How were Chinese immigrants affected with racial exclusion in the late 1800s?
photo: “Chinese? No! No! No!” poster, 1892
Courtesy of Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma
Originally migrating in the 1850s, Chinese men came to America to first work in the gold mines, but also to be hired in agricultural and factory jobs, specifically in the garment industry. Despite that Chinese laborers grew successful in the U.S. and many of them became entrepreneurs, anti-Chinese attitude from other workers in the American economy also grew. Due to economic and cultural tensions, including ethnic discrimination, American objections to future Chinese immigration varied. Since Chinese laborers came to work, for very little, in America to send money back home to their families, non-Whites with higher wages were concerned of losing their jobs to these newcomers. [1] With a spread of Chinatowns where it was perceived the men laborers would congregate to visit prostitutes, gamble or smoke opium, some of the anti-Chinese advocates feared the decline in cultural and moral standards in American society.
With entire Chinese families beginning to immigrate to the United States in the early 1870s, Congress excluded Chinese women from entering the country in 1875. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which met the terms of the Angell Treaty (1880), suspending Chinese laborer immigration (skilled or unskilled) for a ten-year period. Congress also expanded its list of unacceptable immigrants beyond prostitutes and convicts to include such people as contract laborers, mentally ill, beggars and unaccompanied minors. [2] In 1888, the Scott Act was passed, which made reentry to the U.S. after visiting China, impossible. Even though the Chinese government considered the act as a direct insult, they were unable to prevent its passage. [3]
Debate over the Exclusion Act continued its passage after 1882. There were 105,000 persons of Chinese descent lived in the U.S. at the time of exclusion. [4] The United States’ right to exclude Chinese immigrants challenged in the courts throughout the following years. However, in 1889, the U.S. Supreme Court sustain the exclusionary law in Chae Chan Ping vs. The United States on the term that Congress’s right to restrict immigration to the U.S. was a fundamental aspect of national sovereignty. [5]
In China, merchants responded to the humiliation of the exclusion acts by organizing an anti-American boycott in 1905. [6] Though the Chinese government could not sanction the movement, it received unofficial support in the early months. President Theodore Roosevelt recognized the boycott as a direct response to unfair American treatment of Chinese immigrants, but he called for the Chinese government to suppress it since the American prestige was at stake. After five difficult months, Chinese merchants lost the impetus for the movement, and the boycott ended quietly.
The Chinese Exclusion Acts were not repealed until 1943, and then only in the interests of aiding the morale of a wartime ally during World War II. [7] With already, complicated relations by the Opium Wars and the Treaties of Wangxia and Tianjian, the progressively harsh restrictions on Chinese immigration, combined with the increasing discrimination against Chinese living in the United States in the 1870s-early 1900s, set additional strain on the diplomatic relationship between the United States and China.
Despite that the relationship between Chinese exclusion and the revolutionary improvements for African Americans during Reconstruction is usually never brought up, pre-Civil War state laws regulating the migration of slaves served as precursors to the Chinese exclusion laws. [8] With the support of southerners interested in rejuvenating a racial caste system as well as self-interested Anglos from California, Congress enacted the national exclusion laws.
It is not surprising that greater legal freedoms for African Americans were linked with Chinese misfortunes. As one historian noted, "[with] Negro slavery a dead issue after 1865, greater attention was focused [on immigration from China]." [9] Political forces reacted quickly to fill the racial void in the political arena. Partisan political concerns, as well as labor unionism, in the post-Civil War period figured notably in the anti-Chinese movement in the state of California.
With a majority of Chinese immigrants residing on the West Coast, they suffered intense discrimination and periodic mob violence. Chinese victims actually sued local governments for redress when their rights were violated and petitioned Congress for indemnity. [10] It was their demands for equal rights that forced the state and federal courts to define the reach of the Fourth Amendment. To show an example, San Francisco did not provide education for Chinese children between the years 1871 and 1885. In 1885, the California Supreme Court, in Tape v. Hurley, ordered the city to admit Chinese students to public schools. (However, California repealed the law authorizing separate schools for the Chinese in 1947) Twelve years after Congress considered the status of Chinese Americans in the year 1886, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Court awarded citizenship to children of Chinese immigrants born on American soil in the Fourteenth Amendment.
