From the number of Chinese restaurants that dot the CSRA landscape, one would think there is a huge population of Chinese Americans descent in Augusta, but, comparatively speaking, the number is small.
While there is a healthy Asian community in the Garden City, with people whose roots can be traced back to Korea, Japan and the Philippines, Chinese-Americans still make up less than 1% of Augusta’s population.
According to the census from 145 years ago, the number of Chinese immigrants amounted to only 10 men, giving Augusta the bragging rights of having Georgia’s largest Sino-American population. That year, only 17 souls were counted across the entire state.
Conventional history has Augusta being inundated with Chinese immigrants when the Augusta Canal was first built; however, all trusted historic sources place zero Chinese employed when the canal was first built. Even former President Jimmy Carter repeated the revisionist history in his book, “Why Not the Best?” claiming that the Chinese built the canal.
It is true that when the canal was enlarged in 1875, about 200 immigrants were recruited.
The census of 1880 shows that once the work was done, the Chinese laborers moved on, likely on a search for more itinerant work elsewhere.
Historical records show that the ones who stayed were filled with an entrepreneurial spirit; those 10 men who stayed operated eight grocery stores across the Augusta metro area. By 1900, census records show that in the ensuing 20 years, the Chinese-American population would swell to 41 people who operated 29 grocery stores and eight laundry operations.
One reason for the slow expansion was due to the Chinese Exclusion Acts. According to the National Archives, not only was the 1882 act the first law restricting immigration to America, the act made it particularly difficult for women and children, meaning that most immigrants were single males and that presented a problem.
According to the late Augusta historian Ed Cashin, author of the book, “General Sherman’s Girlfriend and More Stories About Augusta,” early on, racists across Georgia, still smarting from the loss of the Civil War, believed that Blacks were predisposed to slavery and couldn’t be trusted to work and complete a job, so they actively sought to recruit immigrants from China.
The problem was that most of the immigrants, who hailed from the Guangdong province in Southeast China, decided to escape the peasant life of toiling in the rice paddies and had no intention of braving the dangers of an ocean crossing only to return to picking rice or cotton under a blazing sun.
Not only did the Chinese immigrants have an aversion to labor under slave-like conditions, they were extremely proud of their culture and most refused to assimilate by abandoning their manner of dress, causing them to stick out in a crowd due to their unique fashion. Furthermore, the men refused to convert to Christianity, making them all the more outcasts.
Since nearly all of the original immigrants were male, this put them in an even more awkward situation that separated them from society even further. Neither White nor Blacks wanted Chinese men dating or marrying their daughters.
While there were no laws outright banning marriage between races other than those banning Black and White interracial marriages, society took a dim view of such nuptials, which meant that most women wanted to avoid the social stigma and refused offers from Chinese-born suitors.
While Augusta was a more palatable place for the Chinese, they found out quickly that smaller towns were nowhere near as welcoming as those in the “city.”
Augusta merchant Willie Loo Chong decided to partner with his brother Thomas Loo Chong and another man Ah Sing to expand their grocery enterprise to Waynesboro.
According to Cashin, on opening day, the men were met with one note demanding that they not “undercut” the White grocer in the area and another note simply read, “They will kill you tonight.”
The men refused to back down even when a mob of about 20 men gathered outside the store demanding they leave. Not long afterwards, Thomas was kidnapped and, with a hood over his neck and pistols shots going off in the background, was threatened with being lynched.
When the store was later ransacked and $200 stolen from the till, the men decided to give up, but not before filing a $50,000 lawsuit. True to form, the all White jury dismissed the case due to lack of evidence.
The Augusta of today does boast a large Asian community, however, Cashin maintains that surge came after 1970 where opportunities at Savannah River Site, Plant Vogtle, Fort Gordon’s Eisenhower Hospital and the Medical College of Georgia presented opportunities that did not exist in 19th and early 20th Centuries.
…And that is something you may not have known.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter, Editorial Page Editor and weekly columnist for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
