Discussion

Enforcing the Borders: Chinese Exclusion along the U.S. Borders with Canada and Mexico, 1882-1924

Erika Lee

There is no part [of the northem border] over which a Chinaman may not pass into our country without fear of hinderance; there are scarcely any parts of it where he may not walk boldly across it at high noon.

—Journalist Julian Ralph, 1891

There is a broad expanse of land with an imaginary line, all passable, all being used, all leading to the United States. The vigilance of your officers stationed along the border is always keen, but what can a handful of people do? It is a deplorable con- dition of afïàirs; we seem to be compelled to bear it; the Chinese do come in from Mexico.

—U.S. Immigrant Inspector Marcus Braun, 1907

In September 1924 a Chinese male immigrant named Lim Wah entered the United States illegally fTom Mexico. His goals were to find work and to join his father, a farm laborer in northern California. Legally excluded from the United States, Lim paid an American $200 to bring him from Mexicali, Mexico, to Calexico, California. They waited tmtil night and then crossed the border, ending up in San Francisco three days later. The Chinese exclusion laws (in effea fVom 1882 to 1943) greatly hindered Chinese immigradon to the United States, but as Lim Wah's case demonstrates, they did not serve as the total barriers that excltisionists had hoped fot. Deteriorating polidcal and economic condidons in south China, the availability of jobs in the United States, the U.S. Bureau of Immigradon's harsh enforcement procedures at r^jular ports of entry such as San Francisco, and the Chinese belief that the excltision laws were unjust—all had the unintended consequence of turning illegal immigra- don via the borders into a profitable and thriving business.'

Erika Lee is assistant professor of history at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. I woiJd like to thank Matthew Frye Jacobson, Claudia Sadowski-Smith, Marian Smith, Patrick McNamara,

Robert G. Lee, and Grace Delgado for their encouragement and suggestions. Valuable research assistance was pro- vided by Josephine Fowler. Joanne Meyerowitz, Richard White, the editorial staff of, and the four anonymous reviewers for, à\e Joumal of American History provided invaluable feedback and assistance in revisions.

Readers may contact I^e at <[email protected]>.

' The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers for a period of ten years and barred all Chinese immigrants from naturalized citizenship. Act of May 6, 1882, 22 Stat. 58; Testimony of

54 The Joumal of American History June 2002

Chinese Exclusion at the Borders with Canada and Mexico 55

It is esdmated that at least 17,300 Chinese immigrants entered the United States through the "back doors" of Canada and Mexico from 1882 to 1920.^ The number of Chinese entries pales in comparison with that of contemporary border migrants from Mexico, and recent scholarship has aU but ignored this early history of Chinese exclusion in the northern and southem borderlands. Nevertheless, I argue that Chi- nese immigration to and exclusion from the United States had transnational conse- quences that transformed the northem and southern borders into sites of contest over illegal immigration, race, citizenship, immigration policy, and intemadonal rela- tions. Considering Chinese immigration and exclusion from the vantage {>oint ofthe borders iUustrates both the racialization of U.S. immigradon policy and the impor- tance of the Chinese diaspora in the Americas. It also demonstrates how a seemingly nadonal issue can somedmes be understood only in a wider, transnational context. Race, borders, and immigradon policy in the United States, Canada, and Mexico became intertwined at the turn of the twendeth century over the issue of Chinese immigradon and exclusion.^

Prior to the 1870s, American immigration laws were aimed at recruidng, rather than restricting, foreign immigration. T"he Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) marks the first time in American history that the United States barred an immigrant group based on race and class. It excluded Chinese laborers and allowed only a few select classes of Chinese merchants, students, teachers, travelers, and diplomats to apply for admission to the country. The act also represents the first time that iUegal immigra- tion was defined as a criminal offense in U.S. law. The new policy also provided for the deportation of Chinese in the country illegally. When Chinese responded to exclusion by taking advantage of legal loopholes and cracks in the govemment's enforcement pracdces, they became the country's first iUegal immigrants, both in technical, legal terms and in the context of popular and polidcal representadons. Subsequent American immigration laws barred certain excludable aliens, such as con- tract laborers, convicts, idiots, and persons likely to become public charges or

Lim Wah, Dec. 2, 1932, file 12020/22130, Case Files of Investigations Resulting in Warrant Proceedings (12020), 1912-1950, San Francisco, Records ofthe Immigration and Naturalization Service, RG 85 (National Archives, Pacific Branch, San Bruno, Calif.).

- Since illegal immigration is difficult to quantify and detect, this estimate is specularive. It is drawn from: U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report ofthe Commissioner-General of Immigration to the Secretary of Commerce and Labors hor the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 7503 (Washington, 1903), 102; George E. Paulsen, "The Yellow Peril at Nogales: The Ordeal of Collector William M. Hoey," Arizona and the West, 13 (Summer 1971), 113-28; C. Luther Fry, "Illegal Entry of Orientals into the United States between 1910 and \92Ü' Joumal oJthe American Statistical Association, 23 üune 1928), VTb-Tl.

' On the northem and southern borders, see Timothy J. Dunn, The Militarization ofthe U.S.-Mexico Border, 1978—1992: Low-Intensity Conßict Doctrine Comes Home (Austin, 1996); Peter Andreas, Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide (Ithaca, 2000); and Bruno Ramirez, Crossing the 49th Parallel- Migration Jhm Canada to the United States, 1900-1930 (Ithaca, 2001). Studies that acknowledge the role of Chinese immigrarion and exclusion include George J. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity arid Acculturation in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900- 1945 (New York, 1993); and Grace Delgado, "In the Age of Exclusion: Race, Region, and Chinese Identity in the Making ofthe Arizona-Sonora Borderlands, 1863-1943" (Ph.D. diss.. University of California, Los Angeles, 2000). For studies on the northern and southem borderlands that use transnational and hemispheric frameworks, see Günther Peck, Reinventing Free Labor: Padrones and Immigraru Workers in the North American West, 1880- 1930 (New York, 2000), esp. 1-7; and Samuel Truett, 'Neighbors by Nature: The Transformation of Land and Life in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, 1854-1910" (Ph.D. diss., Yale Univereity, 1997), esp. 3. See also David Thelen, "The Nadon and Beyond: Transnational Perspectives on United States History," Joumal of America» His- tory, 86 (Dec. 1999), 965-75.

56 The Journal of American History June 2002

afflicted with a contagious disease. But until both illegal immigration and border enforcement changed in response to the 1924 immigration act, Chinese immigrants remained the main practitioners of illegal immigration and the main immigrant tar- gets of government scrutiny.^

Chinese border crossers highlighted the weaknesses in American immigration law and tested the sovereignty of the United States in relation to immigration for the first cime. They forced U.S. immigration officials to deal wich two interrdated problems: stopping illegal immigration at the nation's borders and expelling ulegal immigrants alreaidy residing in the country. The U.S. reaction signaled a new imperialist assertion of national sovereignty in the form of border control and the imposition of American nativism, immigration laws, and enforcement practices on both Canada and Mexico. The ways in which this played out in che norch and south, however, differed. In che north, U.S. efforts centered on "border diplomacy" based on a historically amicable diplomatic reladonship and a shared antipathy for Chinese immigration. In contrast, control over the southern border relied less on cooperation with Mexico and more on border policing, a system of surveillance, patrols, apprehension, and deportation. Boeh mechods eventually proved successful in dosing the northern and southern bor- ders to Chinese immigration. In doing so, chey laid the foundations for radalized understandings of the "illegal immigrant problem" and of American border enforce- ment and nation building at the beginning of che twentieth century.

Border Crossings along the Northern Border

The most numerous and earliest border crossings occtirred along the Canadian bor- der. Some of the first illegal border crossers were most likely Chinese residents of the United Scaces who had immigrated to Canada to work for the Canadian Pacific Rail- way Company (CPR) in the 1870s and chen foimd themselves exduded from the United Scaces afrer the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Others went straight co Canada from China wich the incencion of evencually encering the United States. The largely unguarded boundary between the United States and Canada made such border entries feasible and relatively easy to execute.^ Moreover, although Chinese immi- grants in Canada were targets of racial hoscilicy, Canada's Chinese immigration laws

* Prior to 1875 some state laws barred the entry of foreign paupers or fugidve slaves, but the 1875 Page Law (which forbade the entry of Asian laborers immigrating involuntarily and of prostitutes) and the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act were the first federal laws to exclude groups. The laner declared that any person who secured certif- icates of identity fraudulently or through impersonation was to be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, ñned $1,000, and imprisoned for up to five years. Anyone who knowingly aided and abetted tbe landing of "any Chinese person not lawfully endtled to enter the United States" could be chained with a misdemeanor, fined, and imprisoned for up to one year. The act declared thac "any Chinese person found unlawfully within the United States shall be caused to be removed therefiom to the country from whence be came." On pre-1875 immigration law, see Gerald L. Neuman, "The Lost Century of American Immigration Law, 1776-1875," Columbia Law Review, 93 (E>ec 1993), 1834-38. For the provisions of the Chinese Exclusion Act, see Act of May 6, 1882, sec 7, 11, 12, 22 Stat. 58. For post-1882 general immigration laws, see A a of Aug. 3, 1882, 22 Stat. 214; Immigration Act of 1891, 26 Stat. 1084; Act of Feb. 5, 1917, 39 Stat. 874; Act of May 26, 1924, 43 Stat. 153. On the 1924 change in immi- gration law, see Mae M. Ngai, "The Arciiitecnire of Race in American launigration Law: A Reexaminación of the Immigration Act of 1924," Journal of American History, 86 (June 1999), 67-92.

' Resident Chinese laborers who had been in the United States at the time of the act were allowed to reentei. David Chuenyan Lai, Chiruuowns: Towns within Cities in Canada (Vancouver, 1988), 52. The earliest reports of

Chinese Exclusion at the Borders with Canada and Mexico 57

contrasted sharply with those of the United States. Instead of imitating the U.S. prac- tice of direct exclusion of Chinese laborers, Canada's efforts to restrict Chinese immi- gration were indirect. In 1885 Canada's Chinese Immigration Act imposed a fifty- dollar head tax to be collected by each ship captain at the point of departure. Thus, though the United States explicitly singled out all Chinese laborers (and, for all intents and purposes, most Chinese immigrants), Canada's early measures allowed entry to every Chinese provided that he paid the landing fee.̂

Although the intent was to restrict Chinese immigration, Canada's head tax system was not a sufficient deterrent. Canada was such a convenient back door into the United States that the tax reduced the appeal of immigration to Canada but did not reduce the appeal of secondary immigration to the United States through Canada. Other aspects of Canadian immigration laws seemed to fadlitate Chinese illegal immigration across the border. Chinese immigrants destined for the United States were permitted to remain in the dominion for ninety days without paying the head tax and could presumably cross the border at will during that time. Those who had paid the head tax could also easily leave Canada.'' The relatively lenient Canadian laws combined with the increasingly stringent U.S. Chinese exclusion laws led directly to a rise in illegal border entries. After the United States passed the Scott Aa. (1888), which nullified the U.S. return permits of an estimated 20,000 Chinese laborers, 773 Chinese immigrated to Canada. In 1892, 3,264 more Chinese immi- grated to Canada following the U.S. passage of the Geary Act, which extended the exclusion of any additional Chinese laborers from the United States for another ten years and required those already in the country to register with the federal govern- ment. Witnesses at U.S. congressional hearings in 1890 and 1891 estimated that 300 to 2,000 Chinese entered illegally each year.** Even after Canada raised its head tax to $100 in 1900, American officials complained that the Canadian laws "practically nullified . . . the effective work done by the border officers."'

Chinese border crossers took advantage of established smuggling networks involv- ing opium and other contraband substances along the U.S.-Canadian border. The Vancouver—Puget Sound area was known as a "smugglers' paradise" in the opium trade, and Chinese and their American or Canadian guides used the same smuggling boats and routes to make the journey to the United States. The cost of crossing the

illegal border crossings by Chinese appear in northwestern newspapers in June and July 1883. See 'Chinese in B.C.," Port Townsend Puget Sound Argus, June 15, 1883; "More about the Chinese," ibid., July 9, 1883.

' Act of July 20, 1885, ch. 71, 1885 S.C. 207-12 (Can.); Patricia E. Roy, A White Man's Province: British Columbia Politicians and Chinese and Japanese Immigrants, 185&-J914 (Vinœava, 1989), 59-^3.

' Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration . . . 1903. 97.

