Name: VIPPER 2006-03-05 7:40
The "yellow peril" manifested itself in government policy with the U.S. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which reduced Chinese immigration from 30,000 per year to just 105. The labor leader Samuel Gompers argued, "The superior whites had to exclude the inferior Asiatics, by law, or, if necessary, by force of arms."
In 1920, the author Lothrop Stoddard wrote The Rising Tide of Color arguing against Asian immigration, claiming immigrants threatened American society, with their presence a "peril."
Individuals with racial bias in the Western United States emphasized the "yellow peril" as much as their counterparts in the Southern United States emphasized adverse stereotypes of African-Americans. Lynchings of Asian immigrants by vigilante groups were common in the early 1900s, paralleling the activities of the Ku Klux Klan and related groups in the South against African-Americans. California academics like David Starr Jordan and politicians like James D. Phelan (who ran for mayor of San Francisco and United States Senate on the platform of "Keeping California White") were firm believers in the "yellow peril", and the politics of Washington were highlighting the "yellow peril". The Yellow Peril as the primary form of West Coast racism and as a factor in politics seemed to die out in the mid-20th century, perhaps due to guilt over Japanese-American internment during World War II.
In the 1980s the Yellow Peril was revived as the US was in intense competition with Japan over industrial supremacy. Many believed that the beating to death of Vincent Chin was a part of US sentiment.
The Yellow Peril is a major topic of study in Asian American studies.
In 1920, the author Lothrop Stoddard wrote The Rising Tide of Color arguing against Asian immigration, claiming immigrants threatened American society, with their presence a "peril."
Individuals with racial bias in the Western United States emphasized the "yellow peril" as much as their counterparts in the Southern United States emphasized adverse stereotypes of African-Americans. Lynchings of Asian immigrants by vigilante groups were common in the early 1900s, paralleling the activities of the Ku Klux Klan and related groups in the South against African-Americans. California academics like David Starr Jordan and politicians like James D. Phelan (who ran for mayor of San Francisco and United States Senate on the platform of "Keeping California White") were firm believers in the "yellow peril", and the politics of Washington were highlighting the "yellow peril". The Yellow Peril as the primary form of West Coast racism and as a factor in politics seemed to die out in the mid-20th century, perhaps due to guilt over Japanese-American internment during World War II.
In the 1980s the Yellow Peril was revived as the US was in intense competition with Japan over industrial supremacy. Many believed that the beating to death of Vincent Chin was a part of US sentiment.
The Yellow Peril is a major topic of study in Asian American studies.