Response to Takaki

Last semester, I was in a debate class that focussed on immigration as a topic for the entire semester. We had to discuss things like quotas, anchor babies, and illegal immigration. We thought we were discussing new problems.

Takaki definitely opened my eyes. Illegal immigration isn't a new thing at all. I feel like Americans have never really wanted any immigrants staying in America, just working there. In fact, Hawaii seemed to be the only place that was remotely tolerant of immigrants, and the people in charge seemed to be more interested in "saving" the Asian foreigners in a religious way (sort of like Rudyard Kipling's "White Man's Burden").

In general, the treatment of women struck me as particularly gruesome. I find it odd that American immigration seems to always focus on "crimes of moral turpitude" (like bigamy, etc), but only allowed Asian women to enter the country as prostitutes. I suppose it was a population control thing. Prostitutes rarely want to become pregnant.

I wonder if those prostitutes were restricted to Chinese men? Did American men ever take advantage of them?