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Virginia SOL
Virginia SOL
VUS.2
c. describing the development of political self-government and a free-market economic system, as well as the differences among the British, Spanish, and French colonial systems; and
VUS.9
The student will apply history and social science skills to analyze the major turning points of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras by
e. evaluating and explaining the political and economic impact of the war and Reconstruction, including the adoption of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, sharecropping, the Freedman’s Bureau, and the rise of white supremacist groups;
VUS.10
The student will apply history and social science skills to analyze how the nation grew and changed from the end of Reconstruction through the early 20th century by
b. examining and evaluating the motivations, contributions, and challenges immigrants to the United States faced before, during, and upon arrival
Defining "Coolie" - Different Connotations
Defining "Coolie" - Different Connotations
A History Of Indentured Labor Gives 'Coolie' Its Sting _ Code Switch _ NPR.pdf"[Coolie] was the bureaucratic term the British used to describe indentured laborers," Bahadur recently told NPR's Tell Me More. "But it became a highly charged slur. So naming the book Coolie Woman was controversial. I did it because to me, the women who migrated as indentured laborers carried enormous burdens.
"In India — in the subcontinent — a 'coolie' is someone who carries baggage," said Bahadur. "And these women sort of carry the baggage of colonialism; the expectations of white men, the expectations of Indian men. Here they have to sort of preserve family, preserve culture."
"The dictionary definition of "coolie" is simply "a hired laborer." But the term quickly became synonymous with the thousands of East and South Asians that traveled to the Americas as part of a system of indentured labor used throughout the British colonies."
1862 Anti-Coolie Act
1862 Anti-Coolie Act
Act to prohibit the _coolie trade_ (1862) - Immigration History.pdf1862_Anti-Coolie_Act.pdfPrimary Source from the 37th Congress (1862)
Labor & Race: Bellingham Riots
Labor & Race: Bellingham Riots
A Brief Summary
A Brief Summary
"Several hundred of these [Punjabi] migrants found work as contract laborers in the lumber mills of the newly-incorporated city of Bellingham, WA. The recent introduction of the Great Northern Railway connected Bellingham to the outside economy and helped quickly turn it into a boom-town built primarily off of lumber and fishing.
In a city home to one of the Pacific Northwest anti-Chinese campaigns of the late 1800s, and a strong tradition of not letting Chinese live in town except during the salmon season, this new presence of South Asian laborers was immediately unwelcome. Bellingham was home to an 800-member strong chapter of the Japanese-Korean Exclusion League, a national labor organization with the avowed mission “to guard the gateway of Occidental Civilization [West Coast] against Oriental invasion.”
It was from these ranks that organized agitation began to emerge, demanding that no South Asians be employed in the lumber mills or anywhere in Bellingham after Labor Day - September 2nd, 1907. More than a thousand union members paraded through town that day to show their organized strength. The South Asian workers nonetheless appeared at their jobs the following day. The subsequent tension blew into the full scale riot of September 4th."
The Bellingham Tribune (Sept 12, 1907): The Race Question
The Bellingham Tribune (Sept 12, 1907): The Race Question
Only a wise man or a fool can give a ready-made solution to the problem as it is now presented. There is reason in the argument that the West needs cheap labor: there is an irresistible force in the dictum that America- which includes in his connection to both the United States and Canada- is a white man’s country.
This problem is not to be solved by men who find that cheap labor will increase their incomes: it is not to be solved by men who are interested in marketing their labor at the highest figure. To both of them classes— if we admit that they are classes— the general public, the great American public which considers only the general real, should say hands off. The questions I not one of special interest but of general good, one that touches our democracy in a vital spot.
