How did non-Native Oregonians in the decades following major American settlement in the 1840s try to create and maintain a homogeneous state? How did such efforts specifically impact the lives of marginalized groups in Oregon? Specifically, address African-American and Chinese communities.
Article: https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/chinese_massacre_at_deep_creek/#.YoKHn-jMI2xAnother source: https://www.opb.org/video/2017/11/20/why-portlands-chinese-community-isnt-in-chinatown/Article cant find on the internet: It will be good news to many through the Pacific States that the bill to prohibit Chinese immigration has passed both Houses of Congress, and by the time this week’s paper goes to press it will probably have received the approval of the President, while in the event of his veto of the measure there is probability that each House of Congress can pass it over his disapproval.
The subject of emigration from Asia is one of great importance to our nation, and while professional philanthropists cling to the belief in the brotherhood of all mankind, and claim that the American continent should offer a home to the poor and oppressed of all nations, others, who calmly reason from cause to effect, and look forward to results that will certainly follow such emigration in strong force, look upon it as necessary for the future and permanent well being and prosperity of our nation that it shall possess a homogenious(sic) people with identity of interests, similarity of traits and able to appreciate and achieve the highest and purest civilization of which man is capable.
All the Caucasian race meet and mingle here and blend and harmonize in a satisfactory manner. We believe that, so far as possible, the American continent should be kept as a home for the white races that are our natural kindred, and to which we have positive affinity. Let the great families of earth trade together and exchange intelligence and learn civilization, but do not bring other races to live among us and be looked down upon as inferior. All the reasoning and moral codes will fail of convincing the white men of the earth that the colored races are their equals, so let them remain essentially separate.
We do not share the disgust that many entertain of the Chinese, or the opinion so current among us to their dishonesty. We have employed them as domestic servants and as farm laborers and at chopping and grubbing, and have found them generally intelligent, faithful, willing and honest. They have fulfilled a good part in our late history by their cheap labor in building railroads and clearing hundreds of thousands of acres of brush land, and as house servants in country and town. They have been a great public benefit in that way when labor has been scarce and not procurable, but we shall soon have cheap transportation direct, by Northern trans-continental railroads, and they will bring from the East and from Europe all the common labor we shall require, and the present question is: Shall we allow Chinese to come here and remain here as workers, and so deter the settlement of the poorer laboring classes in our midst, or shall we make this Northwestern region a home for laborers of our own race?
The people of these Pacific States hesitate to see all avenues of labor, many handicrafts, and even ordinary manufacturing, pass to the control of Chinese, who have economical habits, at the expense of what Americans call civilization; who undermine our industries by a labor system that will degrade white labor if it has to compete with it, and will deprive us of a reliable laboring element when they have us at their mercy.
All things considered, American citizenship is not compatible with Chinese labor, and our civilization cannot sustain itself against such competition. That is why, as a people, we oppose Chinese emigration. Granting to the Chinese many good qualities, among which are frugality, industry and peaceableness(sic), they do not form the class of people we need as citizens, though we can make good use, no doubt, of the tens of thousands we now have with us as long as they are likely to stay.