ORIENTAL IMMIGRATION 



Problem of Immigration on Pacific Coast of Much Less Importance to Eugenics 

 Than That on Atlantic Coast, Because Intermarriage is Rare How 

 the Immigration Laws Work' 



W. C. Billings 



Surgeon, U. S. Public Health Service; Chief Medical Officer, Immigration Service, 



Angel Island (San Francisco), Cal. 



FROM lIk- viewpoint of eugenics 

 alone the administration of the 

 immigration law (including the 

 Chinese Exclusion Law) is not 

 so im]Jortant, because not so far reach- 

 ing, on the Pacific coast as the execution 

 of the same laws at ports situated upon 

 our eastern boundary. It may be of as 

 great, or possibly even greater, impor- 

 tance upon the Pacific coast if viewed 

 from other standpoints, — for instance 

 that of economics, standards of living, 

 and i)ossibly, in the opinion of a con- 

 siderable number of peo]jle, that of 

 simple fairness. The reason for the 

 lesser degree of Hving interest, in so far 

 as the application of the laws mentioned 

 bear upon the subject of eugenics, is 

 simi^le, and is tersely put by the man 

 who has the ability, in such a ])re- 

 eminent degree, of sensing the feelings 

 and attitudes of all sorts of pco]jles, 

 when he says "and never the twain 

 shall meet." 



The api^lication of this expression to 

 the problem of eugenics and the admin- 

 istration of the Immigration Law uj^on 

 our west coast, which really amounts to 

 saying the problem of eugenics in its 

 relation io the citizens of our country 

 and the Oriental, is not in the slightest 

 degree a reflection upon the peojjles of 

 any of the countries concerned, — it is 

 simjjly an expression used in an cxjilana- 

 tory way to accent the jjoint that, as a 

 purely eugenic consideration, the execu- 

 tion of the immigration law u])on the 

 Pacific coast is not of very great 

 moment for the very simjjle reason that, 

 upon lx)th sides, there seems to be, 



' Read before the twelfth annual meeting of 

 J915, at Berkeley, California. 



462 



speaking broadly, absolutely no dis- 

 position to inter-marr>'. 



In the opinion of the Rev. B. C. 

 Howorth, who spent nineteen years in 

 Japan as a missionary, and who for the 

 last eight years has been employed by 

 the United States Immigration Service 

 as Japanese interpreter, there are on 

 our whole Pacific coast not more than 

 twenty instances of intermarriage be- 

 tween Americans and Japanese, and in 

 the opinion of John Endicott Gardiner, 

 for sixteen years resident in China and 

 for thirty years Chinese Inspector in 

 the United States Immigration Service, 

 one might count on the fingers of both 

 hands the nimiber of American-Chinese 

 marriages between San Diego and 

 Seattle. Both of these men are in 

 close touch, respectively, with Japanese 

 and Chinese matters and conditions 

 and are able to give an approximately 

 accurate estimate of the extent of 

 intermarriage. 



CONTRAST ON TWO COASTS 



The immigration received at our 

 Atlantic ports, while certainly racially 

 heterogeneous enough to satisfy the 

 most extreme longing for variety, still 

 admits, and as time goes on will admit 

 more and more, of an opportunity to 

 study from a eugenic standpoint the 

 ultimate product of the "melting pot." 

 The ex])lanation of this op])ortimity is 

 as simple as is I hi- t'X])lanation for the 

 lack of op])ortunit\' ])reviously spoken 

 of, — it is simply that, given ])ropin- 

 quity, Occidental races will intermarry 

 to almost any extent, but under such 



the American Oenetir Association, August 3, 



