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.

The United States immediately following the Civil War was still very open to immigration, and had not attempted to regulate it until this point.

"Immigration to the United States was free and encouraged. Indeed as late as 1868, Congress declared it was a natural right of human beings to expatriate themselves, and the United States affirmed the rights of all to seek a new home. By 1875, however, unemployment, economic depression, and growing 'nativism,' racism, and xenophobia led to the promulgation of the first national immigration act and then to a series of Chinese exclusion acts..." (1)

Once mining had proven less profitable than west-bound immigrants had hoped, booming new states such as California found their unemployment rates skyrocketing. Californians identified an ethnic group whom they found responsible for their problems: the Chinese. The Chinese worked at the most menial jobs for the least possible wages. Americans felt that wages were being suppressed by the Chinese, and pushed for federal legislation to remedy the problem. Proponents of exclusion "...argued that it was nothing less than the duty and the sovereign right of Californians and Americans to do so for the good of the country." Lawyers called the Chinese "...the half-civilized subject from Asia..." The United States Supreme Court called the Chinese "...as 'vast hordes of people crowding in upon us' and as 'a different race... dangerous to [America's] peace and security.' The nation's highest court thus affirmed the right of the federal government to exclude Chinese..."(2) The first Chinese Exclusion Act was approved by the United States Senate in 1880. There has been a vast amount of legislation in its wake. "The legal crystallization of the anti-Chinese movement in the Chinese Exclusion Acts has had profound effects on subsequent U.S. immigration policies and their part in the racialization of immigrants." (3)

Chinese Exclusion introduced to the United States immigration process the concept of racial, ethnic, and class exclusion. Specifically Chinese laborer's were not permitted to immigrate into the United States. Meanwhile teacher's, professionals, and merchants were allowed. "Immigrant laborers who were considered a threat to American white working men were summarily excluded on the basis of class. General restriction laws- especially those targeting immigrants suspected of immoral behavior or 'likely to become public charges'- affect female immigrants disproportionately. Immigration disease and sexuality was monitored, contained, and excluded through immigration policy as well."(3) Women are soon banned from immigrating at all.


The Chinese Exclusion Act had serious effects on the ethnic Chinese populations of the United States. One surprising result was an increase in crime in their community. The prohibition against bringing their women into the country led to a disproportionate number of single Chinese men.

“The significance of this could be seen in the prevalence of vices such as gambling and prostitution in Chinatowns, in the high dependency of individual migrants on the support of surname, native place, and fraternal organizations, and in feelings of isolation and impermanence. Moreover, these phenomena have all been used as fodder for racists and exclusionary condemnations of Chinese as immoral, unassimilable, able to tolerate substandard wages and living conditions, and as temporary sojourners siphoning off the wealth of the nation.”(2)

Newspaper articles from the period talked about "the evils flowing from the Chinese among us..." and these "evils" are those commonly found in a male dominated world far from home, such as the "vices" mentioned above. (3) These same "evils" would have been dominate in any mining or trapping community in the newly settled West. Commonly as found in American settlements, many of the few women who did migrate to the West were prostitutes, catering to gender imbalance. The same generality applied to the few Chinese women who arrived. In 1860, 24 percent of the 654 Chinese women counted by the United States census in San Francisco were listed as prostitutes. This proportion reached a zenith of 71 percent of the 2,018 women in 1870..." (4) These statistics indicate that the white citizens of San Francisco were reacting to what appears to be a legitimate problem in their community: Chinese women were catering to the demands of the American population to provide sexual services. In a simple equation of supply and demand, male Chinese laborers were supply cut-rate labor to a demanding market, and Chinese women were supplying their bodies into a equally demanding market.

With the Chinese Exclusion legislation came an institutionalized method of discriminating against who in this world Americans were willing to share this country with. Immigrants could be rejected by race, by class, and by sex. The next installment in this series will talk in depth about the long term affects this legislation had on the United States, including the current state of immigration.

(1) Louis Henkin, "The Constitution and United States Sovereignty: A Century of 'Chinese Exclusion' and Its Progeny," Harvard Law Review. Vol 100, No. 4 (Feb., 1987), p. 856.

(2) & (3) 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. 38-39.

(4) Erin L. Murphy, "Prelude to Imperialism: Whiteness and Chinese Exclusion in the Reimagining of the United States," Journal of Historical Sociology. Vol 18, Issue 6 (2005). p. 457.

(5) Adam Mckeown, "Transnational Chinese Families and Chinese Exclusion, 1875-1943," Journal of American Ethnic History. Vol. 18, No. 2 (Winter 1999), p.73.

(6) Daily Evening Bulletin, San Francisco, January 07, 1880, page 4. http://infoweb.newsbank.com

(7) Adam Mckeown, "Transnational Chinese Families and Chinese Exclusion, 1875-1943," Journal of American Ethnic History. Vol. 18, No. 2 (Winter 1999), p. 79.

