Chinese Exclusion Act (United States)

This article is about the former U.S. law. For the similar Canadian law, see Chinese Immigration Act of 1923. The first page of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law passed on May 6, 1882, following 1880 revisions 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 lasted well over 60 years.

1 Background
2 The Act
3 Effects and aftermath
4 Repeal and current status
5 References
- 5.1 Other References
6 See also
- 6.1 Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States
- 6.2 Similar racially restrictive immigration policies in other countries
7 External links

Background

Chinese immigrant workers building the Transcontinental Railroad.

Main article: Chinese immigration to the United States

The Chinese came to America in large numbers during the 1849 California Gold Rush and in the 1860s when the Central Pacific Railroad recruited large labor gangs to build its portion of the Transcontinental Railroad. Large-scale immigration continued into the late 1800s, with 123,201 Chinese recorded as arriving between 1871 and 1880, and 61,711 arriving between 1881 and 1890.

At first, when surface gold was plentiful, the Chinese were well tolerated and well-received. As gold became scarcer and competition increased, animosity to the Chinese and other foreigners increased. Organized labor groups declared that California's gold was only for Americans, and began to physically threaten foreigners' mines or gold diggings. Most, after being forcibly driven from the mines, settled in Chinese enclaves in cities, mainly San Francisco, and took up low end wage labor such as restaurant work and laundry. With the post Civil War economy in decline by the 1870s, anti-Chinese animosity became politicized by labor leader Dennis Kearney and his Workingman's Party [1] as well as by 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 64 chapters statewide.

The Act

The first page of a twenty one page interrogation transcript of Yee Bing Quai. He is interrogated by Inspector Charles E Golding with clerk Marion T Lovett recording and David Lee interpreting, June 15, 1938, in Boston, MA.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first significant restriction on free immigration in U.S. history.[2] 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.[2][3] The few Chinese non-laborers who wished to immigrate had to obtain certification from the Chinese government that they were qualified to immigrate, which tended to be difficult to prove.[3]

The Act also affected Chinese who were already 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.[3][2] 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 home.[2]

Amendments made in 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. The Act was renewed for ten years by the 1892 Geary Act, and again with no terminal date in 1902.[3] The Act's 1902 extension also required "each Chinese resident to register and obtain a certificate of residence. Without a certificate, he or she faced deportation."[3]

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."[4]

On the other hand, many people strongly supported the Chinese Exclusion Act, including the Knights of Labor [5], a labor union which called for improved conditions for workers, who supported it because it made jobs easier to find. The laws were driven largely by racial concerns; immigration of persons of other races was unlimited during this period.[6]

Among labor and leftist organizations, the Industrial Workers of the World were the sole exception to this pattern of hostility toward Asian immigrants. The IWW openly opposed the Chinese Exclusion Act from its inception in 1905.[7]

Effects and aftermath

Certificate of identity issued to Yee Wee Thing certifying that he is the son of a US citizen, issued Nov. 21, 1916. This was necessary for his immigration from China to the United States.

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.[2] However, limited immigration from China did still occur 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. Furthermore, after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which destroyed City Hall and the Hall of Records, many immigrants (known as "paper sons") falsely claimed familial ties to resident Chinese-American citizens which could not be disproved.

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.[2] 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.[2]

Repeal and current status

The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed by the 1943 Magnuson Act, allowing 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. Despite the fact that the exclusion act was repealed in 1943 the law in California that Chinese-Americans were not able to marry whites wasn't repealed until 1948.[8]

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."[9] 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.

References

^ See, e.g., http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5046/%7C
^ a b c d e f g http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/immig/chinese6.html Note: This article incorporates text from this website, which was written by the US federal government and is therefore in the public domain.
^ a b c d e usnews.com: The People's Vote: Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
^ Roger Daniels, Coming to America, p271.
^ Kennedy, David M. Cohen, Lizabeth, Bailey, Thomas A. The American Pageant. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002
^ Chin, Gabriel J., (1998) UCLA Law Review vol. 46, at 1 "Segregation's Last Stronghold: Race Discrimination and the Constitutional Law of Immigration"
^ The Rhetoric of Inclusion: The I.W.W. and Asian Workers, by Jennifer Jung Hee Choi
^ Chin, Gabriel and Hrishi Karthikeyan, (2002) Asian Law Journal vol. 9 "Preserving Racial Identity: Population Patterns and the Application of Anti-Miscegenation Statutes to Asian Americans, 1910-1950"
^ US CODE-TITLE 8-ALIENS AND NATIONALITY

Other References

Bodenner, Chris. "Chinese Exclusion Act." Issues & Controversies in American History @ FACTS.com. 20 Oct. 2006. Facts On File News Services. 3 Nov. 2007 <http://www.2facts.com>.