Beginning with the Gold rush of 1848-1849, Chinese immigrants, mostly
poor peasants, flooded into the United States in pursuit of better economic
opportunity. Upon entering the “Golden Hills” we know as California, Americans
welcomed these immigrants as interesting novelties, with their unusual garb,
strange customs and thick accents. Over time, the welcome wore off as the white
working class perceived a threat to their livelihood that these immigrants
potentially could cause, leading to a rise in racism. Politicians soon found it
necessary to support Chinese Exclusion legislation in order to garner enough
votes to be elected to office in California. Pressure from labor parties pushed the
anti-Chinese agenda in Washington leading to specific laws against their
immigration and naturalization, and the eventual closing of the United States
borders to Chinese laborers after 1882. This paper argues that Anti-Chinese
legislation occurred in response to three main factors: the volume of immigrants
entering the United States, the emergence of racism towards the Chinese, and
the influence of politicians over labor parties and their choice to support antiChinese legislation to gain votes.
The Chinese Laborer and the Coolie Trade
The Chinese immigrants who entered the United States in the 1840s
mostly arrived by ship from Guangdong Province in China. Canton had been the
only open port in China for four decades and by this time travel occurred in both
directions.1 The southeastern provinces in China were overcrowded and
1
Elmer Sandmeyer, The Anti-Chinese Movement In California. Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press), 12.
unemployment rose leading to the coolie trade with Cuba, South America, and
the Caribbean. Many of these Chinese would also travel to the United States
seeking better opportunity. These mostly male immigrants, between the ages of
sixteen and forty, shared similarities with the male German and Irish farming
immigrants from Europe. The Chinese arrived without their families, which
implies they were not planning on settling permanently.2
During the Gold Rush, a high demand for labor rose among mining
companies. Employers welcomed use of the Chinese immigrant for their cheap
labor, industriousness and frugal natures. Known as very versatile workers, they
filled jobs not only as miners, but also as cooks, field workers and launderers. In
1865, when railroad construction began, the Chinese immigrants became
instrumental in laying track and Central Pacific Railways employed an estimated
ten thousand Chinese. Rail companies like Central Pacific also imported labor
directly from China through San Francisco contract companies. Almost entirely
Chinese labor built the Southern Pacific railway lines. As use of the Chinese for
labor became more common, this led some enterprising eastern companies to
use them as strikebreakers in factories, something that would eventually alarm
eastern trade unions.3
As the Chinese settled in the United States, they tended to stay close to
other Chinese, presumably to retain their ties to home. China is a vast country
with many dialects within provinces, so a language barrier existed not only
between Americans and Chinese, but also among the Chinese themselves. Back
2
3
Sandmeyer, 13-14.
Sandmeyer, 13-15.
in China, social organizations formed based on region and dialect to help protect
merchant interests abroad. The Chinese called these units a huiguan, and they
developed in the United States as the Chinese gravitated towards those who
spoke their dialect and settled in proximity. Americans came to know these
huigans as the Six Companies. Not only did the majority of Chinese laborers
belong to one of these companies, the Six Companies also served an
administrative function, settling disputes, protecting and fighting for Chinese
rights, and addressing prostitution and police enforcement. In addition, they
organized social functions such as dinners and cultural celebrations.4 Later, amid
rising tension, the working class and politicians would level accusations against
the Six Companies for involvement in the coolie trade.
When the slave trade ended, it left a large void in labor for the plantations
in Latin America and the West Indies.5 Soon, English and Spanish plantation
owners and the wealthy elite started to use Chinese labor as a substitute for
African slaves, considering them to be
industrious, sober, peaceful, frugal and eminently skilled in
the culture and preparation of every article of tropical
produce.6
In China, the term “coolie” comes from the Chinese words “koo” meaning to hire
out and “lee” meaning muscle or strength. When put together, the term koolee
described all unskilled labor in China, which held none of the negative Western
4
Henry Shi-Shan Tsai, The Chinese Experience in America: Minorities in Modern America.
(Bloomington: Indiana Univeristy Press), 45-49.
5
Tsai, 4-7.
