In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress. This act exiled Chinese laborers from arriving in the United States. This was the first time ever that a specific ethnicity was banned from immigrating to the U.S.A. Racism against the Chinese was strong, so the ban remained for ten years, but was eventually made “permanent”. However, China soon became a war ally in World War II, so the ban was repealed in 1943. There are many issues concerning immigration and racism that still plague the United States today. For example, many people are still prejudice against groups of immigrants. Mexicans are often discriminated against. In this essay I will use internet resources, in-class documents, my knowledge of social studies, and current events to write an essay comparing the Chinese Exclusion Act to illegal immigration in the U.S.A. The essay will follow. Chinese workers were not always despised and unwanted in the U.S. In fact, from the 1850’s through the early 1870’s, Chinese workers were accepted and were very useful to the state of California. The more fruits and vegetables the Californians wanted, the more the Chinese grew and picked. A growing population of people in California also demanded more Laundromats, more restaurants, more buildings, and more railroads. The Chinese built and provided all of these. Moreover, the Chinese worked for such low wages, that the prices of things were cheaper than if white Americans had been supplying these services. However, soon America, especially California, fell on some hard times. The Chinese were used as scapegoats during this time. Everything seemed to be their fault. Just as Hitler blamed a minority for Germany’s economic slump and for losing World War I, the United States w... ... middle of paper ... ... As you can see the Chinese Exclusion Act (and the remainder of the acts that followed pertaining to Chinese immigration) is very similar to what is going on here with the Mexicans. All sorts of discrimination towards Mexicans (even the legal ones) is what the Chinese must have put up with all the time. The Chinese Exclusion Act has a lot in common with illegal immigration, and immigration in general. Mexicans and Chinese (when the laborers were illegal) were being smuggled or snuck into the U.S. all the time. Even if they were legal they were still often discriminated against. Although our government and people have changed a lot over those years, in some ways they are still very much the same. I hope you feel the same way as I do when I say that illegal immigration in the United States is very similar to what happened over a hundred years ago here to the Chinese.
One particular ethnic group that suffered severe discrimination was the Chinese people. They first came to America for several reasons. One of them was the gold rush in California in 1849, in which they were included in a group of immigrants called the “Forty-Niners” (179). From gold mining, they switched to other jobs with resulted in the rise of anti-Chinese sentiments. People felt that Chinese people were taking the jobs away from them, because Chinese people worked for much smaller salaries that businesses preferred. This mindset gave way to the creation of The Chinese Exclusion Act passed in 1882, which prohibits more Chinese immigrants from coming to America. In addition, the act states “no State or court of the United States shall admit Chinese to citizenship”. Like the Naturalization Act, the Chinese Exclusion Act was created to hinder Chinese people from becoming citizens so that America could remain homogenously white (186). It also aimed to stop Chinese people from establishing a bigger community in the country in hopes of eliminating the threat of competition to their white counterparts (186). Like African-Americans, Chinese people were considered racially inferior and have struggled to prove that they were worthy to be called true Americans, rather than
Many came for gold and job opportunities, believing that their stay would be temporary but it became permanent. The Chinese were originally welcomed to California being thought of as exclaimed by Leland Stanford, president of Central Pacific Railroad, “quiet, peaceable, industrious, economical-ready and apt to learn all the different kinds of work” (Takaki 181). It did not take long for nativism and white resentment to settle in though. The Chinese, who started as miners, were taxed heavily; and as profits declined, went to work the railroad under dangerous conditions; and then when that was done, work as farm laborers at low wages, open as laundry as it took little capital and little English, to self-employment. Something to note is that the “Chinese laundryman” was an American phenomenon as laundry work was a women’s occupation in China and one of few occupations open to the Chinese (Takaki 185). Chinese immigrants were barred from naturalized citizenship, put under a status of racial inferiority like blacks and Indians as with “Like blacks, Chinese men were viewed as threats to white racial purity” (188). Then in 1882, due to economic contraction and racism Chinese were banned from entering the U.S. through the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Chinese were targets of racial attacks, even with the enactment of the 1870 Civil Rights Act meaning equal protection under federal law thanks to Chinese merchants lobbying Congress. Chinese tradition and culture as well as U.S. condition and laws limited the migration of women. Due to all of this, Chinese found strength in ethnic solidarity as through the Chinese Six Companies, which is considered a racial project. Thanks to the earthquake of 1906 in San Francisco, the Chinese fought the discriminatory laws by claiming citizenship by birth since the fires
