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The Chinese Exclusion Act: America’s First Failed Attempt at Excluding an Unwanted
Immigrant Group
Kieran Virk
The Chinese Exclusion Act, passed in 1882, sought to prevent the vast majority of
potential Chinese immigrants from entering the United States. Chinese immigrants had been
coming to the United States to work, mostly in menial, low-paid jobs such as on railroads and in
mining, since the late 1840s. Chinese labor had helped to build and industrialise the West,
playing an unsung role in the transcontinental railroad. However, growing hostility to Chinese
workers and immigration, including from labour unions and political parties paved the way for
state-based immigration restrictions and eventually, in 1882 ,the federal Chinese Exclusion Act,
with succeeding federal legislation further restricted access. The federal government sought to
achieve a number of objectives in passing the Chinese Exclulsion Act, including improving
wages and employment of American Caucasian workers with minimal impact to the US
economy; minimizing ongoing racial strife and anti-Chinese violence in Western states; at its
most basic level, stopping immigration and doing all of these objectives while not hurting
American business interests in China. The Chinese Exclusion Act was mostly unsuccessful in
achieving its objectives, having a negative effect on the economy of the United States, not
alleviating anti-Chinese violence and largely failing to stop continued Chinese immigration.
The Chinese immigrant presence in America was minimal before the middle of the 18th
century but accelerated rapidly following the discovery of gold in California and the California
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Gold Rush in 18481. In the decade preceding the Chinese Exclusion Act (from 1870 to 1880),
official records show nearly 140,000 Chinese immigrant arrivals (some of which may represent
multiple entries by the same persons), comprising about 4% of total immigrants2. The 1880 U.S.
census reported 105,000 Chinese in the U.S., of which 99% were located in the Western states.3
Chinese immigrants, the vast majority of whom were male and unmarried (or if married, left
their spouses in China), were driven by a variety of push and pull factors, including the desire to
escape political chaos, corruption and limited opportunity in China, along with the hope of
wealth and greater economic opportunity in the U.S.4. However, although Chinese immigrants
may have comprised only 4% of immigrants in the US as a whole, most of them entered through
San Francisco as their port of entry where they comprised 25% of entrants in 1880 and were the
largest single group, followed by Irish (22%) and Germans (14%).5
During the initial phase of Chinese immigration (from around 1850 to 1870), there was
widespread public support for the concept, at least among elites and businesspeople. Chinese
labor was viewed as indispensable to building the railroads and mining infrastructure that would
help develop the West. Businessmen, such as Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Seward also
assumed that the process would control itself, stating that “‘when [the Pacific states] cease to
need immigration, the Chinese will cease to come to their shores.’”6 Others even advanced the
concept that large amounts of cheap, low-skilled Chinese labor, would “‘open up many new
avenues and new industries for white labor’”, in other words, allowing Caucasian workers to
Erika Lee, At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era (1882-1943) (Chapel Hill:
The University of North Carolina Press, 2003) . p. 25
2
Joe Long et. al., The Impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act on the U.S. Economy, p.6.
3
Beth Lew-Williams, The Chinese Must Go, p.26.
4
Long, 9.
5
Long, 7.
6
Lew-Williams, The Chinese Must Go:Violence, Exclusion, And The Making Of The Alien In America.
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018),pg 27.
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perform higher skilled, higher wage jobs.7 As was a common motive in colonization, Christian
ministers also wished to uplift and convert Chinese “heathens” and saw converting Chinese to
Christianity, including Chinese immigrants and having them return to China to preach the gospel
as an important benefit of immigration.8 Last, in addition to the benefits of cheap Chinese labor,
U.S. business interests saw increased trade and commerce between China and the U.S. as
beneficial to US efforts to sell U.S. products into the Chinese market as well as importing
products from China such as silk, tea, and Chinese porcelain.9 Just as increased immigration and
commerce between the U.S. and China would only further those relations, any hostile or
restrictive activity towards China or recent Chinese immgrants could harm those business
interests.
