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Distributed for University of British Columbia Press
Not Fit to Stay
Public Health Panics and South Asian Exclusion
In the early 1900s, panic over the arrival of South Asian immigrants swept up and down the west coast of North America. While racism and fear of labour competition were at the heart of this furor, Not Fit to Stay reveals that public leaders – including physicians, union leaders, civil servants, journalists, and politicians – latched on to unsubstantiated public health concerns to justify the exclusion of South Asians from Canada and the United States.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1 “Leprosy and Plague Riot in Their Blood”: The Germination of a Thesis, 1906
2 Riots, Plague, and the Advent of Executive Exclusion
3 “The Public Health Must Prevail”: Enforcing Exclusion
4 Amoebic and Social Parasites, 1910–13
5 South Asians, Public Health, and Eugenic Theory
6 Franchise Denied
Conclusion
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography