Today, residential zoning, drug prohibition, and restrictions on legal immigration are three of America’s most consequential public policies. As we will see, all three began in California, and all three were explicitly motivated by extreme anti-Chinese bigotry. All three policies were intended to exclude “undesirables”.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that modern proponents of those policies have a similar motivation, although I will argue that bigotry continues to play a role in at least some of these policies.
Until recently, I had assumed that these three policy regimes began during the early 1900s, as part of the so-called “progressive era” of activist government. In fact, they began in the late 1800s, mostly in California. A recent Jacob Sullum article in Reason magazine examined this period:
‘Smoking Opium is Not Our Vice’
America’s First Drug War Was Driven by Xenophobia Against Chinese Migrants
Despite the title, the article is about much more than the war on drugs; it exposes how deeply held racial prejudices affected a wide range of public policies.
Much of the article does focus on San Francisco’s notorious opium dens, which led to the first American laws prohibiting drug use:
These “infamous resorts” were “an unmitigated evil,” demanding “immediate and rigid legislation.” . . . That “rigid legislation” was the nation’s first anti-drug law, if you don’t count the short-lived alcohol bans that 13 states enacted in the mid-19th century.
Of course this war on drugs was not successful:
Wasn’t San Francisco’s ban supposed to put an end to that? Despite the 1875 ordinance, Rogers reported in 1876, “the practice, deeply rooted, still continues.” And “in enforcing the law with regard to this matter,” police “have found white women and Chinamen side by side under the effects of this drug—a humiliating sight to any one who has anything left of manhood.” That comment reflected anxieties about opium-fostered race mixing, including the fear that Chinese men were using the drug to seduce or sexually enslave white women.
By the way, anxiety about race mixing remains a common theme in the war on drugs, illustrated in the 2000 Soderbergh film entitled Traffic. [Full disclosure: My wife is Chinese, so perhaps I have “nothing left of manhood”.]
The ultimate goal was to get Chinese residents to leave the country:
As politicians like Lewis saw it, the opium problem was inextricably intertwined with the Chinese problem. If the government could not forcibly remove these “filthy” foreigners, as Lewis seemed to prefer, it could at least make life as difficult as possible for them. As former congressman James Budd put it at an 1885 anti-Chinese meeting in Stockton, California, it was local authorities’ “duty” to make conditions so “devilishly uncomfortable” that the Chinese would be “glad to leave.”
Legislators certainly tried. San Francisco’s ban on opium dens, which cities like Stockton imitated, was just one facet of a broad, long running legal campaign aimed at subjugating or driving away Chinese immigrants. In addition to attempts at outright bans on Chinese immigration into California, that campaign included special taxes, discriminatory regulations, and restrictions on the right to hunt, fish, own land, vote, and testify in court.
Judges often allowed these sorts of laws, despite their obvious discriminatory intent:
“Smoking opium is not our vice,” U.S. District Judge Matthew Deady wrote, “and therefore it may be that this legislation proceeds more from a desire to vex and annoy the ‘Heathen Chinee’ in this respect, than to protect the people from the evil habit. But the motives of legislators cannot be the subject of judicial investigation for the purpose of affecting the validity of their acts.”
In other cases, the laws were viewed as too intrusive and blocked by judges holding views that in 2024 seem almost quaintly old fashioned:
“To prohibit vice is not ordinarily considered within the police power of the state,” [Justice Jackson] Temple wrote. “A crime is a trespass upon some right, public or private. The object of the police power is to protect rights from the assaults of others, not to banish sin from the world or to make men moral….Such legislation is very rare in this country. There seems to be an instinctive and universal feeling that this is a dangerous province to enter upon, and that through such laws individual liberty might be very much abridged.” Concurring Justice A. Van R. Paterson likewise argued that “every man has the right to eat, drink, and smoke what he pleases in his own house without police interference.”
Today, American politicians continue to blame the Chinese for corrupting our youth. China is supposedly to blame for America’s fentanyl epidemic–as if we have no agency. Not because China exports fentanyl to America, nor because they export fentanyl to Mexico that is re-exported to America. Rather they are blamed for exporting chemicals that can be used elsewhere to create fentanyl. As viewers of Breaking Bad are well aware, Americans are quite capable to creating illegal drugs without any help from the Chinese. And prison sentences have generally been longer for drugs preferred by African-Americans (crack cocaine) as compared to drugs preferred by white Americans (powder cocaine). Racial bias has always been a factor in the war on drugs.
In 1909, the Smoking Opium Exclusion Act banned the importation of opium (other than for medicinal purposes.) But even in the early 1900s, some politicians saw the folly of assuming that an import ban on opium would solve the problem:
Although “Chinamen desire opium prepared for smoking in their own country,” Rep. Sereno E. Payne (R–N.Y.) said, smokable opium “can be manufactured in this country from medicinal opium.” And “rather than not have it at all,” he added, “they would take that prepared in this country, undoubtedly.” Given that prospect, Payne was skeptical that the law would have a substantial impact on opium smoking.
Anti-Chinese sentiment also led to the very first laws aimed at restricting immigration based on national origin:
The “moral crusade” championed by the Chronicle soon inspired the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first federal law to ban immigration based on national origin. The law, which applied to “skilled and unskilled laborers,” notionally made exceptions for certain categories of visitors, but permission was difficult to obtain. Congress also made Chinese immigrants already living in the United States ineligible for citizenship and required them to obtain reentry permits when they traveled abroad. Such policies were applauded by the “Anti-Chinese Leagues” that began to proliferate across the West in the late 19th century.
Even today, some of our leading politicians rail against allowing (legal) immigrants from “s***h*** countries”, regardless of how talented they may be. Immigrants from poor countries like India and Nigeria have actually done quite well in America.
New York City’s 1916 residential zoning laws are generally regarded as the first example of using regulation to prevent “undesirables” from moving into certain neighborhoods. In fact, an even earlier example occurred in California, again motivated by anti-Chinese sentiment:
Other anti-Chinese measures of this era were neutral on their face but clearly aimed at a specific ethnic group. San Francisco, for example, set a minimum space requirement of 500 cubic feet per resident for private dwellings (thereby forbidding common living conditions in Chinatown), prohibited theater performances between midnight and 6 a.m. (targeting Chinese opera), and required licenses for laundries in wooden buildings—licenses that Chinese laundry owners somehow were never able to obtain. That last ordinance passed muster with the California Supreme Court, which saw it as a valid exercise of the city’s police power. But the U.S. Supreme Court later unanimously ruled that the law’s discriminatory enforcement violated the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.
Today, San Francisco continues to restrict the construction of low cost housing. As a result, its already rather small African-American population is being priced out of the area, even as numerous “Black Lives Matter” signs populate San Francisco front yards. Africans-Americans comprised about 13.4% of San Francisco’s population in 1970; today the share has fallen to roughly 5%. If “progressive” NIMBYs get their way, even that 5% will soon be gone.
To be clear, there are many people who favor drug, housing and immigration regulations for reasons other than ethnic bias. Nonetheless, it’s important to recognize that these rules were originally put in place to exclude people viewed as undesirable, and many modern Americans continue to be motivated by anti-Chinese bias. Recently, several states have put in place restrictions on Chinese college students attending their state colleges, and also prohibited Chinese people from buying real estate. Unlike with Huawei and TikTok, there is no plausible national security argument for these policies.
PS. There is much more of interest in the Sullum article—I encourage people to read the whole thing. It’s also worth thinking about how perceptions change over time:
Testifying before the California Senate’s Special Committee on Chinese Immigration the year after Douglass’ raid, another San Francisco police officer, George W. Duffield, averred that “ninety-nine Chinamen out of one hundred smoke opium” and that “every house” had an opium den.
Even then, that was a gross exaggeration. Today, drug use among Asian-Americans is considerably lower than for any other ethnic group.
