The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) was a US law that shut off all immigration of the Chinese race to the US – except for scholars, merchants, diplomats and professionals. Chinese people already in the US had to carry ID, even citizens. It is where the American idea of “illegal aliens” comes from, the beginning of the country’s racist immigration policies.
At first just immigration from China was limited, then Japan and Korea were added (1907), then the Asiatic Barred Zone (1917) and then southern and eastern Europe (1924). On top of that, Chinese and Mexicans were being driven out by violence and deportation.
That is why the US was so lily-white in the 1950s. Some think of that as the “natural” state of the country, but it was the creation of a set of racist policies that began with the Chinese Exclusion Act, policies that were not overturned till 1965.
In 1881 Senator John F. Miller of California spoke in favour of the Act. He said the Chinese were:
machine-like … of obtuse nerve, but little affected by heat or cold, wiry, sinewy, with muscles of iron; they are automatic engines of flesh and blood; they are patient, stolid, unemotional … [and] herd together like beasts.
He wanted to save the US from the “gangrene of oriental civilization”, from a “degraded and inferior race”.
Senator George Frisbie Hoar of Massachusetts opposed the Act. He said it was “legalization of racial discrimination”, that it made a mockery of the Declaration of Independence:
We go boasting of our democracy, and our superiority, and our strength. The flag bears the stars of hope to all nations. A hundred thousand Chinese land in California and everything is changed … The self-evident truth becomes a self-evident lie.
The New York Times said of Hoar:
It is idle to reason with stupidity like this.
Passage of the law was followed by the Driving Out: anti-Chinese riots and massacres in the West. Many who could afford to leave the US, left. At one point the city government of San Francisco considered burning down Chinatown – as a public health measure.
The law was extended so that Chinese were denied entry when they tried to return after visiting China – even if they had family and property in the US. Even if they were a US citizen:
In 1895 Wong Kim Ark returned to the US after visiting his parents in China – and was denied entry even though he was an American-born citizen. It went to the Supreme Court in United States v Wong Kim Ark (1898).
The United States argued that to accept Chinese Americans as citizens because of a “mere accident of birth” would be:
a most degenerate departure from the patriotic ideals of our forefathers; and surely in that case American citizenship is not worth having.
The Supreme Court upheld the Fourteenth Amendment: anyone born in the US was a citizen regardless of race.
In California, the Chinese-born were 90% male. The Exclusion Act made it next to impossible to bring over wives or brides from China, while state law did not allow Chinese Americans to marry Whites till 1948.
See also:
There was a China town in San Jose, CA (south of San Francisco) that burned down – twice! It is no longer there. However, there is a small Japan Town now in San Jose and ‘Little Saigon’.
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[…] "The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) was a US law that shut off all immigration from China to the US except for scholars, merchants, diplomats and professionals. It is where the American idea of “illegal aliens” comes from, the beginning of the country’s racist immigration policies.At first immigration from China was limited, then Japan and Korea (1907), then the Asiatic Barred Zone (1917) and then southern and eastern Europe (1924). On top of that, Chinese and Mexicans were being driven out by violence and deportation.That is why the US was so lily-white in the 1950s. Some think of that as the “natural” state of the country, but it was the creation of a set of racist policies that began with the Chinese Exclusion Act, policies that were not overturned till 1965." […]
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No limit to human stupidity.
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Well d@mn! Definitely, did not get this in my high school, AP US History class.
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[…] "The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) was a US law that shut off all immigration from China to the US except for scholars, merchants, diplomats and professionals. It is where the American idea of “illegal aliens” comes from, the beginning of the country’s racist immigration policies.At first immigration from China was limited, then Japan and Korea (1907), then the Asiatic Barred Zone (1917) and then southern and eastern Europe (1924). On top of that, Chinese and Mexicans were being driven out by violence and deportation.That is why the US was so lily-white in the 1950s. Some think of that as the “natural” state of the country, but it was the creation of a set of racist policies that began with the Chinese Exclusion Act, policies that were not overturned till 1965." […]
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The epilogue to this is that Congress finally apologized for this in 2012, some 130 years after it came into effect.
