'A Long and Desperate Fight'

Editor:

Feb. 6 through Feb. 9 marks the 140th anniversary of the Eureka expulsion: when anti-Chinese activists engineered the expulsion of 300-plus Chinese community members (about 5 percent of Eureka’s population at that time). On Feb. 6, 1885, an argument between a few Chinese men escalated into a shooting, and a Eureka City Council member was killed in the crossfire. Police arrested several suspects, two of whom were eventually tried and acquitted. However, racist extremists attacked the entire Chinese community, seizing the tragic death of Councilman Kendall as the pretext to drive out every Chinese Eureka resident.

The 1885 expulsion inflicted lasting injury to Humboldt County’s psyche. Eureka’s expulsion inspired further evictions throughout the county. For around 80 years, a keynote of Humboldt’s public identity stated that this county was “no place for Chinese” (or, eventually, for anyone of Asian ancestry). Generations of Humboldters grew up in a county that demonstrated by its people’s actions that exclusion and race hatred were acceptable parts of the American way. When U.S. Army veteran Ben Chin opened his Canton Cafe in Eureka in 1954, he received telephoned death threats. Multiple Humboldters of Asian ethnicity, who live here today and who came to this county in the 1970s, ’80s and onward, were told by worried family members they should stay away, because this county’s defining characteristic is hatred.

I believe the 1885 expulsion was a tragedy not only for the expelled community members, but for this county and all of its people. In our current national struggle, the relevance of this history is obvious. Once again we are fighting over exclusion versus inclusion, over immigration policies and over who has the right to be considered truly “American.” It will be a long and desperate fight. For all our sakes, I pray that this time, inclusion will win.

Alex Service, Eureka