We didn't know. We weren't part of it.
That's what many newcomers and younger Californians can justly say about the century-long exclusion of the Chinese from legal immigration, citizenship and ownership of property.
They had no part in making citizenship illegal for Chinese laborers who mined the Mother Lode, worked farms and built the transcontinental railroad and levees – a situation that changed only in 1943. And many can honestly say that they didn't know that non-citizen Asians have been able to own property in California only since 1952.
They can reasonably say that they were not involved in the local ordinances and burnings that drove the Chinese from Sacramento and towns in the Sierra foothills, the Sacramento Valley and the Delta in the 1880s.
So why not just let that history go, move on?
This is a live question today because California legislators have passed a bipartisan resolution to "express regret for past discriminatory laws and constitutional provisions."
This isn't mere symbolism. The debate itself has been valuable. The reality is that California and the nation today face heated discussions about immigration – and can learn from Chinese immigrant experience. We need to understand it, confront it and not fall into the same traps that ensnared earlier generations of Californians.
For a century, California went out of its way to enshrine anti-Chinese sentiment in law. Even The Bee promoted that disgraceful agenda.
California's 1879 Constitution declared that Chinese were "dangerous to the well- being of the State." Among other things, it called for removal of Chinese from city limits. Californians lobbied Congress to pass the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which blocked Chinese laborers from the United States, the first U.S. law to limit immigration by race. California then passed the Alien Land Law of 1913, prohibiting Chinese from buying land.
Congress repealed Chinese exclusion laws in 1943. But California pressed on. In 1943 and 1945, new laws strengthened powers to seize property. Only in 1952 did things change.
Faced with few legal options for entry, Chinese immigrants took matters into their own hands. Since a U.S. treaty with China exempted merchants from the Exclusion Act, a 1906 report notes that "the Chinese gain unlawful access to this country by constantly declaring to be merchants." A tiny store in Sacramento, for example, listed 22 partners and 21 silent partners. Other Chinese immigrants would adopt the identity of a merchant or the child of a merchant (an arrangement known as "paper father and paper son").
Assembly Concurrent Resolution 42 should not be the end of this discussion. It should be the beginning. California educators should now explore including material on the treatment of Chinese in our students' textbooks, and the state should consider an official memorial that will remind this and future generations of what can happen when bigotry overrides respect for all.
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