‘Plague’ recalls 1900 epidemic
“Plague at the Golden Gate” on “American Experience” (9 p.m., PBS, TV-PG, check local listings) recalls history from more than a century ago with terrifying similarities to recent, controversial actions and social attitudes.
The documentary begins at the turn of the century in Honolulu, where authorities in the newly American territory torched whole neighborhoods in the Chinese section of the city, where evidence of bubonic plague had been discovered. Known as the Black Death, bubonic plague had killed a huge portion of Europe’s population in the 14th century.
With no known cure, medical experts weren’t taking any chances. But as the film makes clear, even the most educated men in 1900 harbored attitudes and theories deeply influenced by unfounded racial bias. When plague struck in Asia, it was widely assumed that its lethality owed itself to the ricebased diet of the “Asiatic.” Meat-eaters of European stock were thought to be immune.
So, when the dead bodies of two Japanese sailors washed up in San Francisco Bay, local authorities knew where to look. But efforts to quarantine that city’s Chinatown were shortlived. The city’s Chinese residents had little reason to trust local experts. The relatively recent Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 had codified American attitudes toward Asian immigrants, who were officially denied citizenship. Ultimately, the quarantine was lifted, not out of concern for Chinatown residents, but because of the demands of white middle-class businesses and households that needed their maids, cooks, laundrymen and workers.
Into this controversy arrived Dr. Joseph Kinyoun, a medical expert from a federal agency whose efforts to deal with the plague on a scientific basis were met with violent blowback from all sides.
Chinese citizens distrusted the government and did not believe in Western medicine, complicating Kinyoun’s efforts. While scientists worried that California’s railroad traffic could spread the disease throughout the country, state politicians were outraged by talk of plague and the effect it might have on business. Some went so far as to accuse Kinyoun of fabricating a hoax with the deliberate intention of destroying California’s prosperity. These charges were amplified by William Randolph Hearst’s sensational newspapers.
It’s difficult to watch this and not hear powerful echoes of the past two years. Substitute Fox News for Hearst papers, and you have the same efforts to cast doubt on medical science. It’s hard to learn about Kinyoun and not think of the demonization and death threats that Dr. Anthony Fauci has faced in our “advanced” age.
And crude attitudes from 1900 were injected into our body politic when President Trump continually called COVID “Chinese flu,” and “Kung flu,” sparking a rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans.
As Mark Twain observed, “History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
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