* Statistics are compiled firom Canadian Royal Commission on Chinese and Japanese Immigration, Report of the Royal Commission on Chinese and Japanese Immigration (1902; New York, 1978), 271, as cited in Qingsong Zhang, "Dragon in the Land of the Eagle: The Exclusion of Chinese fiom U.S. Citizenship" (Ph.D. diss.. Univer- sity of Virginia, 1993), 238; and U.S. Congress, House, Select Committee on Immigration and Naturalizanon, Investigation of Chinese Immixtion, 51 Cong., 2 sess., 1890, H. Rqjt. 4048, serial 2890, p. 1.

'Actofjtiiy 18, 1900, ch. 32, 1900 S.C. 215-21 (Can.); U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, y^wn««/ Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor: For the Fiscal Year Ended Juru30, /i»/0 (Washington, 1910), 143; U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, yliimWÄporfo/lAi Gim- missioner-General of Immigration to the Secretory of Commerce and Labor: for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1911 (Washington, 1911), 159.

58 The Journal of American History June 2002

border along this route ranged from $23 to $60 in the 1890s. One decade later, bor- der crossing through Washington State cotild cost up to $300.'" Other popular entry points were along the northeastern border. The completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which stretched several thousand miles from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Montreal, Quebec, allowed immigrants to enter at a western seaport in Canada and then travel across the country to the east, where entry into the United States was even less guarded. Aided by Chinese already in the United States and white Ameri- cans looking for a ready profit, the business of transporting Chinese through Bufïàlo, New York, for example, became well organized and very profitable. In 1909 one newspaper reporter found that two to four Chinese were brought into Buffalo weekly, at a price of $200 to $600. Chinese were also commonly brought from the Canadian border to Boston and New York City in groups ranging from two to sev- enty-five in number. Corrupt immigration officials and judges along the border facil- itated the illegal entry of Chinese by either masterminding the routes or admitting Chinese immigrants into the country in exchange for money."

Thus, until 1923, when Canada passed a more complete exclusion biU, it remained a convenient route into the United States for anyone willing and able to pay the head taxes. This migration across the border prompted one Oregon magazine editor to complain that "Canada gets the money and we get the Chinamen," and reporters wrote about the growing "Chinese leak" coming in from Canada. As U.S. immigration officials began to understand the magnitude of the problem facing them along the U.S.-Canadian border, they also looked warily to the south and correctly predicted that the Mexican boundary would "undoubtedly be the next point of attack."'-

Chinese Border Crossings from Mexico

As in Canada, in Mexico immigration policies regarding Chinese contrasted sharply with American laws, creating another back door into the United States. When the United States passed its exclusion law, both Chinese and Mexican authorities were encouraging Chinese migration to Mexico. The Chinese government believed that Mexico and other Latin American countries were convenient alternatives to the

'" Lai, Chinatowns, 23; Julian Ralph, "The Chinese Leak," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 82 (March 1891), 520-23; Roland L. De Lorme, "The United States Bureau of Customs and S m u ^ i n g on Puget Sound, 1851- 1913," Prologue, 5 (Summer 1973), 77—88; Hyung-chan Kim and Richard W. Markov, "The Chinese Exclusion Laws and Smuggling Chinese into Whatcom Clount)-. Washington, 1890-19(K)," Annals of the Chinese Historical Society of the Pacific Northwest (\')i'i), 16—30; Department of Commerce and Lahot, Anntial Report of the Commis- sioner-General of Immigration. . . 1903, 9S-99.

" U.S. Congress, Senate, Reports on Charge of Frattdulent Importation of Chinese, 49 Cong., 1 sess., 1886, S. D o c 103, p. 8; James Bronson Reynolds, "Enforcement of the Chinese Exclusion l^vi," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 34 (no. 2, 1909), 368; U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor: For the Fiscal Year Ended June30, /iW(Washington, 1904), 137-41; Stanford Lyman, ChinaeAmericans (nev/\oïk. 1974), 106. On cor- rupt federal judges, see U.S. Depanment of Commerce and Lahot, McGettrick Certificates: List of Chinese Cases Tried before Former U.S. Commissioner Felix W. McGettrick, for the District of Vermont, from December 11, ¡894, to

June 24, /»P7 (Washington, 1906). '- Ralph, "Chinese Leak," 515; Department of Commerce and Lahor, Annual Report of the Commissioner-Gen-

eral of Immigration. . • 1903, 101.

Chinese Exclusion at the Borders with Canada and Mexico 59

United States, where racial hostility and discriminatory laws placed Chinese at risk. Likewise, Mexican officials believed that foreign immigration was an essendal ingre- dient in the development and modernization of the country's infrastructure during the Porfiriato, the rule of President Porfirio Díaz from 1876 to 1911. Attempts to attract Etiropeans—considered the most desirable immigrant group)—failed. Instead, Chinese came in significant numbers and increasingly moved into local trade and commerce, meeting new demands for goods and services in the newly expanding sodety. After China and Mexico signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce in 1899, Chinese immigration to Mexico increased. Like their fellow migrants in the north, the Chinese in Mexico also faced racial hostility, and an organized anti-Chinese movement developed in the early 1900s, reaching a climax during the 1930s. How- ever, it did not result in the legal restriction of Chinese immigration. One reason was that though Mexican officials found Chinese immigrants "undesirable," they also admitted that Chinese labor was beneficial and necessary. Anti-Chinese sentiment in Mexico also did not hinder secondary migradon to the United States. The open bor- der continued to facilitate both Mexican and Chinese immigradon to the United States.'3

By 1906 U.S. government attempts to curb Chinese illegal entries along the northern border had proved effective enough that the business of illegal immigtadon shifted south. Soon thereafter, the Mexican border was considered the greatest trou- ble spot in relation to Chinese illegal immigradon. One immigrant inspector went so far as to say that legitimate immigration via Mexico was "a joke, a hollow mockery." It was estimated that 80 percent of the Chinese arriving at Mexican seaports eventu- ally reached the border. From 1907 to 1909, 2,492 Chinese were arrested by U.S. ofFicials for illegal entry along the Mexican border. Mexican statisdcs on Chinese immigration also suggest that from 1,000 to 2,000 Chinese migrated illegally to the United States per year during the Porfiriato.'''

Chinese immigrants choosing the circuitous route through Mexico usually disem- barked in Ensenada, Manzanillo, Mazadán, or Guaymas and then took either another steamer going north or the railroad, making sure to disembark well before the trains had reached the United States, where immigration officiais were tracking passengers. Entry west of El Paso, Texas, was especially popular for those wishing to

" Ching-Hwang Ven, Coolies and Mandarins: China's Protection of Overseas Chinese during the Late Ch'ing Period (1851-1911) (Singapore, 1985), 292; Raymond B. Craib III, Chinese Immigrants in Porfirian Mexico: A Preliminary Study of Settlement, Economic Activity, and Anti-Chinese Sentiment (Albuquerque, 1996), 8, 22, 24; Evelyn Hu-DeHart, "Racism and Anti-Chinese Persecution in Sonora, Mexico, 1876-1932," Amerasia Journal, 9 (no. 2, 1982), 2-4, 13.

" On the new threat to the Mexican border and U.S. government estimates, sec U.S. Department of Com- merce and Labor, Annual Report of the Cornmissioner-General of Immigration to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor. For the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, /906^ (Washington, 1906), 98: "Report by Marcus Braun, U.S. Immi- grant Inspector, New York, to Hon. Frank P. Sargent, Commissioner General of Immigration, Dept. of Com- merce and Labor, Washington, DC, dated Feb. 12, 1907," file 52320/1, Subject Correspondence, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, RG 85 (National Archives, Washington, D . C ) . U.S. government esti- mates are included in J. W. Berkshire to Commissioner-General of Immigration, April 16, 1910, file 52142/6, ibid.; Zhang, "Dragon in the Land of the Eagle." 372. For Mexican statistics, see Evelyn Hu-DeHan, "Immi- grants to a Developing Society; The Chinese in Northern Mexico, 1875-1932," Joumal of Arizona History, 21 (Autumn 1980), 275-312, esp. 282-83.

60 The Journal of American History June 2002

go to the West. In fact, the town was known as a "hot-bed for the s m u ^ i n g of Chi- nese." Those headed to the eastern states might take a sea route to Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and other Culf Coast states. Some Chinese simply walked across the line by themselves or hitchhiked a ride northward. Law Ngim, for example, found his way north, crossed the border, rested on the side ofthe road, and then waved down a car to take him to San Francisco in the 1920s. Others hired guides and engaged in highly organized plans. In 1903 one "band of fifreen to twenty Chinamen" was found camped out in a "safe house" about seventy-five miles southeast of San Diego. While the Chinese hid inside the building, their Mexican guides went into town to buy provisions and make further preparations. The average cost for a guide ranged from $25 to $75 in the 1890s, depending on where the crossing took place. By the 1930s, it had increased to $200."

As in Canada, Chinese border migradon in the south was built on an established foundation of U.S.-Mexican trade and smuggling networks that thrived in south- western border towns. There Chinese border crossings were an "open secret," and Amedcan immigration officials along the southem boundary complained that Chi- nese illegal immigtadon was "carried on with the cognizance if not with the con- cealed cooperation ofthe local [Mexican] authorities." Chinese illegal immigration depended on those established networks, and Chinese on both sides of the border could be counted on to provide assistance. Newly arrived Chinese immigrants in Mexico were provided with American money, Chinese-English dicdonaries, Chinese American newspapers, and American railroad maps. Immigrant guidebooks to Mex- ico also circulated, and fraudulent immigration documents manufactured in Mexico arrived at the El Paso post office "almost daily." One Bureau of Immigradon report complained that both laborers and merchants in the Chinese community of El Paso "banded together as one man for the purpose of concealing . . . those Chinese coolies who have crossed the line." Rumors of hidden, underground chambers or rooms built between the ceilings and roofs of Chinatowoi businesses spread among El Paso residents and immigradon officials alike.'^

" Berkshire to Commissioner-General of Immigration, Oct. 17, 1907, file 52212/2, pan 1, Subject Corre- spondence, Immigration and Naturalization Service Rtxords (Washington, D.C); Testimony of Lawf Ngim, May 17, 1931, file 12020/19153. Case Files of Investigations, Immigration and Namralization Service Records (San Bruno, Calif.). On the organized smuggling attempts, see Charles W. Snyder to Commissioner-General of Immi- gration, Nov. 11, 1903, folder 22, box 2, Hart Hyatt North Papers (Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley). On the cost of border crossing, see "Report by . . . Braun . . . Feb. 12, 1907"; U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report ofthe Commissioner-General of Immigration to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor: For the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1902 (Washington, 1902), 75; U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report ofthe Commissioner-General of Immigration to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor. For the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1907 (Washington, 1907), 110; Ralph, "Chinese Leak," 524; Paulsen, "Yellow Peril at Nogales," 113-28; and Testimony of Lim Wah, Dec 2, 1932, file 12020/22130, Case Files of Investigations, Immigration and Naturalization Service Records (San Bruno, Calif.).

" Ralph, "Chinese Leak," 524; Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report ofthe Commissioner-Gen- eral cf Immigration . . . 1907, 111; Craib, "Chinese Immigrants in Porfirian Mexico," 8. On cross-border net- works, see Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report ofthe Corrtmissioner-General of Immigration . . . 1907, 110; "Digest of, and Comment Upon, Report of Immigrant Inspector Marcus Braun, dated September 20, 1907," file 51630/44D, Subject Correspondence, Immigration and Naturalization Service Records (Washington, D . C ) ; and Burton Parker to Secretary of the Treasury, June 5, 1909, file 52516/7, ibid. On Chinese in El Paso, see U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report ofthe Commissioner-General of Immigration to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor: For the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1905 (Washington, 1905), 95-96.

Chinese Exdusion at the Borders with Canada and Mexico 61

Crossings and Contact Zones in the Borderlands

The "banding together" of the Chinese of El Paso with che Chinese coming in from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, refleccs not only the transnational connections between and among Chinese immigranc communicies in the United Scaces and Mexico buc also the fluidity of the border region for Chinese ill^al immigrancs. Indeed, much like concemporary migratory accivicy in che U.S.-Mexican borderlands, Chinese immi- gration and exclusion along both che northern and southern borders resembled "a world in motion" made up of shifting and multiple identities and relationships con- structed for the purpose of illegal migration.'"

One of the best examples of that multiplicity involves radal crossings, attempts by Chinese to pass as members of another race in order to cross the border undetected. Even though Chinese migration to boeh Canada and Mexico dated from as far back as the middle of che nineteenth century, Chinese were not viewed as "natural" inhab- itants of the northern and southern borderlands like Mexicans or Native Americans. Indeed, che mere presence of Chinese along the border could raise suspicion among government officials. Some Chinese immigrants and cheir guides thtis learned, begin- ning in the early 1900s, to try to pass as Mexican or Native American as they crossed the border. Although such elaborate strategies were by no means the only way to cross the border undetected, chey were indeed effeccive. In 1904 che Buffalo Times reported thac it was not tmcommon for white "smugglers" to disguise the Chinese as Native Americans crossing from Canada to the United States in ptirsuit of trade. They would be dressed in "Indian garb," given baskets of sassafras, and rowed across the border in boats.'"