Throughout history, Americans have always been intimidated by immigrants. The idea of an immigrant coming to America and easily being able to get a job scared Americans. Americans feared that good jobs would be taken from hard working Americans and given to immigrants for less pay because they required less money to live on or were used to no wages or lower wages in their Country of origin. People would immigrate to America in search of a better life, and often times they could find homes and jobs that made them want to stay. A melting pot is described as being a mixing of different cultures into one universal culture. In Erika Lee’s, The Chinese Exclusion Example, immigrant exclusion helped re-define the melting-pot
With the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, the first significant restrictive immigration law in United States history was instituted that would provided a framework to be used to racialize other threatening, excludable aliens. Furthermore, this marked the first time that groups of immigrants were excluded based on their race and nationality. At the time, America could be identified as being an Anglo-Saxon dominated nation where native-born citizens had the ultimate say in government and societal issues. The influx of Chinese immigrants in the 19th century posed a problem for many of these nativists. The Chinese immigrants were coming to America at an astounding rate and willing to work for less money, thereby, endangering American values and civilization. Additionally, they were deemed as a threat to the white supremacy in the West. In order to bring this racial threat to light, many Anti-Chinese activists’ compared the new immigrants to African Americans in that both were believed to be inherently inferior savages only suitable for degrading labor in which they were often employed (Lee 34). However, the strongest argument against the Chinese focused on them being unwilling and incapable of assimilating into society. In the ...
Americans “thought [the] Chinese had some kind of superpower since they worked for such low wages and lived in small crowded areas” (“The Chinese Experience in 19th Century America”). The Chinese just wanted to have a better life since that was the reason they came to America and they were just working hard to achieve their American Dream of living a better life than the one in their country. They did not mind working hard for what they wanted and they did, but they were just thought of as different and as exorcists for doing this. There were Yellow Peril novels written about how the Chinese wanted to take over the American government so they could put in place their own culture. On the other hand there were groups of people who did feel the Chinese were welcomed. At the very beginning, “The Chinese were welcome in California in the mid 1800’s because there was a lot of work and not enough workers, but Chinese people had to live separately from Americans. When the economic conditions got worse, discrimination against the Chinese increased” (The History of Chinese Immigration to the United States). Yes the Chinese were welcomed at first, but the Nativists only used them for a little and wanted the Chinese gone. Once they saw things getting worse within the country and started calling them exorcist and demonic because they worked really hard and put up The Chinese Exclusion act so they
...nese immigrants that came to America in the mid 1800’s came for the same reasons as every immigrant group, dire situations in their native lands and the opportunities for economic prosperity. Having escaped their misfortunate pasts, the Chinese immigrants took the opportunities afforded to them in the gold mining fields and on the railroad tracks. Providing a much needed labor force to America at the time, the Chinese would never get their just credit. Instead they would be discriminated more in the years to come. Acts such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 would greatly reduce the number of Chinese immigrants allowed to come into the country ("The Chinese," n.d.). Coupled with measures put in place by the state of California such as the “Anti-Coolie Act of 1862”, the Chinese immigrants faced humiliation after contributing so much to the United States of America.
When thousands of Chinese migrated to California after the gold rush the presence caused concern and debate from other Californians. This discussion, popularly called the “Chinese Question,” featured in many of the contemporary accounts of the time. In the American Memory Project’s “California: As I Saw It” online collection, which preserves books written in California from 1849-1900, this topic is debated, especially in conjunction with the Chinese Exclusion Act. The nine authors selected offer varying analyses on Chinese discrimination and this culminating act. Some give racist explanations, but the majority point towards the perceived economic competition between the Chinese and the lower class led to distrust and animosity.
