Karan Mahajan Quotes
When more Chinese started coming after the Gold Rush, employed on large projects like the Pacific Railroad, anti-Chinese sentiment became shrill.
Mahajan, Karan. "The Two Asian Americas." The New Yorker, Condé Nast, 21 Oct. 2015.
The reason this historical quote is so important is not only that it provides more evidence of the anti-Asian racism that existed in America in the 1920s, but it also shows that The American Legion was one of the leaders in fomenting race hatred of Asians. The anti-Asian racism was much worse on the West Coast than on the East Coast where there was a thriving Chinese Community in New York City that was relatively un-harassed.
Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor. This usually progressive organization advocated the 8 hour work day and control of child labor but when it came to competitors for their members jobs, they became a leading racist and anti-Chinese immigration voice in America. The irony of this quotation was that most of the labor constituency that the Knights represented had been immigrants or were the children of immigrants who earlier had frightened American workers and whose ethnicity had been opposed—Irish and Italians.
As in most weak economic times there were more people than usual opposed to immigration. Of the opponents of immigration some were not racist, but a large number were very much racist. Also the racist organizations all opposed immigration. Historically almost all anti-immigration movements were racist. First it was against the Irish, then the Germans, followed by Chinese, Japanese, Italians, Eastern European Jews, and at the time of this quote it was against the Mexicans and other Hispanics.
Karan Mahajan is an Indian-American novelist, essayist, and critic. His second novel, The Association of Small Bombs, was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction. He has contributed writing to The Believer, The Daily Beast, the San Francisco Chronicle, Granta, and The New Yorker. In 2017, he was named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists.