The race problem presents many different phases. Just now its chief aspect is industrial, but it is also social and political, and in the final analysis these last two will be found more important than the first. The European hordes, good and bad, that are pouring into this country, do not enter into the consideration. Europe may dump upon us all her criminals and in time we will assimilate them. They are of our blood and our inheritances. They present no serious menace. But what of the Chinaman, the Japan, the Hindu, the Filipino and the negro? The negro— lowest of all in racial standing— we may accept, not lightly, but because we must. The Filipino— ah. There’s the rub. He is almost an American as the decadent Hindu is almost a Britisher. And there are ten millions of him. Will he make a good cis-Pacific citizen? Can he become a part of our citizenship? Is he not a menace to the very principles of our democracy? Is he qualified to help govern a nation of self-governing people? But we’ve got him and we may leave him out of the consideration temporarily.
OCR- hinduinnorthwest.pdf"In the industrial world, however, he ["the Hindu"] fills a place. The millmen of the Northwest declare that they employ him, not because they want cheap labor, not because they want to use him as a club over labor unions, but because they must have labor of one kind or another."
The discourse surrounding Asian immigration and labor rights, albeit exclusively for White men, becomes a critical comparison to how our labor ideologies and advocacy function today.
Transcription:
Transcription:
HINDUS WARNED TO LEAVE EVERETT
Millmen Refuse to Discharge Dusky Workers and Replace Them at Same Wages by Whites-- Claim Is Made That It Is an Attempt to Force Down Wages.
TRIED TO AVOID TROUBLE
Labor Leader Says Hindus Should Leave as All Peaceful Means Have Been Exhausted.
Everett, Wash., Oct. 2.-- Concerning the attitude of the millowners as to their willingness to discharge Hindu laborers if white men are procurable at the same wages, a labor leader makes a velled threat against the turbaned men ,admonishment them to leave the city unless they are looking for trouble. Millmen say, in reply, it is not fair to force them to pay big wages for the performance of common labor, such as pilling lumber and raking refuse out of water trough. There is not a single mill in the city today, it is claimed that is makingmoney, owing to the almost total lack of new orders coming from the East, and manufacturers are already looking forward to the necessity of closing their plants.
Here is what a labor leader says of the Hindu situation:
"This stand proves the contention of the unions that Hindus were being employed for the wole purpose of reducing wages and lowering the standard of living of the American workingman. We tried every way possible to avoid trouble in Everett in dealing with this question. I always advocate peaceful methods, but there always comes a time when some of the workers most seriously affected are hard to keep down when the pressure gets hard. Judging from history, if the millmen will not dispose of the HIndus as the places can be tilled, I would advise the Hindus to go away.
"Considering the prices that manufacturers are getting for their products, taken together with the cost of living, there is no justice nor sense in the demand for white men to come down to the Asiatics standard of living. That isn't all; they will not do it."
“Six badly beaten Hindus are in the hospital, 400 frightened and half naked Sikhs are in jail and the corridors of the city hall, guarded by policemen, and somewhere between Bellingham and British Columbia are 750 natives of India, beaten, hungry, and half clothed, making their way along the Great Northern railway to Canadian territory and the protection of the British flag.
The long-expected cry “drive out the Hindus” was heard throughout the city and along the water front last night. The police were helpless. All authority was paralyzed and for five hours a mob of 500 white men raided the mills where the foreigners were working, battered down doors of lodging houses, and dragging the Asiatics from their beds, escorted them to the city limits, with orders to keep going."
Bellingham Tribune, August 6th, 1907
AEL- HindooQuestion.pdf“One of the chief reasons for the change of name of this League from “Japanese and Korean” to that of “Asiatic” was the knowledge that we have of the great number of Hindoos that are looking toward the Pacific Coast, especially California, as a field for exploitation…the disturbance at Bellingham, Wash., caused by the displacing of white mill hands by Hindoos, caused them to flock to California by hundreds, and their presence in the southern part has caused such apprehension among the people of the section that Senator Flint contemplates introducing a bill for their exclusion…The conclusions reached by your “Bureau” after a careful study of the material at hand, is that the Hindoo is more sinned against than sinning.”
Asiatic Exclusion League Proceedings 1908
Contemporary Impacts: Present in All that We Do (SAADA)
Contemporary Impacts: Present in All that We Do (SAADA)
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