck and a well-timed memory lapse freed two Japanese laborers held in a Washington county jail—a small episode in the era's fierce battles over immigration.
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.
Saito and Oringoro, two Japanese laborers who had been held in the county jail for being illegally in the country, were released yesterday. They were brought across the line from British Columbia by Tamamato, a merchant who was set free last week. The prisoners were examined before the United States commissioner at Whatcom and freely told how the merchant and his brother had smuggled them in. But when taken before the United States grand jury they knew nothing, and discreet silence not only saved Tamamato from punishment but saved themselves from deportation.
“Discreet silence not only saved Tamamato from punishment, but themselves from deportation.”
Immigration enforcement and smuggling across the Canadian border were contentious in 1895, just as they are today. The story also hints at the precarious legal status of Asian laborers in the Pacific Northwest, a prelude to the exclusion laws that would soon tighten.
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