Regarded as unassimilable, Asian immigrants were systematically discriminated by way of American immigration policies. The earliest policy enforced that overtly excluded groups of individuals based on racial categorization was passed in 1882. This was known as the Chinese Exclusion Act. As the years went by, hostile sentiments towards Asians fostered and eventually manifested themselves in the Immigration Act of 1924. In response to these discriminating policies, prospective immigrants sought alternate routes to America, often involving the channel of human smuggling. Despite the presence of human smuggling prior to the late 20th century, heightened awareness of this exploit resulted from the media sensation around the Golden Venture ship,
This discrimination initially began with the Naturalization Act of 1790, allowing free white-men of “good character” naturalization while excluding Native Americans, indentured servants, free Blacks, and Asians. In addition to extreme acts, the Chinese Exclusion Act, signed in 1882, had prohibited the Chinese from entering our country. Another example of the racism Asian-Americans faced occurred during World War II due to the war’s propaganda and the slurs that came about as a result of the war. The historical background of Asian-Americans and racism not only left scarring tendencies, but managed to transcend into modern society within a lower degree.
As gold discoveries slowed down and the Civil War gradually came to an end, the First Transcontinental Railroad was finally completed between Omaha and Sacramento. Over time, unemployment began rising across the country, especially in California, where a vast majority of Chinese immigrants resided in. The welcoming of Chinese immigrants slowly began to wear off as the white working class perceived a threat to their livelihood that these immigrants could potentially cause, leading to an increase in racial tensions. These growing tensions culminated in the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and eventually closed U.S. borders to all Chinese laborers, with the exception of ethnic Chinese individuals. This paper highlights the significant impact of large-scale Chinese immigration to California during the Gold Rush, the lasting contributions made by the Chinese towards Western ...
The Chinese Exclusion Act was enacted to curb the influx of Chinese immigrants seeking work in the failing post-Civil War economies. The Chinese settlers created enclaves in many West-Coast cities; the most famous of these being the “China-Town” in San Francisco. Anti-Chinese sentiment grew from the Nativist policies of Denis Kearney, his Workingman’s Party, and California statesman John Bigler. White power organizations fought against Chinese immigrants as well, specifically the Supreme Order of Caucasians in April 1876 and the Asiatic Exclusion League in May 1905. They stated that Chinese laborers had driven wages down to an unacceptable level,[1] Resultantly, they fought against the rights of Chinese Immigrants, many of whom had been natur...
When the Chinese Exclusion Act was signed into law in May 1882, it was followed by a rapidly decreasing amount of new immigrants to the United States. Regardless of problems that the United States attempted to solve with the Act, violent massacre and persecution of Chinese people in the United States continued. Because of this, many Chinese immigrants that did stay in America continued on for years to receive prejudice and racism in the labor market and cultural society. This then continued to force many Chinese immigrants further and further down the path of segregation and into the protection of Chinatowns and poverty, counteracting the great American idea of the “melting pot.”
In chapter thirty five, author Shelley Sang-Hee Lee explains that “Immigration is an important part of our understanding of U.S. social experience” (Hee 128). Asian immigrants bring their diverse culture, language and custom from various Asian countries. They help improve American economic development. Also, they play an important role in American society. The first Asian immigration flow is the Chinese Immigration in the mid-19th century to work in the gold mines and railroads. The Asian immigrant population grew rapidly between 1890 and 1910 (Hee 130). The increasing of population of Asian immigrants have brought a lot of problems. Many of them were facing the issue of ethnicity, discrimination, and the process of assimilation. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which banned the immigration of Chinese laborers and proscribed foreign-born Chinese from naturalized citizenship and the Asian Exclusion Act League in 1907 which limited the entry of Asian immigrants have reshaped the demographic of Asian immigrants in the U.S (Hing 45). With the rise of anti-Asian movements, many Asian immigrants were rejected from entering America or deported to their homeland. In the early history of immigration in America, the issue of deportation is an important part of the Asian American experience in the
For nearly a century, spanning from the latter half of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, Chinese-Americans and Chinese immigrants endured discrimination from the United States government and its people. The Chinese are another group of people that were treated as less than in America’s long history of legal racism. The Chinese experience is often overlooked as other
...xperienced harsh discrimination and even legal exclusion from our country. They were blamed for the lack of job opportunities and low pay of jobs and received extremely unfair treatment that labeled them as an inferior race. However, the inter-ethnic tension blinded us from seeing how the immigrants were contributing to our country in positive ways. They not only created economic and social gains for us, but also opened our minds to a whole new way of life and prepared us for the multicultural years to come. With all of the help and modernization that they contributed to our country, the racism and discrimination that the Chinese immigrants received day-in and day-out was not rightly justified or deserved.