HistoricSiteMarkers
Progressive & Modern Era

The Pershing Chinese

San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas

Marker Inscription

In March, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ordered General John J. Pershing to lead an expedition into Mexico to punish Pancho Villa, the Mexican revolutionary whose troops crossed the U.S.-Mexico border and attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico. Chinese merchants set up camps to supply the soldiers, angering a native-born populace who already resented and feared the Chinese. In danger of retribution, 2,500 Mexican civilians, including 527 Chinese, accompanied Pershing when he returned to the U.S. in February 1917. Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), which banned Chinese immigration into the United States, Pershing had to request special permission to bring the Chinese across the border. They began to live adjacent to the base at Columbus. In June 1917, most of the group was moved to San Antonio, where they served as laborers, carpenters and cooks at Camp Wilson (Camp Travis), Fort Sam Houston and Kelly Field in preparation for World War I. They worked admirably and at night attended an English school established by William Page, civilian advisor for the immigrants. To prevent deportation of the refugees after World War I, Page and General Pershing, with the help of a law firm, developed a plan to ask Congress to take action in giving the immigrants permanent resident status. Congress passed Public Resolution 29 in 1921 and in January 1922, the immigration service began registering Chinese refugees in San Antonio as permament residents of the United States. About half stayed in San Antonio, with many opening businesses. Maintaining identity through church, school, and ethnic organizations, the refugees became the base of San Antonio’s Chinese community, which today remains one of the largest in Texas.

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

When General John J. Pershing chased Pancho Villa into Mexico in 1916, Chinese merchants set up camps to supply his soldiers — and earned the resentment of a hostile local populace. Fearing reprisals, some 527 Chinese fled north with Pershing's returning column in 1917, and because the Chinese Exclusion Act barred their entry, the general had to secure special permission for them. Most settled around San Antonio's military bases as laborers, carpenters, and cooks, and a special act of Congress in 1921 finally granted them permanent residency; many stayed to open businesses.

Why it matters

The "Pershing Chinese" became the foundation of one of the largest Chinese communities in Texas, a rare crack in the wall of the Chinese Exclusion Act and a reminder of how a border expedition reshaped American immigration.

Plan your visit

Nearby

Make a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.

Museums & culture

Attractions

Food & drink

Places to stay

Places data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Hours and details change — call ahead.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Related people

  • · John J. Pershing
  • · Woodrow Wilson
  • · Pancho Villa
  • · William Page

Related events

  • · Punitive Expedition into Mexico
  • · Public Resolution 29 (1921)

Themes & tags

ImmigrationWorld War ILandmark

Nearby & related markers

Ludwig Mahncke

San Antonio, TX

Born in the German region of Mecklenburg in 1846, Ludwig Mahncke emigrated in 1882 and became a popular San Antonio hotelier, restaurateur, city councilman, and parks commissioner. He persuaded philanthropist George Brackenridge to donate the land that became Brackenridge Park and then built its first roads, deer preserve, and menagerie. Cypress trees he transplanted still line the San Antonio River, and after his death in 1906 a bust and a park were dedicated in his honor.

Immigration

Dodd Field (Fort Sam Houston) Enemy Alien Detention Station, World War II

San Antonio, TX

After Pearl Harbor drew the United States into World War II, the government detained not only more than 120,000 Japanese Americans in relocation camps but also thousands of Japanese, German, and Italian nationals—and their U.S.-citizen relatives—as 'enemy aliens.' Fort Sam Houston's old Dodd Field airfield became a U.S. Army temporary detention station, twenty acres ringed by double barbed wire and eight guard towers. From early 1942 it held detainees—never more than 150 at once—until they were paroled, exchanged, or moved to other camps, and it closed late that year.

World War IIImmigration

Alamo Masonic Cemetery

San Antonio, TX

Chartered in 1848, San Antonio's Alamo Lodge No. 44 of the Masons bought this ground in the early 1850s to give its members a proper burial place. The oldest marked grave belongs to S. Fredericca Hummel, a German native who reached San Antonio in 1847, and the first Masonic burial came in 1855. Among Texas's earliest Masonic cemeteries, it holds many of the immigrants who poured into the city through the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Immigration

Central Catholic High School

San Antonio, TX

When San Antonio had no boys' school at all, Bishop Jean-Marie Odin recruited teachers from the Society of Mary in France, and on August 26, 1852, they opened a school in two rooms over a livery stable near San Fernando Cathedral. Relocated to a riverside campus as "St. Mary's Institute" in 1853, it finished the year with a hundred pupils of Anglo, French, German, and Mexican descent, day students and ranch-boy boarders alike. From that pioneer effort grew St. Mary's University, and in 1932 Central Catholic High School became the successor, now the oldest and largest private boys' school in Texas.

EducationImmigration