I read a recent article in the Anchorage Daily News (Yes, I read it, so you don’t have to). It was titled, “The 1915 Expulsion of Mexicans from Wrangell,” and although it was presented as a historical perspective of events from Alaska’s past, it was actually a biased attempt to influence Alaskans on the issue of illegal immigration and against enforcing immigration laws.
I say this because there are many little-known events from Alaska’s rich history that the author could have written about. One example that would be timely today is the wisdom demonstrated by former Governor Jay Hammond, who was a proponent of saving some of the oil wealth from Prudhoe Bay and creating the Alaska Permanent Fund.
Hammond knew a time would come when politicians would attempt to get their hands on the last bit of Alaska’s oil wealth that had not already been spent. That very idea was suggested in the last session of our state legislature. The ADN could have done a feature article on Jay Hammond and his efforts to protect the PFD. It would have been timely and enlightening. However, the ADN doesn’t run stories like this because it would show liberal politicians in a bad light for trying to steal the Permanent Fund, and that doesn’t fit with the paper’s left-wing editorial view.
I do know that it is challenging to read stories about historical events accurately because we often do so through the lens of current events and our personal experience.
Instead, the Anchorage Daily News chose to focus on an incident of alleged racism from Alaska’s past.
The article in question recounts an event that took place in Wrangell back in 1915. It details a story about seasonal cannery workers who attacked and stabbed a local resident, badly injuring him. The victim was a respected member of the local community who happened to be white. The attackers were a small group of seasonal cannery workers who happened to be Mexican. At the time, Wrangell had no local law enforcement officers, and the attackers were not apprehended for their crime.
In response to the lack of accountability for the perpetrators, the mayor formed a committee of residents to determine how to resolve the issue. The author disparagingly refers to this as a vigilance committee, even though the community’s elected officials organized it. Typically, vigilance committees were organized outside of the law, but that wasn’t the case for this incident. The committee issued a harsh order that all Mexicans in town had to leave town within 24 hours, or they would be hanged.
The author spent considerable time examining this order from a racial perspective. The residents of the city are tarred by comparison to the lynchings of African Americans, and incidents of anti-Mexican bias that happened in other parts of the country. The implication is that citizens in Wrangell were motivated by racism back in 1915, and by implication, we might also be racist if today we support efforts to enforce our country’s immigration laws.
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Some important facts that the author skips over contradict his suggestion of racism as a motivation. The first is that no Mexican was ever lynched in Wrangell. Perhaps in the absence of law enforcement, this was simply a harsh threat made to force the perpetrators to leave town. There were also Chinese and Filipino seasonal cannery workers in town who were not a target of the town’s “leave or else” order. The author also overlooks the fact that the 1910 census reveals Wrangell had a diverse demographic makeup. Out of a local population of 743 people, almost half were ethnic minorities; approximately one-third were Native Americans, and 10% were Asian/Pacific islanders. None of those other racial groups were subject to the order to leave town. The author also overlooks the fact that the following year, another group of Mexican cannery workers was allowed to come back to Wrangell and work in local canneries without incident. Perhaps the committee’s order was more about ensuring public safety than about racism against Mexicans.
The author only briefly mentions that a federal marshal eventually tracked down and apprehended the perpetrators of the crime. One of them, a man by the name of Joe Costa, was convicted of stabbing and sent to the federal penitentiary at McNeil Island in Washington State.
I don’t know what was in the hearts of those people in Wrangell back in 1915. I have no way of proving that it wasn’t racism that drove the citizens of Wrangell to take this action, but they could have had a different motivation. They didn’t have local law enforcement to keep their town safe, and perhaps they did what they thought was best to ensure the safety of those living in the community, including those who were Alaska Native or Asian. I do know that it is challenging to read stories about historical events accurately because we often do so through the lens of current events and our personal experience.
Perhaps the lesson we should all take from this is to exercise caution when reading articles from any left-wing media source. They may be attempting to use propaganda to influence us to achieve their own objectives.
The views expressed here are those of Greg Sarber. Read more Sarber posts at his Seward’s Folly substack.
16 Comments
Regarding the article in question, “The 1915 Expulsion of Mexicans from Wrangell,” was there anything anything in it that was demonstrably false? I suspect not. And sure, the author could have written about anything else in Alaska’s history. But given the current, fairly indiscriminate round-up and expulsion of undocumented immigrants, it woud seem those events in 1915 would have some extra resonance today. Greg Sarber is grasping at straws.
“Demonstrably false” is evident in your written response. You completely left out or purposely misled who is getting deported. You’ve claimed “fairly indiscriminate” round ups. This is blatantly false as a whole. Those already with deportation orders, child molesters, criminals, gang members, etc are the targeted ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS for deportation first – Now. I say your twists pushing your ideology are no different than the original ADN piece. Undoubtedly some good people are swept up in the operations, but nothing like leftists and the left-wing medias (like the ADN) want everyone to believe. Those “good peoples” AKA illegal immigrants fate is for a later debate. Despite all the high gov’t officials that have continuously explained who the ICE agency targets currently are, the propagandists continue to push their agendas through misinfo/disinfo. It’s been the most used path of the democrat party’s bid for power for several decades now since many of their basic policies have been massively failing. The left/dems insanity opening the borders probably costing the nation nearly a TRILLION $$ these last 5 years caused all these issues, so I say the left needs to sit down and shut the hell up while the normal American adults fix it.
