We have talked a fair amount about the history of Asian Americans in California and New York, but what about those in Texas, which has the third largest Asian American population in the United States? This Voice of America (VoA) article talks about the the history of Chinese Americans in Texas, some of whom have been in Texas for more than 150 years. I was surprised to see that the article did not mention the Pershing Chinese, who I just recently learned about.
The VoA article focuses on the history of Chinese Americans in the Houston Area. Rice University in Houston maintains the Houston Asian American Archive, which preserves the oral histories of many Chinese Americans. An interesting part of those stories is about how Chinese Americans navigated Jim Crow. They were considered to be in a “gray” area, being neither black nor white, and acceptance was neighborhood dependent.
I learned about the Pershing Chinese from the book Unassimilable (which I will review it at some later point). These were Chinese in Mexico who in 1916 helped the American General John Pershing in his efforts to fight Pancho Villa, the Mexican Revolutionary. Because of the danger of retribution for their efforts, Pershing brought them into the United States despite the Chinese Exclusion Act. He also asked the US Congress to allow these Chinese to become permanent residents, which they did through a special resolution. Around half of these stayed in the San Antonio area and formed the foundation for the Chinese community there. The 502nd Air Base Wing recently rededicated a historical marker at the historic site of Pershing’s Chinese Camp in San Antonio.
(photo credit: AnonMoos based on image by Dawinek licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)
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