Here is the thing. This country. Land of the free. The Statue of Liberty holds the tablet in her hand, her light perched above: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
So yes. Here is the thing.
On this date, September 2, 1885, a group of Chinese miners were massacred in the Wyoming Territory.
It seems that from the very start of this country, prejudices have been held against others, one way or another. Even when the first “settlers” stepped on this soil as visitors, they began on this destructive path.
But on this occasion in Wyoming, 150 white miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming, brutally attacked their Chinese coworkers. This group of white men — all men — killed 28 people, wounded many others, and drove several hundred more out of town.
The white men coal miners working for Union Pacific had tried on many occasions to unionize. They wanted to come together and go on strike, as a group, for better working conditions. Apparently, this went on for years.
But every time this occurred, the powerful railroad company had gotten the better of them. They always seemed to bring in other workers who would get the job done and not slow down the railroad’s progress. Typically, these were people who needed the work. These people were hungry and needed homes. They had families. They needed money. So they worked.
Well. On this day in 1885, the miners apparently reached their limit. They were angry and wanted someone to blame. So they blamed — not the railroad executives, rich, cigar-smoking, fat-bellied white men with nice cars — no. They blamed the minority, the Chinese miners and workers.
So there it was. The white miners, outraged, struck out. A mob of them attacked Rock Spring’s small Chinatown. When the Chinese people saw the armed mob approaching, most of them abandoned their homes and businesses. They literally ran for the hills.
Many of those Chinese people were unable to escape. And they were brutally beaten and murdered or severely injured. Federal troops escorted the surviving Chinese back into town one week later.
Many returned to work because they needed to make money to live. Eventually, the Union Pacific fired 45 of the white miners (there were at least 150 in the mob) for their roles in the massacre. But they were never held accountable by law for those murders.
It was all a part of the significant movement in the country at that time, a hatred toward Chinese people. The Rock Springs Massacre was yet another example of this coming forward.
The Chinese have long been victims of prejudice and violence in our country. They were also singled out for attack by some national politicians. Those same politicians, again, all men, helped pass an 1882 law that closed the U.S. to any further Chinese immigration.
I’ll fast forward to 2021. We are still mindless oafs. It was this year when we witnessed yet another storm of violence and hatred against the Chinese because of COVID’s origins in Wuhan, China.
When are people going to finally understand that we are all people? The same. We’re the same.
But we repeat the vicious cycle. When are we ever going to learn?
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“From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbor’s rights without striking a dangerous blow at your own.”
– Carl Shurz
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“All the citizens of a state cannot be equally powerful, but they may be equally free.”
– Voltaire
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“Six feet of earth make all men equal.”
– Italian Proverb
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When will we ever learn. Same, same. We are.
