The bulk of the Asiatic Exclusion League records span the years 1906-1910 and consist of the minutes and proceedings of monthly meetings and the first convention of the League, which had the explicit goal of discriminating against Asian workers. The collection also contains the proceedings of the first two conventions of the Anti-Japanese Laundry League founded in 1908; the transcript of a debate at St. Ignatius College; and a detailed index to its contents. A pamphlet by Samuel Gompers on Asian workers entitled "Meat vs. Rice: American Manhhod Against Asiatic Coolieism, Which Shall Survive?" contains the term "coolie," which is considered to be a derogatory racial slur against Chinese workers referring to a form of debt slavery outlawed in California in 1879. In addition to these items, photocopies of selected articles on Asian exclusion from the Labor Clarion between 1904-1915 were added to the collection in 2006. Content warning: This collection contains racist historical materials that resulted in the discrimination, murder, and incarceration of Asian immigrants in the United States.

During the Gold Rush, men from China were solicited to work as laborers in the United States. However, when the economy entered into a depression following the Civil War, labor leaders saw the Chinese immigrants as a threat to the white working class. Driven by economic precarity and racism, many labor groups began producing anti-Asian propaganda and performing hate crimes against Asian immigrants. Following the first ethnically based immigration law, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, groups such as the Asiatic Exclusion League (AEL) formed to fight for the "white man's country," actively discriminating and committing violence against people of Asian descent.

1.25 Cubic Feet 3 boxes

Copyright has not been assigned to the Labor Archives and Research Center. All requests for permission to publish or quote from materials must be submitted in writing to the Director of the Archives. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Labor Archives and Research Center as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.

Collection is open for research.