PS. A recent article in The Economist begins as follows:
One of the most chilling moments in America’s post-war relationship with Japan occurred in Detroit in 1982. Two American car workers clubbed a Chinese-American man to death, mistaking him for a Japanese citizen they accused of stealing American jobs. A sympathetic judge fined them $3,000, with no jail time. This outrageously lenient verdict reflected a mood that later extended to the highest level of government. Fearful of being overtaken by Japan as the world’s economic superpower, America wielded the crowbar. It imposed trade restrictions, sought to pry open Japan’s domestic markets and led international efforts to reduce the value of the dollar against the yen. Only after Japan’s asset-price bubble burst in the 1990s did America leave it alone.
Sound familiar?
READER COMMENTS
Craig
Apr 12 2024 at 2:08pm
“By the way, anxiety about race mixing remains a common theme in the war on drugs, illustrated in the 2000 Soderbergh film entitled Traffic.”
Long time ago, I remember the movie, vaguely at this point, its been 20+ years after all and I remember the races being shown but my memory kind’ve remembers it as just being indicative that the drug issue is one that transcends race. I don’t recall it in a way that suggested anxiety about race mixing, but perhaps you can refresh my recollection on the movie that made you write that. I brought a date to the movie and remember thinking after the movie that wasn’t a great movie to bring a date to.
Scott Sumner
Apr 13 2024 at 8:48am
The hero (a white man) has a pretty young daughter who gets addicted and becomes a sex partner for a black drug dealer. It’s fairly explicit.
Michael Sandifer
Apr 12 2024 at 9:24pm
Very good post.
It is incredibly stupid not to welcome the Chinese brain drain.
steve
Apr 12 2024 at 11:02pm
There has always been a group of Americans who thrive on hating the “other” which is usually a different racial group though now we also have different sexual orientation groups. As Kristoferson sang and Prime wrote, “‘Cause everybody’s gotta have somebody to look down on.” The out group focus changes sometimes but the people who hate on the basis of race probably dont take much to focus their hate on the “good minorities” with a little nudging.
Steve
Jose Pablo
Apr 13 2024 at 1:18pm
A group?
I don’t know. Antisemitism was widespread in the 20s and 30s.
https://jewishmuseummd.pastperfectonline.com/Photo/0F3B008D-D00E-484A-88FC-598754517398#gallery
And at its peak, the KKK had more than 4 million members. Around 1 in every 7 white male adults in the 1920s.
There is always a correlation between the level of hate of the “others” and the situation of the domestic economy. For a country with almost no unemployment and with the most buoyant economy in the world, the level of “hate” for the “different” is remarkable. To the point that you can, even nowadays, (almost?) win a general election on a platform catering to those feelings.
If a crisis that truly necessitates America to be made great again were to arise, the “group” of “haters” would, likely, be very significant.
Laurentian
Apr 13 2024 at 2:03pm
Eugenics was very popular among the elites until WWII. It was one of those new modern scientific ideas that every enlightened person must believe in. Much of the Progressive movement was seeped in it too.
But it’s not like classical liberalism is free from bigotry. Their dislike of “barbarians”, reactionaries and Catholics (especially Jesuits) sure strikes me as hating the other. Then there were things like the Popish Plot (exploited by John Locke’s patron Lord Shaftesbury) and the kulturkampf. Or how Mill and Macauley were Imperialists. Or Cobden’s interest in phrenology. Or how Irish Home Rule was a step too far even for John Bright and Herbert Spencer.
Jose Pablo
Apr 14 2024 at 2:23pm
We, humans, have had terrible theories and ideas (even, particularly? scientific ones).
It is not the terrible ideas that “we” have had which worries me. It is the terrible ideas that we still have. In particular, the terrible ideas we still stick to trying to win elections.
Laurentian
Apr 15 2024 at 8:55am
Why exactly do you the think the present should no longer have bad ideas? And the past advocates of this argument had some terrible ideas of their own time as well. And I am sure you have no ideas that future people will condemn you for having.