6
Roger Daniels. Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States since 1850. (Seattle:
University of Washington Press), 10-11.
connotations it would become known for.7 Coolie trafficking emerged as a large
number of poor Chinese peasants left their homes convinced by promises of
money and opportunity from coolie purveyors. Unfortunately, aside from the poor
treatment they received, the Chinese coolie discovered that their new
circumstances put them into a state of indentured servitude. Under the CoolieTicket System, a merchant broker would pay the coolie’s ticket, giving the broker
a “lien” on his services until he paid his debt off. This “lien” could be sold to other
employers without the coolie having any say as to where or for whom he would
work. Many times, these workers did not fully understand the terms of the
contracts they signed.8
Europeans sold the contracts of the coolie laborer in places like South
America and the Caribbean where the coolie had no say as to whom he was sold
to. On the other hand, in the United States, the broker retained the “credit ticket”
of the immigrant. The broker held the laborer’s obligation directly, leaving the
immigrant free to choose his employer and wage while allowing more mobility so
long as he made his payments.9 Roger Daniels argues that Chinese immigrants
to the United States could not have been true “coolie labor” as evidenced by their
geographic spread, their range of jobs and their mobility.10 Regardless,
newspapers sensationalized the coolie laborer without accounting for the distinct
difference between coolie labor in California and the type of coolie labor that
7
Mary Roberts Coolidge. Chinese Immigration. American Public Problems. (Taipei: Chang-Wen
Publishing Company), 42-49.
8
Lucy E. Salyer. Laws Harsh as Tigers: Chinese Immigrants and the Shaping of Modern Immigration
Law. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press), 10.
9
Sandmeyer, 26-30.
10
Daniels, 10-11.
occurred in South America and Cuba. The working class believed all Chinese
immigrants to be coolies, and associated them with the slaves in the South.11
Aaron Sargent of California said about the Chinese that:
Chinese immigration presents in California a present evil as
great as any ever ascribed to slavery in the Southern
states…12
Laborers used similar arguments such as “voluntary slavery” concerning the
Chinese to push for exclusion and anti-Chinese immigration legislation. United
States policy condemned the Coolie Trade, and sought to determine “whether
the immigration of any subject of China, Japan, or any other Oriental country, to
the United States, is free and voluntary” per the Page Law of 1875.13 Another
measure to discourage the coolie trade targeted ships. It was a misdemeanor for
the master of a ship to take on a larger number of passengers than safe or
healthy, but nothing prohibited transportation of laborers from foreign port to
foreign port. This legal loophole supposedly closed with the 1862 Prohibition of
the Coolie Trade Act that forbade American ships from engaging in any part of
the Coolie trade, though some still found ways to circumvent the law.14
Public Opinion on Chinese Immigration
Despite the prohibition on the Coolie Trade, the Chinese population in
California steadily increased. Xenophobia emerged among the white workingclass, and Irish Catholic laborers, such as Dennis Kearney of the Workingman’s
11
Salyer, 10.
Aaron Sargent, Senate, Chinese Immigration, March 7, 1878, 4.
13
US Congress, Senate, Page Law of 1875, Cong., II sess., 1875.
14
Tsai, 4-7.
12
Party, in particular disliked the competition from the Chinese, the newly freed
African slaves, and other immigrants from poor European countries. They
associated the Chinese with slavery and serfdom for underselling their labor and
living off pay that white families could not sustain a living from, thus making him
an unfit competitor to Americans. They criticized them because they did not have
families to support and could sell their labor at the expense of the American
citizen. The Irish had fought long and hard for their rights to political power and to
citizenship, and they feared an association with a class of people that Americans
had deemed non-white slaves with little or no legal rights. From these fears, a
belief arose among the working class that Mongolian blood was debased, that
the Chinese mind was inferior, and that their immigration endangered white
dominance. It certainly did not help the case of the Chinese that they refused to
assimilate into mainstream culture and segregated themselves from the rest of
the population. According to the report The Social, Moral and Political effects of
Chinese Immigration,
the Chinese are incapable of adapting to our institutions
…during their entire settlement in California they have never
adapted themselves to our habits, modes of dress, or our
educational system…15
Cultural misunderstandings arose from this and the language barrier contributed
to growing hostilities.16
A depression in the California economy in 1873-1878 led to reduced
wages and unemployment hitting laborers the hardest.17 This further incited white
15
California Legislature. Senate. The Social, Moral, and Political Effect of Chinese Immigration
(Sacramento: Sacramento State Printing office), 6-7.
