A mob of angry white citizens. A white businessman pleading for his building to be spared from destruction. A group of 15 local leaders ordering all Chinese residents of Eureka, California, to leave within 48 hours.
The realities of the 1885 Eureka Chinese Expulsion are uncomfortable and upsetting to grasp, yet necessary in acknowledging.
In the chaotic days following, Chinese families boarded ships and were sent to the port of San Francisco. Those who stayed were threatened by extreme discrimination.
In 1882, the US Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, banning Chinese laborers from immigrating to the US for 10 years. Although Americans from all over felt the effects of the legislation, a particular wave of racism coursed through the Pacific Northwest.
Every year, February marks the anniversary of the Chinese Expulsion from Eureka, which continues to leave a mark on Humboldt County today. Though the City of Eureka never formally recognized the expulsions, the city supports current efforts to memorialize this history.
During the 1800s, many Chinese people lived in Humboldt County after being pushed to the coast from the more centrally-located gold mines. Settling and forming a Chinatown in Eureka, many Chinese workers grew vegetables and offered laundry services for the rest of the community.
In the years leading up to the Chinese Expulsion in Eureka, America was going through tough times, with economic hardships affecting most of the nation.
“Dennis Kearney [a passionate anti-Chinese orator] sought to unify Euro-American workers against a common enemy, blaming Chinese immigrants for the economic hardships,” historical researcher Dr. Alex Service said. “West Coast anti-Chinese agitation spread to national politics.”
After the passage of the 1882 act, many anti-Chinese advocates felt as though the government was not doing enough to enforce the legislation.
“There was growing animosity because Chinatown [was] a segregated area and you have a culturally different group and they celebrate in different ways,” Humboldt Asian and Pacific Islanders (HAPI) Steering Committee member Vicki Ozaki said. “But there was growing violence within the Chinatown community.”
In 1885, a stray bullet from a fight between two Chinese gangs hit and killed Eureka City Council member David Kendall. Combined with the growing anti-Chinese sentiment of the times and violence within the Chinatown community, the city finally made the final push to remove its Chinese residents.
“The municipalities started to talk about how wonderful it was that it was Chinese-free. So the word got around that this was an effective way, so other places in the West started to do these expulsions,” HAPI Steering Committee member Patty Humboldt Saito Hecht said.
The Eureka expulsion was the first of over 170 expulsions between 1885 and 1887.
“Through a campaign of intimidation and economic boycotts, the majority of Humboldt’s Chinese residents were pressured into leaving the county,” Service said. Though Humboldt County’s claim of being “Chinese free” was false, the Chinese residents who stayed despite the expulsion faced enormous emotional stress and discrimination. It wasn’t until after World War II and the repeal of the original Chinese Exclusion Act that Asian Americans began returning to Humboldt County.
“I don’t think there was consciousness of any wrongdoing, amendment-making [by government officials], or reparations,” Saito Hetch said.
Currently, HAPI’s Eureka Chinatown Project is working to create a monument that shares this often untold story. Planned to be located in Eureka on the corner of 1st and E Street, HAPI is hoping to break ground later this year. The design for the monument is close to completion, a celebratory feat for the Asian and Pacific Islander community in Humboldt County.
“When you [expel] a whole population, you erase their story,” Ozaki said. “We’re trying to balance this story out.”
For many AAPI individuals, they feel as though this monument is a necessary addition to Old Town Eureka.
“It’s a place for the people living in the community to be able to learn, and maybe think about or feel about [the history],” Ozaki said. “But it’s also [a place] for people who travel through and realize this thing happened here, and then for the kids of people living here.”
