Workers of Color
Racism, xenophobia, and economic precarity prompted mainstream unions to systematically deny membership to workers of color during the era of the Seattle General Strike. Since the late 1800s, unions nationwide, particularly on the Pacific Coast, advocated for immigration bans on different groups of Asian workers. This rhetoric sometimes turned violent in the form of attacks and forced expulsions in Pacific Northwest cities, including Seattle, Tacoma, Bellingham, Vancouver, and Portland. Despite this, the workers organized themselves. For example, though they were confined to a handful of jobs in an ethnically segmented labor market such as domestic work, agriculture, railroads, mining, and lumber, Japanese Americans organized into their own unions. They struck for better wages and working conditions in several industries. The Japanese Labor Association attempted to gain entry into the Seattle and Bellingham labor councils but these efforts were mostly rebuffed or ignored until decades later.
Though small in number compared to the white population of Seattle, pockets of Black, Japanese, Chinese, South Asian, Indigenous, Filipino, Hawaiian, Middle Eastern, West Indian, Mexican, Central American, and South American communities lived, worked, and struggled in the city. Indeed, some people of color chose to support the general strike; some as members of Japanese worker unions and the Japanese Labor Association; the Workers’, Soldiers’, and Sailors’ Council; and also as individual strikers.
Click images below to view at full resolution and for more information.
Industrial Workers of the World Seattle Joint Branches records. Accession no. 0544-001, Box 6/6. Labor Archives of Washington University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections.
This pamphlet published by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) features recommendations about how to organize domestic workers. The IWW was a non-segregated labor union that aimed to organize workers the craft unions ignored such as domestic workers, lumber workers, people of color, and women.
Social Issues Subject Files. PH Coll 1293. University of Washington Libraries Special Collections.
In the 1870s and 1880s Chinese men, such as the one pictured here, did domestic work in upper-class homes in Washington. However racism and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 pushed Chinese and Chinese-American domestic workers out. In Seattle, immigrant Scandinavian women moved in to fill these jobs.
James P. Lee photograph collection. PH Coll 0294. University of Washington Libraries Special Collections.
This photograph shows a boarding house located on 6th Avenue in Seattle. This census record shows a diversity of occupants living in boarding houses along 6th Avenue South. Japanese, Russian, Australian, American, and South Asian lodgers lived and slept in these houses and spent their days working as porters, domestic workers, waitresses, sailors, and laborers in sawmills and on the railroad. The census enumerator initially recorded the race of the South Asian lodgers as white but then later erased that designation.
Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce and Labor.
This photograph shows a boarding house located on 6th Avenue in Seattle. This census record shows a diversity of occupants living in boarding houses along 6th Avenue South. Japanese, Russian, Australian, American, and South Asian lodgers lived and slept in these houses and spent their days working as porters, domestic workers, waitresses, sailors, and laborers in sawmills and on the railroad. The census enumerator initially recorded the race of the South Asian lodgers as white but then later erased that designation.
King County Labor Council records. Accession no. 1940-001, Box 15/19a. Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections.
On the last day of the strike, workers brought forward a resolution regarding the inclusion of Japanese as well as other workers of color in the Seattle Central Labor Council (see the bottom of page 12). In recognition of the Japanese community and other workers of color supporting the general strike, the committee asks for the formation of a committee to unite all workers together across racial lines. But note how the resolution also calls for the continued restriction of immigration from Asia.
King County Labor Council records. Accession no. 1940-001, Box 15/19a. Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections.
On the last day of the strike, workers brought forward a resolution regarding the inclusion of Japanese as well as other workers of color in the Seattle Central Labor Council (see the bottom of page 12). In recognition of the Japanese community and other workers of color supporting the general strike, the committee asks for the formation of a committee to unite all workers together across racial lines. But note how the resolution also calls for the continued restriction of immigration from Asia.
The Forge (Seattle, WA). University of Washington Libraries Microforms & Newspapers.
Though the title employs the racist phrase “Yellow Peril,” often used to refer to Asian Americans pejoratively, the overall text of this article countervails its apparent meaning by pointing out the systemic exploitation of Japanese tenant farmers by white business owners and argues that Japanese American wage workers were worthy of inclusion into the ranks of the Workers’, Soldiers’, and Sailors’ Council.
Arthur B. Pracna photograph collection. PH Coll 1373. University of Washington Libraries Special Collections.
In the early 1900s, many South Asian immigrants sought work in Washington’s lumber industry such as those pictured in this image. In 1907 and 1908 racism, fear of competition, and the undercutting of wages led to a series of anti-Asian riots in British Columbia and Washington against Chinese, Japanese, and South Asian people. In Bellingham, Everett, and Seattle, mobs of white men attacked and forced South Asians from their homes and workplaces.
Derived from 1920 census statistics, these tables give insight into the racial and ethnic makeup of Seattle at the time of the strike. Categories of race for the 1920 census included “W” for White, “B” for Black, “Mu” for mulatto (mixed race), “Ch” for Chinese, “Jp” for Japanese, “In” for American Indian, or “Ot” for other races. Conceptions of race, ethnicity, and whiteness were in flux at this time and in 1930 the categories expanded to include Mexican, Filipino, Hindu (South Asian), and Korean. The “mulatto” classification, used to denote mixed race, was removed and anyone with mixed Black and white heritage were recorded as Black. Shifting racial classifications seemed to reflect an attempt to further segregate races from each other. Further, these classifications reflected the irrational fascination with subdividing immigrant populations while helping whites maintain political power.
General Indian Collection. Negative number 564: Ee-13. University of Washington Libraries Special Collections.
Pushed to the margins by encroaching settlers, Indigenous peoples such as the Qʷidiččaʔa·tx̌ (Makah) women pictured here continued to live, work, and occupy their accustomed lands and waters in the Puget Sound area.
Social Issues Subject Files. PH Coll 1293, negative number UW6956. University of Washington Libraries Special Collections.
Seattle Union Record (Seattle, WA). University of Washington Libraries Microforms & Newspapers.
Japanese workers first came to Seattle and US in 1880s to replace Chinese workers, who had been legally banned from immigrating in 1886. In 1907, partly due to demands by US labor unions, Japanese workers were also restricted from further immigration. Excluded from joining the labor unions of the American Federation of Labor on the basis of race, these workers organized themselves, striking for better wages, improved working conditions, and union recognition in several industries. For example, in 1903 Japanese laborers on the Great Northern Railroad and the Northern Pacific railroads struck for a raise. In 1907, Japanese steamboat cooks in Puget Sound formed a union and demanded employer recognition.
Founded in Seattle in 1906, the Japanese Labor Association attempted to gain entry into or affiliate with the Seattle and Bellingham labor councils. These efforts were mostly rebuffed or ignored, but the Japanese community did strongly support the General Strike, sending delegates to the General Strike committee. The limits of solidarity were apparent when the AFL unions agreed to admit these delegates to the committee but denied them votes. Japanese newspapers like the Taihoku Nippo in Seattle were friendly to the labor movement and often advised Japanese workers to cooperate with labor unions and, in cases of strikes, to avoid becoming strikebreakers.
The Taihoku Nippo (Great Northern Daily News) was one of two major Japanese language newspapers at the time of the General Strike, in this 1922 article, the author discusses the Seattle Japanese labor community’s participation in the General Strike and their ongoing cooperation with the Seattle labor movement, contrasting it with the relationship of the Japanese community and the white labor unions in San Francisco and other cities.