Fifteen Japanese Arrive by Night, and the Immigration Men Lose the Trail
A small sloop from British Columbia put a group of Japanese immigrants ashore in Seattle under cover of darkness; officers suspect a smuggling scheme and a deliberate evasion of the immigration law.
Fifteen Japanese immigrants arrived in Seattle yesterday in a small sloop from British Columbia, landing under cover of night. They came into the city, it was reported, and were taken across on the ferry. Government officers believe the party was landed in violation of the immigration law and that the newcomers are now in the Japanese quarter. The officers have been unable to find them and are not likely to see them again unless they are assisted or give themselves up. The sloop that brought them is said to be a British vessel, and it is thought the party could return to British Columbia by way of Victoria and Vancouver. Officers think one or two of the Japanese left the sloop and went ashore, and that the rest were taken away before the authorities could act. No arrests have been made. The case is said to be of great importance and will be pressed, as it involves enforcing the immigration law against those who enter the country secretly.
“They came to the city by night.”
This 1895 item shows the machinery of Asian exclusion already at work in Seattle: secret arrivals, informers, and federal officers chasing people who had crossed a border in search of work. The story's language is the language of enforcement, but the people at its center were exercising the same mobility that later generations of Seattle immigrants have claimed.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.