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Food for thought.

http://www.asianweek.com/2002_06_21/news_washj.html

Addressing Hate Violence

Unfortunately, hate and violence, were in the news here in Washington several times last week. On Tuesday, the Chinese Americans (OCA), National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (NAPALC) and other organizations commemorated the 20th anniversary of the death of Vincent Chin, a 27-year-old Chinese American from Michigan. Representative David Wu (D-OR), Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, Delegate Robert Underwood (D-GU), Wade Henderson, Executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Deepa Iyer, board member for the South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow, participated in a community press conference commemorating a tragic event that galvanized the nationwide movement to combat anti-Asian Pacific American violence.

On June 19, 1982, Vincent Chin was brutally beaten with a baseball bat by two white autoworkers outside of a restaurant in Detroit. The two men reportedly called him a “Jap” and blamed him for the decline in the American automobile industry, which was facing tough competition from Japan at that time. Chin died four days later from severe head injuries, but his two killers were sentenced to just three years probation and fined $3,780. This outrageously low penalty, “awakened the APA community to the realization that discrimination was as strong as ever, regardless of the strides we had made,” stated Christine Chen, OCA Executive Director. “It also alerted APAs to the failure of the American judicial system to punish hate-motivated violence. This tragedy forced Asian Pacific Americans to realize that in order to protect themselves from such attacks, many steps needed to be taken, including the passage of strong hate crimes legislation.”

Unfortunately, the same day that this tragedy was being commemorated, the United States Senate voted to not vote on the merits of the so-called Hate Crimes Bill. In a vote taken mostly along party lines, Republicans prevented the Local Law Enforcement ünhancement Act, S. 625 (LLEEA) from getting the substantive attention it deserved on the Senate floor. The Act would have expanded the list of hate crimes to include attacks based on a victim’s sexual orientation, gender or disability. In addition to strengthening federal hate crime law, the new measure would enable federal prosecutors to provide more assistance to state and local authorities investigating and prosecuting hate crimes, whether or not the victim of the hate crime was participating in an activity protected under federal laws.

“Hate crimes send a direct and intolerant message to not only the victim but, more importantly, to the victim’s community,” said Jin Sook Lee, Asian Pacific Labor Alliance Executive Director. “If hate crimes are not recognized as distinct crimes, then by implication the criminal justice system is turning a blind eye to the harm inflicted on the victim and the victim’s community. It is because of this we urgently need tougher hate crimes legislation.”

Meanwhile, the Washington Post featured a story last Saturday about Canadian Army Gen. Romeo Dallaire, the commander of the United Nations peacekeeping force dispatched to oversee a previously negotiated end to the civil war in Rwanda in 1994.

According to Gen. Dallaire, he and his peacekeeping force were grossly understaffed and under-equipped, so that they were unable to stop the majority Hutus from slaughtering the minority Tutsis.

According to the article, “On April 6, 1994, an airplane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira, both Hutus, was shot down as it prepared to land at Kigali, killing both leaders. No one has ever determined who fired the missiles that downed the plane. As though the shoot-down was a signal, military and militia groups began rounding up and killing all Tutsis and political moderates, regardless of their ethnic background.”

According to Dallaire and others, in 100 days, 800,000 people were killed, 300,000 of them children. Some 500,000 more were injured. There were more people killed, wounded, displaced or refugeed in 100 days in Rwanda than there were in the whole eight or nine years of the Yugoslav campaign. Various countries sent over 60,000 troops into the Balkans to stop the “ethnic cleansing” there, but did not do the same in Rwanda. Gen. Dallaire can only guess at the reason why. Did the people of the developed world see that “the people of Rwanda [were] less human?”

Three years ago, an independent inquiry into the genocide found that a lack of commitment and resources had caused the United Nations to fail in meeting the primary obligation for which it was founded (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54193-2002Jun14.html).

