The Anti-Chinese Wall: Immigration Images in the Gilded Age | BRIdge from the Past

0:03 Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of Bridge from the Past art across the US history. I’m Mary Patterson, and I’m back with another primary source visual to help shed. Light on America’s past. Today, we’re looking at a political cartoon. That addresses Chinese immigration during the Gilded Age. Even though this cartoon dates from 1882,

0:23 it raises questions that we’re still talking about in the United States today. Has the discussions surrounding immigration changed at all in the United States? What does this reveal about us as Americans? Let’s dive into our image and see. What it has to say. Here is our image. It is titled The Anti Chinese Wall, and it is done by the Austrian illustrator

0:45 Frederick Greets, and it appeared in Puck magazine on March 29, 1882. Even if I didn’t know the title. Of this image was The Anti Chinese Wall, I’m immediately drawn to this wall going up in the foreground. So that’s my first question is, why is this wall being built and who’s building it?

1:07 I can see all these guys carrying blocks. So that’s another question that I have. I can also see that the blocks have words on them, and some of them I can make out. It looks like fear, jealousy, but some are a little hard to read. So I’m wondering, what are these words? What do they reveal about what is this artist trying to say?

1:28 And I can also see that there is another wall in the background, and it looks like this wall is coming down. So why is one wall going up and another coming down? It’s another question that I have. I can see an American flag on this boat. I don’t know what that boat is doing there. And I think this is China.

1:49 In the background here, I can see a pagoda architecture. So I’m assuming it’s China, but I’m not really sure. So I definitely have a lot of questions, but I’m going to need a little bit more context before I can. Dive in any further. Any primary source needs to be considered. In the context from which it comes. So this image, as I said before,

2:09 is coming from the Gilded Age, so that’s this period in United States history, after the Civil War into the late 19th century, when our economy is vastly expanding and our national wealth on the whole is increasing. So along with this economic expansion, you’re going to see a great uptick in immigration during this time period.

2:30 And a lot of that has to do with the lure, the pull of jobs. So we are industrializing cities are growing. We’re building a transcontinental railroad. There are a lot of jobs to be had in this time period. And immigrants from many places are coming to the United States, not just China. You also have significant push factors

2:52 that are pushing immigrants out of their respective countries, China included. So China has just gone through a period of environmental disasters, fan and drought, which is really going to hit farmers hard. And most people in China are farmers or people that don’t have a lot. Of money and need a livelihood.

3:12 And you also have a civil war that has just ended in 1860 in China known as the Taiping Rebellion. And that Taiping Rebellion really blows the American Civil War out of the water in terms of duration and destruction. So you have significant push factors pushing. Immigrants to come to the United States. And you also have this appeal, this lure of jobs.

3:35 The other thing that we need to. Keep in mind is that during this time period, American merchants, particularly on the East Coast, are very eager to trade with China. Now, historically speaking, China has not been terribly interested in trading with other countries, but they’re forced to open up to trade. China is forced to open up to trade in the 1840s by Great Britain in a shifty little episode known as the Opium Wars.

4:01 So America and other countries follow suit. After Great Britain sort of opens the gates, other countries are coming in because they want to trade with China. The other thing we need to keep. In mind before we can dive deeper into some analysis of our image is that Puck magazine, where this cartoon appears. Was known for satire.

4:21 We have seen satire before on bridge from the past. Satire is a wonderful constant throughout American history. It’s the fancy older brother of sarcasm and it’s usually drawing attention to something that is perceived as needing fixing. So our artist in this magazine, Puck, is drawing attention to this debate

4:43 surrounding Chinese immigration, in particular in the Gilded Age. Now, let’s go back to the image and see what the artist has to say. So I was initially drawn to the wall, and the Wall is in the title, so I think the wall is. A good place to start. So I’m going to zoom in on the bricks and the people building this wall.

5:06 So, as I said before, there are words on the blocks, and I am curious what these words are. I see jealousy. I can see competition. Here’s jealousy again, I see fear. And I can see here’s fear. Here’s competition and jealousy repeated again on the block. So why these particular words?

5:27 What does this have to do with Chinese immigration? Well, I said before that jobs are a big lure of Chinese immigrants coming to the United States. Chinese immigration to the United States begins in meaningful numbers during the California Gold Rush in the 1840s. So most Chinese immigrants are coming to the West Coast, which makes sense if

5:47 you think about the geography and where China is in relation to the United States. They’re coming to mine or they’re coming to work in industries associated with mining, so cooking or washing, things that miners need to do but don’t necessarily want to do themselves. After the Gold Rush, a lot of Chinese men mostly men coming

6:09 to the United States will get jobs working on the transcontinental railroads. The jobs that these immigrants were accepting were incredibly difficult and dangerous, and Chinese workers were offered a lower wage. They were also preferred by a lot of foremen on the railroads in particular, because they were cheaper, and they also thought that they worked harder.

