‘Strangers in the Land’ Review: For Chinese-Americans, a Hard Road to a New Home

In the mid-19th century, Chinese immigrants built much of the developing American West. The community was often met with hostility and violence.

By Andrew R. Graybill. He is a professor of history at Southern Methodist University. He reviewed Michael Luo’s book Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America. Excerpts:

"Labor organizers were thus among the most virulent anti-Chinese agitators. Denis Kearney, the Irish-born leader of the Workingmen’s Party of California, declared in 1877 that “we intend to try and vote the Chinamen out, to frighten him out, and if this won’t do, to kill him out.”" 

"the most notorious episode came at a coal camp in Rock Springs, Wyo., in 1885, when white laborers, incensed by the presence of strike-breaking Chinese miners, slaughtered some 28 Chinese and razed their encampment. After weighing the evidence against the alleged perpetrators, a grand jury declined to indict them. News of the pogrom inspired mass expulsions of Chinese from the Pacific Northwest shortly thereafter, with the mayor of Tacoma urging a “speedy and final solution” to the so-called Chinese question."

"Much of this story—and especially the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which for the first time restricted immigration on the basis of race—will be familiar to scholars and general audiences alike."