All you need is click bait

Slipped Disc, the self-acclaimed "world's most-read cultural website" recently ran the story and image shown above. In a clumsy piece of ethnic stereotyping the photo was cropped, cut and pasted without attribution from the website of Angel Island Immigration Station. This notorious station of detention and exclusion for Asian immigrants in San Francisco Bay closed in 1940. 

In the interests of shedding just a little light to counter Slipped Disc's click bait heat, the following is extracted with full acknowledgement from the Angel island website: 

Between 1870 and 1940, more than 25 million immigrants arrived in the United States, with a major peak in annual arrivals between 1900 and 1914, when nearly 900,000 persons came per year on average. Those arriving in San Francisco, especially Asian immigrants, encountered very different legal regimes and social circumstances than those passing through Ellis Island in New York. On the West Coast, immigration was mediated through racial exclusion, restrictive legislation, and the US government’s attempt to control Pacific migration. These forces made Angel Island (opened in 1910) into a notorious station of detention and exclusion as well as arrival. 

By the mid-19th century, immigrants from Guangdong Province in southern China began arriving in California, driven by famine, rebellion, and economic collapse. Initially welcomed as laborers during the Gold Rush and railroad boom, they soon became scapegoats when the economy faltered in the 1870s. Politicians and labor leaders exploited anti-Chinese sentiment, passing local and state laws that restricted where Chinese immigrants could live and work. 

In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first federal law to restrict immigration on the basis of nationality and race. This act halted nearly all Chinese labor immigration and set a precedent for later laws excluding immigrants from other parts of Asia. Over the following decades, these laws created a system of racialized enforcement that reshaped US immigration policy nationwide.

Below is the uncropped photo. If you want to claim your site has two million visitors a month, all you need is click bait. 

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