16
Tsai, 56.
laborers and they held labor meetings blaming the Chinese for stealing jobs and
causing a spike in unemployment of whites.18 As Chinese in business dominated
the boot and shoe industry, as well as the cigar industry, the fear of Chinese
monopolies spread among whites. The laborers asserted that overcrowding in
Chinatown caused filth and disease to spread, along with outbreaks of Smallpox
and leprosy. The social habits of these men, they claimed, contaminated white
society with vices including opium smoking, gambling and prostitution.19
The Anti-Chinese movement helped to organize labor as laborers banded
together against the Chinese immigrant. Anti-coolie clubs, other secret
associations and mobs of followers would join in. Labor parties such as the
Workingman’s Party gained success because political parties had equal strength
during this time. Headed by Dennis Kearney, this party held their famous sand lot
meetings in San Francisco where they vocally blamed greedy monopolists and
the Chinese for their economic woes. Kearney’s slogan, “The Chinese Must Go”,
became the rallying cry that forced politicians to take notice. The Workingman’s
Party made an official address to “Our Brothers Throughout the Pacific Coast”
criticizing Republicans for not protecting the workingman’s jobs from the
Chinese. They hurled accusations at the Chinese for monopolizing trade
industries, accused them of being heathens who rewarded murder, killed and
raped women, and stated that “only the presence of aid can save the misguided
woman from his murderous weapon”, and that “lying and stealing are as natural
17
Salyer, 9.
Daniels, 38.
19
Sandmeyer, 22, 27.
18
to the Chinaman as eating and drinking.”20 Labor parties such as this boycotted
and harassed businesses that utilized Chinese workers. A letter from George
Kellogg to PJ Healey of the Knights of Labor in response to an inquiry,
demonstrates how labor associations forced employers to defend against
potential boycotts and to justify their use of non-white labor.21 Boycotts could
wreak devastation on a business; one such unfortunate business owner in Los
Angeles found himself boycotted for employing the Chinese by the National
Baker’s Union. They displayed a broadsheet in the Los Angeles’ streets against
“The Original Coffee House at No. 11 First St: Brown’s Scab Bakery and
Restaurant”, which showed flies and other airborne contaminants from the
Chinese who worked there and presumably also worked next door at the
mortuary.22
Not to be outdone by Labor parties, newspapers and magazines also had
an angle to sell. The Wasp magazine featured political cartoons epitomizing
public opinion, such as the cartoon from 1880, “Better to Remove the Carcass”
which depicts San Francisco’s Chinatown as the carcass of an enormous
elephant laying across the city.23 Overcrowding riddled a Chinatown full of small
and old wooden buildings. It is not the Chinatown seen today with its traditional
and colorful buildings that are pleasing to the eye, as those were not built until
after the Great San Francisco Fire. Many of the political cartoons seen in The
20
Workingman’s Party, An Address From the Workingmen of San Francisco to Their Brothers Throughout
the Pacific Coast, (San Francisco, 1888), 24-25.
21
Kellogg to P.J. Healey, Newcastle, April 26, 1886.
22
National Baker’s Union, The Original Coffee House at No. 11 First St: Brown’s Scab Bakery and
Restaurant, (Los Angeles, 1889).
23
The Wasp, Better to Remove the Carcass, Aug-Dec 1880.
Wasp regarding the Chinese depicted them with exaggerated racial features
such as dark slanted eyes, sneers and gaunt faces such as in the 1880 cartoon
“And Still They Come!”24 Another cartoon in 1889, “The Angelic Heathen”, shows
two versions of the same Chinese man; one standing innocently, who morphs
into a sinister man shaking an axe in one hand and a dagger with the other.25 Yet
another cartoon, from 1885, “The Chinese, Many Handed But Soulless” depicts
not only distortions of physical appearance, but also of the Chinese character.
This Chinese man has a forked tongue, pointed red ears, menacing slanted eyes
and brows who is seen pick-pocketing a white man, stealing an Irish maid’s job,
while handing another an opium pipe with his many hands.26
In 1877, the Committee of Fifty from California wrote and distributed
copies of their address in a bid to appeal to the voters of San Francisco to vote
Democrat in the upcoming election. Aimed at laborers, it slammed Republicans
for ignoring the plight of the white working class while allowing the Chinese
“Pagans of Asia” to steal away jobs and money.27 Using the Chinese problem,
they united workers to make a larger impact on state politics successfully,
winning one third of the seats in California in the 1878 election.28 The vote of the
workingman became the swing vote granting them much political power. Political
candidates became Pro-Exclusion to get elected to office.29 In 1879, Judge
24
The Wasp, And Still They Come!, Aug-Dec 1880.