California Democrats initiated their combative against the Chinese in 1867, the year after the Fourteenth Amendment went into effect. The result was chaotic. Many of the immigrants who were allowed into the United States in the twentieth century came through immigration facilities on San Francisco Bay's Angel Island. [11] The facilities were built in 1910 when China boycotted U.S. imports to protest the wretched conditions that immigrants found at the original facilities located in an old warehouse in San Francisco. [12] Even though the new facilities were an improvement, the Chinese who claimed a right to enter the United States as wives or children of residents were interrogated and detained there from several days to up to two years.
Courtesy of Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma
Originally migrating in the 1850s, Chinese men came to America to first work in the gold mines, but also to be hired in agricultural and factory jobs, specifically in the garment industry. Despite that Chinese laborers grew successful in the U.S. and many of them became entrepreneurs, anti-Chinese attitude from other workers in the American economy also grew. Due to economic and cultural tensions, including ethnic discrimination, American objections to future Chinese immigration varied. Since Chinese laborers came to work, for very little, in America to send money back home to their families, non-Whites with higher wages were concerned of losing their jobs to these newcomers. [1] With a spread of Chinatowns where it was perceived the men laborers would congregate to visit prostitutes, gamble or smoke opium, some of the anti-Chinese advocates feared the decline in cultural and moral standards in American society.
With entire Chinese families beginning to immigrate to the United States in the early 1870s, Congress excluded Chinese women from entering the country in 1875. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which met the terms of the Angell Treaty (1880), suspending Chinese laborer immigration (skilled or unskilled) for a ten-year period. Congress also expanded its list of unacceptable immigrants beyond prostitutes and convicts to include such people as contract laborers, mentally ill, beggars and unaccompanied minors. [2] In 1888, the Scott Act was passed, which made reentry to the U.S. after visiting China, impossible. Even though the Chinese government considered the act as a direct insult, they were unable to prevent its passage. [3]
Debate over the Exclusion Act continued its passage after 1882. There were 105,000 persons of Chinese descent lived in the U.S. at the time of exclusion. [4] The United States’ right to exclude Chinese immigrants challenged in the courts throughout the following years. However, in 1889, the U.S. Supreme Court sustain the exclusionary law in Chae Chan Ping vs. The United States on the term that Congress’s right to restrict immigration to the U.S. was a fundamental aspect of national sovereignty. [5]
In China, merchants responded to the humiliation of the exclusion acts by organizing an anti-American boycott in 1905. [6] Though the Chinese government could not sanction the movement, it received unofficial support in the early months. President Theodore Roosevelt recognized the boycott as a direct response to unfair American treatment of Chinese immigrants, but he called for the Chinese government to suppress it since the American prestige was at stake. After five difficult months, Chinese merchants lost the impetus for the movement, and the boycott ended quietly.
The Chinese Exclusion Acts were not repealed until 1943, and then only in the interests of aiding the morale of a wartime ally during World War II. [7] With already, complicated relations by the Opium Wars and the Treaties of Wangxia and Tianjian, the progressively harsh restrictions on Chinese immigration, combined with the increasing discrimination against Chinese living in the United States in the 1870s-early 1900s, set additional strain on the diplomatic relationship between the United States and China.
Despite that the relationship between Chinese exclusion and the revolutionary improvements for African Americans during Reconstruction is usually never brought up, pre-Civil War state laws regulating the migration of slaves served as precursors to the Chinese exclusion laws. [8] With the support of southerners interested in rejuvenating a racial caste system as well as self-interested Anglos from California, Congress enacted the national exclusion laws.
It is not surprising that greater legal freedoms for African Americans were linked with Chinese misfortunes. As one historian noted, "[with] Negro slavery a dead issue after 1865, greater attention was focused [on immigration from China]." [9] Political forces reacted quickly to fill the racial void in the political arena. Partisan political concerns, as well as labor unionism, in the post-Civil War period figured notably in the anti-Chinese movement in the state of California.
