Emily Tamkin

@emilyctamkin.bsky.social

Writer, reporter, editor, all-around delight. Work lots of places. Author of THE INFLUENCE OF SOROS and BAD JEWS. Working on new book on Holocaust remembrance. Don’t yell at me. emilyctamkin@gmail.com. emilyctamkin.substack.com.

I was curious about what the report says, so here's the relevant section. Beyond the sloppiness (there's a sentence repeated twice by mistake), note how the report doesn't make any real effort to DENY the racial origins of the Act, but instead just takes umbrage at people pointing out the history.

In addition to attacking America’s white Christian Founders, NMAH’s exhibits also portray
restrictive immigration laws as a tool of white supremacy. The Many Voices, One Nation
didactic entitled “Negotiating Inclusion” alleges that when “thousands of Chinese journeyed to
the American West, encouraged by the promise of gold rush opportunity” in the 1850s, “[t]heir
race…troubled white Americans,” leading to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, “the first of many
restrictive immigration laws.”457 Another states, “White laborers considered the Chinese
competition and responded with hostility.”458
One American Democracy didactic asks “How Diverse Should the Citizenry Be?” and notes that
“In a nation created by immigrants…One view is that ‘multiculturalism,’ the preservation of
diverse cultural heritage, enriches the country…Still others challenged diversity by seeking to
restrict immigration and exclude certain racial and ethnic groups.”459
In addition to attacking America’s white Christian Founders, NMAH’s exhibits also portray
restrictive immigration laws as a tool of white supremacy. The Many Voices, One Nation
didactic entitled “Negotiating Inclusion” alleges that when “thousands of Chinese journeyed to
the American West, encouraged by the promise of gold rush opportunity” in the 1850s, “[t]heir
race…troubled white Americans,” leading to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, “the first of many
restrictive immigration laws.”460 Another states, “White laborers considered the Chinese
competition and responded with hostility.”461One American Democracy didactic asks “How Diverse Should the Citizenry Be?” and notes that
“In a nation created by immigrants…One view is that ‘multiculturalism,’ the preservation of
diverse cultural heritage, enriches the country…Still others challenged diversity by seeking to
restrict immigration and exclude certain racial and ethnic groups.”462 Photo of “How Diverse Should the Citizenry Be?” didactic in NMAH’s “American Democracy” exhibit.
Another American Democracy didactic claims that “the calls for exclusion of certain groups span
the history of the nation” and is not limited “to certain ethnic and racial groups, but also sought
to exclude those of differing . . . sexual orientations.”463
This rhetoric mirrors language Director Hartig used in an April 13, 2024 address while serving as
the President of the Organization for American Historians, where she recounted the story of Juana Briones, a Mexican-American immigrant who “fought a long battle to retain title to her
lands” after “the American take-over of California in 1848,” stating:
Understanding Juana’s life thus also foreshadows and connects for us the long and ongoing histories of brutality in all European colonial regimes across the continent. In
particular, in California after 1848, Anglo-American ‘sexual violence, laws prohibiting
interracial and same-sex relationships, and controls on women’s reproduction helped establish and maintain white male supremacy and class hierarchy in North America. Each
served as scaffolding to slavery, Native American removal, Jim Crow, and immigration
restrictions.’
464
Notice what Hartig repeatedly demonizes here—“European,” “Anglo-American,” “white
male”—and her characterization of “immigration restrictions” as a racist and oppressive practice
akin to “slavery,” “Native American removal,” and “Jim Crow.”465
Catherine Rampell@crampell.bsky.social · 3w ago

A White House report has defended the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, pushing back against its characterization by a Smithsonian Institution exhibit that the law was racially motivated. www.forbes.com/sites/stuart...

See this is why Belgium should have just said "while it's wildly inappropriate for the US president to have weighed in, we are prepared to play and beat whatever constellation of Americans is on the field"

I have edited a lot of sexual-assault-accusation articles, and this one easily clears every veracity check: contemporaneous emails with her therapist, a boyfriend who knew, a woman she warned—all before Platner ran for office. Good on Politico for nailing it, and on Jenny Racicot for speaking up.

Exclusive: Woman who dated Graham Platner says he sexually assaulted her

The Maine Democrat denied the allegations and said, “Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically untrue.”

politico.com

Also, when certain Jewish leaders imply that, for example, harshly criticizing AIPAC is somehow the same as criticizing 85 percent of American Jews, they are actually making it harder not easier to distinguish between the two

The Fig Economy@figgityfigs.bsky.social · last mo.

There are people using AIPAC as a slur to do rank antisemitism, but AIPAC is also a real actual thing doing real actual bad stuff and it can’t be the case that criticizing them harshly for it is equivalent to antisemitism.