Starting in the 1860s, U.S. diplomats, fully supported by U.S. business interests, sought
to negotiate a treaty with China that would preserve America’s access to China’s markets and
allow Chinese immigration to the U.S., but in a way that was beneficial to both sides.10 In a
clever act of diplomacy, the Chinese government hired Anson Burlingame, who had been the
first U.S. minister to China as their own ambassador, to negotiate the terms of a treaty with the
U.S.11 The Burlingame Treaty of 1868, recognized China as a “most favored nation”, allowed
the U.S. access to Chinese markets and allowed for free immigration between China and the U.S
and was ratified unanimously by Congress12. Following the Burlingame Treaty, there was a large
increase in Chinese immigration, which, in addition to being heavily concentrated in the Western
7
Lew-Williams, The Chinese Must Go, 26.
Lew-Wiliams,The Chinese Must Go, 26.
9
Lew-Williams, The Chinese Must Go, 24.
10
Lew-Williams, The Chinese Must Go,27.
11
Lew-Willaims, The Chinese Must Go,28.
12
Lew-Williams,The Chinese Must Go, 28.
8
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states and territories, was mostly focused on certain industries, especially in mining. Certain of
the initial Chinese immigrants worked on the First Transcontinental Railroad, but it was
completed in 1869 and the Chinese then moved into mining and affiliated industries13. Chinese
workers generally worked for Chinese-owned companies and, in addition to mining services,
agriculture and laundry, Chinese manufacturers were the largest makers of cigars, shoes and hats
in the Western U.S. in the 1870s.14.
The increased presence of Chinese labor in the U.S. West combined with a volatile U.S.
economy led to growing hostility towards the Chinese, with California labor unions becomingly
growingly rife with anti-Chinese sentiment. Increasingly, anti-Chinese agitators characterized
their cause as a populist struggle with honest white labor on one side, allied against the Chinese
“coolie” (or low wage laborer) and wealthy monopolists willing to substitute cheap Chinese
labor for properly paid white labor15. The employment of Chinese coolies had resulted in
demonstrable benefits to the infrastructure of the state of California. The transcontinental
railroads were being constructed in California during the years that Chinamen were immigrating
to America, and coolie labour had enabled and caused superior and more efficient completion of
the rails. First, the railroads were able to be built mainly due to “the presence of large numbers”,
or about four-fifths of the entire rail worker population, “of Chinese ready and able to do such
work”16. Secondly, despite the monthly salaries for Chinese rail workers being 14 dollars less
than white rail workers, and being excluded from the accommodations they had, the Chinese
13
Long, 10.
Long, 11.
15
Lew-Williams, The Chinese Must Go,32.
16
George Seward, Chinese Immigration in Its Social and Economical Aspects,(New York:Trow’s Printing and
Bookbinding Co,1881) pg 18.
14
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workers did about 80 percent as much work as the white workers.17 Business owners
commented favorably on Chinese workers having an “aptitude and capacity for hard work” and
being of “greater reliability and steadiness” than their white counterparts. There was also an
element of self-selection, with a perception that white workers would rather do less strenuous
jobs for a higher salary18. European immigrant workers were said to have “not come to this
country…to work, they came to make money, and they are not satisfied”19. Whereas, Chinese
workers were the "best laborer[s] we have in this country for certain classes of work…generally
that white men scorn to do, and which the white man will not do if he can possibly avoid it”20.
The Chinese workers were also well known for their resistance to malaria, which was a benefit to
them in reclamation of swamp lands in California21. Californian farm owners also benefitted
“directly and because of the average cheapening of the labor market by their competition”22. All
of these factors led to growing anxiety among white workers, many of them recent Irish and
German immigrants over competition from lower wage, highly efficient Chinese workers.
