Not Fit to Stay: Public Health Panics and South Asian Exclusion by Sarah Isabel Wallace

Abstract

132 OHQ vol. 120, no. 1 conflict, how tribal diplomacy fared, and how application of theoretical lenses can help readers understand this conflict in greater context. To accomplish these aims, Colley interviewed thirteen Grand Ronde tribal members, eleven Warm Springs tribal members, and two non-member employees from each community . These thirty interviews took place over ten years of research, and the tribal voices that appear in this work are among the book’s most important contributions to Native American Studies and gaming scholarship. Native scholars, Native community members, and non-Indigenous scholars know how difficult it can be to locate Native and Indigenous voices in order to make space for them as tellers of their own stories. Colley reminds readers that this methodology centers the values of Indigenous research practices. As an extension of this methodological approach, I would have liked a discussion of where these interviews and transcripts are held. Do the recordings and transcripts remain with the author, are they held in tribal locations, are they at her alma mater, did interviewees retain them or copies of them? As Native and Indigenous scholars strive to work with and within our communities , it is helpful to learn how other scholars practice their research and also whether scholars can access the invaluable resources she collected. This small suggestion aside, this is an important first work. As the first study of Indian casino gaming focused on the Pacific Northwest , it can also be read as a companion to Oregon histories, including scholarship by Katrine Barber, David R.M. Beck, and Andrew H. Fisher. Gaming scholarship is enhanced by the methodology, the perspectives, and the content within this complex narrative of Tribes and tribal leaders working on behalf of their communities even when those efforts might injure other Tribes. I look forward to seeing more from Brook Colley. Laurie Arnold Sinixt Band Colville Confederated Tribes Gonzaga University NOT FIT TO STAY: PUBLIC HEALTH PANICS AND SOUTH ASIAN EXCLUSION by Sarah Isabel Wallace University of British Columbia press, Vancouver, B.C., 2017. Illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, index. 292 pages. $39.95 paper. Sarah Isabel Wallace’s book, Not Fit to Stay: Public Health Panics and South Asian Exclusion , details the history of early Indian-ancestry migration to the Pacific coastal regions of Canada and the United States. This transnational project offers a comprehensive account of exclusionary practices and legislation that limited the settlement of Indian-ancestry migrants and their disenfranchisement on the North American West Coast. Drawing on an array of archival data, including newspaper articles; health inspection reports; legislative hearings, debates, reports, orders in council and regulations; and personal correspondences, oral history narratives, and key informant interviews with descendants, Not Fit To Stay provides substantive evidence of anti-Indian “panic” and early colonial ideologies that have had a far-reaching impact on the Indian diaspora in both countries. Furthermore, this book makes a meaningful contribution to the general history of Canada and the United States and addresses a significant gap in the public health, post-colonial, and critical race literature regarding colonial, racialized constructions of South Asian ancestry migrants and citizens in North America. A wide range of interdisciplinary health scholars, healthcare providers, and students would benefit from reading this invaluable text to understand how non-white communities have been historically racialized and continue to face racially motivated panic regarding their presence in diaspora homelands. This book is organized into thematic chapters that provide a historiography of how racialized, Orientalist ideologies permeated in the early to mid 1900s, with emphasis on how racial hierarchies positioned British Indian subjects as inferior to “white” communities. Chapter One, titled “‘Leprosy and Plague Riot 133 Reviews in Their Blood’: The Germination of a Thesis, 1906,” details early migration history with emphasis on government agencies, policies, and laws enacted to monitor and limit the influx of Indian-ancestry migration. Most significantly, the chapter outlines climate, germ, morality, labor, and eugenics theories to exclude “Hindus ” as inferior and dangerous to the physical, social, and moral well-being of existing European settlers. The following chapter, “Riots, Plague, and the Advent of Executive Exclusion ,” comprehensively narrates the ongoing social-political sentiment of 1907 as well as the “sick immigrant...