ISBN:
9780774832182
,
0774832185
Language:
English
Pages:
ix, 279 pages
,
illustrations
,
24 cm
Edition:
Issued also in electronic format
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als Wallace, Sarah Isabel, 1981-, author Not fit to stay
DDC:
362.1097909/041
Keywords:
South Asians Health and hygiene 20th century
;
History
;
Immigrants Health and hygiene 20th century
;
History
;
Public health Political aspects 20th century
;
History
;
Public health Social aspects 20th century
;
History
;
Racism History 20th century
;
Marginality, Social History 20th century
;
Public Health history
;
Pacific Coast (North America) Emigration and immigration 20th century
;
History
;
Pacific Coast (North America) Ethnic relations 20th century
;
History
;
North America
Abstract:
"Not Fit to Stay: Public Health Panics and South Asian Exclusion examines how and why South Asians were prevented from immigrating to British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California between 1900 and 1920. In the first decades of the twentieth century, all Asian immigrants to Canada and the United States faced opposition to their arrival and settlement. While racism and fear of labour competition were at the heart of this resistance, panic soon swept up and down the West Coast of North America over unsubstantiated public health concerns. Public leaders--including physicians, union leaders, civil servants, journalists, and politicians--latched on to these health concerns as the basis for the exclusion of the South Asians, who were said to suffer from medical conditions and diseases attributed to their race. Even though many officials knew the public health argument had no grounds, they promoted it to support their racist views and concerns about labour. Legislation to restrict the immigration of South Asians took effect in Canada in 1908 and in the United States in 1917. This book is an important study of how white North Americans saw first-wave South Asian immigrants as separate from, and inferior to, other groups in the evolving racial hierarchy on the West Coast of North America."--
Abstract:
Introduction -- 1. "Leprosy and plague riot in their blood" : the germination of a thesis, 1906 -- 2. Riots, plague, and the advent of executive exclusion -- 3. "The public health must prevail" : enforcing exclusion -- 4. Amoebic and social parasites, 1910-13 -- 5. South Asians, public health, and eugenic theory -- 6. Franchise denied -- Conclusion
Note:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 199-253) and index
,
Issued also in electronic format.
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