Chinese Immigration Dbq Essay

In today’s America, many are well aware that anyone born on American soil is a legal citizen; however, there were some instances where Americans of Chinese descent were not entitled to their rights as citizens. In the Look Tin Sing Case (1884) a man named Look Tin Sing, born in California, was not allowed to reenter the U.S. after his trip to China because he did not have the paperwork required of Chinese immigrants at that time. Even though he was technically an American citizen, officials did not agree and the problem was not solved until it went to court. A similar case was called U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) where Wong Kim Ark was also born in the U.S. but was denied re-entry after returning from his trip to China. As seen in document 2,

Wong already had his White acquaintances fill out the statement of witness before he departed for his trip.

These White acquaintances had already confirmed that they knew Wong and that he was definitely born in the U.S. but the case was not resolved until the Supreme Court became involved. It is easy to say that one can live an easier life if they simply follow the rule but what happens when one has done everything right but still be wrong?
The main pull factor for so many immigrating to America was because of money. The immigrants took on various jobs to make ends meet and one of the more choices was in doing laundry. Chinese-owned laundromats competed with White-owned so naturally, certain laws were passed in an attempt to stop the Chinese from competing with the Whites. The Laundry Ordinance (1873) was passed in the city of San Francisco; it did not allow for laundromats to be in wooden buildings. It is worth mentioning that a majority of the laundromats in San Francisco were in wooden buildings and

many Whites with laundromats in wooden buildings were not fined in any way. The people did not find this law to be necessary and were against it for years but the city only claimed that the law was necessary when a fire happened years later in 1880. The fire that occurred in a laundromat ran by the Chinese killed 11 residents and gave the city a way to defend its law. One well-known case during this time was the Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886) case in which a named Lee Yick lost his business license one year after the health department approved his building. After he got arrested and refused to pay the $10 fine, the case went to the Supreme Court where the Justices noticed that many White-owned laundromats were allowed to continue doing business without following the building requirements. They concluded that there was racial hostility and therefore, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment which promised equal application of the law regardless of race. What is noteworthy about this case is the Justices declared that the 14th Amendment also applied to non-citizens because they are also humans just like citizens and should not have to follow rules that citizens do not.
The Japanese were another group that immigrated to America in great numbers and were faced with racist Americans and legal restrictions to keep them out. In spite of its desires to limit immigration, Japan was a growing force that the U.S. did not want to upset so the U.S. had to tread carefully with its acts. The Gentlemen’s Agreement Act that was passed in 1907 gave Japan the opportunity to take charge and control the number of visas they gave out rather than have the U.S. close its doors to Japan. Regardless of the act, Japanese citizens still managed to sneak into the U.S. by first going to either Canada or Mexico and then walking across the borders. As the U.S. wanted to show that it respected Japan, it did not include Japan in the Asiatic Barred Zone Act that required immigrants to take a literacy test and fulfill other requirements before being allowed entrance. However, the high respect for Japan did not last long as the California Alien Land Act prevented all non-citizens ineligible for citizenship from owning farmland and the Japanese were expected to adhere to this rule as well.
The Asiatic Barred Zone Act also did not apply to the Filipinos when they were still under the control of America.

The Filipinos were not expected to follow the immigration quota that came with the Johnson-Reed Act and were allowed to freely travel to and from America. The Johnson-Reed Act was one more act geared towards immigration and had a goal of regulating how many people from each country were coming into America but did not apply to Filipinos because the Philippines was considered to be part of American territory. Once the Tydings-McDuffie Act was put in action in 1934, the Philippines became independent from American control and was considered its own country, thus it had to start following the immigration quota and immigration to America became more

regulated.
As people say, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way, ” Asians who wanted to live in America but were subjected to immigration acts managed to find countless ways to get in and stay in. An example was the Paper Sons System that had Chinese citizens faking papers to become the “sons” of the Chinese already living in America. The Chinese in America were able to bring their family members to America so many reported that they had multiple children back in China and helped strangers to America. The government eventually realized that people lie to get in so it set up Angel Island as a place to hold all immigrants coming into the west to be able to interrogate every single immigrant. The immigrants were asked difficult questions about their lives at home and interrogations were often 2 weeks long but it was not uncommon for one to take a year. As seen in document 5, detainees had little privacy and were forced to share limited living space with complete strangers. The government even established a Border Patrol team in 1924 to catch all that tried to sneak into America but the immigrants knew that there were not enough officers patrolling to catch them so they planned their journeys around the schedule of the officers. The immigrants were also undeterred by the California Alien Land Act that was supposed to stop non-citizens from owning land; they simply bought land under the names of their American-born children.