Let’s remember when the entire Chinese community was expelled from Tacoma, on this day in 1885 (November 3)
In what is sure to be one of Stephen Miller’s favorite historical events, Tacoma expelled all of its Chinese citizens. It was vile and inexcusable.
Per HistoryLink’s Priscilla Long:
On November 3, 1885, a mob, including many of Tacoma’s leading citizens, marches on the city’s Chinese community and forces everyone out of their houses and out of town. Tacoma mayor Jacob Robert Weisbach has deemed the Chinese “a curse” and a “filthy horde.” The Tacoma Ledger and its editor Jack Comerford, the carpenters’ union, and many workers and business people have spewed racist rhetoric against the Chinese for months. Mass meetings inflame the hatred and the few dissenters, most notably Ezra Meeker and the Reverend W. D. McFarland, are ineffectual against it. The Chinese community has been given a deadline to get out by November 3. In reaction to the threats, about 150 frightened Chinese persons leave Tacoma before the deadline. The mob herds another 200 out on November 3. They lose their homes and most of their possessions, and they will not return. More than a century later, in 1993, the Tacoma City Council will pass a resolution to make amends and to apologize for the former city leaders’ actions.
Gross.
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