A new story about Pershing

We all know who GEN John J. Pershing was – American Expeditionary Force commander, aka “Black Jack”  (that’s the cleaned up version) for his command of the famed 10th Cavalry, another General of the Armies from the middle of the country (Laclede, Missouri, just a tad east of Abilene, KS. Must be something in those Midwest winters.)

We all knew he commanded a Buffalo Soldiers outfit – but I never knew he initiated a 20 year civil rights battle – for Chinese immigrants?

Tasked with capturing Francisco “Pancho” Villa, Pershing had crossed into Mexico to end the Mexican revolutionary’s border raids on U.S. communities.

At the onset of the so-called Punitive Expedition, Pershing solved a lack of manpower by using Chinese immigrants living in Mexico to provide labor and services to the Army as it pursued Villa. They did hot, dirty, hard work to keep the caissons rolling along. Chinese workers cleared 400 miles of Mexican land ahead of the Army. They set up makeshift mercantiles — what some have considered the first PX — for soldiers. They cooked, laundered clothes and carted clean, potable water for troops.

About 30,000 Chinese immigrants lived in Mexico at the time and were commonly subjected to racially based violence and persecution. Those who aided the Army understandably feared additional retribution if they stayed in Mexico after the campaign.

As the Army withdrew from Mexico, 527 Chinese refugees followed, seeking protection. Not only did Pershing feel obligated to them, he had explicitly promised to help them. And that was the problem.

Because the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 forbid nationals from immigrating or seeking asylum, Pershing had promised them something he couldn’t give.

When they were finally allowed into the country — only because of Pershing’s advocacy and his plan to send them back to Mexico once the situation became safer — the Chinese refugees were held in a guarded encampment by the Army.

Let in but subject to being thrown out, eventually they were moved to San Antonio. Pershing suggested they could serve the Army again as they had in Mexico, doing grunt labor.

And then, the U.S. entered World War I. The refugees’ labor was in demand as the Army scrambled to swell its ranks for a new kind of mechanized warfare. Working menial jobs that were grossly undercompensated, the Chinese refugees again did hot, dirty, hard work at Army posts across the South, with one estimate suggesting their work freed up 1,000 Americans to fill other jobs for the war effort.

Both the Pancho Villa expedition and WWI – you would think they had earned their place. Nope.

Now one of the most popular figures in post-WWI America, Pershing leveraged his power, petitioning Congress to end the immigration saga that had dragged out for years. In his 1921 letter to Congress, he requested that “if relief cannot be extended [to] these deserving men administratively, a joint resolution should be passed by Congress giving them the privilege of registration.” Congress did just that, passing Public Resolution 29 that allowed the refugees to stay in the U.S. as permanent residents.

Hopefully such a letter from the ‘man who won the Great War’ would be immediately effective – but:

More than 20 years passed after Pershing’s letter before Congress finally repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act, bringing closure to the men who helped the Army at their own personal expense. Chinese immigrants were now legally allowed to apply for citizenship, and nearly all of “Pershing’s Chinese” did.   Military.com

Category: WWI