(from Wikipedia)
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This was something I never learned in school or college. While college level books may mention it, I dunno though, I doubt many professors teach it.
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[…] "The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) was a US law that shut off all immigration from China to the US except for scholars, merchants, diplomats and professionals. It is where the American idea of “illegal aliens” comes from, the beginning of the country’s racist immigration policies.At first immigration from China was limited, then Japan and Korea (1907), then the Asiatic Barred Zone (1917) and then southern and eastern Europe (1924). On top of that, Chinese and Mexicans were being driven out by violence and deportation.That is why the US was so lily-white in the 1950s. Some think of that as the “natural” state of the country, but it was the creation of a set of racist policies that began with the Chinese Exclusion Act, policies that were not overturned till 1965." […]
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[…] Chinese Exclusion Act […]
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Wow, I’ve never heard of the Chinese Exclusion ACT. This country certainly has a lot of hidden and devilry deeds to repent for!
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I was not aware of this at all. You would think with all the history course one must take throughout k-12 this would be mentioned to some degree. I guess the history brainwashing begins early.
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Kiwi,
I actually have the same kind of feeling.
Asian-American men endured a century of racial violence from whites, prevented from marrying whites and fighting for civil rights so that they can bring women over and form families. Once we finally have a solid base of Asian woman in the USA, they go right for white men and bash Asian men. I admit the irony has been killing me for a long time.
Is that why they do not want to teach Asian-American history in school? I wonder how many Asian-American women know the real truth.
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@jefe
If you look at the Chinese today a lot if them are pasty white. They want to look like white people. So many of them are dying from bleaching creams.
For some odd reason I’ve been swing commercials with white men and Asian women. I think it stems from the stereotype that Asian women are very submissive and docile. So as a result..:these men see them as being easy to take advantage of and get over on.
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@ blakksage
This country doesn’t need to repent for anything. It’s already on the brink of collapse as a result of the people who own it. Western civilization needs to collapse because the people who are in control are coming to their end.
Nothing about this evil country deserves any saving or repenting.
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@Kiwi,
Her parents came to California in the late 1940s right after they got married (and the Exclusion Act was repealed), but they are from the Sze Yap region west of the Pearl River, the region where most of the 19th century men came from. I bet her own parents were blocked from rejoining relatives in the USA before WWII and she had a great-grandfather or great uncle who was among the earlier migrants, so she would know something of the history. She also can remember the Civil Rights movement from her childhood.
Seeing the comments on this board have confirmed my belief that this part of history was simply erased out of the history books. I think the USA can never have much credibility in criticizing China as long as they fail to acknowledge all that they did to their own ethnic Chinese population. They just swept the history under the rug.
Chu has another event (see below) motivating her. From the pre-1965 cohort, she seems to know the problems of the past and the present, so there is some voice there in Congress. Compare this to brain drain child Amy Chua who ran in the arms of a white man and started lecturing people.
(From Wikipedia)
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[…] "The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) was a US law that shut off all immigration from China to the US except for scholars, merchants, diplomats and professionals. It is where the American idea of “illegal aliens” comes from, the beginning of the country’s racist immigration policies.At first immigration from China was limited, then Japan and Korea (1907), then the Asiatic Barred Zone (1917) and then southern and eastern Europe (1924). On top of that, Chinese and Mexicans were being driven out by violence and deportation.That is why the US was so lily-white in the 1950s. Some think of that as the “natural” state of the country, but it was the creation of a set of racist policies that began with the Chinese Exclusion Act, policies that were not overturned till 1965." […]
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Yes, I have seen that cartoon before. 😛
When you were in high school, did you find something odd that in a classroom full of Asian-American students, there was basically nothing taught about Asian-American history (which is basically US history applicable to all Americans)? Did you even learn about how the immigration laws were changed in 1965 so that your parents could come into the USA? The origin of the concept of “illegal alien”? How the Wong Kim Ark case confirmed that non-black non-white people born in the USA were indeed USA citizens and why white people nowadays have such a difficult time repealing US v. Wong Kim Ark?