The Wasp, The Angelic Heathen, July-Dec 1889.
26
The Wasp, The Chinese: Many Handed but Soulless, July-Dec 1885.
27
Committee of Fifty, The Committee of Fifty to the Voters of San Francisco, (San Francisco, 1882) 2-3.
28
Salyer, 12.
29
Sandmeyer, 41.
25
Horace Davis addressed the House of Representatives, arguing against the
Chinese:
their incapacity to change their ways and adapt themselves to their
surroundings – this above all renders them most undesirable
immigrants.30
He also states that they gathered in masses with no plans to become true and
permanent citizens, and that they saved every penny to take home to China. He
closed with a call to the government to enact measures against them.31
Californians echoed that demand for action to force the Chinese immigration to
stop. In response to this, they organized a committee to hold a hearing on the
subject, publishing it as Chinese Immigration: it’s Social, Moral, and Political
Effects which demonstrated highly partisan findings and propaganda against the
Chinese. Testimony given by selected Anti-Chinese individuals such as
policemen and politicians was common throughout.32 It states that for the
Chinese, “servile labor to them is their natural and inevitable lot… and servile
labor they will be to the end of time” and that “this class of people… are virtually
pariahs - the dregs of the population”. It goes on to assert that “from this class of
immigrants, a large proportion of criminals should be found among it.”33
California responded by passing anti-Chinese measures, but the Chinese fought
back using the Burlingame Treaty and the Fourteenth Amendment. As a result,
federal courts invalidated many of the anti-Chinese laws.34
30
Horace Davis, Speech to the House of Representatives, June 8, 1878, 5.
Davis, 1.
32
Daniels, 46.
33
California Legislature. Senate. The Social, Moral, and Political Effect of Chinese Immigration
(Sacramento: Sacramento State Printing office), 4-6.
34
Salyer, 12.
31
Reports to Washington concerning the Chinese Question flooded in and a
report from the Senate to US Congress at the request of California held hearings
and recorded what they believed demonstrated the problems with Chinese
immigration in the United States. They made claims labeling the Chinese as a
people with no morals, and that their vices threatened American values.35
Eugene Casserly, another supporter of anti-Chinese legislation, proposed a bill to
the Senate in a speech in 1870 that would void labor contracts in the United
States longer than six months, in order to end the Coolie trade.36 At this time,
concern about the Chinese had not yet reached the East Coast and many in
Congress felt that the Californians exaggerated the situation.37 Eastern politicians
did not support the anti-Chinese legislation trying to pass through Congress on
the grounds that the laws violated the Burlingame Treaty and could jeopardize
trade opportunities with China. According to figures provided by the US Bureau
of the Census, the Chinese accounted for only 10% of the population in
California, which seemed to eastern politicians a negligible amount. In 1870, very
few Chinese had settled past the Rockies and many states counted none in their
population. Ten years later in 1880, however, only North Carolina and Vermont
counted no Chinese. In a speech by Judge Aaron Augustus Sargent in 1878,
Sargent claimed that within two to three years the Chinese would outnumber
whites due to poor economic circumstances in China.38 As the tide turned,
35
California Legislature. Senate. The Social, Moral, and Political Effect of Chinese Immigration
(Sacramento: Sacramento State Printing office), 4-6.
36
Eugene Casserly, Senate, The Chinese Evil, Contracts for Servile Labor, July 8, 1870, 6.
Sandmeyer, 20.
38
Sargent, 7.
37
eastern laborers and their unions began to see this as proof that the Chinese
would deposit themselves around the country at the same rate as occurred in
California. Eastern employers added fuel to this fire by importing Chinese as
strike-breakers, to the dismay and alarm of union workers.39
Despite the abundance of negative press, the Chinese were not without
support. An article written by Professor Augustus Layres argues against the
assertions made by the Joint Special Committee of Inquiry that all citizens are
opposed to the Chinese. He proposed that:
three classes especially, compose the party that favors
Chinese immigration, the capitalists, the employers, and the
religious teachers… now does not this triple class constitute the
principal and best portion of the community?40
One advocate of the Chinese, included an executive for Central Pacific Railway,
Charles Crocker. He believed that Chinese laborers showed themselves to be
quick and steady with a capacity for hard work, whereas white laborers refused
to elevate themselves no matter how high their wages. He admitted that the
railway project would not have been possible without the hard work of the
Chinese. In fact, Chinese laborers accounted for 90% of Central Pacific
Railway’s workforce.41 This is not to say that although employers enjoyed the
fruits of Chinese labor, that they treated them fairly. A section of the Dillingham
Commission cites the hard work and long hours worked by the Chinese as the
cause of their becoming the dominant labor force, while recognizing that their
treatment and poor conditions never improved. Agriculturalists gave inferior
39
Sandmeyer, 48.