Sorry for your loss Matthew. By believing Trump’s lies, you have no more integrity, but don’t be bummed, at least you’ve kept your gullibility.
Paul Hart. Propaganda does not have to be an outright lie to be effective. One definition of propaganda is, “Ideas or information of questionable accuracy used as a means to advance a cause.” For example, you can be on a beach in Hawaii with an 8-year-old and tell them that a kid was attacked by a shark when playing in the water at this beach. It will make him fearful, and the kid won’t go into the water. Perhaps the attack happened as described, but it occurred 30 years ago, and generations of children have since then played safely in the water. The partial truth of a previous attack influenced the kid. Propaganda can both be true and intended to influence people. That is what makes propaganda so insidious. You can be influenced by a true news story. You should be asking why the story was published about an incident from back in 1915. Why now, just as our country is enforcing immigration laws that individuals consider controversial? Those are the questions you should be asking, but perhaps you are more susceptible to media influence than you are even aware of.
You’re asking why a historian writing a history column wrote about a historical incident?
Back in the Day Wrangell was probably 40% Natives my Great Grandfather was one of them. They made the correct decision.
All illegals need to go. All of them.
Leftists don’t seem to care that they drive wages down for Americans, as well as take their jobs. And before I hear the standard whine, Americans built this country and Americans will do all the jobs therein.
Then we come to the crime, weight on social services, healthcare and schools as well as the dilution of our culture.
They ALL need to go.
Coulda just said that you don’t like brown skin people.
Do you not like ‘brown skin people”? Because I was referring to anyone here illegally.
You seem to have a bias.
By definition, Americans built America, but many of them were immigrants, and many more were the grandchildren of immigrants
Since liberals essentially do not reproduce anymore they’ve had to find a new way to persists and augment their numbers within this country. ILLEGAL immigration is their solution to this problem. Ergo liberals are the biggest purveyors and advocates of ILLEGAL immigration. By definition all ILLEGAL immigrants ARE criminals and need to be deported. Hopefully, most will have have a moral awakening and the good sense to leave of their own volition. For those who don’t they should be deported and if need be imprisoned. If imprisoned, let them earn their keep in prison with productive HARD labor. But as said, hopefully they will leave of their own accord knowing they are criminals, knowing they are fugitives, knowing the ruse is up, and that they rightfully are not welcome here. ILLEGAL aliens steal from every legal citizen and diminish and dilute the value of our U.S. citizenry. Why are so many defending, advocating, and incentivizing this blatant and widespread criminality? And don’t give me the line that ILLEGAL immigrants are all desperate starving third worlders, which is a false narrative. If so, why did they not settle among the many nations they passed through on the way to the U.S.? Could it be that we are the most lucrative nation (victim) they could hope to game and parasitize? And away birthright citizenry – what an insane, nonsensical perversion of law. Liberalism IS a mental illness.
Toby. So you’re like Micah, don’t like them brown skin different people. Fortunately for you, you don’t have to admit you are a racist. You can hide behind the label of “illegals”. So awful is their existence on American soil that they should be arrested, deported, imprisoned and sentenced to hard labor. You call them parasites that “ diminish and dilute the value of our U.S. citizenry.” If your neighbor is named Pablo Jimenez, should he be deported? You know that if you deep enough you’ll find an ancestor from Mexico, ergo ILLEGAL.
Your family is likely English or even Jewish. What shall we do with you?
We seem to be talking about criminality, but you are constantly bringing up race.
You don”t like “brown skin different people”. Are you a racist?
Manny Mullen: who said anything about Mexicans? Who said anything about brown-skinned people? Stop the semantic “jiving and shucking”. I, like the majority of Americans, want an end to ILLEGAL immigration…period. Recent surveys indicate that LEGAL immigrants are the demographic most opposed to ILLEGAl immigration. And let us not forget that the U.S., over the last 25 years, average 1.2 million LEGAL immigrants admitted per year with the overwhelming majority of them being “brown-skinned people”. No country in the world comes close to LEGALLY admitting so many immigrants. Stop the lies, stop the false narratives – the American people ARE the most generous and magnanimous people on the face of the earth – to all peoples. Again, Liberals (Democrats) are using ILLEGAL immigration to stack the deck hoping to establish permanent one party rule with a large and permanent impoverished underclass as their powerbase, granting them enough government “freebies” to keep them voting blue in perpetuity.
If you’re illegal you need to go back to where you came from.
Yes if you’re Red,Yellow, Black OR White, you will be Deported.
If you came in the legal/right way, life is good for you. Now you are an American.
Wait you have to speak English too you’re in America now.
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