Chinatown, c.1890 OrHi 9067

The completion of a northern transcontinental railroad brought new people, new ideas, and new ethnic groups to the Northwest. Even before the completion of the Northern Pacific, the Oregon and California Railroad Company (O&C) imported large numbers of Chinese laborers to build its line from Portland to Roseburg in the early 1870s. Many of the Chinese originally brought in to work on the Central Pacific line moved north after 1869 to take construction jobs on the O&C line.

The virulent anti-Chinese sentiment that developed in Oregon and the Northwest emerged early on, especially during economic downturns such as the Panic of 1873 and the short-lived depression of the mid-1880s. The anti-Chinese hatred centered on sometimes violent antagonisms of one segment of the working class against another. In the midst of rising unemployment, white workers feared that continuing to import cheap labor would threaten their livelihoods. For a people intolerant of racial and cultural differences, the Chinese were convenient scapegoats.

Although the most violent of the “Chinese Must Go” activity took place in communities on Puget Sound, threats against the Chinese occurred in every Oregon town along the O&C line, from Portland to Roseburg. Because of those animosities toward Chinese in the far western states and partly because of the virulent white worker protests, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. When Japanese immigrants began to replace Chinese workers in railroad construction and other labor-intensive industries, they would be subject to similar attacks.

Although the federal census for 1880 lists only 148 Japanese in the United States, that number would swell during the next three decades, with most of the immigrants coming as migratory workers to the Pacific states. Many of those who came first emigrated to Hawai’i, where they worked as contract laborers on sugar plantations before making the move to the mainland. The Japanese coming to Oregon worked as contract laborers on railroads, in the fishing and logging industry, and as agricultural fieldworkers, jobs formerly held by the Chinese. Many of these mostly male immigrants returned to Japan and then made second or third trips to the United States. By the early twentieth century, a few Japanese had pooled their resources and started small family-operated truck farms on the fringes of major cities, supplying fresh fruits and vegetables to people in Portland, Tacoma, and Seattle.

International geopolitics singled out Japanese immigrants for special attention when Japan emerged as a major world power after its defeat of Russian far-eastern forces in 1905. Jingoistic West Coast newspapers played up the Japanese threat and pointed to immigrant Japanese as a looming menace to American security and welfare. Large corporations competing with Japan for Pacific markets helped fan anti-Japanese fears.

While there were many more Japanese in California and Washington than in Oregon, their concentration in Multnomah and Hood River counties subjected them to the same abuses, injustices, and denial of civil rights that had earlier been visited on the Chinese. There was also jealousy over the successes of Japanese as farmers and the fact that after 1910 many Japanese men were joined by women through “picture-bride” arrangements. Writer Lauren Kessler estimates that thousands of Japanese women immigrated to the United States through such agreements.

© Copyright 2002, William G. Robbins

Themes: Social Relations,Transportation,Industrialization

Regions: Willamette Valley,Columbia River,Portland Metropolitan Area

Date: 1870-1920

Author: William G. Robbins

Summary:
The Oregon and California Railroad Company employed Chinese workers to build its Portland-Roseburg line while Japanese immigrants established themselves as migratory workers during the first decades of the twentieth century.