Augustus Layres, Critical Analysis of the Evidence For and Against Chinese Immigration, (San
Francisco: A.F. Woodbridge), 3.
41
Salyer, 7.
40
lodgings for Chinese workers while giving preference for white laborers.42
Religious teachers including Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, and
Mormons supported the Chinese because of the missionary work they performed
among them in China.43 Some of these missionaries tried to maintain a balance
showing the Chinese in what they considered a fairer light by praising their good
qualities, such as their hard work. They also opposed restrictionist policies by
arguing that eventually the Chinese would ask for higher wages the same as
white laborers. With this new class to fill lower trades positions, it would allow
upward mobility for other white American workers.44 A Mormon missionary by the
name of Samuel Bowles traveled across the western states in 1866 writing about
the ill treatment and prejudice suffered by the Chinese he met along the way. He
believed the Chinese to be skilled, with a great capacity for learning, and felt that
their labor was superior in some ways to white immigrant groups. Bowles
believed that politicians condemned the Chinese only to collect more votes
during the elections.45
By 1879, tension continued its steady climb between Americans on the
West Coast spilling over to the East. However, as far away as New York, one
man chose to continue his support of the Chinese. Elliott Cowdin, a New York
silk merchant and close friend of Ansom Burlingame, made an address to the
President in the New York Chamber of Commerce in favor of the Chinese. In his
42
US Immigrant Commission, Reports of the US Immigration Commission: Immigration Legislation,
Cong., 61.3, 1911, S.doc.758.
43
Daniels, 48.
44
Salyer, 16.
45
Samuel Bowles, A Summer’s Journey to the Rocky Mountains, The Mormons and the Pacific States (New
York: Hurd and Houghton), 238-245.
speech, he refuted the arguments given by the State of California, instead
commenting that “it is very clear that we have much to learn from Chinese
industry and frugality.”46 It was his belief that the United States had nothing to
fear from them. Staunchly against anti-Chinese legislation, Senator George
Frisbee Hoar of Massachusetts opposed two anti-Chinese immigration bills
presented to Congress in 1902. He claimed that he could not support a bill that
discriminated against a race because it went against the Constitution, which
stated that all men are created equal.47
While supporters of the Chinese were quite few, not all Chinese contented
themselves to sit back and let things be decided for them. They struck back at
the discrimination lodged against them in the courts with some success. The
Supreme Court of California ruled that some of the state laws violated the Fifth
Amendment because they did not allow due process of law and equal protection
under the law. One such law, the Miner’s Tax, directly interfered with the Civil
Rights Act of 1870, which prohibited discrimination by race. Some of the
legislation went against the Burlingame Treaty as well.48 In 1874, a book written
by Chinese immigrants was translated and published which talked about the
Chinese Question from the perspective of the immigrant. These Chinese spoke
of the injustices suffered at the hands of lawmakers, particularly that in
California, Oregon and Nevada, laws designed not to punish
guilt or crime, nor yet to protect the lives and property of the
46
Elliott Cowdin, Chinese Immigration: Maintain the National Faith, (New York, 1879), 3.
US Immigrant Commission, 584.
48
Tsai, 57.
47
innocent, have been enacted and executed discriminating
against the Chinese.49
The immigrants reached back into history and talked about China before the
coming of the Europeans and the Americans and how they conquered China.
