Our History of Blaming Immigrants for Disease
The ugly tradition of blaming newcomers for the spread of illness dates back to the United States’ earliest years
If critics most often summon the specter of criminality to dehumanize immigrants, the specter they’re likely to call upon second is disease. It’s a grotesque tradition that reaches back to the early years of our nation’s history. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, for example, was steeped in fears about Chinese workers bringing disease to the United States. A cartoon published that year in the Wasp, a popular West Coast magazine, captured the sentiment in the form of three horrifying ghosts looming over San Francisco and bearing the names Malarium, Small-Pox, and Leprosy.
The image represents a moment in California history when Chinese immigrants were scapegoated for the spread of disease. Several years earlier, San Francisco’s city health officer had also blamed Chinese people for a local smallpox epidemic, despite having no evidence:
I unhesitatingly declare my belief that this cause is the presence in our midst of 30,000… unscrupulous, lying and treacherous…