Racial crossings were common along the southem border as well. In 1907 special government inspectors reporced on a highly organized, Chinese- and Mexican-run illegal immigration business headed by the Chinese Mexican José Chang in Guay- mas. Chinese immigrants landed in Mexico on the pretense that chey had been hired to work in the cotton fields there. Chang chen brought them to his headquarters in Guaymas, where letters from the immigrants' United States relatives were distributed and further preparations for the border journey were made. One of che mosc impor- canc seeps in Chang's operation involved disguising the newly arrived Chinese as Mexican residents. The Chinese cut their queues and exchanged clieir "blue jeans and felt slippiers" for "the most picturesque Mexican dress." They received fraudulent Mexican citizenship papers, and they also learned to say a few words of Spanish, espe- cially "Yo soy mexicano" (I am Mexican). As in the case of the Native American dis- guise, the Mexican one was supposed to protect Chinese should chey be "held up by some American citizen" while attempting to cross the border. The Mexican disguise was apparendy quite successful. In 1907 the immigrant inspector Marcus Braun trav- eled undercover to Mexico co investigace Chinese, Japanese, and European immigra- cion through Mexico co the United States. In Mexico City he imcovered the use of fraudulent Mexican dcizenship certificaces and photographs by Chinese to facilitate

" Glorí» Aixaaidùi, Borderlands/La Frvntera: The New Mestiai (Sin frxnàsco, ]987),prefece. " Buffalo 7tmes,]3ji. 18, 1902, p. 5. See siso New Yori Ttmef, Nov. 2% \896, p. 1; <¿¿¿, June 10, 1891, p. I.

62 The Journal of American History June 2002

t h d r entry into the United States. O n examination of the photographs, Braun expressed amazement that it was "exceedingly difficult to distinguish these Chinamen ftom Mexicans." To make his point even clearer, he included in his report two "exhibits" of the fraudulent citizenship papers as well as photographs of Chinese on a steamship, emphasizing that the Chinese in question could easily pass as Mexican without detection."

Racial crossings were not confined to the northern and southern borders. One government report on the illicit entry of Asian and European immigrants via Cuba described a particularly successftil strategy of "painting the Chinese black" to disguise them as part of the steamship's crew. They apparently "walked off the steamer in New Orleans viathout trouble." In Mobile, Alabama, an immigrant inspeaor reported a project to bring in newly arrived Chinese from Mexico and then "disguise the China- men as negroes." Mobile was apparently a popular destination point because it was home to one man—referred to by fellow Chinese as "Crooked Face"—whose spe- cialty was disguising Chinese immigrants as African Americans.^"

Chinese immigrants in effect traded their own racial uniforms, which elicited sus- picion in the borderlands, for others that would allow them to blend into particular regional and racial landscapes. In the north, the dominant racial "others" were Amer- ican and Canadian Indians. In the Southwest, they were Mexicans and American Indians, and in the South, they were African Americans. Chinese illegal immigrants learned to use the ways race marked each particular regional landscape to their own advantage in order to enter the country undeteaed.

If Chinese racial crossings reflected the multiple, hybrid nature of the borderlands, then the multiracial character of the Chinese illegal immigration business defined the border as a contact zone where people—mostly men—of different races, classes, and nationalities met and sometimes formed fragile alliances. The most numerous smug- glers were white American or European immigrant men working with Chinese accomplices and organizers. Many were often already involved in illegal activities. Others apparently participated in the business on the side. Either their regular occu- pations or their geographical locations facilitated covert activities. In Seattle the loco- motive engineer Billie Lx)w and the fireman Bat Nelson took advantage of Low's railroad connections to bring both Chinese immigrants and opium into the United States from Vancouver. In Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, a government informant reported, "a certain ring of Greeks" who owned a store and factory were "running Chinese" through Mexico. The store and factory provided substantial housing for the newly arrived immigrants as well as cover for the illegitimate activities. Even those working in the highest levels of law enforcement were involved in the business of Chinese illegal immigration. In 1908 several witnesses and government informants

" "Repon b y . . . Braun . . . Feb. 12, 1907," 30-33; Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration . . . 1907. 110—11.

^ "Repon of Inspector Feri F. Weiss to Commissioner-General oFImmigration In re: Cuban Smugglers," April 4, 1925, file 55166/31, Subject Correspondence, Immigration and Naturalization Service Records fWashington, D . C ) ; Feri F. Weiss to Commissioner-General of Immigration, Feb. 25, 1925, ii>id. My thanks to Libby Garland for these sources. P. H. Shelton to Commissioner-General of Immigration, Aug. 15, 1911, file 53161/2-A, ibid.

Chinese Exclusion at the Borders with Canada and Mexico 63

came forward with evidence that the former chief of police Edward M. Fink was "the leader of one of the gangs of smugglers" in El Paso.-̂ '

American Indians were also known to guide Chinese into the country, especially aaoss the northern borden In the south, however, the Papago Indians "seemed to have a natural andpathy for Chinese," according to the immigrant inspeaor Clifford Perkins, and thus were routinely hired as government informants to help apprehend Chinese illegals. Mexicans were ofren the primary guides across the southern border, and they made a handsome profit from selling provisions to Chinese and guiding them. In 1912 Luis Fernandez, Jordan Felize, and Wong Gong Huey of Mexicali joined Ethel Hall, Muy Fat, Lin Fat, and Chin Man of San Francisco in a transna- tional "notorious smuggling ring" that came under government scrutiny. Multiracial alliances forged in the underground business of illegal immigration, however, could be fragile. For example, Mexicans were not always working on the same side as the Chinese. Some Mexicans might be paid informants, employees of the U.S. Bureau of Immigration, or even witnesses in courts, while others refused to assist Chinese lest their aaions call unwanted attention to themselves. Fragüe or formal, the multiracial relationships and alliances made Chinese illegal immigration possible and profit-

"John Chinaman and His Smugglers": Constructing the Chinese Illegal Immigrant

Though the business of illegal immigration relied on an ability to function beyond and below the sight of government authorities, illegal Chinese immigration became the very public symbol of the continuing "Chinese problem" that had inspired the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in the first place. As a result, Chinese border crossers became the public image of a new type of immigrant—the "illegal." The American public learned about Chinese border crossings through sensationalist regional and national newspaper reports, magazine articles, and government investi- gations. The reportage borrowed extensively from exisdng racial stereotj'pes of Chi- nese, ofren merging the illegal aspea of their migration with coexisting charges that Chinese were either cunning criminals or "coolies" whose immigration constituted a harmful invasion of inferior and imassimilable aliens. As Robert G. Lee has illus- trated, beginning in the 1850s, the racialized character of "John Chinaman" in American plays, songs, minstrel shows, and fiaion created and reinforced the popu- lar representadon of Chinese immigrants as both "pollutants" who endangered

'̂ On rhe Seattle activities, see Thomas M. Fisher to Commissioner-General of Immigration, May 7, 1917, file 53788/3, ibid. On Chinese illegal immigration through Mississippi, see M. R. Snyder to S. E. Redfem, Feh. 2, 1911, file 53161/2, ibid On the corrupt El Paso police chief, see Richatd H. Taylor to Commis.sioner-General of Immigration, O a . 24, 1908, file 52212/2, ibid.

^ On American Indians, see Clifford AJIan Perkins, Border Patrol: With the U.S. Immigration Service on the Mexican Boundary, 1910-54 (Washington, 1978), 23. On Mexicans, see Deparnnent of Commerce and Lahor, Anntial Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration... 1910, 146; and Berkshire to Commissioner-General of Immigration, Sept. 19, 1912, file 53507/32, Suhject Correspondence, Immigration and Naturalization Service Records (Washington, D.C.). On Mexican informants, see Preventing Immigration of Chinese Labor from Canada and Mexico, 1891, H. Rept. 2915, cited in Leon C Mea, Border: The U.S.-Mexico Line (BViso, 1989), 365; and Perkins, Border Patrol, 23.

64 The Journal of American History June 2002

American society with their alien presence and unfree, servile coolies who threatened the white working class. By the 1880s "John Chinaman" also came to be the primary

Chinese Exclusion at the Borders with Canada and Mexico 65

image through which Chinese iUegal immigration was explained in both popular magazines and polidcal discourse.^'

The San Francisco—based weekly illustrated journal the Wasp was one of the first publieadons to ardculate and illtistrate fears of Chinese iUegal immigration from Canada and Mexico with a two-p£^e, color iUustration endtled "And SdU They Come!" Printed in 1880, while and-Chinese polideians were still laying the ground- work for the eventual passage ofthe 1882 Chinese Exdusion Act, the cartoon played on fears of future Chinese iUegal immigradon from the north and south. Having just failed to enact the 1879 Fifreen Passenger BiU that would have limited to fifreen the number of Chinese passengers on any ship coming to the United States, the support- ers of Chinese exdusion worked tirelessly to keep the specter of an alien Chinese invasion alive and well. "And Stül They Come!" ardculated the Chinese exclusion message perfecdy. It portrays two endless streams of slant-eyed "Johns" or Chinese coolies disembarking from overcrowded steamships and flowing into the United States. Their racial difference is dearly marked and communicated through exagger- ated racial features inscribed onto the bodies ofthe Chinese figures and through alien Chinese dress and hair. The dark slits that are supposed to be eyes are mere physical manifestations of the surreptidous, sneaky nature of the Chinese. Their loose-fitting garments, broad coolie hats, Chinese baskets, and shoes emphasize the alien customs that will pollute America. Finally, the long, rattail-like braided plaits of hair worn by the Chinese men represent a cultural anomaly that is both sexually and raciaUy ambiguous and threatening. Entering surreptitiously through two back doors labeled "British Columbia" and "Mexico," the Chinese gleefully flout U.S. attempts to bar them. They easily evade an eaglelike Uncle Sam who is trying in vain to shut Amer- ica's main gates to a third wave of Chinese coolies entering by sea. With his back turned toward the Chinese entering from the north and south, Unde Sam is oblivi- ous to the larger threats posed by the open borders and fails to nodce the Chinese thumbing their noses at him, U.S. law, and the sovereignty of the American nadon. As a symbol of the imminent invasion of Chinese, the two steamships docked in British Columbia and Mexico sag with the weight of coundess Chinese hanging from the spars and streaming down the gangplank into the United States. On the distant horizon, dozens of Chinese vessels and even air balloons filled with Chinese leave China and make their way to the shores of the United States. Each ship and balloon is marked by the number fifteen, alluding to the unsuccessful Fifreen Passenger Bill and demonstrating how the cunning Chinese would undoubtedly evade and take advantage of AmeHca's ineffectual immigradon and border polides through an out- right invasion.-̂ "*

" On the construction of "John Chinaman," see Robert G. Lee, Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture (Philadelphia, 1999), 9, 22, 32. Illegality became a racially inscribed category for Mexicans in the 1924 Immigra- tion Act, according to Ngai, "The Architecture of Race in American immigrarion Law," 67-92.

^* Both the Senate and the House passed the Fifteen Passenger BiU, demonstraring nadonal and hipardsan sup- port for Chinese exclusion. A presidenrial veto blocked its enactment. See Andrew Gyory, Closing the Gate: Race, Potitia, and the Chinese Exclusion Act iCh^pei Hill, 1998), 3-6. "And Srill They Come!," Wasp, Dec 4, 1880, p. 280.

66 The Journal of American History June 2002

Much like the journeys of concemporary illegal immigrancs across the souchern border, Chinese border crossings ac che cum of the twentieth century were risky endeavors, often resulting in deach. Reprinted from Harjjer's New Monthly Magazine, March 189 J.