It seems that even in 1880 the state of California is suffering. The Gold Rush is long over, and the mining industry no longer employs the thousands of men who seek employment here in the West. It seems like gainful employment is hard come by. While European immigrants are blamed for the shortages of jobs back East, here in California there is another ethnic immigrant blamed: the Chinese. White men are pushing for legislation to prevent Chinese laborers from taking the few jobs available.

A San Francisco newspaper, the Daily Evening Bulletin published an open letter on January 7th from outgoing Governor Irwin, a long winded summation of the current state of legislature following the recent passing of a new state constitution. Governor Irwin acknowledges that the voting public was adamantly against Chinese immigration, as noted in an election last September, where more than 154,000 of 161,000 voters in the states general election voted against Chinese immigration. "The vote at the September election demonstrated what every intelligent person residing in the State knew before, that the opposition to Chinese immigration was limited to no class, but embraced nearly the entire population." Irwin hopes that the results of the state wide election might make an impact on a federal level, and hopes for federal legislation restricting Chinese immigration. "The State should use whatever police powers she possesses to mitigate the evils flowing from the presence of the Chinese among us; but in my judgment, the Federal authority alone, is competent... to deal with the question of the immigration of foreigners to this country."(1)


While the soon to be former Governor seems content to wait for federal laws to address Chinese immigrants, the new state legislators seem ready for action already. Only two days before Governor Irwin's letter was published, perhaps as he was
penning it, the same paper reported directly from Sacramento the happenings of the first gathering of the new State Assembly. John F. Cowdrey addressed the assembly, reminding them of their duties to their constituents, which as he bluntly stated included: "To delegate power to cities and towns to remove Chinese..." (2)


Governor Irwin had observed in his aforementioned letter that: "Though there was no doubt in the mind of any intelligent person who has resided or spent any considerable time in this state as to the condition of public sentiment on this subject, there was, somehow, a strange misapprehension in the public mind East of the Rocky Mountains as to what it was. The impression seems to have obtained widely there that the opposition to Chinese immigration was limited to the poorer and more ignorant classes." Irwin continued to celebrate the state wide election which had demonstrated that this was an almost unanimous opinion held statewide. It does seem that there is a division between the East and the West of this country though. While the newspapers here in California are filled with anti-Chinese sentiments, the newspapers from the East seem to be shocked by the xenophobic Californians.


The New York Times published an article blasting the people of California. This year conveniently has been a census year, and the results are very surprising. After reading editorial after editorial about how the Chinese outnumber the whites here in
California, the census sharply contradicts these claims! Here in San Francisco the census reports a total of 233,060 inhabitants; "But, to the great astonishment of everyone, the Chinese in San Francisco, instead of numbering 60,000 and more, as usually claimed by the Chinaphobists, is only 20,549. This is a tremendous falling off in the yellow population of the city. It wholly upsets the calculations of the anti-Chinese party, which has perpetually howled death and destruction to 'the
Asiatic hoards.' There has been, in California, a studious attempt to exagerate not only the evils of Chinese immigration, but also the numbers of Chinese in California."(3) Governor Irwin correctly identified that the rest of the nation wasn't taking seriously the problem this state believes it is encountering as a result of Chinese immigration. Indeed, the East openly mocks the "Chinaphobists" of California.


Here in the West though, the anti-Chinese attitude continues. Governor Irwin would be proud to see the results of Nevada's Storey County general election (home of Virginia City). There voters opposed Chinese immigrants almost unanimously as well, voting 5,114 against, and only 13 in favor of "the coming of Mongolians." (4)

Regardless of division between the East and West, there has been some unity on a federal level in regards to Chinese immigration. There has been a treaty passed with China which clearly addresses the general opinions here in California. "...Whereas the Government of the United States, because of the constantly increasing immigration of Chinese laborers to the territory of the United States, and to the embarrassments consequent upon such immigration, now desires to negotiate a
modification of the existing Treaties..." There is going to be some permanent changes from now for Chinese immigrants. If the people of California have their way, there won't be any new Chinese laborer's arriving here from now on. (5)

(1) Daily Evening Bulletin, San Francisco, January 07, 1880, page 4. http://infoweb.newsbank.com

(2) Daily Evening Bulletin, San Francisco, January 05, 1880, page 3. http://infoweb.newsbank.com

(3) "The Chinese Hordes," New York Times, New York City, August 05, 1880, page 4. http://proquest.com

(4) "Chinese Immigration," New York Times, New York City, November 15, 1880, page 5. http://proquest.com

(5) Treaty Regulating Immigration From China, November 18, 1880. Availalable at http://www.uintahbasintah.org/usdocuments/doc34.pdf