A Chinese Student's 1929 Speech Named the Racism Washington Tried to Forget

(The following speech in full was delivered by Mr. Wesley Kai Hwa Kwang, Chinese graduate of Ohio State University, at the monthly meeting of the Cosmopolitan Club of the University of Washington at the Wesley House last Thursday, Dec. 5. While the speech is entitled "How to Understand China," a great portion is devoted to a discussion of race prejudice not only toward the Chinese but also toward other Oriental peoples. For this reason we are publishing the speech in full as we believe it will be of interest to our readers, both Filipinos and Americans. —The Editor)

Miss Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is my great pleasure to be with you here this evening and I deem it a great honour to be given the opportunity to present my views on this much-discussed topic, "How to Understand China." However, for this very topic which must have beguiled all of you to come here, I wish to apologize. As there is hardly any remedy I can prescribe for ailments of international relations, I am not going, as the topic might suggest, to tell you exactly how to understand China. Rather, I shall attempt to find out and locate the obstacles which have blocked the way. For this disappointment which I have brought you this evening, I most sincerely apologize. I hope you also will forgive me if, in my talk, I have unintentionally painted a black picture of the American attitude toward China and her people. It is not because I lack the necessary sense of humour and courtesy, but because I wish to present the bare facts. You will kindly bear in mind that I have given the word "China" a very inclusive meaning: it represents her people, her traditions, her social background, as well as the country.

A COUNTRY OF CONTRADICTIONS

It is very hard for Americans to understand China, just as it is equally hard for the Chinese to understand America and her people. The Chinese people have always looked upon the United States as a country standing for Justice, Liberty, and Democracy. But the United States seems to be a country of contradictions. To any Chinese who has an observing eye, the Boston justice so clearly illustrated by the Sacco-Vanzetti case, the Massachusetts idea of government so amply expressed in the rejection of the production of the play "The Gods of the Lightning," the Pennsylvania conception of the freedom of speech and press as revealed in their attempt to censor not only literature but also news reels, the Texas law forbidding negroes to vote in Democratic primaries, the Oil Scandal with the following acquittal of Mr. Stewart, the armed supervision of the Presidential election of Mexico, and the Monroe Doctrine which, with its extended meaning, conceals the imperialism of the United States in the making in Latin-America — all are puzzles for which the answer is yet to be found and for which, I am afraid, even the Americans themselves cannot very well frame a convincing explanation. In this sense, if nothing else, the United States has fooled the Chinese.

PREJUDICE IN AMERICAN ORIENTAL DEALINGS

Turning the pages of the history of American dealings with the Orientals, especially the Chinese, I find not only prejudice but also hatred. Here are some of the outstanding facts which no historian can wipe out:

From 1851 to 1856, as remarked by the Shasta Republican, a California paper, in the issue of December 18, 1856, hundreds of Chinese had been slaughtered in cold blood. "Yet in all this time," said the same paper, "we have heard of but two or three cases where guilty parties were brought to justice and punished according to law. Many persons have avowed themselves opposed to the execution of white men for the murder of Chinamen."

In Los Angeles, on October 27, 1871, a policeman was shot when interfering in a quarrel between two Chinese. A hundred armed whites laid siege to the Chinese quarter, hanged fifteen Chinese and killed two more for good measure. Four days after the riot, a mob broke into Chinese warehouses, ripped open bales of rice and sugar, and beat up all the Chinese in the vicinity. No arrest was made.

On May 28, 1873, a gang of boys stoned a Chinaman who was working in a garden. One of the boys, not being satisfied with such tame treatment, shot and killed him. He received two years in prison. An Italian who committed a similar crime on December 13, 1874, was given seven years.

But the most horrible and bloody outrage occurred on September 2, 1885. It is a mournful chapter in the disgraceful history of all American dealings with the Chinese. Chinese working in the mines in Rock Springs, Wyoming, had refused to join the white miners on strike and a riot began, resulting in a general slaughter of all Chinese residing there. I wish to quote Mr. Francis E. Warren, then Governor of the State:

"Not a living Chinese, man, woman, or child was left in town where seven hundred to nine hundred had lived the day before, and not a single house, shanty, or structure that had been inhabited by a Chinaman was left unburned. The smell of burning human flesh was sickening and almost unendurable, and was plainly discernible for more than a mile along the railroad both east and west."

The State of Washington has witnessed similar outrages. On September 7, 1885, at Squak Valley, a camp of 35 Chinese hop-pickers was attacked by five whites and three Indians. Three were killed; three were wounded; the rest fled. Even in Seattle, a similar outrage was to occur on November 4, only to be prevented by the timely arrival of Federal troops. In November Chinatown in Tacoma was burned. Twenty-seven persons including the Mayor of the city were charged with conspiracy to insurrection and riot, but none was ever tried.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Facing all these facts, one naturally asks, "Why?"

PREJUDICE IS FOUND EVEN UNDER THE ROOF OF CHRISTIANITY

Perhaps prejudice plays an important part. Prejudice against the Chinese as well as against other Orientals runs all over the country. One finds prejudice awaiting him at the door of church and rooming house when he tries to find a lodging; prejudice is awaiting him at the barber's chair when he tries to have a haircut. Prejudice awaits Oriental students in educational institutions. Professors who are supposed to have a better-than-average education and are supposed to be broad-minded and unbiased, as every educated person should be, often turn out to be very partial in ... (continued on page 2)