With the recent release of the movie "Good Night, and Good Luck," a retelling of the Edward R. Murrow and CBS News fight with Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, it is good time to remember the effects that McCarthyism had on the Chinese American community.

As described in the 2001 documentary called The Chinatown Files, McCarthyism had a very significant and large impact on the Chinese American community. What is commonly recorded and discussed about the McCarthy era are the blacklists and persecution of well-known Americans that were accused of being communist or communist sympathizers. By contrast, relatively little is known about the thousands of Chinese in America that were mistreated during this period.

In the book The Chinese In America, historian Iris Chang boils the cause of the Chinese American persecution of the 50s and 60s down to three factors - the start of the Cold War, the Communist victory in China's 1940s revolution, and the Korean War.

Even though the Cold War between the US led countries and the communist Soviet Union led countries rarely resulted in direct heated battles between the two factions, the practice of demonizing the enemy never the less occurred. McCarthyism was basically an extreme outgrowth of the fear and hatred of communism during the Cold War. Opportunists such as Senator Joseph McCarthy capitalized on the growing paranoia of Americans and gained much power by fomenting fear through his communist witch-hunts.

When China became a communist country in 1949, the anti-Communists sentiment in the United States expanded to include scrutiny of the Chinese in America. China's direct involvement in the Korean War opposite America and its allies, compounded the negative image of Chinese Americans. Anti-Communists worried that the Chinese in America might become a fifth column for communist China.

Anti-Communist sentiments were not limited to a select few in power. Such fear and hate permeated and divided the Chinese American community itself. Many Chinese Americans were divided over the 1940s Chinese revolution. There were those that supported the Nationalist Chiang Kai-shek KMT government and those that supported the Mao Zedong lead communist. When the communist won the war and the KMT retreated to Taiwan, the Chinese in San Francisco's Chinatown had open fights among themselves and death threats were even levied against communist sympathizers. Such community divisions were widened and fueled by the larger communist witch-hunts of the McCarthy era.

Among the interesting cases brought to light by the documentary The Chinatown Files were the investigations of the China Daily News and the Mun Ching (Chinese-American Democratic Youth League). Both organizations were seen as being communist sympathetic.

The China Daily News was a newspaper started by the liberal minded union like organization called the Chinese Hand Laundry Association (CHLA). The laundry workers that comprised this organization were on record as being opposed to the feudal practices of pre-communist China and advocates for progressive social issues both here and abroad. Their views expressed in the newspaper were thus less sympathetic to the Nationalist Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek, which was seen as corrupt and un-supportive of human rights for its citizens.

In the case of the United States v. the China Daily News, members of the China Daily News and CHLA were arrested and convicted on grounds of breaking the Trading With the Enemy Act. The law

empowers the President of the United States to prohibit transactions between US residents and enemy countries. The China Daily News was considered in violation of this act when it had an advertisement from a bank in communist China that mentioned how Chinese in America could send money home to their families through the bank. Along with the China Daily News were several individuals of the CHLA that were picked out for sending cash home to their families in China. Of the individuals investigated, several were deported, some committed suicide, one disappeared, and one died mysteriously.

The Chinese-American Democratic Youth League and other organizations like it were social organizations that had an interest in Chinese culture, Chinese American issues, and the happenings in China. Their sympathies were like the China Daily News - they were interested in seeing social reforms in China. When the communist Chinese won the revolution, members of these organizations were hopeful that people in China would be better off. These sentiments attracted the closer scrutiny of the FBI. As a result, members of these organizations were often plucked from the street and interrogated without any formal arrest warrants. One of the people interviewed in The Chinatown Files even mentioned how he found a listening device in their organization's library.

An interesting note is that even after the Korean War ended and Joseph McCarthy had his powers removed, the entire Chinese American community was placed under harasser investigations and scrutiny. A 1955 report by Everett F. Drumwright, the US consul to Hong Kong, was the leading cause for this tighter scrutiny. In his report he wrongly accused Chinese American of being primarily comprised of illegal aliens. The report reaffirmed fears that many communist Chinese spies could be lurking among the Chinese American populace. As a result, thousands of Chinese living in America were detained and many were deported back to China. As in the cases of the better-known people caught up in the McCarthy era witch hunts, many of the Chinese Americans that were investigated had their careers and/or businesses ruined too.

The Chinese American Democratic Youth League and China Daily News were eventually dissolved as a result of the harassing tactic of investigators. However, for some, such as Henry Chin the president of the China Daily News, relief from investigation would not end until President Nixon's visit to China in 1972. The 1970s diplomatic efforts between America and China began to thaw out the Cold War fears of communist China and in so doing ended this dark chapter in Chinese American history.

On a personal note, I met someone who was deported back to China. While on vacation in China, a number of years ago, I met a distant relative who spoke pretty good English. He had lived in America for over eight years and was deported when he was a teenager. His deportation came before I was born, so I didn't really understand the reasons for it until now. Consternation within our family would fill the air whenever his story came up. As a result, we tended not to ask too many questions.

Similar stories to this can probably be found in many Chinese families that lived in America during the 50s. If you were not present during this period, ask your parents or grand parents to tell you about it or go and find a copy of The Chinatown Files and watch it (check our resources section, for more information on where to purchase this video).

In next month's newsletter we will continue this article by comparing and contrasting the Chinese American McCarthy era experience with the Muslim American terrorism investigation of today.