Starting in the mid-19th century, Chinese immigrants began to move to the United States, most often to escape poverty and start their lives anew. Even though Chinese immigrants were only a small portion of those moving to the United States, Caucasian Americans, from average citizens to the government, reacted negatively to their arrival. For example, in 1882, President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the country for ten years; the law was later extended and not repealed until 1943 (“Chinese Immigration and the Chinese Exclusion Acts”). However, this did not end the dispute. The Chinese resisted, and opposing voices only grew louder. An influx of Chinese immigration to the United …show more content…
At first, it seemed that the government might support the Chinese to a point; in 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes vetoed a bill that would have restricted immigrant arrivals to fifteen Chinese per vessel (“Chinese Immigration and the Chinese Exclusion Acts”). However, this was only because the bill violated United States-China treaties, and the government soon amended those treaties to better control immigration (“Chinese Immigration and the Chinese Exclusion Acts”). While some officials, like President Hayes, treated China carefully, other politicians made Chinese immigration their main issue. In the 1870s, Denis Kearney, an Irish immigrant himself, founded the Workingman’s Party whose slogan was “The Chinese Must Go!” (Tichenor). Though the Workingman’s Party was not successful long-term, its sentiments remained common among officials, from mayors to presidents. Some shared these thoughts at the 1901 Chinese Exclusion Convention in San Francisco (“Strong Addresses in Behalf of the Laboring People of the Coast”). At the event, Thomas Geary, author of the Geary Act, which extended the Chinese Exclusion Act, called the Chinese “the cheap man” (“Strong Addresses in Behalf of the Laboring People of the Coast”). This is likely because of their willingness to work for low wages. At the same …show more content…
Accessed 26 March 2018. Inouye, Karin Mei Li and David B. Honey. “Fighting Cross-Cultural Battles: The Chinese-American Assimilation Experience.” Brigham Young University, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 23 Oct. 2013, http://jur.byu.edu/?p=7933. Accessed 26 March 2018. Lee, Erika. "Enforcing and Challenging Exclusion in San Francisco." Chinese America: History & Perspectives, Jan. 1997, p. 1. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ulh&AN=9704174271&authtype=geo&geocustid=s8475741&site=ehost-live&scope=site. Accessed 27 March 2018. “Racism and the Law.” Digital History, Digital History, 2016, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook_print.cfm?smtid=3&psid=17. Accessed 8 April 2018. “Strong Addresses in Behalf of the Laboring People of the Coast.” The San Francisco Call, vol. 90, no. 175, 22 November 1901, p. 1. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Lib. of Congress, n.d., https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1901-11-22/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1901&index=1&date2=1901&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&lccn=sn86064451&lccn=sn85066387&words=Chinese+CHINESE+CONVENTION+convention+Convention+Exclusion+exclusion+EXCLUSION&proxdistance=5&state=California&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=“Chinese+Exclusion+Convention”&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1. Accessed 6 April
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
"Transcript of Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)." Our Documents. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2014. .
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
Nayan Shah is a leading expert in Asian American studies and serves as professor at the University of California. His work, Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco’s Chinatown explores how race, citizenship, and public health combined to illustrate the differences between the culture of Chinese immigrants and white norms in public-health knowledge and policy in San Francisco. Shah discusses how this knowledge impacted social lives, politics, and cultural expression. Contagious Divides investigates what it meant to be a citizen of Chinese race in nineteenth and twentieth-century San Francisco.
According to Lee, Erika, and Reason (2016), “The Chinese Exclusion Act ...barred Chinese laborers for a period of 10 years and allowed entry only to certain exempt classes (students, teachers, travelers, merchants, and diplomats” (p. 4). The Chinese immigrants were excluded from certain rules and laws like Blacks and other minority groups. Also, they were not permitted to request citizenship or settle in the United States. For decades, the Chinese laborers did not have legal rights to enter into the United States until the decision was overturned. Lee, Erika, and Reason noted, “Chinese activist turned their attention to opening up additional immigration categories within the confines of the restrictions…some 300,000 Chinese were admitted into the United States as returning residents and citizens” (p. 4). The activists fought for the rights of the Chinese people to overturn the decision for leaving and entering as pleased to the United
The Burlingame Treaty of 1868 encouraged Chinese immigration for work on railroads and southern plantations while simultaneously withholding the privilege of naturalization. This encouraged the emergence of ‘coolie’ laborers, whose passage into the United States was paid for under the agreement that they would work as indentured servants for a pre-determined period of time. Although the Chinese helped build the transcontinental railroad, their unusual style of dress still created prejudice against their ethnicity. This lead to the creation of Chinatowns as a necessary cultural barrier used for protection against the rest of society. After encouraging Chinese immigration, the government realized that these immigrants would procreate and needed to decide what immigration status children born in America would hold. The Naturalization Act of 1870 was the solution to this question, declaring any child born in the United States a citizen of the country, regardless of the race of the child. This necessarily lead to more immigration restrictions since a...
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 ...
Chinese exclusion act of 1882). This act was made to undermine the Chinese people and to force an end to immigration from China. The act would later set a precedent for future laws to exclude “Mongolian races” which would include the Japanese people. It was during this time that white workers would frequently take violent actions against the Chinese immigrants to secure white supremacy in “white jobs”. This act was justified by white, nativist, worker-unions of this time that felt the “Yellow Peril” was stealing their jobs in railroad construction.
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.”
The Chinese immigrant experience has traveled through times of hardships, under the English man. They have struggled to keep themselves alive through racism, work, and acceptance. Although many have come to Canada for their lives’ and their children’s to be successful, and safe. It could not be just given until adversity gave them the life they hoped to one day life for. In the starting time of 1858, the Chinese community had started coming to different parts of Canada considering the push and pull factors that had led them here. Because of the lack of workers in the British Columbia region, the Chinese were able to receive jobs in gold mining. Most Chinese were told to build roads, clear areas, and construct highways, but were paid little because of racism. The Chinese today are considered one of the most successful races in Canada because of the push and pull factors that they had come across, the racism that declined them and the community of the Chinese at the present time.
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,
From the 1800’s to 1900’s, the Chinese struggled immensely to earn a place in America. They wanted the same as any other Irishman, German, or Englishman, a job to make money to survive. When Chinese people set foot into the U.S, they were not welcomed with open arms. Instead they were targeted and attacked. There were many disputes on whether these immigrants should be here or deported home. Around the 1870’s, many people took violent approaches toward them and caused a number of deaths. As the Chinese population increased to over 100,000 people, congress and president Chester A. Arthur decided to terminate them in 1822, resulting in a massive change. They felt like the image of America was slipping away because that image didn’t consist of Chinese immigrants.
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
Kwong, Peter. 1999 “Forbidden Workers: Illegal Chinese Immigrants and American Labor” Publisher: The New Press.
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...