During the 1870s, anti-Chinese rhetoric grew increasingly heated. Denis Kearney, who
led the Workingman’s Party of California, was an Irish immigrant, who became one of the best
known public figures leading the charge against Chinese immigration - and popularized the
slogan, “[t]he Chinese must go!” In an address from 1878, Kearney and H.L. Knight, who was
the secretary of the Workingmen’s Party, blamed Chinese immigrant workers for “widen[ing]
the breach between the rich and the poor”, and “degrad[ing] white Labor”. The picture Kearney
17
Seward, 20.
Seward, Chinese Immigration, 32.
19
Seward, Chinese Immigration, 60.
20
Seward, Chinese Immigration, 60.
21
Seward, Chinese Immigration, 32.
22
Seward, Chinese Immigration, 55.
18
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painted of Chinese workers in the address was akin to the way one might describe robotic droids,
referring to Chinese workers as “wipped curs, abject in docility, mean, contemptible and
obedient in all things”23 and said that they were tools of the aristocracy, the “moneyed men”, as a
part of their bringing forth a “crisis of unparalleled distress”24 on the 40 million workers across
the United States due to the aristocracy’s greed and mismanagement of the country. AntiChinese agitators spread numerous unflattering and racist tropes about Chinese immigrants.
Chinese prostitutes were alleged to harbor more dangerous strains of veneral disease that could
“‘poison Anglo-Saxon blood’”.25 They were characterized as depraved, heathen and lustful.26 In
addition, some politicans took a different approach, arguing that expelling the Chinese or
restricting their immigration was for their own good. Republican Senator William Stewart noted
that without such legislation, the Western U.S., would be “‘’overpowered by the mob elements
that seeks to exterminate the Chinese’”.27
The Chinese response to the anti-Chinese rhetoric being pushed by players such as Denis
Kearney was swift and to-the-point. Yan Phou Lee, an American-educated Chinese man who had
immigrated to America, in his article “The Chinese Must Stay”, stated that due to the Chinese
taking unwanted jobs by Caucasian white workers, an “immense vista of employment was
opened up for Caucasians, and…millions now are enabled to live in comfort and luxury”28.
Whereas Kearney claimed that the Chinese’s presence was to “degrade White Labor”29, Lee
professed that the only reason Chinese workers were taking up the jobs was because of the
Denis Kearney and H.L. Knight. “Appeal from California. The Chinese Invasion. Workingmen’s
Address,” Indianapolis Times, 28 February 1878.
24
Kearney.
25
Lee, 26.
26
Lee, 27.
27
Lew-Williams, 44.
28
Yan Phou Lee, The Chinese Must Stay, The North American Review 148, no. 389 (1889), 479.
29
Kearney.
23
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scarcity of Caucasian laborers willing to work on railroads and swamplands. If one were to balk
at Chinese cheap labor, Lee said, one had best “run down machinery…Machines live on nothing
at all ; they have displaced millions of laborers”.30 Other Chinese Americans, such as Wong Chin
Foo, who was also an American-educated Chinese man, defended their reputations as well.
Wong Chin Foo challenged Denis Kearney to a duel to the death, either with Krupp guns,
chopsticks or Irish potatoes31. Wong Chin Foo also acted as a sort of Confucian missionary to the
West, trying to promote Chinese culture and dispel any misconceptions or false, racist rhetoric
against the Chinese. However, despite numerous attempts to educate the public, Chinese voices
at the time were overshadowed by the anti-Chinese press.32
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was preceded by various state measures and a few
federal laws aiming at the same goal of restricting Chinese immigration, though many of them
were struck down as violating the Constitution.33 The Page Act of 1875 forbade anyone from
China, Japan or any East Asian country to enter America to carry out illicit professions such as
working in or operating a brothel. It is noteworthy to state that the Page Act was the first
regulation on immigration for aliens into the United States, and this act, asides from banning any
Asian to immigrate in order to be a prostitute or a manager of prostitutes, also gave the
immigration office power to ban undesirable or seedy-looking persons at personal discretion.
