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167 7 Confronting Race and Creating Community Idaho’s Ethnic History Laurie Mercier I n the national mind, Idaho is set apart from other states for the lack of diversity in its population. It is perceived to be white, Anglo, and—based on high-profile cases of Aryan Nations strongholds —hostile to ethnic and racial diversity.1 Although its foreign-born and nonwhite populations have been small in comparison to the rest of the nation , closer examination of Idaho’s history reveals that it has been shaped by dozens of ethnic groups who have settled in the state, usually drawn by economic opportunities.2 Of course, Shoshone, Coeur d’Alene, Nez Perce, and other Native Americans had carved out distinct communities and cultures for thousands of years before the first Latin American, African American , and European American explorers ventured to the Pacific Northwest as Rodney Frey and Robert McCarl describe in chapter 2 in this volume. In the nineteenth century, French Canadian fur traders, Italian missionaries , miners from Cornwall and China, Scottish sheep ranchers, Mormon farmers from England, African American and Mexican cowboys, and Jewish merchants were among those who trickled into Idaho Territory. They were followed by Scandinavian homesteaders and southern European railroad workers in the decades after statehood. Mexican agricultural workers and Southeast Asian refugees moved to Idaho and shaped new communities in the latter half of the twentieth century. A combination of factors determined how these ethnic groups fared in Idaho: economic opportunities, kinship networks, the presence and size of ethnic enclaves, reception by others, and ideologies about “race.” How did Idahoans’ ideas about race and residency, reflected in everything from 168Laurie Mercier individual prejudice to systematic discrimination, shape Idaho’s ethnic communities and influence whether people stayed or left? As the United States became increasingly rigid in applying hierarchical categories from white to black and from superior to inferior, the degree to which a migrant group could define itself as “white” appeared to tilt it toward success.3 As Elliott Barkan explains, the issue of whiteness in the West “frequently determined whether [individuals] were welcomed or excluded, well treated or mistreated, equitably rewarded or simply exploited, tolerated, or killed.”4 This reception determined a community’s size, and the relatively small population proportion of most migrant groups made forging a community difficult. There often were not enough people to support the institutions necessary for an ethnic community to emerge. Yet ethnic ties did persist, despite and sometimes because of discrimination and hardship. Some communities formed by choice, others—because of racism—by necessity. This chapter compares five ethnic groups that settled in Idaho during the period of great American immigration and migration, from 1870 to 1950. The economic, social, and political foundations laid during this period affected the persistence or evolution of more recent communities. How did they emerge and sustain themselves over time? In many ways, the experiences of Idaho’s Chinese, Japanese, Basque, and Italian immigrants and African American migrants parallel the larger history of the region and nation. Mostly male migrants were pulled to Idaho for economic opportunities. Once they found particular economic niches where their services were needed, they began a chain migration, with relatives and neighbors following them. For example, in the mining county of Shoshone , in northern Idaho, immigrant miners beckoned their kin to join them in the grueling but lucrative work underground. Mining, agriculture, and other industries initially attracted migrants to this inland mountain state. Their labors built Idaho and made their employers wealthy, yet many found establishing a “home” to be challenging. After the 1920s, fewer foreign-born whites, Chinese, Japanese, and African Americans moved to Idaho. Rising nativism following World War I and restrictive national immigration legislation significantly reduced immigrant numbers via a quota system that privileged northern Europeans and categorically excluded Asians. Supreme Court decisions and the idaho’s ethnic history 169 Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924 affirmed racial requirements for citizenship, curbing Italian, Basque, and Japanese migration to Idaho. Discrimination and lack of economic opportunity discouraged African Americans from moving to the state. State laws, such as an antimiscegenation law that prohibited Asians, blacks, and multiracial people from marrying whites, also reminded people of color of their second-class status.5 At the same time, the expansion of irrigated and large-scale agricultural production in the American West required a large, mobile, and seasonal workforce, and businesses pressured Congress to exempt the western hemisphere from quotas.6 Idaho employers looked south for a...

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