The Wake

On Monday, January 22, Associate Professor Erika Lee of History held a lecture and discussion in the Elmer L. Andersen Library on the West Bank about transnational methodologies and how this cultural shift played a vital role in the response to Asian migration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The lecture, called “The ‘Yellow Peril’ in the Americas: A Transnational History of Asian Immigration and Exclusion,” was one of a series of seminars sponsored by the Immigration History Research Center.

The seminars are open to all students and, according to Lee, tend to attract a diverse audience—faculty, graduates, and undergrads from various departments including American Studies, History, Geography, and even the Humphrey Institute.

Lee talked about the “yellow peril” in conjunction with the idea of transnationalism. Transnationalism refers to the increased dialogue and fading of boundaries between countries, such as was seen in the case of Asian migration to North and South America over a decade ago.

As early as the 1880s, the U.S., Canada, and Australia began to restrict Chinese immigration. In the U.S. and Canada these restrictions were expanded to include Japanese immigration in the early 1900s. What was once the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League, established in 1906, became the Asiatic Exclusion League in response to Indian immigration.

In 1907 a string of riots occurred, starting in Bellingham, Washington and spreading quickly to Vancouver and parts of California, in response to the seizing of available jobs and the monopolization of grocery stores and small businesses by Asian Americans. With this racial tension also spread cooperation among North American nations.

Other countries began to follow in the footsteps of the U.S., adopting similar policies. According to Lee, there occurred a domino effect in which migration was redirected to other places, especially in the 1930s when there was an influx of Asian immigrants in Mexico and Latin America because the doors had been shut in North America. As a result, in the 1930s Latin American countries such as Brazil and Peru restricted Japanese immigration, and the Chinese were expelled from Mexico in 1931.

Lee also talked about the Great White Fleet, one of the largest naval fleets at the time (between 1907 and 1909) and a prime example of America flexing its strong arm in response to Japan’s growing military.

“It was seen by countries like Australia and New Zealand as a show of allegiance among white settler countries in opposition to the growing ‘yellow peril’ of Japan and Japanese immigration abroad,” Lee says.

Lee asserts that xenophobia is still very much alive today, especially after 9/11 and the adoption of “border harmonization” policies with Canada and Mexico to protect against terrorism.

“I am interested in these subjects because of their contemporary relevance,” Lee says, “and because they help us understand the central roles of race and immigration in shaping American and world history.”