6:31 So you can imagine that this is going to breed jealousy because Chinese workers are now competition for jobs. So there’s definitely an element of economic competition and jealousy. And unions in particular were guilty of this. A lot of unions started to call for excluding Chinese immigrants from coming to. The country altogether because their competition for jobs.

6:55 Now, if I can zoom out here, I want to go back to this other wall being built in the background. So I had said that many immigrants, many American merchants, were eager to trade with China. And this wall here that’s coming down was the historical walls or barriers that China had put up to trade.

7:15 And we can see the American traders flying the American flag are coming in. Because they want all the good stuff. That China has to offer. They want to trade. And another of the blocks over here on our wall says Non reciprocity. So for something to be reciprocal, it’s give and take, right? If we are taking goods from China, we want to trade with China for their luxury goods in particular.

7:39 What are we taking from them in return? Well, I just said that there are these cries to exclude Chinese immigrants. So the artist is pointing out sort of this hypocrisy, we’re interested in what you have to offer, but we’re not really interested in any of your people coming into the United States. So that element is at play here as well.

8:01 Another interesting thing going on with this wall is, you see laws against race and prejudice. Many Chinese immigrants met extreme discrimination when they came to the United States. So as I said before, many of the immigrants who came were men. They were either bachelors or they worked

8:22 and sent money back home to their families in China. And they tended to congregate in Chinatowns with their fellow immigrants. And this was perceived by some that Chinese immigrants were, quote unquote, beyond assimilation, or that they had no interest in adopting American culture and American norms. And the reality is a lot more complicated.

8:45 So in 1882, segregation is sort of the rule of the day in the United States, whether it’s officially a law on the books or whether it’s an accepted custom that’s, you know, that had a lot to do with why the Chinese were settling in these enclaves with other Chinese immigrants.

9:05 So the African American man in this cartoon is carrying this block that says laws against race. Who would better understand this ugly racial discrimination better than an African American man in 1882? The man carrying the block that says prejudice is a caricature of a Jewish immigrant.

9:26 So it’s almost if the artist is. Saying we’re using these ugly arguments of competition and fear and prejudice and we’re turning them against another group. All of the people building this wall are caricatures of other groups in the US society. So we have the Jewish immigrant, we have an African American, we have a. Civil War veteran, he’s wearing the keppie, the hat of a Civil War soldier.

9:50 You have a pretty ugly stereotype if you look at the face of an Irish immigrant. You have Italians. You have Frenchmen. So there’s this element of these groups turning against the Chinese. So in the 1880s there’s this debate raging in public opinion about whether or not Chinese immigrants should be allowed to come into the United States.

10:13 And now down here, the last thing I want to draw your attention to two is the bucket of congressional mortar that is putting all of these blocks into place. So public opinion is starting to cry for Chinese exclusion and Congress is now taking up the debate. And the man putting the wall together right here, this is Uncle Sam.

10:35 Now he’s kind of hard to recognize because he’s not in his red, white. And blue with his top hat. But that who the artist has chosen, is putting all this arguments together. And he’s also very pointedly included a block that says unamerican. Are these cries to exclude a group of people from coming to the United States? Are they un-american?

11:00 So this debate that’s going on in March of 1882 when we see this cartoon culminates with the passions of the Chinese Exclusion Act later that spring. So you can see from the image here on the screen that a lot of people were excited about the passage of this act, that the Chinese would not be coming in. And again, the arguments were very complicated.

11:21 There were economic arguments, there were this underlying racial argument and this is the first time, this Chinese Exclusion Act that you have federal legislation prohibiting an entire group of people from coming to the United States. So it’s very easy to point to. The Chinese Exclusion Act and think that. This is really flawed and this is an ugly episode in our past and it is for sure.

11:47 But you have to remember, and this is what sort of gives me hope in what our country is and what it’s capable of, that this was a debate and it was a discussion and not everybody agreed with this idea of excluding the Chinese or anyone else from coming to the United States.

12:07 The artist of our cartoon would be one example who’s clearly criticizing these arguments being leveled at Chinese immigrants. And I’ll leave you with a quote from another critic of the Chinese Exclusion, Frederick Douglas, who said in a speech arguing against this idea, the outspread wings of the American

12:28 eagle are broad enough to shelter all who are likely to come. Now I’m going to toss the ball to you. This cartoon has a lot to say about immigration, about prejudices, about how we view other groups coming to the country and how we interact with each other. So how do you think the discussion

12:49 surrounding immigration has changed in this country? Has it changed? What do we still need to do? I would really love to hear your thoughts. So be sure to like and subscribe to this video and be a part of our conversation. Bridge from the Past is back every other Thursday with new episodes, more primary sources to help us think about America’s fascinating and complicated past.

13:14 I would also encourage you to check out the Bill of Rights Institute’s essay contest, which is now going on. You can write an essay on the relationship between equality and justice, two more. Really important topics and concepts in American history. And there are thousands of dollars of scholarship prizes that could be won, so be sure to check that out.

13:34 And we’ll see you next time on another episode of Bridge from the Past.