Trump immigration raids echo expulsion of Chinese immigrants in the 1880s, historian says

Smith River, California – There is a small cemetery in the northwest corner of California, with moss-covered tombstones dating back to the 1860s.

Every time Karen Betlejewski visits the Smith River community Pioneer Cemetery, she places silk flowers next to a simple granite tombstone in the northeast corner. It belongs to a man she has never met before.

Dock Rigg 1850 – 1919, it read.

At the time of his death, he was said to be the only Chinese who was officially allowed to live in rural areas of Nott County – where white residents and neighboring Humboldt County forced their Chinese neighbors to a series of violent purges, which was thirty years.

They called him Rigg (the last name of his employer), but government documents say his name is Oo Dock. He worked as chefs and ranchers in two famous families in the Smith Valley, who arranged for him to work on ranchs on the Oregon line until the racist enthusiasm calmed him down to make him return quietly.

The dock is a modest monument to a quiet, extraordinary life of a man who perseveres (often overlooked) in California history, when Chinese immigrants were banned, Chinatown was razed and white mobs were banned Beating and murder Chinese residents.

Like Rigg, a few Chinese workers have cleared themselves to live quietly in rural areas after living in Northern California.

“Think about all parents who have not sent their kids to school now, people have not shown up. They have always been afraid to live a fulfilling life,” said Pufar, author of “Driving: The Forgotten War against Chinese-Americans.”

“History once again brings us face to face. In this era of cruel undocumented immigrants being forced to deport, the purge of the Chinese people should now be in our hearts. and U.S. citizens. ”

In the Del North County Historical Society Museum managed by Betlejewski, a thin Manila folder contains a few documents detailing some known details about the dock. They describe a man with a good sense of humor who is kind to visit the kids and pushes them around on a wheelbarrow.

“The Pier is a lovely guy who is well known throughout the region for his humor, his beautiful cooking and hospitality to the travelers passing by.” A brief first-person narrative about a woman who knew him in Oregon.

But another document in his archive mentions his return to California, suggesting his isolation: “It was reported that he never left the ranch for all years he worked there.”

1882 – In the economic downturn, non-white immigrants are Broadly accused To steal jobs and suppress wages – the United States passed federal China’s exclusion methodimmigration is prohibited from coming from China.

In remote towns in rural northwest California, Chinese immigrants work in redwood logging camps, laundry shops and restaurants. They serve as nannies and family servants. Some were former gold prospectors because Predatory State Tax On foreign miners.

The cleansing of Chinese residents began in 1885 in Eureka, Humboldt County, 100 miles south of the Smith River.

That February, a white Eureka City Councilman living near local Chinatown was passing by. The camera rang, allegedly between two Chinese men, although there were few details. A wandering bullet killed the MP.

Pfaelzer said there were more than 600 angry mobs of white men spreading the streets. A gallows were erected; a statue of a Chinese man swaying from a noose.

Pfaelzer said there were some suggestions for massacre of Chinese people, but this was considered non-Christian. Others said they should burn Chinatown, but because Chinese people are not allowed to own property, their waste wood belongs to white people.

Instead, they appointed a committee of 15 people to enter Chinatown and ordered everyone to leave. The sheriff commissioned the van to collect their property. Armed alert people roam on horseback.

The next morning, about 300 Chinese marched into the dock and filled with ships. Pfaelzer said they were shipped to San Francisco and no one knew they were coming. They disembark and fled.

The clearance was called the “Eureka Method,” referred to as nonviolence by whites, and was copied in California (including Del Nott County where the dock resides).

Weeks after the death of the congressman, Crescent City – the seats in Del North County, with a prosperous Chinatown – every steamer leaving the local port sends Chinese residents to the area. According to Pfaelzer, hundreds of people were forcibly transported out.

Like all Chinese residents who arrived in the United States before the Chinese exclusion law, the dock must be obtained and carried Residence certificate Avoid deportation. Dock’s 1894 certificate was signed by an internal income collector in Portland, Oregon, and listed his profession as a chef with a complexion of “darkness.”

The dock’s birth year was carved on his tombstone, a speculation that when he arrived in the United States he was a child, working in the gold mining industry in California and southern Oregon, and landing in Delnot County.

Here he worked at the cattle farm John and Ann Rigg. For their friends and business partners, Raleigh Scott runs the Raleigh Scott in the neighboring Curry County, Oregon, where they stayed after the clearance.

Scott – County Specialist and state legislators In Oregon – He inherited the ranch of the Smith River after his death and moved into it with his wife Nettie and Dock.

The dock died in 1919 at Scott’s home. He was never married, had never had children, and was said to have taken the risk of leaving his employer property rarely, if any.

In recent years, officials in several California cities have acknowledged and apologized for the historical mistakes of the Chinese people.

In 2021, Antioch and San Jose Apologize for burning Chinatown in the late 1800s. San Francisco In 2022, apologize to the Chinese Children’s Public School, among other racist behaviors. Los Angeles is under research memorial commemorate The massacre of 1871 At least 18 of them were fatally shot or hung.

In Eureka, a group of Asian American residents and volunteers call Humboldt Asians and Pacific Islander Unity (HAPI) It’s been a few years Tell a story And pay tribute to the town’s long-term Chinatown.

In Eureka’s historic Todatown, today is a downtown commercial district with banks, parking lots, and the neighborhood that once stood in its location – now there are signs of deportation, as well as murals and murals and renames to honor the pioneers of Chinese-American America.

Hapi Steering Committee member Amy Uyeki said after raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants and donations, Hapi hopes to break the ground this year on the monument of the Dark Chapter in Eureka’s history.

Uyeki said that through researchers and volunteers, people are still expelling the stories of people who are expelling. Personal stories are powerful, she said—too long.

“Having those names, knowing what they do, and their existence as humans, makes a huge difference,” Uyeki said. “Then they are more than just a bunch of anonymous people. Personal stories are true to people. They can imagine themselves as that person.”

While Eureka and elsewhere are preparing to unveil high-profile monuments and dedication, the dock’s tombstone quietly remembers the cleansed life.

Last month, it was decorated with pink and white silk flowers. When Betlejewski visited the grave of her late friend, she knew and worshiped the dock and asked for his photos to be displayed in the History Museum.

Carolyn Spencer Westbrook said the Dock’s tombstone appeared to have been placed around 1969, when community members brought heavy equipment to repair the old cemetery overgrown with Berry Briars.

A small wooden cross, which had previously marked the dock’s grave, was likely to be damaged during the cleaning process, she said. Community members paid for the sturdy stone tombstone.

Westbrook said at the time of his death it was considered a huge sign of burying the dock in Smith River Cemetery where no other Chinese were buried.

“A lot of people really love him,” she said.