This act outlawed all Chinese immigration to the U.S. and denied citizenship to those already settled within the country. Revived in 1892 and extended fully in 1902, the Chinese population decreased till the act was repealed in 1943 by the Magnuson Act. Taxes and Laws Many Western states passed discriminatory laws that made it tough for Chinese and Japanese immigrants to have land and get work. A number of these Anti-Chinese laws were the Foreign Miners' licensing fee that needed a monthly payment of 3 bucks from each foreign laborer. Foreign Chinese couldn't become voters as a result the Naturalization Act of 1790 that reserved naturalized citizenship to "free white persons".
86% of the quotas were set apart to the countries of northern and western Europe. The Western Hemisphere was freed from the restrictions, largely because powerful Southwestern economic interests were dependent on Mexican labor. The Act prohibited immigration from most Asian countries. These measures were taken to stabilize the ethnic composition of the American population. Ethnic and racial tensions also led to a rise of the Ku Klux Klan, which had originated in Pulaski, Tennessee, and was a white supremacist movement.
It also explicitly denied naturalization rights to Chinese, meaning they were not allowed to become citizens, as they were not free whites. Prior to the Chinese Exclusion Act, some 300,000 laborers arrived in California, and the act was intended to primarily prevent the entry of more laborers. The passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act was the first attempt by congress to ban a group of immigrants based on race or color. The only Chinese that legally entered the United States during the six decades the Exclusion Act was in place were those in “exempted classes'; such as merchants, students, diplomats, and travelers (Chan). An unknown number illegally entered through the Canadian and Mexican borders and many others entered as “paper sons.
Agriculture lobbyists sought the exclusion of Mexicans from the proposition through rallies (Hart, 2000). The Immigration Act of 1924 restrained the immigration of other groups into the border. The United States established border stations for formal admission of Mexican workers, with the collection of tax on each person entering. As a result of unavailability of immigration quotas, over 89,000 Mexicans moved into the United States in 1924 (Martinez, 1988). The ‘Good Neighbor Policy’ by President Roosevelt began in 1934.
Ewing writes “Immigration laws during World War II and the first years of the Cold War were marked by contradictory tendencies: expanded political grounds for exclusion and surging anti-Japanese sentiments on the one hand, but the loosening of restrictions against other Asian immigrants and the rise of humanitarian refugee policies on the other hand.” (Ewing 2012) In 1942 the U.S. Government created the Bracero program, designed to essentially import laborers from Mexico. This was in order to shore up the lack of American labour available due to our involvement in WWII. The Bracero History Archive, a project by the Smithsonian and several academic institution, details that “From 1942 to 1964, 4.6 million contracts were signed, with many individuals returning several times on different contracts, making it the largest U.S. contract labor program.” (Bracero History Archive 2016) However, at the same time, there was a large increase in undocumented immigration from Mexico, as the legal process was relatively complicated and expensive. (Ewing
Prohibition and other substance bans have a long history in the United States dating back to the late 19th century. Cohen (2006) believed the root cause for drug-prohibition movement, including alcohol, derives from race. In the era of mass US immigration, Chinese, Mexicans, Black Africans, and European denominations, posed a democratic threat to White “native” Americans. White Racial fears amplified the moral problem of drug use to the Protestant Church by associating drugs with individual racial minorities. In the 1870s, the US government successfully prohibited whites from visiting opium dens in San Francisco’s China Town, isolating opium use to Asians.
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... ... middle of paper ... ... Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882.
This law forbade American vessels to transport Chinese immigrants to the United States. Later, in the 1800s, the U.S. Congress passed acts which prevented convicts, polygamists, prostitutes and persons suffering from contagious diseases to enter the U.S. In 1917, Congress passed an immigration law that required a literacy test. Aliens unable to meet minimum mental, moral, physical and economic standards were excluded form the U.S. as well. In 1921, a congressional enactment created a quota system for immigrants, by which the number of aliens of any nationality admitted to the United States in a year could not exceed three percent of the number of foreign-born residents of that nationality living in the United States.
In effect canceling the right of the Chinese to enter the country. Congress quickly complied and made a ten-year bill that the President signed on May 6, 1882. While exempting teachers, students, merchants, and tourists the Act suspended immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years. The law was renewed for a second ten-year period in 1892 and then made "permanent" in 1902. Chinese Exclusion Act had set a pattern for many other immigration laws and acts to come.
Angel Island was known for “filtering out” Chinese immigrants, and only those who could prove that they had family there or were actual American ci... ... middle of paper ... ...ists tried to convince people that immigrants were bad. They convinced natives that these immigrants were taking their jobs, and were against their religion. This along with hostility towards the Chinese laborers led to the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. This act basically limited the freedom of the Chinese people. It prohibited immigration by Chinese laborers, limited the rights of the Chinese already in America, and forbade the naturalization of Chinese residents.