And isn’t this just the “it’s current year” argument? Arbitralily stating that the present should not have something you personally don’t like because the present should be free of things you don’t like. Fot example I see plenty of “Why is capitalism still a thing in the present?” Stuff online all the time.
Jose Pablo
Apr 13 2024 at 11:32am
Great post!!
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose:
As ambitious Jewish students began to be admitted to Harvard University in disproportionate numbers, even Harvard’s President A. Lawrence Lowell spoke of what he called a “Jewish problem” at Harvard, a problem only restrictive quotas could solve
And this was 1922! The extent of the antisemitic movement in the US in those years was just mindblowing. Including the active antisemitism of someone like Henry Ford.
And it is also worth remembering the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924. The drive to effectively “close the border” is, it seems, at least 100 years old. Enough experience to get if, finally, right in the next four years.
The Act was unashamedly racist. It virtually stopped immigration from Asian countries. 82% of the immigration quota was assigned to Western Europeans. Although not all Western Europeans were created equal. Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians were preferred to Southern European countries.
Even the SCOTUS shared those beliefs:
A Supreme Court decision of 1923 stripped a Sikh immigrant, Bhagat Singh Thind, of his naturalized citizenship when the court ruled he did not qualify as a “white” person. A similar decision had already determined that Japanese and other “orientals” did not qualify.
American eugenicists did have an impact and an influence on US politics (and beyond). Edwin Black is enlightening on this matter.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/feb/06/race.usa
And California, once again, was considered an epicenter of the American eugenics movement.
Given the US past, you would expect the general public and the institutions to be “paranoic” against anything that even barely resembled those behaviors.
Quite the contrary …
Laurentian
Apr 13 2024 at 1:42pm
1920s was also the last time the US Federal government reduced its debt.
David Seltzer
Apr 14 2024 at 1:13pm
Jose wrote; As ambitious Jewish students began to be admitted to Harvard University in disproportionate numbers, even Harvard’s President A. Lawrence Lowell spoke of what he called a “Jewish problem” at Harvard, a problem only restrictive quotas could solveAnd this was 1922! YES!! In 1970 I applied to The Harvard Business School and the GSB at The University of Chicago. At my Harvard interview, I was told there was an over-representation of Jews at Harvard. I withdrew my application and was subsequently admitted to Chicago. When I told Dean Metcalf the story, he said it was common to hear that from many of the Ivy’s.
Jose Pablo
Apr 14 2024 at 2:49pm
You sure were better off in Chicago, David!
The level of antisemitism in the US in the 20s and 30s was staggering. I thought it had been significantly “mitigated” after the 40s and 50s. I am sorry to hear it wasn’t the case.
One of the many Hitler mistakes (one good thing about tyrants is that you can always count on them making big mistakes) was his failure to win over American public opinion and influence American politics in the 30s. At that time, it was an achievable goal.
The discontent during the Great Depression, the powerful anticommunism American feelings and the level of legal racism of that time made tilting American public opinion further toward parts of the Nazi’s credo, a manageable endeavor.
Mussolini here was addressing the Americans and encouraging Italian emigrants to make America great. It was 1927, some slogans never lose their appeal, it seems.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/23/in-1927-fox-news-service-filmed-benito-mussolini-telling-immigrants-to-make-america-great/
David Seltzer
Apr 15 2024 at 11:49am
Thank you Jose.
Laurentian
Apr 13 2024 at 2:20pm
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/in-the-shadow-of-leviathan/locke-and-catholicism/FB275F31BF436DF822A7EEC5FC033FEB
Or his support for Irish land confiscations or Irish Penal laws.
Jim Glass
Apr 13 2024 at 4:14pm
Kotlin at Hoover welcomes Chinese immigrants while answering Qs about China policy, immigration, housing for immigrants, our history with minorities … the preceding lecture about the international system (“the Asian Century is happening now in the USA”) is interesting too.
Trina Halppe
Apr 14 2024 at 9:18am
Spelling correction: That’s Stephen Kotkin, the historian.