They discussed how traditionally, China had its own exclusion law and banned its
people from immigrating outside the country. This changed when the white man
came and found a way to benefit, forcing China to abandon traditional policy to
let outsiders in to trade, travel and missionize the country. They criticized the
United States for not returning the favor ,so to speak, and following the “Golden
Rule” of the Christianity they preached. In response to the accusation that the
Chinese had supplanted whites, they made a comparative analysis of the
introduction of the steamboat to the rivers and coasts of China, which made a
fleet of junks obsolete. They claimed this put larger numbers of Chinese out of
work than the number of Chinese who impacted whites in the United States. As a
solution, they suggested that China be allowed to return to its traditional
isolationist policy with the Chinese returning to their homeland and the American
and European interests leaving China.50
Racism Abounds
Aside from the very racist political cartoons from media outlets like The
Wasp, racism abounded from many sources. In 1879, the Workingman’s party
dehumanized the Chinese, saying that people “come to regard him as a thing, as
49
Chinese Immigrants, Reverend O. Gibson, The Chinese Question from a Chinese Standpoint, (San
Francisco: Cubery and Co Printer) 4.
50
Chinese Immigrants and Reverend O. Gibson, 4-8.
a dog or monkey.”51 The obvious difference in racial features of the Chinese and
their different dress made them easily distinguishable and therefore easy targets.
As the US did not classify the Chinese as whites, this separation lent the racist
attitude a sense of justification that would prevail long after the Chinese
Exclusion Act was passed. In 1889 for example, the same address from the
Workingman’s Party labeled Chinatown “with all the same filth, nastiness and
other unspeakable horrors, dragging down to leprosy, shame and death,
thousands of our white youths…”52
Anti-Chinese Legislation of the Late 1800s
Throughout the height of Chinese Immigration, much legislation directed
against the Chinese was proposed, in an effort to restrict them and discourage
their immigration. Some met with more success than others. As early as 1844,
we see a tax imposed of $2.50 per month upon all Chinese not engaged in the
production of sugar, tea or coffee. As anti-Chinese sentiment rose, we see
further legal restrictions including the decision in the 1854 People v. Hall murder
case, where the court declared that the Chinese did not have the right to testify
against white men in court, even though this went against the Civil Rights Act.53
Another law a year later included the 1855 Mining tax being collected from the
Chinese, as well as other ethnic minorities viewed by the people as unfavorable,
51
Workingman’s Party, 25.
Workingman’s Party, 4.
53
Sandmeyer, 45-47.
52
such as the Mexicans and South Americans. A new tax emerged on any Chinese
entering California of $50.00 per passenger, which the state supreme court
declared unconstitutional.54 In 1870, as agitation against the Chinese started to
reach new heights on the West Coast, California passed the Cubic Air
Ordinance, requiring that every lodging house provide 500 cubic feet of air space
per lodger. Overcrowding occurred often in Chinatown due to the size and age of
the buildings, forcing many Chinese to disregard the law because they had no
place to go. Angered by the number of Chinese who ignored the law, the Queue
Ordinance passed, forcing those jailed for violating the Cubic Air Ordinance to
have their hair cut to within one inch of their scalp. The mayor vetoed it on the
grounds that it violated the Burlingame Treaty and Civil Rights Act, but the veto
was sustained. Following on the heels of those Ordinances in California, came
the Laundry Ordinance in 1873, also targeted against the Chinese. It required
those using only one horse-drawn carriage to deliver laundry to pay $2.00 a
quarter licensing fee, those with a two-horse drawn carriage to pay $4.00
licensing fee, and those with no horses to pay $15.00 per quarter licensing fee.
Chinese laundries typically delivered laundry on foot, something commonly
known. The Chinese got hit the hardest, although the state eventually declared
the law unconstitutional.55 In 1878, California’s Chinese submitted a petition for
Naturalization, only to be denied. This denial strengthened the Nativist’s
arguments that since the Chinese are not considered “white”, that they are
54
55
Immigrant Commission, 580-587.
Sandmeyer 51-52.
therefore racially different and should be set apart.56 This denial greatly damaged
the immigrant’s cause.
Chinese Exclusion and its Legacy on US Immigration
The tide of Western Anti-Chinese sentiment was fully realized on the East
Coast by 1880, and amid fears of the Chinese Threat, unions spurred local
politicians into action. In a culmination of both East and West Coast against the
Chinese only two years later, the 47th Congress passed the most damaging
legislation against the Chinese yet: the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. As the
first race and class based legislation to pass in United States history, it banned
for a period of 20 years any Chinese coming into the United States save
merchants, students and government officials.57 The passing of this act into our
law books paved the way for and later lent legitimacy to future exclusions
including public acceptance of the race Quota Acts of 1921 and 1924.
56
57
Salyer, 12.
US Congress, House, The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Cong., 52.2,1882, H.rp.2549.
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