The San Francisco plague epidemic of 1900 | Hacker News Reader

The San Francisco plague epidemic of 1900

nature.com

Note that plague is still an issue in the US in the states including the Rocky Mountains and west of them. See maps at: https://www.cdc.gov/plague/index.html

> By 1880, some 16% of the population of San Francisco were Chinese. Yet they faced animosity and segregation: the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, for instance, cracked down heavily on immigration.

It’s amazing that given the staggering amount of racism Chinese faced in American history, they have still been so successful. What can we learn from their experience?

That's it can still be racist to ask "hey, this group did great despite racism, why don't you, e.g. blacks, do the same?".

Or, rather, it's a valid question, as long as it's not taken as an assumption of laziness, inferiority, etc.

Racism towards different groups doesn't follow the same patterns.

A group that started as slaves and had Jim Crow laws against it well into the 20th century, and segregation up until the 70s, and redlining, racial police profiling and other issues still, doesn't have it the same as a group that came as free workers, had faced racism, but was considerably let off the hook in the 20th century...

For one, a group coming in as free men had its own culture from their homeland, community to fall back on, traditions, etc. Abductees coming as slaves from dozens of different African nations and tribes, were from the start thrown into the alien culture of their owners, and had to make do with whatever they could and build their own identity from the start (and to the degree that they were allowed until they were freed).

Add to that the ire of the ex-owners towards seeing their (or their parents and grandparents) ex-slaves freed (which is also associated with a humiliating defeat in the Civil War).

I wonder if the infected squirrels will reinfect the growing rat population in San Francisco and repeat the cycle.

Wait, so the "white middle-class population" complained when Chinatown was quarantined?

I haven’t read the book, but maybe Chinatown was a source of cheap domestic labor and services?

The article implies so:

> They quarantined Chinatown, preventing any movement of food in, or of its inhabitants — many of them cleaners, cooks and labourers — out. […] Outside Chinatown, the middle-class white population was outraged by the disruption.

“labourers” is a euphamism for prostitutes

Make sense yet?

Supposedly they're having a feces epidemic in San Fran lately. ianad, but it seems like that could promote plague resurgence?

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