Beginning in die 1890s, afrer Chinese border entries had indeed become a reality, the Sf>eccer of the Chinese ill^al immigrant received more national press coverage. Speakers before the U.S. Congress likened the influx of Chinese from Canada to the "swarming of the Huns" in early European history.-^ In 1891 Harper's New Monthly Magazine published an exposé written by the journalist Julian Ralph. Tiding the piece "The Chinese Leak," Ralph explained in detail the strategies tised by Chinese to enter the United States from Canada and Mexico. Lax Canadian laws, "wily" Chi- nese, and profit-hungry Canadian and American smugglers and "pilots" all figured prominendy in Ralph's investigation. Four illustrations accompany the article. One, simply tided "John," portrays a young, disheveled Chinese male walking, presumably across the border. His queue trails in the wind behind him. His dress and shoes are distinctly Chinese, and che slane of his eyes is overemphasized. Here, che image of "John Chinaman" conneccs che standard racialized caricature of Chinese immigrants as alien coolies to the new phenomenon of illegal immigration. Ralph's text running

-' Ralph, "Chinese Leak," 516. See also U.S. Treasury Department, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration to the Secretary of the Treasury: For the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1897 (Washington, 1897), 758; U.S. Depanment of the Treasury, Alleged Illegal Entry into the United States of Chinese Persons: Letter from the Secre- tary of the Treasury. . . . . 55 Cong., 1 sess., 1897, Sen. D o c . 167, p . 153; Zhang, "Dragon in the Land of the Eagle," 349-50; Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration . .. ¡S)04, 149, 626.

Chinese Exclusion at the Borders with Canada and Mexico 67

alongside the image elaborates on the connection. Readers are told that John and other Chinamen who crossed the border were especially "impenetrable," "shrewd," and "intelligent trickster" members of their race. The inhuman conditions to which Chinese subjected themselves in order to enter the United States were also taken by Ralph to be signs of Chinese racial inferiority. In 1891 Ralph witnessed the interdic- tion of the North Star, a "tiny" s m u ^ l i n g boat in "desperately bad condition" that frequendy carried as many as thirty Chinese males in her hold from Victoria, British Columbia, to the United States. Noting the small stature of the Chinese and their "raisin-like adaptability . . . to compressed conditions," Ralph observed that it would have been difficult, if not unthinkable, to transport "men of any other nationality" in the same fashion. A more graphic image entitled "Dying of Thirst in the Desert" accompanies Ralph's exploration of Chinese border crossings in the south and por- trays an abandoned, parched, and dying Chinese male in the desolate southwestern desen. His canteen empty and his hat and walking stick abandoned on the desert floor beside him, this John crawls on his bony, clawlike hands and knees toward the U.S. border. In stark contrast to the comfortable, middle-class lives of Harper's read- ers, the shocking illustration sensationalized the phenomenon of Chinese illegal immigration. Although it could be perceived as a somewhat sympathetic image that pointed to the desperate measures Chinese were willing to take to enter the United States, "Dying of Thirst in the Desen" nonetheless reinforced racialized notions of Chinese criminality, alienness, racial inferiorit}', and difference and the threat of inva- sion with the very same depiction of desperation and tragedy.-^

Not surprisingly, the construction of the Chinese illegal immigrant was especially strong in the American West and in the northern and southern border regions where most of the illicit migration took place. Both American and Canadian newspapers located in the border regions regularly and actively covered the smuggling of Chinese from the north into the south. All the major newspapers in Buffalo, New York, for example, covered Chinese illegal immigration in minute detail. One Buffalo Evening News article prominently displayed a stereot}'pical image of a disheveled, menacing, and subhuman Chinese male under the headline "Wily Tricks Played by John China- man and His Smugglers." Contending that the evasion of exclusion laws was com- mon among the "wily" and "heathen" Chinese, the newspaper warned that the "smuggling business" would continue to "flourish and defy authorities." Explicitly connecting the new threat of illegal Chinese immigration with the standard anti-Chi- nese rhetoric from the 1870s, the headline was accompanied by a few lines from Bret Harte's popular anti-Chinese poem first published in 1871:

Which is Why I Repeat (And I'm Free / to Maintain) That for Ways That / Are Dark and for Tricks / That Are Vain, the / Heathen Chinee is / Peculiar.

In another artide, a Chinese immigrant who was caught trying to enter the country illegally was described as a "Chink" who used his "long, talon-like nails" in a s t r u d l e with law enforcement officials.^^

" Ralp^h, "Chinese Leak," 516-19, 522, 444. "̂ Buffalo EveningNews. Feb. 1, 1904, p. 9; Buffalo Morning Express, Jan. 29, 1901, p. 6; "Big Cliinese Haul,"

68 The Journal of American History Jime 2002

WILY TRICKS PLAYED BY JOHN CHINAMAN

AND HIS SMUGGLERS, "Wbkb is Why I Repeat (and I'm Free

to Maintain) That for Ways That Are Dark and for Tricks

That Are Vain, the Heathen Chinee

is Peculiar." —Bret Harte,

Racialized images of "John Chinaman" as an illegal immigrant built on existing stereot)'p)es of Chi- nese as racially inferior, wily tricksters who could easily defeat the Chinese exclusion laws and endanger the nation. Such portrayals were especially popular in border cities where illegal immi- gration was relatively common. Reprinted from the Bufifelo Evening News, Feb. I, 1904.

Also significant is the persistent use of the terms "smugglers," "smuggled," and "imported" by both journalists and government officials to describe Chinese crossing the border. Such terminology invoked earlier charges that Chinese immigrants were merely "imported coolies" and furthered the racialization of Chinese as inferior immigrants under the control of powerful, clandestine organizations and individuals. The connections made between smuggled goods such as liquor and drugs and Chi- nese border crossers also painted Chinese immigrants as contraband commodities that did not belong in the United States and that disrupted communities. Sensation- alist newspaper accounts fed the public's appetite, but while they focused attention on the Chinese and used existing racial stereotypes to explain why Chinese crossed the border, they ignored the role of U.S. immigradon laws in creating and fostering Chinese illegal immigration in the first place.

Chinese immigrants may have been the first immigrants to enter the United States illegally, but by the early 1900s they were joined by a much larger number of immi- grants of other origins who also chose the border as an alternative to the rigorous immigration inspeaion at American seaports. Syrians, Greeks, Hungarians, Rtissian

ibid., Feb. 19, 1902. On Bret Harte, see Lee, Orientals, 39, 68-69, 91; and Ronald Takaki, Iron Cages: Race and Culture in Nineteenth Century America (New York, 1979), 223.

Chinese Exclusion at the Borders with Canada and Mexico 69

Jews, Italians, and some "maidens" from France, Belgitim, and Spain were the main groups enteritig through Canada and Mexico. All were susp>ected of having been denied entry at the Adantic ports of entry, but the back door of Canada offered them a second chance. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centtiries Canadian immigrant inspection processes were considerably less rigorous than U.S. procedures and consisted mainly of a limited health screening. Both Etiropean and Asian immi- grants quickly learned to buy steamship dckets for Canada and then attempt a border crossing into the United States. Exact statisdcs of those who entered the country ille- gally are not available. One sensadonalist congressional report claimed that as many as 50,000 European immigrants entered via this route in 1890 alone, but more accu- rate Bureau of Immigradon esdmates place the figure at "several thousand" each year in the early 19OOs.^ American officials were consistendy frustrated by what they deemed overly lax immigration laws in Canada. As the immigrant inspector Robert Watchorn explained in a 1902 report, "much that appears menacing to tis is regarded with comparadve indifference by the Canadian government." As a result, Watchorn claimed, "those which Canada receives but falls to hold . . . come unhindered into the United States." By 1909 general immigration via the Canadian and Mexican bor- ders was so great that the U.S. Bureau of Immigration idendfied them as gateways second in importance only to New York.̂ '-*

Even though both Europeans and Asians were illegally crossing the borders into the United States, the discourses concerning the immigrant groups differed sharply, reflecting an exisdng American racial hierarchy that viewed European immigradon— even illegal immigradon—^as more desirable than Asian immigradon. That the cate- gory of the illegal immigrant was, from its inception, a highly raciaiized one is clear from the differences berween U.S. officials' discussion of the challenges posed by European immigrants who crossed the border and their disctission of those posed by Chinese immigrants. U.S. immigration officials were certainly concerned about the large numbers of European immigrants evading inspecdon at the regular ports of entry by crossing the borders. The U.S. government suspected that those immigrants were particularly likely to become diseased or public charges, and the back door Euro- f>ean immigration from Canada caused some alarm. Nevertheless, tmlawflil entries by Europeans were not defined as a threat to the American nadon as Chinese ill^al immigradon was. In 1890 Secretary of the Treasury William Windom, whose agency administered U.S. immigradon laws until 1903, artictilated that distincdon most clearly. Illegal European immigradon from Canada was noted as a potendal problem, but the atdtudes toward European immigradon in general remained welcoming and supportive and reflected the view that Eurof)eans—even illegal immigrants—^were still future American cidzens. "Our country owes too much in greatness and prosperity to

^ European immigrants are described in "Ref>ort b y . . . Braun . . . Feb. 12, 1907." For statisdcs, see U.S. C o n - gress, Senate, Report of the Select Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 51 Cong., 2 sess., 1891, S. Rept. 3472, vii, cited in Ramirez, Crossing the 49th Parallel, 42; Treasury Department, Annual Report of the Commis- sioner-General of Immigration. . . 1902, 39.

" Treasury Department, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration . . . 1902, 40—41; U.S. Department of Commerce and habot. Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, / i 0 9 (Washington, 1909), 13.

70 The Journal of American Histoiy June 2002

its naturalized ddzens to wish to impede the natural movement of such valuable members of society to our shores," Windom noted. The next year Wmdom merdy noted an increase in the number of European aliens crossing the northern border iUe- gaUy and made a general sugestión for increased border inspecdon. In later years, European immigrants crossing the border illegaUy were commonly portrayed in gov- emment reports as "forlorn," "unfortunate victims of unscrupulous agents in Europe" who were misled and overcharged in the border migradon scheme. In other words, the European immigrants arriving via the borders were coming in violation ofthe law, but they were an exception to the generaUy acceptable population of European immi- grants as a whole. They were not a reflecdon on all European immigrants.^

On the other hand, government officials characterized the threat of Chinese migration along the border in highly raciaiized terms that evoked an immigrant inva- sion, su^ested threats to nadonal sovereignty, and cast suspidon and blame on the endre race. The same year Windom praised the country's "naturalized citizens" of European immigrant heritage, he warned in alarmist tetms ofthe "organized attempts . . . by Chinese laborers to force their way into the United States by way of Mexico, Bridsh Columbia, and Canada." The next year he warned that the department was "unable . . . to withstand the great influx of Chinese laborers along our Canadian bor- der. . . . They are at liberty to invade our territory." Similarly, the commissioner-gen- eral of immigration blamed the border enforcement problem on the "difficulties inherent in the character ofthe Mongolian race" and the entries of Chinese through Mexico were characterized as an "evil, constant and systematic evasion of our laws.""

The racialization of Chinese immigrants as "illegal" also contrasted sharply with the govemment's treatment of Mexican immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexican bor- der. Compared to the estimated 17,000 Chinese who entered the country illegally from 1882 to 1920, approximately 1.4 million Mexicans migrated largely unre- stricted into the United States from 1900 to 1930. Though some nativists argued that the large influx of "Mexican peons" entering the country in the 1920s was just as dangerous as the "Chinese invasion" of earlier years, before 1924 anti-Mexican nativ- ism worked differently, in practice, than the and-immigrant sentiment targeting Asians. Instead of excludable aliens, Mexicans were more ofren characterized as long- term residents ofthe Southwest or as "birds of passage" who returned to Mexico afrer the agricultural season ended.'- Mexican immigration was not wholly unregulated,

^ U.S. Treasury Department, Anniud Report ofthe Secretary ofthe Treasury on the State ofthe Finances for the Year 1890 (Washington, 1891), lxxv; U.S. Treasury Department, Annual Report of the Secretary ofthe Treasury on the State of the Finances for the Year 1891 (Washington, 1891), Ixii; Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration . . . ¡902, 40, 42.

'̂ Treasury Department, Annual Report ofthe Secretary ofthe Treasury. . . 1890, Ixxvi. Emphasis added. Trea- sury Depanment, Annual Report ofthe Secretary ofthe Treasury... 1891, Ixiv-lxv. Emphasis added. Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report ofthe Commissioner-General of Immigration . . . 1902, 71. Emphasis added. "Report b y . . . Btaun . . . Feb. 12, 1907."

