03/26/2021
The AAPI community, or any other community, should not have to live in fear of discrimination, racism, and violence. Let us join together on this day of action to .
The Asian American community has experienced a spike in anti-Asian violence, racism, and hate incidents in 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic. Sadly, violence and racism against Asian Americans are not new phenomena. There is a long history of racism and violence against Asians and Asian Americans in Wyoming.
Following the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, animosity against Chinese immigrants was high across the United States. On the morning of September 2, 1885, white miners in Rock Springs, believing that Chinese miners were the cause of their lack of employment and low wages, formed a mob and entered Rock Springs China Town. They robbed and beat any Chinese person they encountered, shooting those who dared to defend themselves. They burned houses down with the people still inside, and others were murdered in similarly grisly ways. When the massacre ended, 28 Chinese people had been murdered and another 15 injured. 16 men were arrested for their role in the racial violence but were all released when a grand jury refused to bring charges against the men. Not a single person was convicted for the murder, assault, and property damage caused by the mob.
On February 19, 1942, Franklin D. Roosevelt, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, signed Executive Order 9066. This order led to the incarceration and internment of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry living in the United States. Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans living in Hawai’i and the west coast were moved to the interior of the United States to incarceration and internment camps. Heart Mountain incarceration camp, in Park County, Wyoming was built in the summer of 1942 and opened on August 11, when the first Japanese Americans arrived from temporary detention facilities on the west coast. The camp held a total of 13,997 Japanese Americans in its 650 military-style barracks over the course of three years, with a peak population of 10,767, making it the third-largest town in Wyoming at the time. Heart Mountain closed on November 10, 1945. Later studies would conclude that there was no reasonable justification for the incarceration and that it was primarily based on racism and war hysteria.
If you would like to learn more about Heart Mountain or the Rock Springs Massacre, the American Heritage Center has multiple collections about these dark events in Wyoming history featured as topics on the Wyoming History Day website, https://www.wyominghistoryday.org/theme-topics
📷From Bill Manbo papers
