Abstract
Since 9/11, Muslims and Arab-Americans living in the United States have faced intense scrutiny and sometimes been the targets of physical violence. They have been arrested, detained, and sometimes deported without the protections typically afforded to those suspected of criminal behavior. A controversy over polygamy in 1910 illustrates the historical and current limits of religious toleration of immigrants and others outside the mainstream Judeo-Christian tradition, including Muslims and Mormons, and that prejudice led to efforts to exclude, expel, or deport them from the United States. Both religions were therefore deemed un-American, tied to Orientalist rhetoric and imagery, and its immigrant adherents subject to exclusion or deportation by U.S. officials. Such fears about Muslims and Mormons have continued well into the twentieth century, have extended beyond immigration and related policy debates, and have been salient in both the 2008 and 2012 U.S. Presidential elections.
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- 1.
New York Times, June 7, 2003.
- 2.
Sarah Barringer Gordon, “The Liberty of Self-Degradation: Polygamy, Woman Suffrage, and Consent,” in Journal of American History vol. 83, no. 3 (December 1996): 815–847. Quotes from 835 and 829. See also: Bruce Burgett, “On the Mormon Question: Race, Sex, and Polygamy in the 1850's and 1890's,” American Quarterly vol. 57. No. 1 (2005) 75–102. On tensions between suffragists, temperance advocates, and immigrants, see for example my book, American Catholic Lay Groups and Transatlantic Social Reform in the Progressive Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
- 3.
For more on this issue, see Kathleen Flake, The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004).
- 4.
Over the past decade, several scholars have addressed the Chinese Exclusion Act directly or indirectly. They include: Erika Lee, At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era, 1882–1943 (University of North Carolina Press, 2003); Andrew Gyory, Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); George Peffer, If They Don’t Bring Their Women Here: Chinese Female Immigration Before Exclusion (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999); Adam McKeown, Chinese Migrant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru, Chicago, Hawaii, 1900–1936 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), and Lucy Salyer, Laws Harsh as Tigers: Chinese Immigrants and the Shaping of Modern Immigration Law (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1995). On the Gentleman’s Agreement, see: Eiichiro Azuma, Between Two Empires: Race, History, and Transnationalism in Japanese America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
- 5.
Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 2003, reprint of the original 1978 edition with new preface and afterward).
- 6.
Said, 42.
- 7.
Said, 75.
- 8.
Matthew F. Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876–1917. New York: Hill and Wang, 2000.
- 9.
Letter to John Davis from the U.S Consul at Basel, Switzerland, dated May 9, 1883. File 715 Box 4, Entry 7 RG 85. NARA.
- 10.
Letter from W. Robertson to Charles Folger dated June 6 1883, and Letter from John Davis to Charles Folger May 22, 1883. Both in file 715, Box 4, Entry 7 RG 85. NARA.
- 11.
Said, 62.
- 12.
See footnote 2.
- 13.
“List of Debarred Aliens” dated August 12, 1910. Eight of the 43 Muslim individuals (all males) on this list were deported to Turkey on charges of polygamy. The remainder were deported on Likely to Become a Public Charge (LPC) grounds. File: 52737/499; The Turkish ambassador (representing the Imperial Ottoman Embassy) issued a formal complaint about deportations of Muslim immigrants and questioned whether Turkish immigrants were being treated unfairly by immigration officials. Letter to [William Jennings Bryan], Secretary of State from J.B. Densmore, May 9, 1914. File: 52737/499. Both files in RG 85. NARA.
- 14.
Burgett.
- 15.
See footnote 3.
- 16.
House of Representatives. Report No. 848. 56th Congress, 1st Session. 1900. Theodore Roosevelt, “State of the Union Address,” 1906.
- 17.
Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1923. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
- 18.
“The United States and the Moslems,” Progrès de Salonique, February 22, 1910. File: 52737/499. RG 85. Entry 9. NARA.
- 19.
Ibid.
- 20.
Letter to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, from George Holt [?], January 3, 1913. File: 52737/499. RG 85. Entry 9. NARA.
- 21.
Letter to Nagel, from Huntington (Carlson? Assistant Secretary of State), April 21, 1910. File: 52737/499. RG 85. Entry 9. NARA.
- 22.
“Examination of alien applicants for the purpose of determining whether a polygamist or a person who believes in the practice of polygamy”. Dates May 5, 1913 and June 16, 1913. File: 52737/499. RG 85. Entry 9. NARA.
- 23.
Letter to the Secretary of State, from Charles Nagel, January 9, 1913. File: 52737/499. RG 85. Entry 9. NARA.
- 24.
Memorandum for the Acting Secretary, Appeal of Ismal Mustafa, May 3, 1913. File 53595/110, RG 85, Entry 9. NARA.
- 25.
Rehearing Testimony of Ismail Mustafa, U.S. Immigration Station, Boston, May 14, 1913. File: 53595/110, RG 85, Entry 9. NARA.
- 26.
Letter dated May 19, 1913. Caminetti to Commissioner of Immigration, Ellis Island. File: 53595/110. RG 85, Entry 9. NARA.
- 27.
Letter to William Jennings Bryan, from Youssouf Zia, February 4, 1914. File :52737/499. RG. 85, Entry 9. NARA.
- 28.
Letter to William Jennings Bryan from Secretary [Charles Nagel?], April 14, 1910. RG. 85, Entry 9. NARA.
- 29.
On the Obama birth certificate controversy, see: the Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-obama-birth-certificate1dec08,0,7258812.story Accessed on November 12, 2010. Ironically, John McCain, the 2008 Republican candidate, was born to American parents in the Panama Canal Zone, but the circumstances of his birth never became a major issue, even though the U.S. Constitution does state that one must be a “natural-born” U.S. citizen. Many argue that under 8 U.S.C 1401(c) McCain was eligible, but since there was never an official ruling on this situation, it was never fully resolved.
On Hillary Clinton’s CBS 60 min interview aired on March 2, 2008, see: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/03/clinton-says-ob.html Accessed on November 12, 2010.
I was one of those voters who received a professionally packaged mailing prior to the 2008 election that claimed that Barack Obama was a Muslim and insinuated that he was sympathetic to terrorists. On the origin and expansion of these rumours, see: http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=0DC14DF6-3048-5C12-0035AB25C1048717 Accessed on November 12, 2010.
- 30.
Pew Foundation. “Growing Number of Americans Say Obama is a Muslim”. http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1701/poll-obama-muslim-christian-church-out-of-politics-political-leaders-religious. Accessed on November 12, 2010.
- 31.
On Terry Jones, Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2010. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703453804575479573649222094.html Accessed on November 12, 2010.
- 32.
Poll, Pew Forum on Religion, Pew Research Center, January 12, 2012. http://www.pewforum.org/Press-Room/Press-Releases/New-Poll–Pew-Forum-on-Religion—Public-Life-Surveys-Mormons-in-America.aspx and ABC News, “The Note,” April 24, 2012. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/04/when-should-mitt-romney-talk-about-his-mormon-faith/ Both accessed on April 24, 2102.
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Moloney, D.M. (2012). Muslims, Mormons and U.S. Deportation and Exclusion Policies: The 1910 Polygamy Controversy and the Shaping of Contemporary Attitudes. In: Anderson, B., Gibney, M., Paoletti, E. (eds) The Social, Political and Historical Contours of Deportation. Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5864-7_2
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