'^ This would change dramatically after 1924. As Mae Ngai has shown, Mexicans increasingly became charac- terized as dangerous foreignere and "illegal immigrants." Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 18—19. For the posT-1924 period, see Ngai, "Architecture of Race," 91. On nativism directed against Mexican immigrants, see Frederick Russell Burnham, "The Howl for Cheap Mexican Labor," in The Alien in Our Midst; or, SeUing Our Birthright for a Mess of Pottage, ed. Madison Grant and Cbarles Stewart Davison (New York, 1930), 45, 48. On Mexicans as "birds of passage," see Lawrence Cardoso, Mexican Emigration to the United States, 1891—1931 (Tue-

Chinese Exclusion ac the Borders with Canada and Mexico 71

but it did exist in a state of "benign neglect," and "little attention" was paid to Mexi- cans who crossed the border ineo die Uniced States. Indeed, though ehe immigration service began co record entries and eo insf>ect aliens at the southern border in 1903, ehe procedures did noe apply eo Mexicans ae all.̂ ^

The reasons behind ehe differeneial ereaemene are direcdy relaeed eo ehe expansion of ehe souehweseern economy from ehe 1890s ehrough ehe 1920s and ehe relaeed need for a seeady pool of labor. The cureailmene of Asian and souehern and eastern European immigrane labor beginning in 1882 and coneinuing ehrough 1924 made Mexico a logical source for new labor. There were immigraeion resericeions direceed againse Mexicans, including ehe Immigraeion Ace of 1917, which imp>osed a lieeracy eese and an eighe-doUar head eax on Mexican immigrants, but until the late 1920s, companies and agriculturalists were highly successful in evading ehose requiremenes. U.S. officials ae ehe border also consiseenely allowed Mexican migranes to avoid the head tax and literacy test. In 1905 Hart Hyatt North, the commissioner of immigra- eion in San Francisco, reported matter-of-facdy ehae Mexicans and Indians were "crossing ae will" at Mexicali and oeher poines along ehe line wlehoue either immigra- tion or medical inspection. But the Chinese, he warned, warranted the government's full and "mose vigilane atteneion." In ehe eyes of ehe governmene and ehe public, Chi- nese were the "illegals," and ehey became the eargees of concereed governmene effores to control illegal immigraeion. American newspapers in ehe Souehwese during ehe early 1900s reporeed on "Chinese weebacks" inseead of Mexican ones. In effece ehe border was controlled boeh eo facilieate Mexican immigraeion and eo reserict Chinese immigraeion.^

Ideneif)'ing Chinese and noe European or Mexican immigraeion as ehe dangerous illegal immigraeion had direce consequences for immigraeion officials' dealings with all Chinese immigration. The first was the government's blanket association of Chi- nese immigration wieh illegality. The mere presence of Chinese along ehe border was enough eo raise suspicions among government officials. Chinese residents of El Paso, for example, complained to the government ehae ehey were roueinely suspeceed of being illegal immigranes and were ereaeed wieh "undue harshness and sericeness." The caeegodzaeion of Chinese in ehe norehern and souehern border regions as illegal immigranes also led eo ehe dehumanizaeion of all Chinese immigranes. Governmene officials described ehem as "contraband," as if they were ehe same as a banned drug or produce being smuggled into the country. Investigators' reports routinely referred eo ehe subjects of eheir inquiry as "ehis chink" or "ehese two chinks." The reward syseem offered by ehe governmene eo ehose who gave information leading eo ehe arrese of

son, 19B0), 22; Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 20; and Abraham Hoffman, Unwanted Mexican Americans in the Great Depression: Repatriation Pressures, 1929-1939 (Tucson, 1974), 30-32.

' ' U.S. Immigradon and Naturalization Service, "Early Immigrant Inspection along the U.S./Mexican Border" <hnp://www.ins.gov/graphics/aboutins/history/arTÍcles/mbtext2.htm> (Feb. 15, 2002).

^ Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 19—20; Hofïman, Unwanted Mexican Americans in the Great Depres- sion, 30-32; Mark Reisler, By the Sweat of Their Brow: Mexican Immigrant Lahor in the United States, 1900-1940 (Westport, 1976) 8-13, 24-42; Hart Hyatt North to Frank Sargent, March 9, 1905, file 13618, Segregated Chi- nese Records, Chinese General Correspondence, Immigration and Naturalization Service Records (Washington, D.C); Metz, Border, 365.

72 Thejoumalof Amedcan History June 2002

Chinese found in the country unlawfiilly also reinforced the dehumanizing categori- zation of Chinese as smuggled goods, rather than as individuals. In 1908 the govern- ment paid G. W. Edgar, a Seattle farmer, an established fee of "five dollars per Chinese head" or two hundred and fifty dollars for "fifty or more Chinamen" in exchange for information that would lead to the arrest of Chinese immigrants found in the country illegally.̂ ^ Last, the categorization of Chinese as illegals gave the argu- ments of anti-Chinese exdusionists even more power and legitimacy and furthered the radalization of Chinese as undesirable, threatening, and now illegal immigrants. It also permeated the ideology and practice of policing, eventually dosing the border to Chinese immigration. That the conflation of "Chinese" with "illegal" was embed- ded in border policy was made explicitly dear when the immigration service estab- lished a special department whose primary responsibility was to deal with illegal aliens. Its name was the Chinese Division.̂ ^

American Empire and Border Enforcement

Such sensationalist and institutionalized categorizations of Chinese as illegal immi- grants highlighted grave weaknesses in American immigration law. Primarily concen- trating on immigrant entry through the seaports. United States restrictive immigration l^islation largely ignored the country's lack of control over its own land borders. As one Border Patrol inspector commented in 1924, the nation's immigra- tion laws provided "locked doors," but there was no "connecting wall between them" due to the open borders. The United States responded by devising a border enforce- ment policy to assert its sovereignty and control over the northern and southern bor- ders and to protect the American nation within. The assertion, I argue, was part of the larger practice of extending American laws, ideologies, and systems of control to other countries, a practice that characterized American imperialism in the late nine- teenth and early twentieth centuries. Indeed, the process of Chinese exclusion, tradi- tionally defined within the confines of domestic or U.S.-Chinese relations, spilled over many national boundaries. Border anxiety and U.S. immigration policy were directly linked to, and products of, U.S. expansionism.̂ ^

If we understand imperialism, as Matthew Frye Jacobson has recently suggested, to encompass both a "projection of vested interest in foreign climes . . . and overt practices of political domination," it becomes dear that restricting Chinese immigra- tion via U.S. border enforcement was inextricably tied to the expansion of U.S.

' ' For Chinese complaints from El Paso, see Ng Poon Chew to Daniel Keefe, July 30, 1910, folder 1, box 3, Ng Poon Chew Collection (Asian American Studies Library, Universic)' of California, Berkeley). For a description of Chinese as "contraband," see F. H. Lamed, "Memorandum for the Commissioner-General," Oct. 27, 1913, file 53371/2A, Subject Corresf>ondence, Immigration and Naturalization Service Records (Washington, D . C ) . On investigations of "chinks," see [signature illegible] to Brother Lamed, April 19, 1901, file 52730/53, ibid. The agreement between the government and G. W. Edgar is outlined in Larned to Inspector in Charge, Seattle, Wash- ington, Oct. 26, 1908, file 52214/1, pan IV, ibid.

^ Perkins, Border Patrol. 9. 5' Mary Kidder Rak, Border Patrol (Boston, 1938), 1. On U.S. imperialism, see Amy Kaplan, "'Left Alone with

America': The Absence of Empire in the Study of American Culture," in Cultures of United States Imperialism, ed. Amy Kaplan and Donald Pease (Durham, 1993), 16-17.

Chinese Exclusion at the Borders with Canada and Mexico 73

imperialism from its inception. At its very foundation, Chinese exclusion had always been justified and ardculated through the language of American national sovereignty and self-preservation, American nadon building and empire building. U.S. immigra- don law explicidy equated threats posed by Chinese immigradon with threats to nadonal sovereignty. Two Supreme Court cases, Ghae Ghan-ping v. United States (1889) and Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893), asserted that the state held the same rights and duties to curb the foreign menace of immigration as it did to protea its citizens in time of war. Such Supreme Court decisions and domesdc, federal immigradon laws as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 thus protected the American nation within and served as expressions of American sovereignty. As the American empire advanced across the Pacific Ocean, colonizing Hawaii and the Philippines in 1898, both American and-Chinese nadvism and assertions of American sovereignty followed the flag. Afrer the annexation of Hawaii in 1898, Congress prohibited all immigration of Chinese to the islands despite strenuous Hawaiian protests. In 1902 the final Chinese Exclusion Act included a section prohibidng Chinese immigradon to the Philippines as well. In both cases the United States took the unusual step of prohibiting the free movement of certain peoples within the empire, as Chinese immigrants already in Hawaii and the Philippines were prohibited from entering the mainland United States. Like the export of capital, politics, religion, and culture, immigration laws and immigradon control thus came to be understood and experi- enced as a central aspea of American imperialism. The "white man's burden" involved not only uplifr and civilization of savage peoples abroad but also protection of Americans from the foreign menaces plaguing the mainland United States as

As the cases of Canada and Mexico illtistrate, the projeaion of American inter- ests—in the form of anti-Chinese nativism and legisladon—extended beyond the United States and its territories. Through an increasingly rigid set of Chinese exclu- sion laws, the United States had protected itself from the menace of Chinese immi- gration, yet it still remained vtilnerable because of the lax supervision of immigration in Canada and Mexico. Increasingly, the United States began to assert its right to extend its immigradon agenda to neighboring sovereign countries. One immigradon official jusdfied tough measures at the border by citing the "law of self-preservation." If Chinese illegal immigration through Canada was indeed "a threat against our very civilizadon," as the U.S. commissioner-general of immigration said in 1907, then extending the American legal reach into a foreign country to control the threat was a logical outcome.^' Though it could control its newly annexed territories, the United

^ Matthew Frye Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Forei^ Peoples at Home aruiAbroad, 1876-1917 (New York, 2000), 4, 6, 26-38, 93; Chae Chan-ping v. United States, 130 U.S. 606 (1889); Fong Yue Ttngv. United States, 149 U.S. 698 (1893). On die extension of Chinese exclusion to Hawaii and the Philippines, see A a of July 7, 1898, 30 Stat. 750; Act of April 30, 1900, 31 Sut. 141; and Wu Ting Fang to John Hay, Dec. 12, 1898, Notes from the Chinese Lection in the U.S. to Department of State, 1868-1906, Records of the U.S. Department of State, RG 59 (Nadonal Archives, Washington, D.C.). The best account of Chinese immigration to Hawaii is Clarence E. Glick, S<>joumers and Settlers: Chinese Migrants in Hawaii (Honolulu, 1980). See also Edward C. Lydon, The Anti-Chinese Movetneru in the Hawaiian Kingdom, 1852-1886 (Sin Francisco, 1975).

' ' "Report b y . . . Braun . . . Feb. 12, 1907"; Frank P. Sargent, "Memotandum," c 1905, file 52704/2, Subject Correspondence, Immigration and Natutalization Service Records (Washington, D.C.).

74 The Journal of American History June 2002

States could not force its immigration agenda onto Canada and Mexico. Instead, U.S. officials employed a variety of other measures to extend U.S. immigration con- trol into the interiors of its northern and southern neighbors and to induce both countries to cooperate with the United States by adopdng compatible immigradon laws. The United States achieved that through two new arms of imperialism in mod- em America: border diplomacy and border policing.

Border Diplomacy and Border Enforcement in the North

Northern borderland scholars write that historically the international boundary at the forty-ninth parallel was largely ignored as both people and goods (legal and ille- gal) crossed the border tminterrupted and without interference. After border disputes between the United States and Canada were resolved in the eighteenth century, the lack of significant geographical, racial, linguistic (except in the case of Quebec), or religious barriers between the American and Canadian populations helped construct and reinforce the nodon of the Canadian-American border as "the world's longest tmdefended border." The success of Chinese border crossings through Canada does pardaUy support the perception that the boundary line was nothing more than an arbitrary mark in the landscape.'*" Nevertheless, recent scholarship has suggested that the Canadian border was not a racially neutral site and that it underwent a major transformadon in immigradon control by the 1890s.'*' Indeed, Chinese immigration and exclusion were the primary lenses through which the border was demarcated and raciaiized. Because Canada's immigradon policies clashed with American goals of Chinese exclusion and facilitated illegal entry, the United States increasingly viewed the northern border as a site to be controlled and enforced. Initially frustrated and derisive of Canada's immigration policies, U.S. immigradon officials eventually turned to border diplomacy. The mutual antipathy of Canada and the United States toward Chinese immigradon and the historically amicable relations between the two countries fostered cooperation and finally control of the northern border.

