California city apologizes for racist past against Chinese

The California city of San Jose on Wednesday apologized to the descendants of Chinese immigrants for the racial discrimination and injustices their forebears suffered more than a century ago.

The city, in the heart of Silicon Valley, on Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution for the apology to be made for the role the city played in "systemic and institutional racism, xenophobia, and discrimination".

Members of the Chinese community and elected officials of Chinese descent celebrated the resolution at a ceremony on Wednesday at the site in downtown San Jose where the city's largest Chinatown once existed before it was destroyed in an arson attack in 1887.

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo read the resolution at the ceremony, which he said marked the first time that he had ever read a council resolution with a public audience because, "in this case, the medium is the message" and "the facts contained within it are part of this important apology".

"This is not merely a reckoning of things passed, but a change in our orientation to each other and as a community in the years to come," he said.

Between 1849 and 1853, some 24,000 Chinese immigrants arrived in California, and by 1870 there were an estimated 63,000 Chinese in the United States.

The first Chinatown in San Jose was established in 1866 by the burgeoning Chinese community. Over the next 65 years, San Jose would be home to five Chinatowns, according to the resolution.

Victims of xenophobia

The early Chinese immigrants were met with virulent racism, xenophobia and the violence of anti-Chinese forces from early on and were regularly denied equal protection before the law.

The most well-known of the city's Chinatowns, the second Market Street Chinatown, was burned to the ground by the arsonists.

That action in 1887 led to the destruction of homes and businesses and the displacement of 1,400 members of San Jose's Chinese community, according to the resolution.

"The story of Chinese immigrants, and the dehumanizing atrocities committed against them in the 19th and early 20th century should not be purged from or minimized in the telling of San Jose's history," the resolution read. The "legacy of discrimination against early Chinese immigrants as part of our collective consciousness" also helps to contribute to the current surge in racism against Asians, it says.

"An apology for grievous injustices cannot erase the past, but admission of the historic wrongdoings committed can aid us in solving the critical problems of racial discrimination facing America today," the resolution said.

San Jose, with a population of over 1 million, is the first major city in the country to formally apologize to the Chinese community for its mistreatment of early Chinese immigrants. It has become the 10thlargest city in the US.

In May, the city of Antioch, also in California, apologized for the unjust treatment meted out to early Chinese immigrants more than 100 years ago.