The Chinese Exclusion Act Essay Example

Act. Specifically, the law targeted Chinese laborers for ten years while merchants, students, teachers, diplomats, and travelers were not subject to exclusion. The law targeted laborers on thus orchestrating a historical legal biasfootnoteRef:2. 2: Act of May 6, 1882 (22 Stat. 58). The statute barred Chinese immigrants from immigrating to America specifically laborers of both genders.

The Chinese exclusion Act was a watershed in the history of the United States of America. The was not only the first to bring about immigration restriction but also the first in orchestrating a ban on an group of immigrants on the basis of racial and class paradigms. Additionally, the statute helped in shaping the twentieth Century United States race based immigration policiesfootnoteRef:3. Historians and scholars alike have often concentrated on the anti-Chinese movements of the era around the 1882 missing a mark on the implosion the law had on other immigrant groups, as well as, the American law immigration at largefootnoteRef:4. There are pertinent questions to the topic at hand. First, how did the exclusion of the Chinese affect other groups of immigrants? Second, how did this exclusion shape later racialized exclusion of Asians, Mexicans, and eastern and southern European immigrants? Third, how did the Chinese exclusion act set precedents for admission, surveillance, documentation, and deportation of other immigrants in the US? 3: Roger Daniels, “No Lamps Were Lit for Them: Angel Island and the Historiography of Asian American Immigration,” Journal of American Ethnic History, 17, 1 (Fall 1997): 4; Andrew Gyory, Closing the Gate, pp. 1, 258–9. The author investigates how racial the Chinese Exclusion Act was purely based on racial hatred. 4: . Lucy Salyer, Laws Harsh

as Tigers, pp. xvi–xvii. In an attempt to document the immigration policies of the era beginning 1882, Salver finds fault with how the historians approached the issue. Rather than focusing on the macro effect of the law, notes salver, the historians embarked on the rather micro issues such as the anti Chinese moments. A good example of those movements were Californian laborers who through their unions lobbied the congress to bar Chinese immigration especially the laborers and women.

Certainly, when answering the above questions, scholars depart from the Chinese exclusion Act as a watershed in immigration law and focuses on how the Act shaped latter politics and policies around immigrationfootnoteRef:5. In its essence, the Chinese exclusion act created a sort of gate-keeping ideology. This ideology was the key in shaping the politics, cultures, and laws that largely shaped the American opinion on race as we see it today. The Chinese exclusion Act of 1882 formed a legal basis for restriction, exclusion, and deportation of undesirable immigrants. For the Chinese laborers of the time, they set an excellent example of undesired immigrants. Race gender and class became crucial characteristics of measuring the attractiveness of other groups of immigrants. On a further note, the Chinese Exclusion Act formed not only the basis to control undesirable entrants into the US but also the bureaucratic system to regulate immigrants arriving in the US, as well as, foreigners residing in the US. Antecedents of US passports and green cards which are crucial in the bureaucratic management of immigration have their roots in the Chinese exclusion act of 1882. The Act therefore not only affected the Chinese immigrants and the Chinese Americans,

it set in motion the spirit of immigration observed through the American immigration policies and laws of today. 5: George Anthony Peffer, If They Don’t Bring Their Women Here: Chinese Female Immigration Before Exclusion (Urbana, Ill., 1999). In this book, Peffer reflects on the American view on the Chinese immigrants of the 19th century. These perceptions shaped the latter American view on race and class. These views exist to this day in the American social life.

The gate keeping ideology is an example of a policy that has direct roots in the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882). The term gate keeping has been widely used by journalists and scholars since twentieth century. In its most recent form, gate keeping appears through operation gatekeeper, which involved the placement of military on US borders with Mexico to keep of undocumented immigrantsfootnoteRef:6. Despite the extensive use of the gatekeeping metaphor by academicians and journalists, there lacks a commensurate inquiry of how America finds itself with gate keeping policies especially after the Chinese Exclusion Act. 6: Richard Rayner, “Illegal? Yes. Threat? No,” New York Times Magazine, 7
January 1996; Daniel B. Wood“, Controlling Illegal Immigration—But at a Price,”
Christian Science Monitor, 4 October 1999; “Fifth Year of Operation Gatekeeper
Stirs Debate” Siskind’s Immigration Bulletin. In this article Rayner, investigates the politics behind racial and class based immigration and how the Chinese Exclusion Act brought about the start of gatekeeping immigration policies.

Mary Robert Coolidge is one of the first researches to study the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. In her work Chinese immigration, Mary laid the groundwork for latter analysis of the Chinese Exclusion ActfootnoteRef:7. Coolidge draws inspiration from the injustices suffered by the Chinese

due to the exclusion act and its extension for further 10 years in 1892. Coolidge argues that white laborers felt that the Chinese were a threat to their source of living because the Chinese would accept any work at any wage unlike the Americans. The wave started with California laborers’ under the auspices of their unions to lobby for the prohibition of Chinese immigration. Coolidge notes that the labor unions of the time had a far-reaching stronghold within the republican and democratic parties. In the analysis, bias towards the Chinese is clear. The analysis of the essay and the role played by the labor unions in its formation casts question on the effectiveness of labor unions in fighting for worker rights. 7: Mary Roberts Coolidge, Chinese Immigration (New York: Holt and Company, 1909). In this book Coolidge analyzes the discriminatory nature of the Chinese Exclusion Act noting that it was unjust to bar people from entry into the US based primarily on class and race. These characteristics would later shape the US immigration policy.

Conclusion

The issue of immigration has been subject to rigorous review by numerous sociology scholars. The interest emanates from the impact that the Chinese Exclusion Act had on the Chinese population in America. As we can see above, numerous other policies on immigration such as immigration and naturalization laws tie directly to the Chinese Exclusion Act. Specifically the laws that followed this act became even more dramatic setting a new standard in immigration politics. For instance, apart from the bureaucratic measures, caps on immigration numbers entering America began to appear as early as 1924. According to Mackenzie, the immigration Act of 1924 was

similar to the Chinese Exclusion Act only that this time it excluded the JapanesefootnoteRef:8. From this analysis, we can see that the American feared the Orientals. The Chinese Exclusion Act is there for crucial historical piece that when analyzed closely tells the history of racial discrimination in America. The analysis of the Chinese Exclusion Act is crucial not for a revisionist end, but to ensure immigration policies are just and are not driven by fear and prejudice leading to discriminatory laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act. 8: R. D. McKenzie, Oriental Exclusion: The Effect of American Immigration Laws, Regulations, and
Judicial Decisions upon the Chinese and Japanese on the American Pacific Coast (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1928). In this book Mackenzie argues that the immigration Act of 1924 was similar to the Chinese Exclusion Act only that this time it excluded the Japanese