This gave immigration officials great discretion in implementing discrimination against East
Asian immigrants coming into the United States.
30
Lee, The Chinese Must Stay
Wenxian Zhang,“Standing Up Against Racial Discrimination: Progressive Americans and the Chinese Exclusion
Act in the Late Nineteenth Century.” Phylon (1960-) 56, no. 1 (2019), page 10.
32
Zhang, Standing Up Against Racial Discrimination, 12.
33
Lew-Williams, 43.
31
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Given contradictory impulses and the desire of the U.S. federal government to satisfy the
popular demands in the West for Chinese to be banned and expelled and the simlultaenous need
to avoid aggravating the Chinese government, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 embodied a
legislative compromise that satisfied domestic political constituencies but was not very effective
at achieving its stated objectives. The original bill would have prohibited Chinese immigration
for 20 years and required Chinese in America to carry passports for internal travel, but President
Arthur feared it was a violation of the Burlingame Treaty and would threaten U.S. commercial
interests in China, and would “repel Oriental nations from trade with us and to drive their trade
and commerce into more friendly lands.”34 Popular outcry in the West was intense; President
Arthur was burned in effigy in certain Western towns, and the Republicans feared they would
never win another Western state in a Presidential election.35 Shocked by the reaction and
realizing that despite business interests in opposition, the exclusion of Chinese immigration was
highly popular with voters, Arthur eventually supported a modified version of the bill with a 10
year restriction on immigration, eliminated the internal passport requirement and set out
exceptions to target only Chinese contract laborers for restriction.36
The Chinese Exclusion Act represented a major shift in U.S. policy on immigration and
the first time (aside from the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798, which targeted foreign agents
during a period of near warfare with Britain) that the U.S. government had been granted the
authority to deport immigrants already in the country.37 In addition, it was followed up by
increasingly harsh acts expanding the power of the federal government, at least in theory to
34
Lew-Williams, 49.
Lew-Williams, 50.
36
Lew-Williams, 55.
37
Lee, 224.
35
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restrict immigration and/or expel Chinese immigrants. The Scott Act of 1888 allowed the US
government to ban not only new Chinese laborers but all Chinese laborers including those who
had formerly resided in the U.S. Prior to 1888, it was customary for a number of Chinese
workers, most of whom were single men, to return to China either to get married, visit relatives
or family and return to the U.S. Following the passage of the Scott Act, all departure from the
U.S. was effectively a one-way expulsion as departing Chinese could not re-enter. In addition,
the Scott Act was passed when more than 20,000 Chinese were overseas and it effectively
invalidated the Return certificates that U.S. Customs had issued to them upon their departure.38
Like President Arthur, President Grover Cleveland was concerned by the overt racism embodied
in the Act, but reasoned that it would mean “danger averted and lives preserved”39 while
hopefully not injuring American business interests in China. As a peace offering to the Chinese
government, along with the passage of the Scott Act, the U.S. agreed to pay China $276,619 for
losses suffered by Chinese citizens in the violence in the western U.S.40 In 1892, the Geary Act
gave the US government the power to deport any Chinese found within the U.S., without a
required certificate of residence.41
Although there is evidence that the Chinese Exclusion Act reduced the official number of
Chinese immigrants and Chinese residents in the U.S., it was circumvented in practice by
determined Chinese immigrants. Immigrants successfully used a combination of creativity,
protest and covert cross-border entry. As noted, the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Scott Act
significantly reduced both the official number of Chinese immigrants and of Chinese resident in
38
Lee, 45
Lee, 188.
40
Lew-Williams, 183.
41
Lee, 225.
