I came to Winnipeg to perform my one-man show, 69, Emil Amok: Anchorman—The News Made Me Do It.
I didn’t expect to leave with another lesson about America.
It came over dim sum.
After the show, Shirley—a Chinese Canadian—and her friend Chris, a Sri Lankan-Mauritian Canadian—insisted on taking me to a restaurant in Winnipeg’s Chinatown.
A Filipino American. A Chinese Canadian. A Sri Lankan-Mauritian Canadian.
The United Nations, if it served dumplings.
Then Shirley told me about her father.
He arrived from China at 14 years old, speaking no English. The school put him in second grade just to learn the language. Once he caught up, they skipped him to ninth grade.
Two years later, he was working.
He opened a restaurant.
It burned down.
He opened another.
Eventually he bought a café in rural Manitoba serving chop suey, burgers, steaks and fries.
The Good Way Café became the place everybody gathered. Rock and roll played from the jukebox until midnight.
Her father, Arthur Mar, built a business, employed people and became part of his community.
Sound familiar?
It should.
It’s the same immigrant story Americans love to celebrate.
Until politics gets involved.
Because before Arthur Mar could build anything, Canada made him pay a $500 Chinese head tax—a fortune in the 1920s.
When that didn’t keep enough Chinese out, Canada passed its own Chinese Exclusion Act.
Different country.
Same racism.
Canada has spent decades admitting what it did.
The Trump administration wants America to do the opposite.
The White House recently released a report criticizing the Smithsonian for supposedly promoting “anti-White activism” and other ideological sins.
Buried inside is something even more troubling.
The report argues Americans shouldn’t think of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 primarily as a racist law.
Instead, we’re told it was about national security.
Funny how those two words have always been available whenever politicians want to discriminate against somebody.
Black Americans have heard that song before.
Slave patrols became public safety.
Jim Crow became states’ rights.
Mass incarceration became law and order.
Same melody.
Different verse.
History has a way of putting racism in a respectable suit.
When politicians begin sanitizing one chapter of history, they’re coming after the whole book.
Communities of color don’t have identical histories.
But we recognize familiar tactics.
About the Author
Emil Guillermo is an award-winning journalist, commentator and comic monologist. He performs “69, Emil Amok: Anchorman—The News Made Me Do It” at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, July 16–26.
Get Tix: https://www.winnipegfringe.com/performer-detail.aspx?kw=Emil+Amok+Productions
Follow him at YouTube.com/@emilamok1.
The post Opinion: When Politicians Start Sanitizing One Chapter of History, They’re Coming After The Whole Book appeared first on BlackPressUSA.
