The Immigration Act of 1924
Truth Stranger than Fiction
1899 cartoon of a Chinese man standing over a fallen white woman representing the Western world. Fears of a “Yellow Peril” or “Yellow Terror” grew in the late nineteenth century, relying on racist imagery and fear mongering. It continued thereafter as a vaguely ominous, existential fear of East Asians gaining power over Western nations.
The month of May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month. It is our way as Americans to pay tribute to the generations of Asian and Pacific Islanders who have enriched America's history and are instrumental in its future success. It is also our way to draw attention to the mistakes we made in the past so that they are not repeated.
One of our most monstrous mistakes was the Immigration Act of 1924 that was signed into law by President Calvin Coolidge on May 24, 1924. It was a United States federal law that prevented immigration from Asia, limited immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere, and provided enforcement funding to carry out the longstanding ban on other immigrants.
It effectively banned all immigration from Asia and set a total immigration quota of 165,000 for countries outside the Western Hemisphere, an 80% reduction from the average before World War I. According to the US Department of State's Office of the Historian, the purpose of the act was "to preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity." The first US Border Patrol was authorized to enforce the new law.
To write my historical mystery novel that takes place in 1924 at an artist colony in Carmel-by-the-Sea, I researched Monterey's history, clueless that I would discover a hotbed of anti-Asian hatred and fear along its idyllic shores.
I also learned that the Immigration Act was encouraged by the Ku Klux Klan, a very powerful organization in the 1920s. Many Ku Klux Klan members were members of Congress and they were true believers of nativism and homogenity. Their strong beliefs assured a majority vote. I'm ashamed to say very few Americans opposed it.
Sounds terribly familiar, doesn't it?
I never imagined when I started writing The Artist Colony that Donald J.Trump would become President. I never imagined I would live to see the KKK's surge again in popularity. Nor could I have imagined that the Yellow Peril would resurface. And how could I have ever imagined that this insidious fear would be fueled by Trump broadcasting to the world that it was the Kung Flu that caused the pandemic.
The Artist Colony is fiction interweaved with historical facts. America's immigation story is truth stranger than fiction.