39
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the U.S.42 Studies show that the official Chinese immigrant population peaked at around
100,000 persons in 1880, shortly before the imposition of the Chinese Exclusion Act - and
declined thereafter steadily to a trough of around 20,000 from 1920 to 1940, before the partial
repeal of exclusion in 194343. Documented arrivals had peaked at 39,000 in 1882; by 1890, they
had slowed to less than 2,000.44 However, the Exclusion Act created three exempt categories in
which Chinese immigration was still permitted and immigrants now did their best to qualify for
one of these categories. The three categories were (1) elite entrants - generally diplomats,
merchants or students; (2) previous U.S. residents or (3) persons in transit to another country.45
Since the US had no formal immigration system at the time, enforcement was limited and
primitive; passports were non-existent and customs officials simply issued “return certificates” to
departing Chinese laborers.46 Since the return certificates did not have photographs or
fingerprints, clever immigrants used a combination of fake certificates, real certificates bought
from other people or certificates sold by corrupt customs officers to prove their previous U.S.
resident status.47 Customs officials basically found it impossible to determine if a Chinese
immigrant had resided in the U.S. previously and this was the main loophole used. In addition,
the above-cited statistics of Chinese arrivals does not count immigrants claiming previous
residence and historians believe several thousand immigrants obtained entry through this method
and several congressmen claimed that Chinese entry actually increased during the restriction
period.48 Finally, the passage of the Geary Act in 1892 appeared to put an obligation on the US
42
Long, 10.
Long, 14.
44
Lew-Williams, 254.
45
Lew-Williams, 56.
46
Lew-Williams, 57
47
Lew-Williams, 57-59.
48
Lew-Williams, 59.
43
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government to affirmatively expel and deport Chinese immigrants and Treasury Secretary J.G.
Carlisle reported to Congress that it could potentially cause a financial crisis.49 With more than
100,000 Chinese in the U.S., a full deportation to China could cost up to $10 million and as of
the fall of 1893, Treasury only had around $25,000 to enforce the law.50 Ultimately, it appears
American leaders lacked the will and the funding to deport the Chinese population.51 All of
these factors combined with the result that the Chinese Exclusion Act (and its related acts) failed
to achieve their key objective of significantly limiting and expelling ethnic Chinese from the
U.S.
Despite the concerns they expressed, both Republican and Democrat Presidents, Chester
A. Arthur and Grover Cleveland, signed acts that restricted Chinese immigration, persuaded that,
at a minimum, Chinese exclusion, or the appearance that the government was taking action,
would limit further anti-Chinese violence. However, this was sadly not borne out in practice. In
1885, in the infamous Rock Springs massacre, a number of white miners, frustrated that Chinese
miners would not join a strike, attacked the Chinese living quarters, shot at them and set their
dwellings on fire, driving a number of them out into the desert, with 28 dead immediately and
another estimated 50 persons dying from exposure.52 In the Snake River massacre of 1887,
white farmers and settlers murdered 31 Chinese miners in Oregon.53 Widespread violence and
ethnic cleansing activities continued throughout the American West until the mid-1890s and
beyond.54 Accordingly, it appears that rather than curtailing violence against Chinese
49
Lew Williams, 204.
Lew-Williams, 204.
51
Lew-Williams, 207.
52
Pfaelzer, 209-11.
53
Lew-Williams, 180.
54
Pfalezer, 215.
50
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immigrants ,and a reduction in societal disorder, the restrictive immigration Acts appear to have
encouraged it.
Putting aside the moral issues surrounding the Chinese Exclusion Act, there are empirical
questions regarding its economic impact on the US economy as a whole and specifically, on US
workers, whether white, non-white, native born or from immigrant stock. The rationale behind
the Act, in addition to lowering racial tension and strife was at its heart economic - that the
exclusion of a large amount of immigrant labor, willing to work for lower wages, would be
positive. Stated simply, wages of American workers would go up,overall employment levels of
American workers would increase and finally, impacts to the American economy as a whole and
perhaps in particular to the Western states where Chinese immigration had been largest, would
be positive. Contrary to the Act’s rationale, it appears that the near term economic impact was
negative across the board to the US economy, to the economies of the Western states and to
native worker wages and income.55
The effects on the remaining Chinese population were, unsurprisingly, hugely negative.