Jim Glass
Apr 14 2024 at 2:36pm
Typos do happen.
Kurt Schuler
Apr 13 2024 at 7:36pm
Sentiment against immigrants of a different race was not unique to the United States. In China it was called the Boxer Rebellion.
Libertarians put on blinders when they look at immigration. They purposely neglect questions of scale and culture. A large immigration of people culturally similar to those already in the country can work, as can a small immigration of people culturally much different but whose numbers mean they have to assimilate in key ways. A large immigration by a people culturally much different is a recipe at least for tension and possibly for war. Ask an American Indian.
Scott Sumner
Apr 14 2024 at 12:13am
I would say that recent Chinese and Indian immigrants are more culturally similar to Americans than the immigrants of the early 1900s were to WASPs.
It’s also important to recall that there are many different American cultures. San Francisco differs from South Dakota, which differs from Detroit, which differs from Vermont, which differs from Louisiana, which differs from Utah, which differs from Hawaii, etc.
Jim Glass
Apr 14 2024 at 2:35pm
New York City, where I’ve spent my life, has 3+million immigrants, that’s >35% of the population and 40+% of the work force — darn big scale. More languages are spoken in NYC than there are nations on Earth, so the cultures are as different as they can get. Nobody here wants to block immigration. It’s nice to be able to get really *any* kind of food you want.
OTOH, Sweden’s open borders policy has been a disaster, creating and bringing right-wing parties into the government (in Sweden) as a reaction. I’d say, though, that the problem there isn’t the number of immigrants (as a % of population much lower than in NYC) nor their native culture, but the motivation behind their arrival. NYC receives immigrants seeking work to pursue the American Dream (which still exists where they come from). Sweden has brought in refugees from failed states attracted by welfare and free housing.
Before anyone points to the national cultures of those refugees as Sweden’s problem I’ll say that after 9/11, the WTC, the worst possible time to be an Arab in the USA or NYC, there was a network of them running retail stores in my neighborhood and we all got along fine.
North America gets first-class immigrants because to leave home and travel all the distance to get to this foreign land, with likely a different language, to work or get an education to better yourself, requires a special type of character — which adds to the culture we want here. So to them as a NYCer I say, wherever you are from, welcome.
Jose Pablo
Apr 14 2024 at 4:10pm
North America gets first-class immigrants
I am curious, Jim. What is a first-class human?
Jim Glass
Apr 14 2024 at 4:41pm
What is a first-class human?
Irrelevant. I wrote: first-class immigrants.
Jose Pablo
Apr 14 2024 at 7:49pm
What is a first-class immigrant?
Jim Glass
Apr 14 2024 at 9:20pm
You can’t tell from the different compositions, behaviors and societal contributions of the two groups I described? Really??
Be careful, if you try too hard to appear uncomprehending people may take it seriously.
Jose Pablo
Apr 14 2024 at 9:37pm
North America gets first-class immigrants because to leave home and travel all the distance to get to this foreign land, with likely a different language, to work or get an education to better yourself, requires a special type of character
By your definition, every immigrant is first-class based on what they actually do since “leaving home and traveling all the distance to get to a foreign land” can very well be used as the definition of “to emigrate”.
They could be second-class (or worse) depending, if I get it right, on the intentions you “believe” they have for doing what they actually do.
Be careful, making arbitrary classifications that reflect only your opinion on other people’s intentions. Readers could end up taking you seriously.
Jose Pablo
Apr 14 2024 at 9:23pm
a disaster, creating and bringing right-wing parties into the government (in Sweden) as a reaction
I fully agree with your definition of a “disaster”. Certainly, the rise into power of right-wing parties deserves that name.
OTOH, from the point of view of “violence,” it is worth pointing out that the “Sweden disaster” means that there were a total of 62 lethal shootings in Sweden in 2022 (116 cases of lethal violence) … in all of Sweden! (10.5 million inhabitants). As a comparison, there were, in 2021, 486 homicides in New York City alone (8.8 million inhabitants). The Sweden disaster of a 1.1 homicide rate would be an outstanding success in NYC (5.5 homicide rate).