It makes me think of how black American history was removed from the history books in majority black classrooms in Mississippi (per Loewen), or how Mexican-American history was removed out of the curriculum in Arizona.
Does it make any sense whatsoever how Asian-American history could somehow be omitted from the history that students in California learn? Who formed the backbone of the labour that built the West? Who is doing the whitewashing?
It does not offend white sensibilities to discuss the atrocities suffered by Jews in Europe. It does offend their sensibilities to discuss atrocities conducted by whites in the USA or to people outside of the USA. I bet you learned more about what Japanese did to white soldiers in the Philippines in WWII.
Look, I think they all should be taught. As Americans, we should know many sides to our history.
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@Kiwi
then you learned a lot more than I did. My US history and World history classes were of white people and western civilization.
So at what point in time did you learn that
– Europeans came to America and took the land from the Natives and killed most of them off.
– California was part of Mexico / New Spain for almost 300 years before white Anglo-Americans showed up. The history of California is actually more tied to the history of Mexico than the United States.
– Asians have been in California since the 1580s, before any English arrived to the East Coast and 260 years before Anglo-Americans started settling on the West Coast
– Asians came in large numbers to the West Coast at exactly the same time that Anglo-Americans and Irish-Americans came from the East, and well before Jews, Polish, Italians, Scandinavians, etc. They formed over 25% of the workforce in California and 50% in Idaho in the 1870s.
– 1880s-1910s: a period of Chinese-American expulsion and ethnic cleansing
– There are Chinese-American ghost towns in the West
– Jim Crow / US Apartheid
– Whites are anything but native to the USA.
And one more question. What do your parents believe? Do they still think white people are native to the USA, and have any more stake in California, than say, Chinese or Mexicans?
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Yes, I also understand that you did not learn this in elementary or high school and it is a common belief among Asian-Americans, esp. immigrants.
Even “old school” Asian-Americans believed this. After all, they or their parents grew up at a time when the non-native born were not permitted to naturalize, (or be imprisoned for their racial background) so they were, in a very real sense, perpetual foreigners.
My question was when did you learn more about the truth? On your own after high school? In university? Last Week?
Did you ever take a non-white American history class (ie, black American history, Asian American history, Mexican American history or even Native American history) after high school? Or did you read about it on your own? I suspect most readers of this blog never have.
My epiphanous moment came when I was age 15-16 during an advanced history class in High School. The main focus of the course was about the US’s role in WWII and its subsequent role to fight communism. We had to pick a topic and do research on it, and I chose something about American ethnic groups and the concept of the Melting Pot, a common idea during the late 1970s.
But when I started reading for my project, I first was learning about how ethnic groups became white – at that time the discussion was about how Polish-, Italian-, even Jewish Americans might lose their ethnic label and just become white like prior generations of European immigrants.
Then I got this WOW moment (about age 16).
Martin Luther King was shot when I started elementary school, so I didn’t quite understand what that all meant. I didn’t even know the history of Jim Crow at that time, learned nothing about Rosa Parks, the sit-ins, Freedom riders, anti-miscegenation, etc.
I learned about the US’s immigration policy, its racist history, and also about the realities of the slave trade and Jim Crow. I learned how its policies made it a white country and how certain groups were not allowed to join the melting pot. I started to wonder about the history they had taught us in school. Even afterwards I continued to read about it. I learned about WE Dubois, Frederick Douglass and about how Loving v. Virginia took place basically next door to where I grew up and overlapping with my own childhood. I also learned why the vast majority of the Chinese-Americans in the USA at that time had surnames that did not match their family names – they came in during the Exclusion era.
