Wigwam Jones

Dear Arizona:

I found a document recently that seems to me to match your current circumstances entirely.  It seems that California once faced the problems and pressures you now experience related to immigration, and they did of course manage to solve them…

Debates and Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of the State of California, September 28, 1878

We are met in the outset by the objection that the exclusion of the Chinese is a departure from the uniform and general policy of the National Government in respect to the immigration of foreigners, that from time immemorial—from the colonial times, before the adoption of the Constitution, down through the whole life of the Republic—immigration has been encouraged by the most liberal naturalization laws, and by the action of the several States, in granting to foreigners political domicile without restraint or condition, almost immediately after the arrival of the immigrant; that the United States has been the asylum of the oppressed of all lands, and our laws have welcomed and protected all who have came beneath the aegis of our Constitution. It is said that to adopt a policy of exclusion now, as against any people, under any circumstances, is not only violative of a time-honored policy, but contrary to the spirit of the age.

It must be confessed that there seems to be much force in these reflections. We know that the freedom of immigration was declared in the great charter of liberty, our Declaration of Independence, wherein the King of England is arraigned for having “endeavored to prevent the population of the States by obstructing the laws for the naturalization of foreigners, and by refusing to pass others to encourage their immigration thither.” We know that immigration has been invited by the nation, and that the naturalization laws have admitted those who have come to America to citizenship upon terms the most liberal. The naturalization laws of a nation illustrate its policy upon the subject of immigration; when these are liberal, immigration is desired and encouraged; when they are stringent and full of hard conditions, immigration is discouraged and hold undesirable. In the prosperous days of the Athenian Republic no foreigner could become a citizen of Athens, except by a vote of the people twice had, and then only in case the applicant received over six thousand affirmative votes at the second election. In the days of Rome’s greatest power none but those foreigners who had rendered eminent service to the Roman State could become naturalized, and they only by a vote of the Senate. After wars had decimated the Athenian armies, immigration was encouraged by a relaxation of the rigor of the naturalization laws; and so in Rome. So, in all countries, the encouragement given to immigration is measured by the state of the naturalization laws.

Is Chinese exclusion really a departure from the policy of the nation? Immigration has been encouraged, but what kind of immigration? Has there been no distinction in the varieties of men who have been encouraged to come? The truth is that the invitation has been limited to white men, men of our own race and color, men of similar aspirations, hopes, desires, and aims in life. Men who assimilate with our people, and who are fit to assimilate, who build their homes among us. respect our laws, love liberty and representative government. Men who become part and parcel of our people, who follow our fortunes and brave our disasters, who stand shoulder to shoulder with us in battle, and fight for the republic, and are ready to die in her defense. These are the sort of immigrants who have been invited by our laws. The non-assimilative colored races have never been considered as desirable immigrants, nor have they ever been encouraged either by law or public sentiment. The introduction of blacks was prohibited after eighteen hundred and eight. Nope but white men from foreign lands have been admitted to citizenship.

The negro was not an immigrant. He came by compulsion and was enslaved. The Chinese are excluded from citizenship by the naturalization laws of the United States. Why? Why that extraordinary proviso in the treaty with China, which declares that nothing in the treaty shall be construed to confer naturalization of Chinese in the United States? There is no such provision in any treaty between tho United States and any other nation. Why may not the Chinaman become a citizen? Is the prohibition without reason? Is it solely because he is not white? That may have been the reason, for our Democratic friends have always insisted that this is “a white man’s government.” A government of white men, by white men, for white men. But lately the white man’s government naturalized, en masse, four millions of colored people— clothed them with the panoply of American citizenship, though not foreigners. Why? To enable them to preserve their liberty and enjoy the fruits of their own labor. Why is this great privilege denied the Chinese? Perhaps an answer to this question would be our justification for Chinese exclusion. If the Chinese are unfit for American citizenship, are they fit for domicile in the country? If they are unfit, for what reason? Are they so low in the scale of humanity,so degraded in character, so imbecile in mind, so corrupt in their lives, so scornful of republican institutions, so at enmity with law and justice, that it is dangerous to admit them to citizenship? then I answer, they are unfit for contact or intercourse with a free people. If they would be dangerous as citizens, are they not dangerous as denizens?

Is Chinese exclusion so unreasonable? Is the departure which we propose a great departure from the policy of the National Government? The reason that none but white men have been admitted to citizenship under our naturalization laws is founded on the great fact that the mixture of two distinct races is a calamity to both, and to the product of both. The wisdom of excluding the negro was applauded, and had the policy of exclusion been adopted earlier in the nation’s history, what woe and anguish, what evils and horrors would have been avoided. The importation of the African, though not a bad man himself, was the great, supreme mistake of this nation. His enslavement was the nation’s greatest crime, and through the expiation of this folly, and its consequent crime, we should learn wisdom. The sentimentalist and the theological humanitarians tell us that the Chinese coolie is here in pursuance of a great remedial plan of Almighty God, by which a nation of four hundred and fifty millions of people is to be Christianized and elevated to the grandeur of Anglo-Saxon civilization; that these dusky waifs who have floated over the Pacific are to be transformed into angels of light, who are to illumine the dark recesses of idolatry and superstition in China, and finally lead its millions into a knowledge of the true God. So spake the prophets of slavery, of the African slave, while he wearily earned his heavy load; but has Africa been illumined? Has not rather America been darkened? And is there not danger that instead of Christianizing China, we will, by this process, Mongolize America?