The Swedes are lucky (violence-wise) that there are not the New Yorkers the ones emigrating there, bringing with them their culture of lethal violence.
Jose Pablo
Apr 14 2024 at 9:47pm
And, by the way, New York received its fair share of violent gang immigration in the 30s. The New York mafia.
The (in)famous Five Families were all of Italian origin. Are you implying that Italian immigration in the 30s was a “disaster” for New York?
Were the Five Families first-class immigrants?
Jose Pablo
Apr 14 2024 at 4:01pm
A large immigration by a people culturally much different is a recipe at least for tension and possibly for war.
Can you, please, provide real-life examples of that?
It is a well-known fact that what happens “culturally” is that second-generation immigrants tend to lose (and in most cases actively reject) their “parent’s culture”(whatever that loose term means). In some cases, even their original language is lost. Much to the dismay of the “traditional” parents.
The whole idea that immigrants come here mostly to actively convert “locals” into a much different culture, doesn’t make any logical sense. They can’t even “convert” their own children!!
The only purpose of this nonsensical line of thought is to inflame anti-inmigration feelings. I don’t know if you remember how it was to be a teenager at your local high school. I very much doubt you would have enjoyed wearing your qipao to your homeroom.
nobody.really
Apr 16 2024 at 1:43am
Benjamin Franklin, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind” (1751).
Jose Pablo
Apr 16 2024 at 10:50am
It seems that, apart from a serial womanizer, he was also a racist.
vince
Apr 16 2024 at 2:07pm
Franklin would make the same accusation of you.
Jose Pablo
Apr 14 2024 at 4:06pm
Ask an American Indian.
Are you implying that what happened to Native Americans was “cultural assimilation”?
So, according to you, Wounded Knee was, for instance, a representative example of a “cultural exchange”?
David S
Apr 14 2024 at 9:34am
Good post. Interesting bit about the San Francisco regulation on apartment unit sizes. I’m not sure if that predates Boston’s 1906 ban on triple deckers—which was an explicitly anti-immigrant measure.
It’s frustrating how anti-immigrant and anti-housing advocates will frame their arguments as “improving” conditions for the poor. Trump’s naked racism is sometimes more tolerable than S.F. leftists who bemoan zoning reform that would result in more housing for everyone.
David Seltzer
Apr 14 2024 at 1:34pm
Scott wrote; “New York City’s 1916 residential zoning laws are generally regarded as the first example of using regulation to prevent “undesirables” from moving into certain neighborhoods. In fact, an even earlier example occurred in California, again motivated by anti-Chinese sentiment:” Bill Levitt could not sell homes to non-Caucasians. The FHA, authorizing loans for the construction of Levittown, included racial covenants in each deed. The insidious policy of interning American born Japanese citizens is most appalling.
TGGP
Apr 15 2024 at 12:53pm
Breaking Bad is a work of fiction and deliberately unrealistic in its portrayal of drug manufacturing (they didn’t want the show to teach people how to do it). Restrictions on precursors used for manufacturing meth did manage to actually shift the market to foreign imports.
nobody.really
Apr 16 2024 at 2:03am
I observe varying flavers of libertarianism. The libertine flavor echews duty generally. In contrast, other flavors of libertarianism demonstrate greater rectitude–in effect, rejecting the need for much of a state because they exert enormous self-control and expect others to do likewise.
This came to mind when I was reading about Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom and her thesis that people can manage common-pool resources without government intervention. A big aspect of this management comes from culture: People who share a common culture– and who can be successfully deterred from engaging in anti-social behavior through non-governmental sanctions such as shunning–can develop means to manage common-pool resources, and thus reduce the role of the state.
But this remedy relies on people sharing a culture–and widespread immigration would seem to undermine this goal. Does Bryan Caplan address this aspect of open borders?
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