Plague at the Golden Gate

Over 100 years before the deadly COVID-19 pandemic set off a nationwide wave of fear and anti-Asian sentiment, an outbreak of bubonic plague in San Francisco's Chinatown unleashed a similar crisis. The death of a Chinese immigrant in 1900 would have likely gone unnoticed if a sharp-eyed medical officer hadn't discovered a swollen black lymph node on his body — evidence of one of the world's most feared diseases, bubonic plague. It was the first time in history that civilization's most feared disease, the infamous Black Death, made it to North America. When others started dying, health officials and business leaders were torn about how to stave off an epidemic without causing panic and derailing the city's booming economy. Two doctors — vastly different in temperament, training, and experience — used different methods to lead the seemingly impossible battle to contain the disease before it could engulf the country. In addition to overwhelming medical challenges, they faced unexpected opposition from business leaders, politicians, and even the President of the United States. Fueling the resistance would be a potent blend of political expediency, ignorance, greed, racism, and deep-rooted distrust of not only federal authority but science itself. Scapegoated as the source of the disease early on, the Chinese-American community fought back against unjust, discriminatory treatment. Based on David K. Randall's Black Death at the Golden Gate, the film features interviews with various medical experts, authors, and Asian-American historians.