A certain class of political economists tell us that the Chinese, by their cheap energy, will promote the growth of industry and stimulate wealth, and that their exclusion is an economic mistake. Mr. Mill says that it is the office of the science of political economy to discover and elucidate the laws which govern the promotion of wealth, but there are higher and grander considerations than mere economic theories. The question of Chinese immigration, as we understand it, will not be settled by sentiment, nor by the application of economic principles. It is a subject which rises above, and includes all these and more; it comes within the domain of philosophy. To appreciate this it is necessary to contemplate the true situation on this coast, and take lessons from the experience of our people. Already two fifths of the adult male population of California is Chinese, and despite the assertions of optimists, the number is constantly, steadily increasing. It is an unassimilative population, and unfit for assimilation with people of our race. That it does not assimilate is to the advantage of our white people. Were the Chinese to amalgamate at all with our people it would be the lowest, most vile and degraded of our race, and the result of the amalgamation would be a hybrid of the most despicable, a mongrel of the most detestable that has ever afflicted the earth. It is fortunate that the Chinese are non-assimilative with our people. We are confronted on the other side of the Pacific with four hundred and fifty millions of the same type and variety of men as those already here, and these have disorganized our labor system, brought thousands of our people to wretchedness and want, degraded labor to the standard of brute energy, poisoned the blood of our youth, and filled our streets with the rot of their decaying civilization. There are millions yet ready to come, and millions more determined to come. Will they come, that is the question?

If unrestricted, why will they not come? How and why have those come who are here? It is said that they have come merely on a visitation, to stay but a little while, and then return. By this description they come from the great Asian hive, swarming through the Golden Gate like empty bees, to gorge themselves upon the sweets of California flowers, and then return to the hive beyond the sea, laden with the treasures they have sipped from this hospitable land. If this were the true description, the application of economic principles would have only to be made to demonstrate the soft folly of a nation who would permit such a robbery of its resources. Many of the advocates of Chinese exclusion have insisted and endeavored to prove that the Chinese do not intend to remain. Let us not be deceived by the phenomena of this advancing and retreating tide of humanity. Many go back, but many more come, and most of those who go, return, bringing their “cousins” with them. This practice of visiting home is common to all classes of immigrants. It was so with our own Argonauts, who came hither in search of the golden fleece in forty-nine and the Spring of fifty. All expected to go home and stay at home, as soon as their fortunes were made, but here they are. When we insist upon it that the Chinese do not mean to stay, as an argument against him, we mistake the fact, and the economist makes argument against us by saying: “The Chinaman is industrious, labors for low wages, and his energy promotes the growth of your industries. He takes away nothing but the small pittance, the little wages you have paid him, and leaves with you the fruit of the labor—the development of your country—the accumulations you have made by the labor of his hands. How has he injured you? He has enriched you, and you complain. He has performed Herculean labors, and wrested from the earth great treasures. Where is the evil?” We can never convince the thrifty Yankee that Chinese immigration is an evil by the statement that he merely comes to sell his cheap labor. But leaving this to those who make the contention, I return to the question, Will the Chinese come, if not prevented by the power of the Government?

The answer, of course, was found in the virtuous Chinese Exclusion Act, which was signed into law by President Chester A. Arthur in 1882, and which remained the law in the USA until 1943.

Now, I understand these days, we don’t speak of Hispanic people as being inferior to the ‘white race’ as we once did of Asian peoples; we’re much more enlightened now. I fully appreciate that the good people of Arizona are not being racists when they intend to remove illegal immigrants from the state, for the other reasons given by Republican Senator John F. Miller so long ago about the Chinese in California. Why, it is true; they (the Chinese then, the Mexicans now) come here to make money. They return home only to return again with all of their ‘cousins’. They do not assimilate, they refuse to do so and in their great numbers, they change our culture and the very fabric of our society. This we cannot permit. America may no longer be for the White Man, but it is for the American Man Who Happens to Be White or Acts Pretty Much Like a White Guy. Right?

Funny thing is, I can’t really see much difference between the Nativist, Nationalist, Xenophobic rants that led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the current Zeitgeist in Arizona.

Dear Arizona, perhaps you could explain it to me.

Sincerely,

Wiggy

I am a complex individual, as I suppose most of us are. I do not put every thought, belief, and opinion that I have on the same plane or subject it to the same requirements for belief. My personality supports a mix (and hopefully a healthy balance) of scientific skepticism, artistic yearning, self-protection, and communion with the sacred.

My logical core tells me that with no proof a Creator exists or has ever existed, it is illogical to place belief in religion at all, let alone a specific religion. If I want to be even more critical, Christianity itself is beset with contradictions, logical impossibilities, and historical inaccuracies, not to mention the problem of Paul.

However, having experienced personally the peace of God, communion with my fellow Christians, meditations on the Divine, I find I also cannot deny that my person requires a connection with that which is termed the sacred. Christianity is merely the most comfortable version of that for me, based on my culture and upbringing. I felt the same connection, the same sense of the sacred, when I called myself a ‘Wiccan’ in years past, so I don’t doubt that this need is nearly universal in human experience, and that no one religion has a lock on providing it.

So I do not subject my need for a spiritual connection to logical scrutiny. It would not survive it. However, if I subjected all my desires to that same standard, I would not eat pie on occasion, either.