Early border enforcement was an inherently difficult task. The number of inspec- tors was too small to monitor the large expanse of land. As a result, one of the gov- ernment's first imperatives was to increase the number of inspectors along the border. In 1902 the total force numbered only 66 inspectors, mostly along the northern bor- der. The next year, the ntimber had increased to 116, again mosdy along the U.S.- Canadian border. By 1909, 300 officers and other employees of the immigration ser- vice were committed to work along both borders. Another source of difficulty was that too many people and institudons benefited from the illegal immigration. They included the Canadian government itself, which collected the revenue from the head

* For descriptions of the U.S.-Canadian border as open and undefended, see John W. Bennett and Seena B. Kohl, Settling the Canadian-American West, 1890-1915: Pioneer Adaptation and Community Building (Lincoln, 1995), 13; Roger Gibbins, "Meaning and Significance of the Canadian-American Border," in Border and Border Regions in Europe and North America, ed. Paul Gansteret al. (San Diego, 1997), 315-32; Ralph, "Chinese Leak," 521; and De Lorme. 'United States Bureau of Customs and Smuggling on Puget Sound," 77—88.

'̂ Sheila McManus, "Their Own Cotmtry: Race, Gender, Landscape, and Colonization around the 49th Par- allel, IS62-1900,'Agricultural History, 73 (Spring 1999), 168-82; Ramirez, Crossing the 49th Parallel, 39.

Chinese Exclusion at the Borders vidth Canada and Mexico 75

tax imposed on Chinese but did not have to suffer the repercussions of increased Chinese immigration to its shores. From 1887 to 1891, revenues from the Chinese head tax equaled $95,500 or about $3,000 a month. Canadian officials were blunt in their opinions. They publicly recognized that the Chinese came to Canada" "mainly to smuggle themselves across the border." As one prominent observer explained to an Amedcan journalist in 1891, "They come here to enter your country. You can't stop it, and we don't care."'*-̂

The U.S. govemment turned to three main strategies: pressudng Canada to assist the United States in enforcing the Chinese exclusion laws, moving the enforcement of immigradon law beyond the border to the Canadian ports of entry where Chinese first entered, and encouraging Canada to adopt Chinese immigration laws that were more compadble with American goals. All measures reflected the new U.S. imperial- ist assertion of national sovereignty over its borders and marked the extension of American immigration control beyond its own territory. The goal, as Commissioner- Ceneral of Immigration Terence Powderly put it in 1901, was to reinforce the border to the point where it was so "airdght" that no one would be able to "crawl through."^'

U.S. officials first suggested that all ports of entry along the Canadian border be closed to Chinese immigration, but they reluctandy conceded that such a drasdc measure would interfere with free trade between the two countdes. Instead, begin- ning in 1894, the U.S. Bureau of Immigradon began to extend U.S. immigradon law and control into Canadian seaports through the Canadian Agreement. The agree- ment, made between all Canadian transportation, steamship, and rail companies and the U.S. commissioner-general of immigration, allowed U.S. immigration inspectors to enforce U.S. immigration laws on ardving steamships and on Canadian soil at spe- cifically designated border points. They were instructed to conduct examinadons of all United States—bound Asian and European immigrants arriving in Canada in exactly the "same manner" and with the "same objectives" as in the examinadons of all arrivals at Amedcan seaports. Those who passed inspection were issued a certifi- cate of admission to present to border officers when entering the United States. Those who failed to do so were returned to Canadian railway companies, who were required to return the individual to Canada."*^

'• For statistics on inspectors in 1902, see Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report ofthe Commis- sioner-General of Immigration . . . 1903, 46. For statistics for 1909. see Marcus Braun, "How Can We Enforce Our Exclusion hív/sí," Annals ofthe American Academy of Political and Social Science, 34 (no. 2, 1909), 140-42. Ralph, "Chinese Leak," 516.

•" Vincent J. Falzone, Terence V. Powderly, Middle Class Reformer (Washington, 1978), 182. '•' The agreement underwent several revisions to permit additional transportation companies to become signa-

tories and to perfect implementation of its terms. At the same time, the U.S. govemment began to place inspectors along the border. Inspeaors were stationed at Quebec, Montreal, Haliiax, Vancouver, and Viaoria beginning in 1895. On threats to close the border entirely, set Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report ofthe Com- missioner-General of Immigration . . . 1904, 137. On the original Canadian Agreement, see Marian L. Smith, "The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) at the U.S.-Canadian Border, 1893-1993: An Overview of Issues and Topics," Michigan Historical Review, 26 (Fall 200O), 127-47; "Canadian Agreement," Sept. 7, 1893, file 51564/4A-B, Subject Correspondence, Immigration and Nationalizarion Service Recortls (Washington, D.C); and U.S. Bureau of Immigradon, Annual Report ofthe Commissioner-General of Immigration to the Secretary ofthe Treasury for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1896 (Washington, 1896), 13. For amended versions, see Treasury D e p a r t m e n t , A n n u a l Report ofthe Commissioner-General ^ I m m i g r a t i o n . . . ¡ 9 0 2 , 4 6 - 4 8 ; a n d " D i g e s r o f . . .

76 The Journal of American History June 2002

The general 1894 agreement initiated transnational immigradon conerol for boeh Asian and European immigranes along ehe border, bue ehe problem of Chinese illegal immigradon coneinued eo vex U.S. immigraeion offidals. Even wieh ehe Canadian Agreemene, ehey remained tmable to eseablish ehe same level of conerol over Chinese immigradon ehrough Canada ehae ehey had inseieudonalized for Chinese sailing direcdy eo ehe Unieed Seaees. Chinese passengers on Canadian seeamship lines, for example, were noe required eo undergo the dgorous predepareure physical examina- dons ehae chose bound for che Unieed Seaees were subjeceed eo. Nor were ehey aueo- madcally placed in deeendon and preveneed from receiving mail and visitors while awaidng inspecdon as chdr counterparts in ehe Unieed Seaees were. U.S. officials believed ehae such gaps in enforcemene made ie easier for newly arriving Chinese eo be coached for eheir U.S. immigraeion itispecdons. Wieh seudy and pracdce, ehey could more easily survive ehe exhausdve ineerrogaeions designed eo ferret oue fraudu- lene daims of the right eo be admitted ineo ehe Unieed Seaees.̂ ^ Thus, because Cana- dian regulaeion of Chinese immigraeion remained differene from U.S. procedures and preveneed U.S. officials from fully conerolling ehe Chinese immigraeion "prob- lem," ehe U.S. governmene began eo consider more specific and drasdc remedies.

In 1903 Powderly successfully negoeiaeed a new agreemene wieh officials of che Canadian Pacific Railway Company, which operaeed boeh ehe eransconeineneal Canadian railway and ehe main line of passenger and cargo ships beeween China and Canada. Unlike ehe earlier 1894 agreemene, ehe new inidadve placed more border conerols on Chinese immigranes exclusively. The agreemene firse required ehe CPR eo examine all Chinese persons eravding on ies seeamships eo determine "as reasonably as ie can" ehae Unieed Seaees—bound passengers daiming eo be admissible were in face eneided eo enter under U.S. law. CPR officials in effece agreed eo ineerpree and enforce U.S. immigraeion law. Second, ehe company agreed eo deliver all Chinese passengers seeking admission ineo ehe Unieed Seaees under guard directly eo U.S. inspeceors sea- doned ae four designaeed pores along ehe Canadian border (Ridiford, Vermont; Malone, New York; Portal, North Dakota; and Sumas, Washingeon). By having ehe CPR hand over ehe Chinese immigranes direcely eo ehe U.S. governmene and by pro- cessing ehe Chinese ae ehe designaeed immigradon seations, ehe U.S. Bureau of Immigraeion was able eo conerol ehe movemenes of Chinese immigranes more closely and eo mirror ehe dgid procedures and deeendon condieions governing Chinese immigranes ae American seapores."**

Believing ehae compliance with such an agreemene would be deerimeneal eo ies profieable erans-Pacific seeamship business, ehe Canadian Pacific Railway Company was ae firse reluceane eo agree eo ehe U.S. governmene's demands. Threats ehae ehe

Report o f . . . Braun . . . September 2 0 , 1907." *^ "Digest o f . . . Report o f . . . Braun . . . September 2 0 , 1907," 3 0 - 3 4 . ** Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration . . . 1904.

138; "Digest o f . . . Report o f . . . Braun . . . September 2 0 , 1907," 2 9 - 3 0 ; U.S. Treasury Department, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General oflmmipation For the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1901 (Washington, 1901), 52; U.S. Bureau of Immigration, Compilation from the Records of the Bureau of Immigration of Facts Concerning the Enforcement of the Chinese-Exclusion Laws: Letter from the Secretary (^Commerce and Labor, Submitting, in Response to the Inquiry of the House, a Report as to the Enforcement of tbe Chinese-Exclusion Laws (Washington, 1906), 94.

Chinese Exclusion at the Borders with Canada and Mexico 77

entire border would be dosed unless the CPR agreed to the proposed terms, however, eventually led the company to sign the agreement. The Canadian government itself was not a formal party to the agreement but certainly consented to its terms and means of enforcement. Relations had been strained between the two countries over the issue of border enforcement. The agreement, American officials noted, was mutually satisfactory. The United States gained protection "from the evils of unre- stricted immigration," and Canada realized "the extensive benefits" resulting from the loss of friction with its southern neighbor. The 1903 agreement was quite suc- cessful. Just one year after the agreement had been signed, the immigration service could report that "no Chinese person from China can enter the United States through Canada without submitting to an examination by Btu-eau officers. At present there are but a few Chinese coming to this country by way of Canada." With those results achieved, the U.S. Bureau of Immigration officials applauded their counterparts for their cooperation and "cordial spirit of friendship for us and fbr our exclusion policy." By 1908, inland border inspection points had been established across the boundary to regulate all cross-border migration.'*''

Another explicit goal of American border policy in the north was to "induce" Can- ada to adopt immigration laws similar to those of the United States. Agreements with Canadian transportation companies were effective but could only extend U.S. con- trol to immigrants who were destined for the United States. Chinese increasingly claimed Canada as their final destination and then crossed the border surreptitiously. As a result, American officials grumbled that the relaxed attitudes toward immigra- tion in Canada were detrimental to the United States. Full control of the borders required transnational efforts. American laws might become increasingly restrictive, but as the secretary of the treasury pointed out in 1891, "Any legislation looking to exclude will fail of its full purf>ose so long as the Canadian government admits Chi- nese laborers to Canada."^* To remedy the gaps in immigration control, the U.S. Bureau of Immigration engaged in numerous negotiations with its counterpart in Canada. In 1903 both homegrown anti-Chinese sentiment and "patient and persis- tent" pressure from U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Department of Justice officers motivated Canada to increase its head tax on Chinese immigrants from $100 to $500. The increased head tax proved a strong deterrent to potential Chinese border crossers. In 1912 Canada also agreed to end the practice of admitting Chinese immi- grants into the country if they had already been denied entry into the United States.

*' On threats to close the border, see "Digest o f . . . Report o f . . . Braun . . . September 20, 1907," 32. Immi- gration officials dted the benefits of the Canadian Agreement in "Memorandum in re Proposed Mexican Agree- ment" included in Berkshire to Commissioner-General of Imitugration, Jan. 15, 1908, file 51463/B, Subject Correspondence, Immigration and Naturalization Service Recortls (Washington, D.C); Department of Com- merce and Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration ... 1904, 138; Department of Com- merce and Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration . . . 1906, 94; and Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration . . . 1911. 159-60. On inland border inspection points, see Smith, "Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) at the U.S.-Canadian Border," 127-35.

*' The term "induce" was first used in "Repon by . . . Braun . . . Feb. 12, 1907." On changes in immigrants' strategies at the border, see Zhang, "Dragon in the Land of the Eagle," 323; Smith, "Immigration and Naturaliza- tion Service (INS) at the U.S.-Canadian Border," 127-30. On the need for fuller cooperation bom Canada, see Treasury Depanment, Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury... 1891, btv.

78 The Journal of American History June 2002

Finally, in 1923, Canada drasdcally transformed its regulation of Chinese immigra- don to mirror U.S. law more closely. The 1923 Exclusion Act completely abolished the head tax system and instead prohibited all people of Chinese origin or descent from entering Canada. Consular officials, children born in Canada, merchants, and students were exempted.""

Unlike earlier acts, the 1923 Canadian bill was finally the effective barder to Chi- nese exclusion that American immigration officials had supported. During the next twenty-four years, only fifreen Chinese persons were admitted into Canada. The bill was repealed in 1947. The reach of American reguladon of Chinese immigradon into Canada was thus made complete with the 1923 bOl.̂ " That Canada's 1923 exclusion law closely resembled the U.S. regulation of Chinese Lmmigradon was no coinci- dence. Pressure from both and-Chinese acdvists within the dominion and from their neighbors to the south resulted in the convergence of American and Canadian {K)li- cies. Border diplomacy based on a shared andpathy toward Chinese immigration in defense of the Anglo-American nation proved effecdve and finally closed the border to Chinese immigration.

