Race and Space: 1917 and 2019

Jean Cramer, a candidate for city office in Michigan, recently said, “Keep Marysville a white community as much as possible.” As other candidates gasped, she added: “Seriously. In other words,no foreign-born. No foreign people.”

In my immigration and employment law class tomorrow, we are reading about a U.S. congressman, Denver Church, who promoted a law that would bar immigration from India and Japan.

He said these new immigrants should be excluded as the Chinese had been excluded decades before:

“California must be protected against the influx of Hindu and Japanese, not because we despise these people,” he assured, “for we despise none of the sons of Adam.”

Instead, he argued that Asians merely belong in Asia. “Back in the black past, far beyond the first glimmer of the torchlight of history, they united their destinies with the land in which they now reside, and we are anxious they should there remain.”

His idea became a law in 1917, called the Asiatic Barred Zone.

Then and now, this idea has been used to justify separating people by race: the world is composed of discrete “culture gardens,” separated by different habits and values. Asian Indians are a distinct people, with a unique culture: Therefore, they should stay in India. And so on.

Ms. Cramer’s views are not unusual, either by historical or current standards.

To be clear, I completely reject her view: America is enriched by its diversity.

Whatever you think about this, Ms. Cramer’s vision represents a long-running strain of American values that must be taken seriously.