The Chinese Exclusion Act was the beginning of a long trend of the United States decided what kind of immigrants were valuable, and what kind of immigrants were not. While the American poet Emma Lazarus proclaimed:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" (1)

Americans began to make it perfectly clear: those huddled masses better be white. Future legislation also decided that they better not be gay, or that poor, or that many of them. The "masses" could not have physical deformities, mental disabilities, political convictions that were deemed "un-American." The Chinese Exclusion Act marked the beginning of oppressive immigration standards for foreigners who wished to make the famous American "melting pot" their home. These standards were followed by quotas, limiting immigration from less desirable countries and regions.

"...Chinese exclusion... introduced a 'gate keeping' ideology, politics, law, and culture that transformed the ways in which Americans viewed and thought about race, immigration, and the United States' identify as a nation of immigration. It legalized and reinforced the need to restrict, exclude, and deport 'undesirable' and excluded immigrants. It established Chinese immigrated -categorized by their race, class, and gender relations as the ultimate category of undesirable immigrants... Lastly, the Chinese exclusion laws not only provided an example of how to contain other threatening, excludable, and undesirable foreigners, it also set in motion the government procedures and the bureaucratic machinery required to regulate and control... foreigners. Precursors to the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, United States passports, 'green cards,' illegal immigration and deportation policies can all be traced back to the Chinese Exclusion Act itself." (2)

Chinese were not the only undesirables arriving to labor in America. "Between 1880 and 1920, rapid industrialization created an enormous demand for immigrant labor, and the tide of immigration rose to fill that demand. As the ethnic/racial diversity of neighborhoods and factories increased, immigrants came to be seen as less than desirable neighbors, co-workers, and citizens, and they became the object of numerous protests."(3) Many of these laborers were European, and while "white," were seen as ethnically distinctly different. Immigrants from southern, central, or eastern Europe were less desirable than immigrants from western Europe. And all immigrants were seen as taking jobs from "native born" Americans. While Americans quickly passed legislation to exclude the "yellow" immigrants from the East, they began to notice an increase in immigrants from other regions, and believed that soon America would be flooded with foreigners. Thus the quota system which limited future immigrant numbers to the number of immigrants from that region or country according to the census of 1910, was enacted in 1921. Shortly after the census date was pushed even farther back to 1890. It was not until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 was passed that specific racial quotas were removed. But other legislation remained, included the support of previous language in the Immigration Act of 1917 which barred homosexuals from immigrating to the United States, defining homosexuality as "a physical or mental disorder and behavior." The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943. U.S. Code Title 8 contains this nations current and history of nationalization and immigration laws.

Immigration continues today to be a hot-button topic in elections both locally and nationally. Because the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1880 fathered many of the policies of the last century's immigration system, it's truly discriminatory flavor has survived into modern day immigration ideology. "Race consistently played a crucial role in distinguishing between 'desirable,' 'undesirable,' and 'excludable' immigrants. In doing so, gatekeeping helped to establish a framework for understanding race and racial categories and reflected, reinforced, and reproduced the existing racial hierarchy in the country." (4)

As historical tradition holds strong today, many of those attempt to immigrate to the United States are laborers who are willing to work at lower wages then American workers, and also willing to work the hardest jobs. Just as the Chinese were willing to labor at low wages to build the railroads, immigrants from Mexico and Central America are commonly found working for minimum wages in blue color labor positions, or in hospitality. Modern day immigration law targets workers from these regions much as immigration law of the late 19th century targeted Asians. Modern anti-immigration politicians use some of the same arguments against Mexican and Central American immigrants that 19th century politicians used against Asians: they suggest they are inferior, and unassimilable to the American lifestyle.



(1) Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus." Inscribed on the State of Liberty 1886.
(2)Erika Lee, "The Chinese Exclusion Example: Race, Immigration, and American Gatekeeping, 1882-1924," Journal of American Ethnic History. Vol. 21, No. 3 (Spring, 2002), p. 37.
(3) Susan Olzak, "Labor, Unrest, Immigration, and Ethnic Conflict in Urban America, 1880-1914." The American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 94, No. 6 (May, 1989). p. 1305-6.
(4) Erika Lee, "The Chinese Exclusion Example: Race, Immigration, and American Gatekeeping, 1882-1924," Journal of American Ethnic History. Vol. 21, No. 3 (Spring, 2002), p.40.