Border Policing and Border Enforcement in the South

Increased Chinese illegal entdes via Mexico were a direct outgrowth of successful border enforcement in the north. Much to the U.S. government's chagrin, in 1906 it found that Chinese immigrants, "having been pracdcally defeated at every turn along the Canadian fronder," were increasingly turning their attendon to the opportunities of entry via the southern border of the United States. Unlike the northern border, the southern border had always been marked by conquest and contestation between the United States and Mexico. No "'undefended' border" like the one to the north, the U.S.-Mexican border has been described by the border studies scholar Gloria Anzaldúa as an "herida abierta" (an open wound). Boundary disputes lasted well into the early twendeth century, and the border was routinely the site of activities that tested the reladonship between Mexico and the United States: Indian raids, banditry, smu^ling, and revolutionary aaivities. Chinese immigration and exclusion intro- duced further conflict as the border region became the site of U.S. immigradon con- trol and enforcement."

*" Act Respecting and Restricting Chinese immigration, ch. 8, 1903 S.C. 105-11 (Can.); Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration . . . 1904, 138. On Canadian- U.S. negoriations, see, for example, John H. Clark to U.S. Commissioner-General of Immigration, July 16, 1912, fJe 51931/21, Subject Correspondence, Immigration and Naturalization Service Records (Washington, D.C.). Act of June 30, 1923, ch. 38, 1923 S.C 301-15 (Can.); H. F. Angus, "Canadian Immigration: The Law and Its Administration," in The Legal Status of Aliens in Pacific Countries, ed. Norman MacKenzie (New York, 1937), 6 3 - 64.

* Peter Ward, White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Ptiblic Policy toward Orientals in British Columbia (Montreal, 1978), 133; Robert E. Wynne, "Reaction to the Chinese in the Pacific Northwest and British Colum- bia, 1850-1910" (Ph.D. diss.. University of Washington, 1964), 483.

*' Bureau of Immigration, Compilation fiom the Records of the Bureau of Immigration of Facts Conceming the Enforcement of the Chinese-Exclusion Laws, 12-33; Lauren McKinsey and Victor Konrad, Borderlands Reflections— the Urdted States and Caruida (Toronto, 1989), iii; Anzaldúa, Borderlands, 3; Linda B. Hall and Don M. Coerver, Revolution on the Border: The United States and Mexico, 1910-1920 (Albuquerque, 1988), 7.

Chinese Exclusion at the Borders with Canada and Mexico 79

As Chinese immigradon and excltision along the northem border did, Chinese illegal immigration through Mexico set in modon an American assertion of nadonal sovereignty through the imposition of American nadvism, immigration laws, and enforcement practices along the border and in Mexico. However, due to the different immigradon goals in the United States and Mexico and the tense relations between them, the form and content of border enforcement in the south contrasted with the practices along the northern border. Unlike Canada, Mexico did not have extensive or consistently enforced immigration laws aimed at Chinese or other immigrants. Mexico also did not require any examination of aliens entering the country, and in general its immigration policies were designed to recruit, not restrict, labor. Although Chinese were targets of periodic racial hostility, they played a vital role in the econ- omy from which both Mexican and American businesses operating in Mexico bene- fited. The United States could not simply "piggyback" or extend its own immigration policies onto an already existing framework in Mexico as it had in Canada.'^

Moreover, though Canadian officials eventually complied with U.S. immigradon law and prerogatives, Mexican officials were more reluctant to do so. In 1907 the U.S. government undertook initial talks with President Porfirio Díaz in the hope he would allow more American control over Chinese immigration entering through Mexico. The American immigrant inspector Marcus Braun reported to Diaz that it was the intention of the United States to institute an agreement similar to the Cana- dian Agreement made with Canadian transportadon companies. As in Canada, the United States wanted direct control over Chinese arrivals in Mexico. President Diaz expressed concern that American control over Chinese immigration would result in a loss of valuable labor needed in Mexico.^'

Lower-level Mexican officials also resisted U.S. efforts to track Chinese immigrants entering from Mexico. In 1907 U.S. officers in El Paso tried to send inspectors over to Ciudad Juárez every day to meet the incoming trains. They were instructed to "take a good look at every Chinaman who arrived," so that they might be able to identify him in case he should later be caught in the United States. As one official reported in 1907, however, the surveillance of Chinese in Mexico had to be aban- doned because the authorides in Ciudad Juárez "threatened our officers with arrest if they should take pictures or descriptions of any Chinamen to come through." Mexi- can transportation officials also showed litde inclinadon to assist American immigra- tion officials in the quest to bar illegal Chinese entries. One meedng with an agent for the Mexico-Canadian Steamship Company demonstrated this clearly. "Wien asked to cooperate, the agent reportedly remarked that his next ship would carry about 300 Chinese as fer north as Guaymas. "For all I know they may smuggle into the United States and if they do I do not give a d—n, for I am doing a legidmate

'" "Report by . . . Braun . . . Feb. 12, 1907 ; Marcus Braun to Commissioner-General of Immigration, June 10, 1907, file 52320/1-A, Subjea Correspondence, Immigration and Naturalization Service Records (Washing- ton, D.C); Evelyn Hu-DeHart, "Coolies, Shopkeepers, Pioneers: The Chinese of Mexico and Peru, 1849-1930," Amerasia Journal, 15 (no, 1, 1989), 92-98; Hu-DeHart, "Racism and And-Chinese Persecution in Sonora, Mex- ico," 16.

" Braun to Commissioner-General of Immigration, June 10, 1907, file 52320/1-A, Subjea Correspondence, Immigrarion and Naturalization Service Records (Washington, D.C).

80 The Joumal of American History June 2002

business." Afrer 1910 U.S. immigradon officials seem to have been more successful, although they were not granted offidal jurisdicdon in Mexico as they were in Can- ada.5*

Like other cross-border interactions at the turn of the century, Mexican coopera- don with American immigradon officials was thus ambivalent and inconsistent at best. Amedcan goals of Chinese exdusion were seen as a threat to Mexico's own labor needs, and it was simply unclear to both the Mexican govemment and the tiznspoT- tadon companies what benefit was to be gained by allowing American immigration offidals to exercise so much fjower within their country. Moreover, Mexican reluc- tance may have been ded to lai^er concerns about the increased Amedcan presence in the country overall. The end ofthe nineteenth and the beginning ofthe twendeth centudes constituted a period of increasing American economic penetration into Mexico, especially in the northern state of Sonora. Mexican state-building acdvides also played up anti-American themes. Although the transnational economy benefited both regions, border relations—of which Chinese immigration and exdusion soon became a part—embodied this ambivalence.'^

Southem border enforcement thus presented very different challenges to the U.S. immigradon service than its northern counterpart did and led to an altemate approach. Instead of using border diplomacy and cooperation, the U.S. Bureau of Immigradon closed the southern border to Chinese immigration through policing and deterrence. Immigradon officials at the border were charged with the mission of preventing iUegal entries in the first place and of apprehending those caught in the a a of crossing the border.^ To accomplish this, they imposed a three-pronged system of transnational surveiUance within Mexico and the United States, patrols at the bor- der, and raids, arrests, and deportations of Chinese already in the United States.

Stirveillance of Chinese immigrants in Mexico involved a large informal and formal network of immigradon officers, train conductors, consular officials, and Mexican, Indian, and Amedcan informants. American diplomatic officers roudnely warned U.S. immigradon officials on the other side of the border of new Chinese arrivals in Mexico. A typical telegram came from Clarence A. Miller, stadoned at Matamoros, warning ofan upKx>ming "flood on the Mexican side" in November 1909 and urging immigradon officers to "keep up their vigilance to a high point."^^ Govemment sur- veillance of Chinese immigrants in Mexico also involved elaborate undercover invesd-

^ Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report ofthe Commissioner-General of Immigration . . . 1907, 112; R. L. Pruett to Braun, May 1), 1902, file 52320/1-A, Exhibit "B," Subject Correspondence, Immigrarion and Naturalization Service Records (Washington, D.C). For the post-1910 period, see Delgado, "In the Age of Exdusion," 241-42, 250-52.

" "Memorandum in re Proposed Mexican Agreement"; Miguel Tinker Salas, In the Shadow ofthe Eagles: Sonora and the Transßrmation of the Bonier during the Porfiriato (Berkeley, 1997), 16, 161; Hall and Coerver, Rev- olution on the Border, 11, 15;Delgado, "In the Age of Exclusion," 241-42, 250-52.

^ Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report ofthe Commissioner-General of Immigration .. . 1909, 14Z

" Depanment of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report ofthe Commissioner-General of Immigration . . . 1907, 130; Keefe to Supervising Inspector, El Paso, Texas, Nov. 26, 1909, file 52265/6, Subject Correspondence, Immi- grarion and Naturalización Service Records (Washington, D . C ) ; Berkshire to Commissioner-General of Immigra- rion, Feb. 15, 1910, file 52142/6, ibid., Clarence A. Miller to Assistant Secretary of State, Oct. 11, 1909, file 52265/6, ibid.

Chinese Exclusion at the Borders with Canada and Mexico 81

gadons by spedal immigradon service agents. The immigrane inspector Marcus Braun, who surveyed the Mexican border sieuadon, firse suggeseed a "Secret Service Squad" charged wieh waediing the Chinese in Mexico in 1907. By 1910 the immi- grane inspeceor Frank R Stone, praised as "one of the bese criminal invesdgaeors" in the immigradon service, went undercover as a smuggler eo inveseigaee ehe Chinese operadons in El Paso. Seone unearehed a wealth of evidence, induding fraudulene U.S. cerdficaees of residence (char is, green cards) that Chinese in the Unieed Seaees were required eo hold under ehe 1892 Geary Ace. He also found couneerfeie seals of ewo immigradon offidals and judges of the U.S. Diserice Court for the Norehern Dis- erice of California. Seone's invesdgadon resuleed in ewelve indlcemenes for cotispiracy: four againse ehe Chinese principals and maseerminds of ehe operadon, ehree againse Mexican "dver-men" who were known for eheir abiliey eo ford ehe Rio Grande, one againse a Mexican driver, and four againse Chinese imm^ranes holding fraudulene U.S. documenes. Seone was also able eo phoeograph ehe four Chinese leaders (in one phoeo, Seone himself p>osed wieh ehe suspects), ehe exace locaeions where immigranes usually crossed ehe border, ehe fraudulent immigradon documenes, and the adobe hues that served as safe houses. Beginning in ehe early 1900s, Mexican informants and governmene wienesses also regularly eracked ehe movemenes of Chinese immigranes wiehin Mexico by eaking phoeographs of poeeneial border crossers. The phoeographs were ehen sene eo ehe immigradon offices ae Tucson, Arizona, eo be used eo ideneify newly arrived Chinese as ones who had recendy passed ehrough Mexico.'^

The burden of enforcemene work along ehe Mexican border lay in ehe deeecdon and arrese of "coneraband Chinese" and ehe prosecudon of ehose who assiseed in eheir unlawful enery. The earliese attempes eo conerol ehe souehern border were ceneered on an increased number of officers along ehe border "maineaining a much closer paerol, nighe and day" and a "very vigorous policy v̂ aeh regard eo ehe arrese of Chinese found in ehis couner}' in violaeion of ehe law." The goal of paeroUing ehe border was inher- endy difficule because of ehe magnieude of land eo be covered as well as ehe pauciey of officers to patrol it. As Braun complained to the commissioner-general of immigra- tion in 1907, all the rivers, carriage roads, paehways, highways, and mouneain erails needed eo be paerolled. "There is a broad expanse of land wieh an imaginary line, all passable, all being used, all leading ineo ehe Unieed Seaees. The vigilance of your offi- cers seadoned along ehe border is always keen; bue whae can a handful of people do?"5»

In response, ehe immigraeion service increased ehe number of immigrane inspec- eors every year. The firse patrol officer in the south was Jeff Milton, who in 1887 resigned from the Texas Rangers and became a mouneed inspeceor wieh ehe U.S. Customs Service in El Paso. In ehe early 1900s, Mileon was hired by ehe immigradon service as a U.S. immigraeion border guard in the El Paso disedce. His primary duey

" "Repon by . . . Braun . . . Feb. 12, 1907"; Frank R. Stone to Berkshire, AprU 2 3 , 1910, Hie 52801/4A, Sub- ject Correspondence, Immigration and Naturalization Service Records (Washington, D . C ) ; Berkshire to Com- missioner-General o f Immigration, May 7 , 1910, ibid.\ Peikins, Border Patrol, 11, 2 3 .

" Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner-Gerteral of Immigration . . . 1906, 95; Braun to Commissioner-General of Immigradon, June 10, 1907, file 52320/1-A, Subject Correspondence, immigration and Naturalization Service Records (Washington, D.C).

