TheMaterialismofBiologicalEncounters 79
this time, the local authorities wanted to get their act right by enacting
drastic measures of interventions into the lives of the Chinese. They
called in the National Guard to disinfect all persons of Chinese origin,
regardless of their real or presumed health status. After this procedure,
which many Chinese felt was degrading, they were herded into railroad
cars as temporary shelters. All of Chinatown was then incinerated. It
was perhaps an ironic moment when the fire went out of control and
burneddownalsosomepropertyownedbyCaucasiansplusthehomeof
theHonolulufiredepartment(Wisniewski9).
Verysoonafterthemedicalfactshadbeenmadeknown,ahysterical
publicbegantoblamethecomingoftheBlackDeathtotheparadisiacal
Pacific island on the Chinese immigrant population and their cultural
habits. Newspapers mobilized the imaginative capabilities of their
readers and produced sensationalistic accounts of the medically and
morallyirresponsiblelifestyleoftheChinesewhocametobeconsidered
a collective health risk. In this latter judgment the medical experts on
Hawai'i concurred. A Special Commission authorized by the BOH
concluded its report with this assessment: "[p]lague lives and breeds in
filthandwhenitgotintoChinatown,itfounditsnaturalhabitat"(qtd.in
Ikeda 77)—asentiment that would be widely shared a few months later
alsobythepublichealthcommunityinSanFrancisco.
Inmanyways,theHawai'ianplaguecanbeunderstoodasaprelude^32
to the medical and socio-cultural drama unfolding during the San
Francisco epidemic some months later—with the same culprits, the
same emphasis on environmental sanitation, the same mobilization of
socio-cultural affect, and also the same countervailing interests pitting
public health concerns against trade and other business interests. And
here again, biological encounters followed on the heels of more
desirableencountersgeneratedbyacceptedformsofmobility,traveland
trade.^33 Honolulu and San Francisco were both economically dynamic
(^32) Shahmakesthispointonanevenbroaderbasis,suggestingthatthe"outbreak
of plague in Honolulu's Chinatown prefigured the suspect status of every other
Chinatown" in the U.S. as a potential source of medical and commercial
catastrophe(129).
(^33) This nexus was well-known to contemporaries, as a statement by the U.S.
TreasuryDepartmentforthefiscalyear1914makesquiteclear:"Duringthelast
twenty years [the plague] has been travelling to all corners of the earth,