
The San Francisco plague epidemic of 1900 - headalgorithm
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01239-x
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dmckeon
Note that plague is still an issue in the US in the states including the Rocky
Mountains and west of them. See maps at:
[https://www.cdc.gov/plague/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/plague/index.html)

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dev_dull
> _By 1880, some 16% of the population of San Francisco were Chinese. Yet they
> faced animosity and segregation: the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, for
> instance, cracked down heavily on immigration._

It’s amazing that given the staggering amount of racism Chinese faced in
American history, they have still been so successful. What can we learn from
their experience?

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coldtea
That's it can still be racist to ask "hey, this group did great despite
racism, why don't you, e.g. blacks, do the same?".

Or, rather, it's a valid question, as long as it's not taken as an assumption
of laziness, inferiority, etc.

Racism towards different groups doesn't follow the same patterns.

A group that started as slaves and had Jim Crow laws against it well into the
20th century, and segregation up until the 70s, and redlining, racial police
profiling and other issues still, doesn't have it the same as a group that
came as free workers, had faced racism, but was considerably let off the hook
in the 20th century...

For one, a group coming in as free men had its own culture from their
homeland, community to fall back on, traditions, etc. Abductees coming as
slaves from dozens of different African nations and tribes, were from the
start thrown into the alien culture of their owners, and had to make do with
whatever they could and build their own identity from the start (and to the
degree that they were allowed until they were freed).

Add to that the ire of the ex-owners towards seeing their (or their parents
and grandparents) ex-slaves freed (which is also associated with a humiliating
defeat in the Civil War).

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halfnibble
I wonder if the infected squirrels will reinfect the growing rat population in
San Francisco and repeat the cycle.

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Ericson2314
Wait, so the "white middle-class population" _complained_ when Chinatown was
quarantined?

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rflrob
I haven’t read the book, but maybe Chinatown was a source of cheap domestic
labor and services?

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JamilD
The article implies so:

> They quarantined Chinatown, preventing any movement of food in, or of its
> inhabitants — many of them cleaners, cooks and labourers — out. […] Outside
> Chinatown, the middle-class white population was outraged by the disruption.

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torqueTorrent
Supposedly they're having a feces epidemic in San Fran lately. ianad, but it
seems like that could promote plague resurgence?

