Chinese Exclusion Act Of 1882 Essay

999 Words2 Pages

Analytical Research Paper
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
By Naomi Brindley
May 23, 2016














Immigration throughout the last four centuries has been the cause of the existence of more than a quarter of a billion people that inhabit the United States of America today (Daniels). Throughout United States history, all immigrants endured harsh discrimination both socially and legally from American nativists. Due to harsh nativist attitudes, between the years of 1882 and 1924 a series of laws limiting free immigration to the United States were passed. This series of laws began with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the most significant restriction on free immigration in the history of the …show more content…

The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed on May 6, 1882, and excluded the immigration of all Chinese laborers for 10 years and denied United States citizenship to all Chinese non-citizens residing in the prior to the passage of the act (Powell).
Six years later, William Scott introduced the extension of restrictions set in the Chinese Exclusion Act, in response to the growing hostility towards Chinese immigrants. On October 1, 1888, President Grover Cleveland passed the Scott Act which excluded all Chinese from immigrating to the United States, with the exception of officials, teachers, students, merchants, or travelers (Powell). The act additionally excluded the return of Chinese laborers who had come to the United States prior to 1882 unless they had family residing in the United States …show more content…

The Foreign Miner's Tax was passed by California legislature in 1852, in an attempt to limit the amount of Chinese miners in the state (Daniels). The Foreign Miner's Tax taxed each foreigner engaged in mining twenty dollars per month (Chang). Because Chinese laborers were working for severely low wages and living in conditions of harsh poverty, this tax was a significant hindrance on their prosperity. As a result of the decline of the gold mining industry and the discrimination prevalent in the workforce, Chinese laborers began to search elsewhere in search of

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