Chinese share of employment in the key focus industries of mining, railroads and manufacturing
all decreased by more than 10% and further, that it appears to have pushed the remaining
Chinese into lower wage jobs.56 Somewhat counter-intutively, it appears the effects on white
workers were also negative, though not as hugely negative for the Chinese. In counties where
pre-Act Chinese employment was significant, white workers tended to have lower wages and be
employed in lower numbers.57 The precise reasons for these empirical results are unclear, but
55
Long, 1.
Long, 16.
57
Long, 16;
56
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they appear to arise from a cascading series of negative effects. Because Chinese employment
was so significant in certain counties, usually with mining operations, and so highly concentrated
in specific industries in those counties, the rapid withdrawal of Chinese labor caused a generally
depressing effect on local economies. Stated differently, if 3% of workers had left, that could
have created more opportunities for full employment and higher wages for remaining workers;
however, if, by contrast, 30% of workers leave suddenly , the result would be more catastrophic,
with closed factories, huge demand shortfall and similar outcomes.
President Cleveland and many U.S. businessmen hoping for access to the Chinese market
sought to make the Chinese Exclusion Act less obnoxious - and it is an empirical question as to
whether their attempts to modify the Act served the interests of US business and persons in
China. In the immediate aftermath of the Act, some Chinese businssses retaliated and the
viceroy of Guangdong Province proposed a boycott of kerosene, which was imported from the
U.S.58 China effectively cut off relations with the U.S., from 1888 to 1894 and even after
restoration, relations remain strained. America was increasingly seen as a colonial power
seeking, like other European powers, to carve out a sphere of influence for itself.59 The result
were periodic spasms of anti-American violence, including targeting U.S. missionaries in
China.60 In the Boxer Rebellion, in 1900, about six years later, Chinese insurgents targeted US
and foreign missionaries and killed around 200 of them.61 As such, it appears that US
government attempts to moderate the impact of restrictive Chinese immigration policies did not
result in favorable outcomes for American business or Americans resident in China.
58
Lew-Williams, 191.
Lew-Williams, 192.
60
Pfaelzer, 325.
61
Pfaelzer, 325.
59
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The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and its affiliated legislation marked the first time the
US federal government has restricted immigration on the basis of race and marked an attempt to
appease growing and politically popular anti-Chinese/anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. while
preserving US business interests in developing pan-Pacific trade and commerce with China.
Analysis shows that ultimately the Acts failed in their attempts, neither stopping violence,
effectively restricting immigration, increasing wages for white workers or preserving positive
business relations between the U.S. and China.
Bibliography
Seward, George. Chinese Immigration in its Social and Economical Aspects. New York: Trow’s
Printing and Bookbinding Co., 1881.
Kearney, Denis and Knight, H. L. . “Appeal from California. The Chinese Invasion.
Workingmen’s Address,” Indianapolis Times, (Indianapolis, IN), 28 February 1878.
https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5046/
Lee, Yan Phou. “The Chinese Must Stay.” The North American Review 148, no. 389 (1889):
476–83. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25101763.
Zhang, Wenxian. “Standing Up Against Racial Discrimination: Progressive Americans and the
Chinese Exclusion Act in the Late Nineteenth Century.” Phylon (1960-) 56, no. 1 (2019): 8–32.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26743829.
Lew-Williams, Beth. The Chinese Must Go:Violence, Exclusion, And The Making Of The Alien
In America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018.
Lee,Erika. At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era (1882-1943)
Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003 .
Long,Joe, Medici,Carlo, Qian, Nancy and Tabellini,Marco. The Impact of the Chinese Exclusion
Act on the U.S. Economy. Working Paper 23-008 (2022: Harvard Business School)
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Pfaelzer, Jean. Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans. Berkeley,University
of California Press, 2007.
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