The Quiet Closing of the YMCA Door on Filipino Students
A new University Y.M.C.A. rule stripped Filipino students of campus letter boxes and social-room privileges they had long enjoyed.
Filipino students in the University of Washington are no longer allowed to use the letter boxes at the University Y.M.C.A. In previous years this privilege had been accorded all foreign students on the campus. According to a new regulation at the University Y.M.C.A., Filipino students are cut out of this practice. Neither are they allowed to use the social rooms of the Y.M.C.A., a privilege they have enjoyed for many years previously.
“Filipino students are cut out of this practice.”
In the late 1920s, a campus institution quietly withdrew ordinary privileges from Filipino students, reflecting a wider climate of Asian exclusion in Washington. The episode is a reminder that belonging was often rationed through small institutional rules rather than only through explicit laws. Contemporary fights over who is welcome on campus and in public spaces still turn on similar questions of national origin and race.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.