Pacific Coast race riots of 1907 facts for kids
The Pacific Coast race riots were a series of riots that took place within the United States and Canada. The riots, which resulted in violence, were the result of anti-Asian tension caused by white opposition to the increasing Asian population during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The riots took place in San Francisco, California; Bellingham, Washington; and Vancouver, Canada. Each city and anti-Asian activist group held its own unique reasoning for their specific riot. The target of hatred in Bellingham was several hundred Sikh workers who had recently immigrated from India. (The locals mistakenly called them "Hindus.") Vancouver attacked Chinese. San Francisco attacked Japanese.
History
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the United States and Canada were experiencing a wave of Asian immigration. As more Asian immigrants continued entering North America, a growing number of citizens on the Pacific Coast became concerned due to economic fears and racist attitudes. American and Canadian citizens grew fearful that Asian immigrants would compete for jobs seen as "white." The immigrants were regarded as cheap labor, and some employers were accused of firing Caucasian workers and replacing them with immigrants. "By [the] 1880s more than 100,000 Chinese were employed in a wide array of occupations, ranging from work on the railroads, in agriculture, and in mining, to work as domestics, in restaurants, and in laundries". Shortly after the Chinese immigration wave, Japanese citizens followed suit and migrated to the United States. By the late 1880s, the number of Japanese immigrants was equivalent to the number of Chinese immigrants.
As the 19th century came to a close, immigration continued to increase along with Nativism, the idea of preserving the current American social values. Nativists viewed immigrants who were not Caucasian or from select regions of Europe "un-American" and therefore unable to assimilate into society. If citizens were seen as unfit for society, they were considered a threat to the preservation of American values.Many Canadian and American citizens used violent actions to force Asian immigrants out of jobs and certain cities in the spring, summer and fall of 1907.
Riots
The Pacific Coast race riots consisted primarily of three major riots. These riots took place in San Francisco, Bellingham, and Vancouver.
The San Francisco riot began May 20, 1907 and lasted for several nights. It was led by Caucasian-American nativists who used violence to advance their goals of excluding Japanese immigrants and maintaining segregated schools for Caucasian and Japanese students. The conflicts over segregated schools for Japanese students and the San Francisco riot led to negotiations between the United States, Canada, and Japan, culminating in the Gentlemen's Agreement. The Japanese government agreed to not issue passports for entry into the United States to any skilled or unskilled labor if they had not previously been to the United States.
The Bellingham riot took place on September 4, 1907. As Asian immigrants migrated to Bellingham, employers saw an opportunity to employ Asian immigrants at cheaper wages than Caucasian workers. This added to the racial and ethnocentric hostilities in the community as Caucasian lumber workers feared that the South Asian immigrants would displace them.
The Vancouver riot took place two days after the Bellingham riot, on September 7 and 8, in response to Whites becoming concerned with the growing Asian population during the summer of 1907. The Vancouver race riots resulted in restrictive legislation, In 1907–1908, 2,623 Indians and South Asians entered Canada. In 1908–1909, only six South Asian immigrants entered Canada.
The riots resulted in more attention focused on Asian immigration policies within the United States and Canada.