82 The Journal of Amedcan History June 2002

In October 1908 the undercover government agent Frank R. Stone reported the arrest of eighteen Chinese immigrants attempting to sneak across the southern border concealed in this Texas and Pacific freight car. Chinese illegal immigration across the northern and south- ern borders had set in motion new U.S. border enforcement and policing policies and proce- dures, including the systematic search of all railcars from Mexico to the United States. Courtesy National Archives, if52212/2.

was to "prevent the smuggling of Chinese from Mexico into the United States." With a territory covering the vast stretches of border from El Paso to the Colorado River, he was known as the "one-man Border Patrol." By 1904 there were an estimated eighty mounted inspectors patrolling the border for illegal Chinese entrants. The so- called "line riders" of the Customs Service continued to "pick up any suspects they ran into," and Milton expanded the scope of his job to "pick up Hindus and Japa- nese" as well. In 1908 the special Chinese Division was established in the U.S. Bureau of Immigration, which took over the responsibility for dealing with illegal aliens, induding the work of the patrol officers. From 1907 to 1909, 2,492 Chinese were arrested by U.S. officials for illegal entry along the Mexican border.̂ "

Despite the strengthened border patrol, the inspectors could not catch every Chi- nese attempting to enter the country illegally. Indeed, it was this inability that led to

'o John M. Myers, The Border Wardens (Englewood Clif&, 1971), 16-17, 23; Rak, Border Patrol, 6; Perkins, Border Patrol xii, 9; "TTie U.S. Border Patrol: The First Fifty Years," I a-NReporter (Summer 1974), 3; Immigra- tion and Naturalization Service, "Early Immigration Inspection along the U.S./Mexican Border"; Zhang, "Dragon in the Land of the Eagle," 372.

Chinese Exclusion at the Borders with Canada and Mexico 83

the formulation and practice of the third feature of the government's border policy; extending border enforcement into the interior cides and regions of the United States and insdtuting a "vigorous policy" of raids, arrests, and deportadons of suspected ülegal Immigrants. "Let it be known," Commissioner-General Frank Sargent declared in 1906, "that even thickly setded city districts will not afford, as in the past, a safe harbor for those who clandesdnely enter." By 1909 a system of interior enforcement was in place, and many of the acdvides of the service were direaed toward "ridding the country of undesirable aliens." The immigradon service assigned special agents, commonly known as "Chinese catchers," to find and arrest Chinese unlawfully in the country. Those with high records of arrests and deportadons were "celebrated" in the local press and transferred throughout the country to spread their expertise. The Chinese inspeaor Charles Mehan, for example, began his career in San Francisco, which was widely known as the most difficult port of entry for Chi- nese. Recognized vidthin the service and by supporters of Chinese exclusion for his rigid intertogations and energedc enforcement of the Chinese exclusion laws, Mehan was called "one of the most celebrated Chinese catchers" in the newspapers and was transferred to El Paso to deal with the problem of Chinese border crossings from Mexico. In 1899 he was transferred to Canada.^'

Border surveillance, policing, and deportadon proved successfiil in stemming ille- gal Chinese border entries from Mexico. The niunbers of Chinese arrested and deported for unlawfiil residence in the United States increased. In 1899 the ratio of Chinese admitted to Chinese deported was 100:4. By 1904 the ratio was 100:61.'̂ ^ Border enforcement also became more centralized. In 1907 the border states were consolidated and reorganized into the Mexican Border District, containing Arizona, New Mexico, and most of Texas. Demonstradng the importance of Chinese immi- gration in shaping general border enforcement, the first commissioner hired to man- age the new Mexican Border District (which supervised all foreign immigradon across the border) was Frank W Berkshire, who had overseen the Chinese service along the New York-Canadian border and in New York City.̂ ^

At the same dme, condidons in Mexico, including revoludon and increasing and- Chinese sentiment, placed additional barriers to Chinese immigration. By 1911 the border division reported that it was "no longer acdng upon the defensive." Immigra- don officials also observed that by World War I, a decline in Chinese attempts at entry along the southern border led the immigration service to transfer its Chinese inspec- tors away from the region." In 1917 Congress provided that aliens who entered the

" Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration . . . 1906, 95; Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration . . . 1909, 132; "New Chinese Inspeaor," El Paso Herald, June 27, 1899, in box 8, Chinese General Correspondence, Immi- grarion and Naturalizarion Service Records (Washington, D.C.).

'^ Here deportation figures apply to those found to be in the country unlawfully. They do not include immi- grants denied entiy upon arrival. Department of Commerce and Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner-Gen- eral of Immigration ... 1904, 148.

" Immigration and Naturalization Service, "Early Immigration Inspection along the U.SJMexican Border." ** The commissioner-general of immigrarion reported that southern border strat^es to curb Chinese illegal

immigrarion were yielding results as early as 1905. Department of Commerce and ¿labor. Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration . . . 1905, 94. On the border conditions in 1911 and during World War 1,

84 The Journal of American History June 2002

country by land from places other than those designed as ports of entry or who entered without inspecdon (as many Chinese crossing the borders had done) could be taken into ctistody and deported without any l^al procedure. By 1926 the commis- sioner-general of immigradon declared that "the smuggling of Chinese over the land boundaries, which was a vexadous problem in the past, has been gready reduced."^'

Conclusion

Different Chinese immigradon goals and policies in the United States, Canada, and Mexico as well as different reladonships between the United States and its neighbors led to the evoludon of disdnct border policies. While the northem border was even- tually dosed throtigh U.S.-Canadian border diplomacy and a mutual antipathy toward Chinese immigration, southern border enforcement policies were the product of confiicdng Chinese immigradon polides in the United States and Mexico as well as inconsistent cooperadon between the two countries. Border diplomacy thus gave way to border policing designed to deter and apprehend illegal Chinese immigrants already at the border and within the United States. By the 1920s, both the northern and southem borders were effectively closed to Chinese immigration. WTiile Chinese border entries did not completely end, they ceased to warrant the level of attention and response within the immigradon service that they had at the turn of the century.

From 1882 to 1924, however, Chinese immigradon and exclusion along the U.S.- Canadian and U.S.-Mexican borders had transformed immigradon policy, the border r^ion, and American border enforcement. Chinese immigrants—raciaiized as f>er- petual foreigners—became the first group in the country marked as "illegal immi- grants." The U.S. Btireau of Immigradon's first division to deal primarily with illegal immigration was, after all, called the Chinese Division, making "Chinese" synony- motis with "illegal" in the same way "Mexican" is raciaiized now. Indeed, Chinese immigration and exdusion along the northern and southern borders appears to have been an important trial run for the U.S. Bureau of Immigration's much larger efforts to control Mexican immigration in later years. In both cases, the racializadon of polidcal discourse and policy on immigradon has been central to the ideological, legal, and political definitions of nadonai membership and nadonal idendty.

In the wake of increased illegal immigration firom Mexico since the 1970s, atd- tudes and responses to illegal immigradon by both the American public and the U.S. government echo earlier responses and sendments from the Chinese exclusion era. Metaphors of war, for example, are commonly used in contemporary border enforce- ment discourse as they were at the end of the nineteenth century. Words, phrases, and even polidcal inidadves such as "Invasion," "conquest," and "save our state" have been consistendy deployed by xénophobes and others, revealing a highly radalized

see Department o f Commerce and Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration . . . 1911, 146; and Perkins, Border Patrol, 4 9 . O n conditions in Mexico that diminished Chinese illegal immigration, see Salas, In theShadmv of the Eagles, 171.

« Act of Feb. 5, 1917, sec. 19, 39 Stat. 889; Zhang, "Dragon in the Land of the Eagle," 375-76; R. D. Mc- Kenzie, Oriental Exclusion: The ^ect of American Immigration Laws, Regulations, and Judicial Decisions upon the Chinese and Japanese on the American Pacific Coast {Chicago, 1927), 158.

Chinese Exclusion at the Borders with Canada and Mexico 85

perspecdve on the new immigradon, especially iUegal immigration. Much as "John Chinaman and his smugglers" were the dominant public image of the illegal immi- grant during the Chinese exclusion era, undocumented immigrants from Mexico became the nearly exdusive focus of government and public concern at the end of the twendeth Century.*"*

Significant differences exist as weU. The Chinese exdusion laws may have laid the foundations of U.S. border control and enforcement beginning in the late nineteenth century, but those early state efforts pale in comparison with recent campaigns to control immigradon. In particular, the govemment's first attempts to enforce the northern and southern borders during the Chinese exdusion era have increased expo- nendally, turning the U.S.-Mexican border into a militarized zone designed to deter iUegal immigration at any cost. Instead of "Chinese catchers" and "line dders," the government relies on surveillance in the form of night scopes, modon sensors, and communications equipment as weU as jeeps and a fourteen-mile triple fence on the U.S.-Mexican border south of San Diego. With newly hired border inspectors man- dated by Congress, the Border Patrol became one of the government's largest police agendes in the late 1990s. The United States currently spends $2 billion a year to build waUs and manage a twenty-foiu-hour patrol of the border. During the Chinese exclusion era, the number of "moimted inspeaors" patroUing the line was around 80. In 2001, the Border Patrol had 9,400 agents.^"

In the wake ofthe terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, issues of transnational immigradon p>olicies and border control have been pushed to the very forefront of U.S. and international policy. Several of the suspected hijackers who took control ofthe commercial flights that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D . C , spent dme in Canada and allegedly entered the United States from the north. In the months foUowing the attacks, policy makers have renewed their focus on increased border security, espe- ciaUy along the northern border. Dke cddcs of Canada's allegedly lax Chinese immi- gration policies dudng the 1890s, contemporary American politicians blame Canada for aUowing foreigners to enter with felse or no passports, apply for asylum, travel fredy, and raise funds for political aaivities while their asylum applicadons are pend- ing. Canada's open doors, it is argued, increase the risk to American nadonal secu- rity.** Likewise, the radalized cat^orizadon of Arabs and Muslims as "tertorists" follows on the heels of raciaiized charaaerizadons of Chinese and later Mexicans as

" Juan Perea, Immigrants Out! The New Nativism arui the Anti-Immigrant Impulse in the United States (New York, 1997), 73; Kevin R. Johnson, "Race, the Immigration Laws, and Domestic Race Relations: A 'Magic Mir- ror' into the Heart of Darkness," Indiana Law Journal Ti (Fall 1998), 1137; Claudia Sadowski-Smith, "Reading across Diaspora: Chinese and Mexican Undocumented Immigration at Land Bonders," in Globalization on the Line: Culture, Capital, and Citizenship at U.S. Borders, ed. Claudia Sadowski-Smidi (New York, forthcoming).

" Washinpon Post, OCT. 1, 1996, p. Al; ibid, April 5, 1996, p. A17; "Immigration Overhaul," Migration News, 3 ( O a . 1996) <http://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/archive_mn/oct_1996-01mn.html> (Feb. 15,2002); New York Times, May 27,2001, p. A14.

" Chicago Tribune, Sept. 26, 2001, p. 9; New York Times, Oct. I, 2001, p. B3; Dennis Buecken, "Canadian Sovereignty Called into Quesrion in F i ^ t against Terrorism," O a . 3, 2001, Canadian Press Newswire, available at Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe; National Post (Toronto), Oct. 4, 2001, pp. Al, A15; New York Times, OCT. 4, 2001, p. Bl; Seattle Times, Oct. 10, 2001, p. Al.

86 The Journal of American History June 2002

"illegal immigrancs." Recene su^esdons for increased border securiey also echo earlier effores firse ardculaeed during ehe Chinese exdusion era. In ehe early ewendeeh cen- eury, U.S. governmene officials soughe eo induce Canada eo adope Chinese immigra- don polides ehae more dosely mirrored U.S. laws. In laee Sepeember of 2001, Paul Cellucci, ehe U.S. ambassador eo Canada, pubhdy called for Canada eo "harmonize ies [refugee] polides wieh ehose of ehe Unieed Seaees." Presidene George W. Bush skeedied oue a vision of a "Noreh Amedcan securiey perimeeer" in which eransnadonal immigradon conttols would be centtal.^' As of ehis wrieing, ehere is liede agreemene on whae such a "harmonizadon" would mean. Nor is it clear how U.S. and Noreh American border polides mighe change. Whae is certain is ehae in the United Seaees' "new war" againse cerrodsm, transnadonal border enforcemene and immigradon poli- des will undoubeedly remain ceneral issues facing ehe Unieed Seaees, Canada, and Mexico in ehe eweney-firse century, juse as ehey were over one hundred years ago.

« National Post (Toiomo), Oct. 1, 2001, p. AlO.

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