With a majority of Chinese immigrants residing on the West Coast, they suffered intense discrimination and periodic mob violence. Chinese victims actually sued local governments for redress when their rights were violated and petitioned Congress for indemnity. [10] It was their demands for equal rights that forced the state and federal courts to define the reach of the Fourth Amendment. To show an example, San Francisco did not provide education for Chinese children between the years 1871 and 1885. In 1885, the California Supreme Court, in Tape v. Hurley, ordered the city to admit Chinese students to public schools. (However, California repealed the law authorizing separate schools for the Chinese in 1947) Twelve years after Congress considered the status of Chinese Americans in the year 1886, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Court awarded citizenship to children of Chinese immigrants born on American soil in the Fourteenth Amendment.
California Democrats initiated their combative against the Chinese in 1867, the year after the Fourteenth Amendment went into effect. The result was chaotic. Many of the immigrants who were allowed into the United States in the twentieth century came through immigration facilities on San Francisco Bay's Angel Island. [11] The facilities were built in 1910 when China boycotted U.S. imports to protest the wretched conditions that immigrants found at the original facilities located in an old warehouse in San Francisco. [12] Even though the new facilities were an improvement, the Chinese who claimed a right to enter the United States as wives or children of residents were interrogated and detained there from several days to up to two years.
[1] Unknown. "MILESTONES: 1866–1898 Chinese Immigration and the Chinese Exclusion Acts." U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian. http://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/chinese-immigration (accessed Feb 4, 2014). paragraph 1.
[2]Bryant, Joyce. "Immigration in the United States." Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1999/3/99.03.01.x.html (accessed Feb 24, 2014). paragraph 27.
[3] Ibid from [1], paragraph 6.
[4] Foner, Eric. Chinese Exclusion and Chinese Rights. in Give Me Liberty!: An American History, New York: W. W. Norton. 2006. paragraph 2.
[5] Unknown. "The Chinese in California, 1850-1925." Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/chinese-cal/file.html (accessed Feb 24, 2014).
paragraph 25.
[6] Ibid from [1], paragraph 7.
[7] Ibid from [1], paragraph 8.
[8] Randall, Vernellia R.. "I. THE HISTORY OF RACIAL EXCLUSION IN THE U.S. IMMIGRATION LAWS A. From Chinese Exclusion to General Asian Subordination 1. Chinese Exclusion and Reconstruction." The University of Dayton. 2001. http://academic.udayton.edu/race/02rights/immigr09.htm (accessed Feb 24, 2014). paragraph 2.
[9] Ibid, paragraph 3.
[10] Ibid from [4], paragraph 3.
[11] Ibid from [8], paragraph 4.
[12] Ibid.
[2]Bryant, Joyce. "Immigration in the United States." Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1999/3/99.03.01.x.html (accessed Feb 24, 2014). paragraph 27.
[3] Ibid from [1], paragraph 6.
[4] Foner, Eric. Chinese Exclusion and Chinese Rights. in Give Me Liberty!: An American History, New York: W. W. Norton. 2006. paragraph 2.
[5] Unknown. "The Chinese in California, 1850-1925." Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/chinese-cal/file.html (accessed Feb 24, 2014).
paragraph 25.
[6] Ibid from [1], paragraph 7.
[7] Ibid from [1], paragraph 8.
[8] Randall, Vernellia R.. "I. THE HISTORY OF RACIAL EXCLUSION IN THE U.S. IMMIGRATION LAWS A. From Chinese Exclusion to General Asian Subordination 1. Chinese Exclusion and Reconstruction." The University of Dayton. 2001. http://academic.udayton.edu/race/02rights/immigr09.htm (accessed Feb 24, 2014). paragraph 2.
[9] Ibid, paragraph 3.
[10] Ibid from [4], paragraph 3.
[11] Ibid from [8], paragraph 4.
[12] Ibid.