Asian Pacific Americans have been on the receiving end of hate violence almost from the day we arrived here, with the violence escalating at times when the economy was depressed. For example, Chinese Americans were lynched in Los Angeles in 1871, and anti-Chinese riots took place in Denver (1880), Rock Springs (Wyoming, 1885) and Seattle (1886). While we are nowhere near the danger that befell the Tutsis in 1994, it is our obligation to take the lessons of our past and put them to use in enacting legislation that will protect all people from hate violence — including gays, women and disabled people who would be covered by a strengthened Hate Crimes Act.

http://immigrants.harpweek.com/ChineseAmericans/2KeyIssues/TheAntiChineseHysteria.htm

The Anti-Chinese Hysteria of 1885-1886

Ever since the Chinese came to the United States, the prejudice against them sometimes culminated in violence. The physical hostility became particularly virulent in the 1880s. During this period, Chinese communities were harassed, attacked, or expelled in 34 towns in California, three in Oregon, and four in Nevada. Property of the Chinese in America, worth millions of dollars, was damaged or destroyed in mining regions in Alaska, Colorado, South Dakota, and other states or territories. The worst occurrences of violence were in Denver, Los Angeles, Rock Springs (Wyoming), and Tacoma and Seattle (Washington).

Labor disputes were often the spark for anti-Chinese riots. In 1875, the Union Pacific Railroad Company first hired Chinese as strikebreakers in its Rock Springs mines in the Wyoming Territory. The bitterness this caused between the (largely immigrant) white miners and the Chinese festered for a decade before exploding in the fall of 1885. The attack on September 2 by 150 armed white men against the Chinese miners had calamitous results for the Chinese community: 28 deaths, 15 wounded, the expulsion of several hundred, and property damage of nearly $150,000.

After the Rock Springs riot, anti-Chinese violence quickly spread to other areas in the West. On September 11, Chinese were attacked in Coal Creek; on October 24, Seattle’s Chinatown was burned; on November 3, a mob of 300 expelled the Chinese in Tacoma before moving on to force similar expulsions in smaller towns. The Washington governor requested federal assistance to restore law and order and on November 7 President Grover Cleveland sent the U.S. military to Seattle and Tacoma to suppress the riots.

The Wyoming Territorial government established an investigating committee, but it was controlled by the anti-Chinese labor union, the Knights of Labor. The Chinese government sent their own officials on a fact-finding mission, guarded by federal troops, and demanded reparations from the U.S. government. President Cleveland believed that the federal government was not responsible, but agreed to the compensation as a gesture of good will. In 1887, Congress approved the indemnity legislation. Cleveland was appalled by the violence, but he had reached the conclusion that the anti-Chinese prejudice was so deeply entrenched in the West, and the Chinese and American cultures were so different, that the Chinese would never be assimilated. It was the government’s duty, therefore, to protect the Chinese resident in the U.S. and to prevent the immigration of more Chinese through a new treaty to be negotiated between the American and Chinese governments.

California Anti-Chinese Legislation, 1852-1878

1852: Foreign Miners’ License Tax required a $3 monthly license fee on miners ineligible for citizenship (i.e., Chinese).

1852: Commutation Tax required shipmasters to prepare a list of foreign passengers, and ship owners to post a $500 bond for each, which could be commuted by paying a tax of $5 to $50 per passenger. The law was an attempt to dissuade Chinese immigration.

1855: Tax of $50 imposed on shipmasters or ship owners for each foreign passenger ineligible for citizenship (i.e., Chinese). The California Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional in 1857.

1855: Foreign Miners’ License Tax increased to $6 per month, and set to increase $2 higher each subsequent year. Repealed by the state legislature in 1856, establishing the tax at $4 per month.

1858: Chinese individuals were forbidden from landing in California except during weather-related emergencies. The California Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional in 1862.

1862: Chinese Police Tax levied a $2.50 fee on all Chinese living in the state, with a few exceptions. (The term "police" referred to the legislative authority to regulate for the health, safety, welfare, and morals of the state.) The California Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional later in 1862.

1863: Chinese individuals were disallowed from testifying in criminal or civil cases.

1863: Chinese children were excluded from public schools.

1867: Living areas were required to have at least 500 cubic feet of air for each resident. (Chinese housing was the primary target of the law.)

1870: Steep fines up to $5000 were imposed on individuals who imported Chinese into the state without a "certificate of good character." The California Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional.

1876: Chinese laborers were barred from working on county irrigation projects.

1878: Chinese individuals were barred from owning real estate.