Chinese Exclusive Act

A brief introduction of

Chinese Exclusion Act

The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by Chester A. Arthur on May 8, 1882, following revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty of 1868.

Those revisions allowed the U.S. to suspend immigration, and Congress subsequently acted quickly to implement the suspension of Chinese immigration, a ban that was intended to last 10 years.

This law was repealed by the Magnuson Act on December 17, 1943.

Chinese Exclusion Act

The first page of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Background

The first significant Chinese immigration to the United States began with the California Gold Rush of 1848-1855, and continued with subsequent large labor projects, such as the building of the First Transcontinental Railroad. During the early stages of the gold rush, when surface gold was plentiful, the Chinese were tolerated, if not well-received.

As gold became harder to find and competition increased, animosity toward the Chinese and other foreigners increased. After being forcibly driven from the mines, most Chinese settled in enclaves in cities, mainly San Francisco, and took up low end wage labor such as restaurant work and laundry.

BackgroundChinese immigrant workers building the Transcontinental railroad.

(*)

Background

With the post Civil War economy in decline by the 1870s, anti-Chinese animosity became politicized by labor leader Denis Kearney and his Workingman's Party as well as by California Governor John Bigler, both of whom blamed Chinese "coolies“(*) for depressed wage levels.

Another significant anti-Chinese group organized in California during this same era was the Supreme Order of Caucasians with some 60 chapters statewide.(*)

Additional Facts – other races Scot: meanness

Irish: ugly, brawling drunkards

Italian: non-regular churchgoers attending only their baptism, wedding and funeral(*)

Yew: the most abused

The Act

The Chinese Exclusion Act was one of the most significant restrictions on free immigration in U.S. history. The Act excluded Chinese "skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining" from entering the country for ten years under penalty of imprisonment and deportation.(*)

The Act also affected Asians who had already settled in the United States. Any Chinese who left the United States had to obtain certifications for reentry, and the Act made Chinese immigrants permanent aliens by excluding them from U.S. citizenship. After the Act's passage, Chinese men in the U.S. had little chance of ever reuniting with their wives, or of starting families in their new homes.

The Act – Further Amendments

1884: tightened the provisions that allowed previous immigrants to leave and return, and clarified that the law applied to ethnic Chinese regardless of their country of origin.

1888: The Scott Act expanded upon the Chinese Exclusion Act, prohibiting reentry after leaving the U.S.

1892: The Act was renewed for ten years by the Geary Act

1902: Extended again, with no terminal date.(*)

Additional Facts – Other Voices

For - Many people strongly supported the Chinese Exclusion Act, including the Knights of Labor, a labor union which called for improved conditions for workers.(*)

Against - Among labor and leftist organizations, the Industrial Workers of the World were the sole exception to this pattern. The IWW openly opposed the Chinese Exclusion Act from its inception in 1905.

One of the critics of the Chinese Exclusion Act was the anti-slavery/anti-imperialist Republican Senator George Frisbie Hoar of Massachusetts who described the Act as "nothing less than the legalization of racial discrimination."(*)

Effects and Aftermath

For all practical purposes, the Exclusion Act, along with the restrictions that followed it, froze the Chinese community in place in 1882, and prevented it from growing and assimilating into U.S. society as European immigrant groups did.

Limited immigration from China continued until the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943.

From 1910 to 1940, the Angel Island Immigration Station on what is now Angel Island State Park in San Francisco Bay served as the processing center for most of the 56,113 Chinese immigrants who are recorded as immigrating or returning from China; upwards of 30% more who showed up were returned to China.

Effects and Aftermath

1. The Chinese Exclusion Act gave rise to the first great wave of commercial human smuggling, an activity that later spread to include other national and ethnic groups.

2. Later, the Immigration Act of 1924 would restrict immigration even further, excluding all classes of Chinese immigrants and extending restrictions to other Asian immigrant groups. Until these restrictions were relaxed in the middle of the twentieth century, Chinese immigrants were forced to live a life apart, and to build a society in which they could survive on their own.

Effects and Aftermath A political cartoon

from 1882.(*)

Effects and Aftermath

3. (*)The Chinese were quickly and eagerly replaced by the Japanese, who assumed the role of the Chinese in society.

Unlike the Chinese, some Japanese were even able to climb the rungs of society by setting up businesses or becoming truck farmers.

However, the Japanese were later targeted in the National Origins Act of 1924, which banned immigration from east Asia entirely.

Repeal and Current Status The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed by the 1943 Magnuson

Act, which permitted Chinese nationals already residing in the country to become naturalized citizens. It also allowed a national quota of 105 Chinese immigrants per year, although large scale Chinese immigration did not occur until the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965.(*)

Even today, although all its constituent sections have long been repealed, Chapter 7 of Title 8 of the United States Code is headed, "Exclusion of Chinese." It is the only chapter of the 15 chapters in Title 8 (Aliens and Nationality) that is completely focused on a specific nationality or ethnic group.

Additional Facts - Apology美华社力促国会就排华法案向华人道歉

via http://www.chinareviewnews.com

2010-06-21 11:25:37  

中评社香港 6月 21日电／综合报道 加州去年通过法案就美国 1882年开始的“排华法案” (Chinese

Exclusion Act)向华裔民众道歉。 排华法案议题最近又在全美华人小区升温发酵。继日前全美各地华人社团代表正式向国会议员递交请愿书，敦促国会应为 1882年通过的排华法案道歉后，联邦华裔众议员赵美心表示欲向国会提案，要求向当年排华冤案受害者以及全体华人道歉，此举得到越来越多华人社团及政界的支持。

Thank you!