Orientalizing the Pacific Rim: - History, Department of

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countries by calling for such acts as the elimination of the opium trade, universal disarmament, and Philipine independence. Both Sidney Gulick and J. Merle Davis were solidly esconced within a network of ‘social gospel’ ministers and missionaries which composed the Federal Council of Churches of Christ, the American Board of Foreign Missions, the YMCA and YWCA, and the Institute of Social and Religious Research. By the end of 1923, Davis had decided that the Institute of Social and Religious Research should pledge $55,000 towards a Survey on Race Relations on the Pacific Coast. This ambitious effort was aimed at not only discovering the facts about the "racial situation" in the West, but also at bringing pro- and anti-Asian groups together in a united research project. 10 Because of the political polarization and hostility over the desirability of ‘Oriental’ immigration, Davis believed that just getting the two sides to talk would be a difficult endeavor. But in accordance with the missionaries’ larger aims of good-will and peaceful reconciliation, he felt that the bringing together of the opposing sides into a mutual dialogue about ‘objective’ facts would be one of the greatest accomplishments of the survey. 11 10 Papers of the Survey of Race Relations, Box 11. The Institute was to pay $30,000 of the cost of the survey, and it was hoped that private fund-raising on the West Coast would cover the other $25,000. No funds were to be taken from Japanese or Chinese organizations in the United States though, since the Institute was afraid that such money would taint the neutral reputation which the survey was seeking. 11 “[W]e can, I believe, make this survey one of the big Christian works of this year on the whole West Coast. This survey will, we believe, set a precedent for dealing with the whole terrific race question. It will also, Galen, be a contribution, if not an original contribution, to the whole question of approaching any serious problem on which opinions differ.” Letter from George Gleason to Galen Fisher, May 17, 1923, Gleason Correspondence, Box 11, Papers of the Survey. 8
Davis recognized that the missionaries and the nativists had more than opposing sympathies in regard to ‘Orientals,’ they also had vastly different backgrounds. In private letters, the missionaries pinned the source of anti-‘Oriental’ sentiments on several traits of West Coast ‘whites’: their general lack of education, their origins in the American South or Catholic Ireland, and their ignorance of ‘Oriental’ culture. It was no coincidence that the Protestant ministers associated with the survey had themselves all been college educated, had all originated from the Northeastern United States, and had all spent significant time in the ‘Orient.’ 12 Curiously, the missionaries believed that their backgrounds in dealing with the subtleties of ‘Oriental’ culture made them uniquely qualified to overcome the divisions between differing groups on the West Coast. In recommending his friend Merle Davis to lead the survey, George Gleason pointed to the time which all of them had spent in Japan: The large unanimity of desire to have, as far as possible, labor unions, the American Legion, chambers of commerce, as well as religious and educational bodies combine in the survey, makes it very necessary to have an executive head who possesses the kind of tact which years of experience in Japan seem to develop in us. I question whether any man on the Coast, or any ordinary man who has not lived in the Far East, could do the job that needs to be done. 13 12 Papers of the Survey, Box 11, Davis Correspondence, letters between Merle Davis, George Gleason, Hugo Guy, and Galen Fisher. 13 Letter from Gleason to Fisher, April 20, 1923, Davis Correspondence, Box 11, Papers of the Survey. 9
Page 1 and 2: Orientalizing the Pacific Rim: The
Page 3 and 4: small Chinatown in California? What
Page 5 and 6: definitions of the 'Orient.' 5 This
Page 7: Far Eastern missions, Baptists, Met
Page 11 and 12: struggles over the threat to ‘whi
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Page 15 and 16: It is up to us in this country to f
Page 17 and 18: y their adoption of superficial sig
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Page 21 and 22: sociologists had been ministers or
Page 23 and 24: Baptist Foreign Mission Society bef
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Page 27 and 28: Park, though, was forced to exagger
Page 29 and 30: premise of a traveller's expertise
Page 31 and 32: West of the American frontier. In a
Page 33 and 34: communication. 46 Like Park, McKenz
Page 35 and 36: positive force in pushing for chang
Page 37 and 38: American clothes, as opposed to the
Page 39 and 40: the ‘Oriental’ was nonetheless
Page 41 and 42: seemingly for all of America, that
Page 43 and 44: The institutionalization of Orienta
Page 45: institutionalizing knowledge about

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