An Apology for Antioch's Riots on the Chinese: 145 Years Overdue.
Updated: Feb 5, 2022
In the year of 1876, not long after the ends of the Gold Rush, the Chinatown of Antioch, California, falls to merely wind whooshing in the background and the sun lighting up the streets. Chinese Americans, able and physically disabled, young and old, solemnly create lines of humans and heavy kerchiefs to board ferries to San Francisco and Stockton. They leave the places they called home, which will contain no more than a building and items too heavy to carry. They leave their economy in Chinatown. But, they also leave behind the tremendous denouncement of Chinese Americans.
Nowadays, this kind of mass scale event may rarely be even thought of. The amount of hatred that it would require. Only small traces remain of the past Chinatown. Back then, a sole doctor's blame on solely Chinese workers causing disease to a small number of young people enough to start an angry mob. The mob that went door to door telling all to leave. The mob seething in such amounts of hate that they wished to just kill many.
Then, a rumor spread. And then, fire. The rumor of Chinese Americans who returned home to further salvage their assets, claimed to be the justification for the fire. At 8PM the day after Chinatown's streets went barren, Chinatown's streets went up in flames. All but two buildings bound to meet their fate as ashes on the ground. Since 1851 with the banning of Chinese Americans outside after sunset, tunnels built underground used to get around after dark, then exposed. The fire and fury that burned in the hearts of these mobs, destined to fuel the fire and fury that burned down Antioch's Chinatown.
The Californian 1870's arrived with a timeline that revealed the outrageous extent of this anti-Chinese sentiment. Political parties named after the Golden State specifically to condemn all Chinese Americans, regardless of how civil they are.
“Today the remaining houses have been removed and Antioch is now free from this degraded class," mentions the Los Angeles Evening Express on May 2, 1876.
"Anti-Chinese sentiment is right, patriotic, and in every sense American,” the Los Angeles Herald declared as well in 1876.
The ratified state constitution of 1879 in California with one racially charged article: banning Chinese workers from employing the Chinese or Mongolian. Yet, if this was not enough, it expanded to the national level in 3 years' time: the barring of all Chinese laborers' immigration. Have you heard of the term enough is enough? With these atrocious acts one after another, it's safe to say enough discrimination was apparently not enough. One outspoken voice by San Francisco's Emperor Norton, calling for arsonists to be brought to justice, ignored. Never keen to repent and not wanting to give in, the mob blames the return of Chinese-Americans to Antioch on the burning. The mob shamelessly states that "no Chinaman has ever been interfered with," days after the attack on Chinatown.
Despite the damage back then, Antioch must have had enough time to repair, right?
Definitely not. Irreversible damage to the AAPI community now and much trust lost by Chinese Americans in the city of Antioch.
Nearly 100 years later, a 1960 census showing only 12 Chinese residents in the city of 17,000 people. In 1990, only around 3000 AAPI residents residing in the city of then 62,000 people. The proof of the effect of those events show not only in the history books, but in the statistics as well. The label of being a degraded class, the fact that anti-Chinese sentiment was accepted back then. How anti-Chinese sentiment was labeled right, patriotic, and American. Only expressions of "regret" from U.S. legislative branches for the block of Chinese immigrants.
But, one recent step must be praised as a step forward.
Lamar Thorpe, recently elected Antioch mayor, tours the sealed-off area in the basement of Reign Salon. Now, housing one of the last exhibits of Chinese American suffering during these times, the very same furnishings still line the underground tunnels used by them to get around after sunset. A kind first step, a sincere and public apology by the city council to all early Chinese immigrants and their descendants. Regarding the apology, a modest statement that mentions the inability to change the past but the ability to admit what has happened and repent. Then, the unanimous passing of a Council resolution allowing the creation of a Chinatown Historic District and funding for murals paying tribute to the history of Asians in Antioch.
For Lamar Thorpe, discrimination a deep issue of injustice considering his own cultural background. A driving tour by former Mayor Don Freitas giving Thorpe inspiration and information on past Chinese history as they passed what used to be Chinatown. Elected during unrest about justice for people of his own, Thorpe stepped up to the table with his attention shifting to justice about the AAPI population amid the killing of 6 AAPI individuals in spas in and around Atlanta.
The actions and thoughts of Thorpe and the city council, though long overdue from the city of Antioch, are a definite step in the right direction. The importance demonstrated with the explanation of California's actions of the 1870's and the actions demonstrated with the actions in Antioch of 2021. Stepping, small or large, in the right direction, is what is needed. It's what will help. It's what will help push away discrimination against AAPI individuals. This is an example of education, one key to prevent the propagation of anti-AAPI sentiment. One step in the right direction, of many that can be taken.
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