Erin

Bellingham Riot of 1907

In the midst of tension, white laborers were targeting South Asians, leading to the Bellingham Riot of 1907. Laborers were upset at the loss of mill jobs to Asian workers because they were driving down wages, and decided to retaliate. On September fourth, white laborers broke into the mills, damaged property, and pulled Asian workers out forcing the police to put them in jail for their own safety. Many South Asians were beaten and forced to flee. After a couple days, the South Asians had completely disappeared from Bellingham.

The riot plus the anti-racism managed to keep all Asians out of Bellingham, at least until the 1960s after the government reconstructed immigration policy. I find this interesting in the sense that one city could manage to eradicate an entire race from a specific region. While we see cases of violence against immigrants in other areas, namely the Chinese, we have not seen a community of immigrants disappear for a long period of time, decreasing the diversity of the current place.

A newspaper article that came out after the riot did not condone the violence, however it did support the cause. South Asians were portrayed as low class Hindus, more dangerous than the Japanese, and even more unlikely to assimilate. At the same time they were congratulating the laborers who partook in the riot, claiming that jobs needed to stay among whites. It seems as if patriotism and comraderie were produced in the aftermath, and the violence was quickly dismissed. What we see in these riots is the public putting pressure on the government, asking them to restrict immigration to protect the well being of not the people, per se, but the white people. By depicting South Asians as a treachery to the American ideal, these newspapers were not only affecting their immediate community, but they would also affect the views of the rest of the country. From that point on, it would be difficult for a South Asian to approach a new place and not feel the stigma that arises from such a perception. Unfortunately, all groups of Asians would later feel this impact thanks to the spread of public media.

The most crucial part of their public reputation was that the South Asians present in Bellingham were of the Sikh religion, but because of the unfamiliarity with the culture, Americans and the press labeled them as Hindus. Not only were Sikhs unable to really solidify their own identity in America because of the constant grouping with Hindus, Hindus would struggle to separate themselves from Sikhs as well. It seems that at the time of the Bellingham riots, Sikhs and Hindus were both unfamiliar to the public and therefore would be labeled as “brown,” a term that would be used as an all-encompassing term.