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I am moved to extend you the gift of history. President Joe Biden made me do it.

But first, consider the stark contrast in the recent immigration-speak from the two vying for your attention in 2024.

Last weekend, Donald Trump was on the campaign trail in Iowa denouncing immigrants: “They’re ruining our country. And it’s true, they are destroying the blood of our country.”

Trump, the phlebotomist, was talking about the southern border, but the arrivals aren’t just from Mexico, or Central and South America. Increasingly, the border crossers have been Asian, particularly from China and India.

Trump was talking about our blood too.

Trump denies he was using Hitleresque rhetoric, saying he’s never read “Mein Kampf.” Doesn’t matter. The thoughts are in his heart.

Compare that with the public statement of President Joe Biden last weekend.

On Sunday, President Biden honored all Chinese immigrants to America by remembering the 80th anniversary of the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Did anyone (public figure, stranger, friend, or family member) even bother to mention that momentous occasion and what that means not just to Chinese Americans, but all Asian Americans?

The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first and only major law that targeted a specific national group from immigrating to the U.S. Imagine a Chinese face, put a bar across it. With few exceptions, they weren’t allowed in the U.S. And, of course, the idea was first introduced by a threatened, pre-MAGA California Republican, Horace Page, and signed into law by Republican President Chester Arthur on May 6, 1882.

Even when the Exclusion Act was finally repealed in 1943, some restrictions remained. Chinese may not have faced wholesale exclusion, but Chinese immigration was limited to just over 100 people a year. The racist quota was in place until the Hart-Cellar Act gave the U.S. the immigration reform needed in 1965.

By recognizing the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, President Biden was acknowledging the original sin against Asian America.Other Asian ethnicities were also excluded in the U.S. in the early 20th century, but the Chinese were the first.

It was a model for Asian hate in America.

“The Act, along with racism and xenophobia in other parts of American life, was part of the anti-Chinese “Driving Out” era which included the Rock Springs and Hells Canyon Massacre,” Biden added for good measure.

How many Americans, let alone Asian Americans, even know of those two horrible events that capture the animus of the time? Biden mentioned them, but for most people, like me, they were just empty words. Let me fill them for you.

CHINESE MASSACRES OF THE EXCLUSION

If you think mass shootings in 2023 are bad, they’re nothing like the mass murder and riot in Rock Springs, Wyoming in 1882. That’s when angry white miners went after Chinese miners who worked for less and were accused of taking jobs away from white workers. At least 28 Chinese miners were killed and 15 were injured. Rioters also burned down nearly 80 Chinese homes in what was Rock Springs’ Chinatown. It was just the beginning of hate toward the wave of Chinese immigrants who had come to America to help build the railroad and mine for gold in the American West. Examples of the hot rhetoric were published in The North American Review, where Asian immigrants were referred to as “the Asiatic race, alien in blood, habits and civilization.”

Sound familiar?

The hate extended from Wyoming to Oregon’s Hells Canyon Massacre, also known as the Snake River Massacre in 1887. That’s when 30 laborers mining gold were gunned down by a white gang of horse thieves. The identity of the seven murderers was known, and a trial did take place in 1888. But only three stood trial and were acquitted.

According to History.com, a rancher who attended the trial commented, “I guess if they had killed 31 white men, something would have been done about it, but none of the jury knew the Chinamen or cared much about it, so they turned the men loose.”

No one cared about the Hells Canyon case again until 1995 when a Wallowa County (Ore.) clerk found some files in a local museum’s safe. The records of the trial, like the shameful history, were hidden. Once uncovered, a reporter from the Oregonian wrote a book on the massacre, which led to a memorial built on the Snake River to honor some of the Chinese who were killed.

Last Sunday, only President Biden cared enough to mention the importance of the events that signified the Asian hate in America during the era of Chinese Exclusion Act, officially repealed Dec. 17, 1943.

“Today, there are those who still demonize immigrants and fan the flames of intolerance,” Biden said in his statement. “It’s wrong. I ran for President to restore the soul of America. To bring people together and make sure we give hate no safe harbor. . .[and] to celebrate the diversity that is our great strength.”

Would it be too perfect to imagine that same weekend Trump in Iowa, talking about how immigrants’ blood poisons our country?

Forget the immigrants. Trump’s done plenty to poison our modern politics. Just remember how in 2012, during President Obama’s term, a Republican-led House of Representatives passed unanimously a resolution to condemn the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Can you fathom the anti-China, anti-immigrant Freedom Caucus even suggesting the Republican-led House of 2023 take such a stand–even ceremoniously?

But President Joe Biden remembered. He cared. He knew the importance of recognizing what Chinese Americans, and all Asian Americans, have had to overcome.

That is the gift of history. Putting the present into context always helps us to keep moving forward with undeniable clarity.

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NOTE: I will talk about this column and other matters on “Emil Amok’s Takeout,” my AAPI micro-talk show. Live @2p Pacific. Livestream on Facebook; my YouTube channel; and Twitter. Catch the recordings on www.amok.com.