🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <351ed763.279666075@newshost.cc.utexas.edu>, dr.feinstein@DELETETHIS.mail.utexas.edu (Erik) says:
>
>On Fri, 27 Mar 1998 21:18:23 -0600,
>NOSPAMckgowens@uts.cc.utexas.edu.REMOVEFORMAIL (Craig K. Gowens (Commissioner of
>the SWC)) wrote:
>
>>Please explain when asians (WWII intermine camps aside) were treated
>>like blacks and hispanics have been. Explain when there was systematic,
>>rampant discrimination against them. See the difference.
>
>Look at the West coast during the 1800s and early 1900s. Around the time of the
>go0ld rush, some sweeping statute passed that effectively prohibited an asian
>from owning land [seemingly because the Chinese were not only finding a good
>many successful prospects, buyt they were good at excavating the gold - needless
>to say, this irritated some white miners]. I don't know how long that it was on
>the books, but Asians have faced incredible systematic discrmination on the west
>coast during the past century. They certainly didn't have it easy during the
>years surounding WWII - many of those not interned were forced to evacuate by
>bigoted local citizenry [even after the war was over].
>
>
> - Erik Smith
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Here�s what encyclopedia Britanica has to say about it:

Coolie:

(from Hindi Kuli, an aboriginal tribal name, or from Tamil kuli, 
"wages"), in usually pejorative European usage, an unskilled labourer 
or porter usually in or from the Far East hired for low or subsistence 
wages. 

The so-called coolie trade began in the late 1840s as a response 
to the labour shortage brought on by the worldwide movement to 
abolish slavery. The majority of these contract labourers were 
shipped from China, especially from the southern ports of Amoy and 
Macao, to developing European colonial areas, such as Hawaii, 
Ceylon, Malaya, and the Caribbean. (see also Index: slave trade) 

Most coolies became so by voluntary negotiation, though 
kidnapping, decoy, and fraud were occasionally involved. Western 
merchants conducted the trade. Conditions in the depots (barracoons), 
where the labourers were stored awaiting shipment, and on the 
vessels in which they sailed were cramped and inhumane, resulting 
in much sickness, misery, and death. Neither the Western governments 
nor the Chinese government made more than a haphazard attempt 
to correct the abuses; the Chinese government had issued a ban on 
all emigration, but officials did nothing to enforce it. 

By the late 19th century, free immigration began to supersede the 
coolie trade. The Chinese, Japanese, and Hindustani workers who 
came to Australia and California after the discovery of gold in these 
areas around 1850 were commonly regarded as coolies, but they 
were technically free immigrants, not contract labourers. 

Terry at Lake Bastrop
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