Charlotta Bass and the Struggle for Immigrant Rights in Early 20th-Century

In the early to mid-20th century, when Charlotta Bass rose to prominence as a pioneering Black journalist and civil rights activist, the issue of border control was steeped in racial politics. Although it was a different time, many of the same tensions we see today — debates over immigration policy, concerns about labor, and issues of national security — were already playing out on a national stage. For Bass, whose life’s work centered around advocating for racial justice and equality, the growing restrictions on immigration and the treatment of non-white immigrants would have struck her as yet another form of institutionalized racism designed to preserve white dominance in America.

A Landscape of Racial Exclusion

The early 1900s was a period marked by growing xenophobia and nativism in the United States. This era saw the passing of the Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the Johnson-Reed Act, which severely restricted immigration from countries outside of northern and western Europe. The act was particularly harsh on Asian immigrants, effectively banning their entry, and it established strict quotas limiting the number of immigrants allowed from southern and eastern European countries. This was a deliberate attempt to preserve what lawmakers of the time considered the racial “purity” of the nation — a concept deeply tied to white supremacy.

Charlotta Bass, who ran The California Eagle, one of the oldest and most influential Black newspapers on the West Coast, was well aware of the racial dynamics underpinning these policies. Her newspaper was a platform for fighting against the Jim Crow laws and segregation that plagued African Americans. But Bass’s sense of justice extended far beyond the Black community; she saw all struggles for racial equality as interconnected. The same white supremacist ideologies that justified lynching, disenfranchisement, and segregation of Black Americans were also driving immigration laws that targeted people of color, particularly those from Mexico, China, and Japan.

The “Mexican Problem” and Repatriation Campaigns

During the 1920s and 1930s, as the United States grappled with the Great Depression, Mexican immigrants became a convenient scapegoat for the country’s economic woes. Although Mexican labor was essential to California’s booming agricultural economy, especially during World War I when the U.S. experienced labor shortages, anti-immigrant sentiment grew as the country’s economic situation worsened. Mexicans were portrayed in much the same way Black Americans had been for generations — as a threat to white jobs and social order.

In response, the government launched “repatriation” campaigns, during which hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrants and their U.S.-born children were forcibly deported. The irony was that many of these immigrants had been encouraged to come to the U.S. to work in agriculture, and some were even U.S. citizens. Yet in times of economic hardship, they were discarded and labeled as illegal aliens.

Charlotta Bass saw these deportations for what they were: a thinly veiled attempt to control the labor force and maintain racial hierarchies. The selective enforcement of immigration laws mirrored the selective enforcement of Jim Crow laws, both of which served to keep people of color in their place — whether by denying them citizenship rights, economic opportunities, or the ability to live freely within the borders of the United States. Bass spoke out against the repatriation campaigns, just as she spoke out against lynching and segregation, because she recognized that the fight for immigrant rights was inherently tied to the fight for racial equality.

The Role of Labor and Racial Control

Much like the plight of Black workers in the segregated South, Mexican laborers were subjected to the whims of a white-dominated society that valued their work but not their humanity. Mexicans were welcomed into the U.S. when their labor was needed, especially during times of war or economic boom. However, when the demand for labor decreased, as it did during the Great Depression, they were quickly labeled as undesirable and subjected to mass deportations.

This push-pull dynamic echoed the treatment of Black Americans, who were essential to the economic foundation of the U.S. but constantly marginalized and oppressed. Charlotta Bass, through her editorials and activism, drew these connections between the struggles of Mexican immigrants and those of African Americans, highlighting how both groups were being used and discarded by a system that sought to exploit their labor while denying them full participation in society.

In fact, Bass’s deep understanding of systemic racism positioned her to see how border control and immigration policies were tools used to maintain the racial status quo. She recognized that the calls for stricter border control were not simply about protecting American jobs or ensuring national security, but about keeping America white.

The Asian Exclusion

The Immigration Act of 1924 also targeted Asian immigrants, particularly those from China and Japan. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 had already severely restricted Chinese immigration, but the 1924 act extended these restrictions, effectively banning all immigration from Asia. For Bass, who advocated for racial equality across all communities of color, these laws represented the extent to which white supremacy shaped U.S. immigration policy.

The fear of the “Yellow Peril” — the racist belief that Asian immigrants posed a cultural and economic threat to the U.S. — was similar to the fear of Black economic mobility that fueled segregation and disenfranchisement in the South. In California, where many Japanese immigrants had established successful farming communities, these exclusionary policies were particularly harmful. Japanese immigrants were not only barred from entering the country, but those already in the U.S. were prohibited from owning land in some states.

Bass, with her platform as a journalist, used her voice to denounce these policies. Much like her critique of segregation and anti-Black violence, she framed the exclusion of Asian immigrants as part of a broader system of racial injustice that sought to limit the rights and freedoms of people of color.

Solidarity Across Borders

Although Charlotta Bass is primarily remembered for her tireless advocacy for Black Americans, she was also a staunch defender of all marginalized groups. She understood that the same structures that oppressed African Americans were also used to control and marginalize immigrant communities of color.

Bass’s work as the editor of The California Eagle included coverage of the immigration struggles faced by Mexicans, Asians, and other non-white groups, particularly in California. Her editorials drew attention to the ways in which immigration laws were being used to uphold white supremacy, much like the segregationist policies of the Jim Crow South. In this way, Bass was ahead of her time, seeing the interconnectedness of various forms of oppression long before the concept of intersectionality became widely recognized.

About the Author

Allissa Richardson

Founding Director

Dr. Allissa V. Richardson, founding director of the USC Charlotta Bass Journalism & Justice Lab, researches how African Americans use emerging technologies to build independent news networks. Through the Bass Lab, she has established a central hub for advancing scholarly inquiry into media innovation and justice-driven journalism.

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