When we look at the spread of Asian American populations across America, we tend to see them clustered around the West Coast and a few other major cities, such as NYC. Their prominence on the West Coast is heavily linked to their history of immigration during the California Gold Rush, and the establishment of ethnic enclaves only attracted further immigration to these regions. Indeed, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, and Seattle, along with its neighboring city of Bellevue, are home to some of the largest Asian populations in the US. San Francisco is over 30% Asian, Bellevue over 40%, and LA’s San Gabriel Valley is the largest ethnic enclave of Asian Americans in the US. Along the West Coast, Washington and California have substantial Asian populations, but why is Oregon left out?
While California and Washington have multiple cities that have a substantial Asian population, even majority Asian regions, Oregon’s most Asian-populated county is Washington County, which is less than 15% Asian. Its neighboring Multnomah County is the only other county with an Asian population in the double digits at just over 10%. The city seat of Multnomah County is Portland, Oregon’s largest city, which has just over 40,000 Asian residents, totaling to 8.5% of the city’s population. Oregon as a whole has an Asian population less than 5% of its total population, almost half of Washington’s 9.5% and 1/3rd California’s 15%. The disparity between Oregon and its neighboring states is quite large, which begs the question: why are there so few Asians in Oregon?
Oregon’s Gold Rush history is not too indifferent from San Francisco or Los Angeles–indeed, there were many similarities related to the use of Asian immigrant labor. Chinese migrants worked in mines for lower wages than their White counterparts, leading to discrimination and local opposition to their presence. One key difference is the lack of railroad work in Oregon, as the First Transcontinental Railroad connected Sacramento instead, leading to a notable lack of jobs compared to North California. Once the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882, the local Chinese population dwindled and relocated to larger cities–where there were 634 Chinese residents in Jackson County in 1870, only 43 remained 30 years later, stifling growth of ethnic enclaves that could attract new immigrants. Oregon as a whole saw an 80% decrease in Chinese population from 1900 to 1940
Oregon was no exception to the rise of anti-Chinese sentiment–in fact, it was particularly discriminatory against Chinese residents. There were a myriad of racial laws made between 1844-1959 that targeted minorities, and a few outrageous ones were targeted directly at Asians–an 1862 law was passed that “[required] all blacks, Chinese, Hawaiians, and Mulattos residing in Oregon to pay an annual tax of $5,” threatening them with “maintaining state roads for 50 cents a day” if they were unable to pay the tax. With low wages due to discrimination, many Asians struggled to pay the race tax, contributing to their declining population in the state. Oregon’s state constitution even banned Chinese people from working in mining, yet a few continued to do so, which led to a massacre leading to 34 Chinese miners being killed. The hostility continued for many decades, with ever increasing attempts to remove, ban, and otherwise eliminate Chinese presence in the state. To this day, Oregon “still exists as a white utopia in some respects,” with Portland being one of the whitest large cities in the US–a legacy of Oregon’s vitriolic crusade against minorities.
The disparity in Asian population can also be examined by employment patterns; whereas Asian Americans tend to work in management, professional, and related positions, with an emphasis on the tech industry, Oregon is greatly lacking in that regard compared to Washington’s Seattle and California’s Silicon Valley. Oregon’s largest headquartered tech-company is Lattice Semiconductor Corporation, with a market cap of $8.21 billion today, with few other comparable rivals in the state. Though Oregon’s “Silicon Forest” does have a high concentration of high-tech companies (Intel has tens of thousands of employees although this number has been shrinking significantly recently), it does not hold a handle to the far superior tech companies in California and Washington, and as a result, there is a smaller incentive for Asian tech workers to move to Oregon. This would also explain the very high concentration of Asian residents in Seattle-Bellevue and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Another angle of analysis is the lack of highly ranked universities in Oregon. California has no shortage of top-tier universities, and many of them have an Asian majority, and the University of Washington is one of the best schools for Computer Science in the US, attracting Asian students from both local and international. Oregon lacks any high ranking universities, which stems from its passage of Measure 5 in 1990, a ballot measure that limited property taxes for school funding at $15 per $1,000 of real market value before gradually lowering to $5 per $1,000. Out of Oregon’s 7 public universities, 3 of them are research universities, with only the University of Oregon and Oregon State University being classified as having “very high research activity.” If college rankings are anything to go by, the University of Oregon is the highest ranked university at #109 according to US News, which can dissuade Asian students looking to go to a more prestigious university; indeed, the U of O only has a 7% Asian population as of 2020. The lack of competitive universities and high ranking STEM programs can lead Asian students to pursue better alternatives in Washington and California.
Oregon isn’t nearly as diverse as its neighboring states, which is another contributing factor to its low Asian residency. Its historic racism has done its damage, staunching population growth among minority communities. Today, the Asian population is growing at a very slow pace, from 3% of total population in 2000 to 3.7% to 4.6%. Conversely, the non-Hispanic White population is also declining, reaching an all-time low of just under 72%, illustrating Oregon’s gradual shift towards a more diverse population. Still, there is a long way to go before Asians see any tangible representation in the Beaver State, and Oregon would have to change its institutions dramatically to attract Asian immigration. For now, Oregon will have to grapple with its racist past, making amends to its local communities and healing the damage done to numerous demographics, not just Asian-Americans.
(Photo Credit: David Jolley licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License)