Roots had just come out at that time too – at least it gave a different perspective of US history that we were taught. I remember hearing white people complain incessantly about the Roots series, saying they wish they would just leave and go back to Africa or something. But of course I had just read about how the USA had been trying for a century to expel its Chinese-American population.
Maybe we need a program on US history from other non-white perspectives. But, if anything, US TV and movies have become even more white in the past 30 years. I don’t see it happening anytime soon.
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Of course I know this. I was literally *there* when Asian American heritage month was introduced into Congress because it had been left out of the Bicentennial celebration. I even personally met Rep. Frank Horton (NY) and Sen. Inouye (HI) as a teenager when that bill went through Congress.
But 30 years later, it is still not part of the curriculum, even in classes that are majority Asian-American. Did none of your classmates find that strange? Did they (the brain drain children ones) wonder why their parents could suddenly be allowed to enter the country 1960s-1980s?
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If it’s any consolation, the US is hardly alone in patching up their memory of the past. Of course nobody admits it publicly, but I don’t think history class was ever intended as a way to learn a broad and diverse approach to history. It’s about learning a specific tale that confirms your identity.
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I’m beginning to see a pattern in all this diverse history being collected. It seems that in every single case the white man is evil. If whites let too many Asians into Hawaii they are evil. If they don’t let them into the U.S. they are evil. If they allow low income Asian workers into the U.S. to do menial work they are evil. If they allow high income Asian workers into the U.S. to do work at higher pay than average non-Jewish whites receive they are causing “brain drain” and are evil.
It’s a strange thing that in all these years living in Asia, I’ve never once heard Asians complain about all these horrible historical injustices perpetrated by white Americans. Instead, it’s almost exclusively the children of privileged “brain drain” Asian American leftists, with their white academic elite allies (actually, it’s probably the other way around as white elites control all narratives), who tell these tales of woe.
Given that whites are so evil and the countries they control so unwelcoming it’s really ironic that so many Asians are trying to immigrate to just those countries in such huge numbers. Doesn’t make sense, but if there’s something wrong with this picture, it’s just because white people are evil and they screw up everything they touch (like Hong Kong and Singapore and de facto puppet regimes in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea).
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Because the official history is about how good the white man is (in the case of the US) and omits the parts where he isn’t, a blog that concentretes on that omitted parts necessarily shows him as evil.
Moral judgement in history is to be handed cautiosly, but sometimes justified. Slavery (at least in its New World form) certainly was evil, brain drain or strict immigration laws aren’t. They are morally problematic, but can be handeled in a justified manner.
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@ Biff
“Given that whites are so evil and the countries they control so unwelcoming it’s really ironic that so many Asians are trying to immigrate to just those countries in such huge numbers. Doesn’t make sense, but if there’s something wrong with this picture, it’s just because white people are evil and they screw up everything they touch”
Or it could be that they’re so miseducated in their native countries about the ways of white supremacy thus creating a false optimism about going to western countries. Could also be that certain countries are still so stung from post-colonialism which in turn has made certain countries living conditions so unbearable they feel the only choice they have is to leave. I think the real question is,if the “good ol white man” had never bothered them in the first place would this still be so?
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[…] Chinese Exclusion Act […]
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@ Kiwi
As far as the issue of Asians making more than whites I agree with you, if you have more education you should on average make more money. I do however remember a debate between Tim Wise & Jared Taylor where Tim stated that even though Asians had more education, those with degrees still had a higher chance of unemployment than whites with the same educational background.
He also noted that Southeast Asians have much lower incomes & education on average in comparison to their South & East Asian counterparts & their high level of education erases the plight of Southeast Asians in the aggregate. The last part that I believe tells everything is that the average Asian household has 1 to 2 extra earners which can skew the data because income averages are taken on a household per capita basis as opposed to individuals. Many Asians have to group together & go into overcrowded living situations just to be able to pay off their rent or mortgage, thus the plight the model minority stereotype creates. No one ever says “Asians need help” because of these misconceptions & they end up stuck with the same problems.
I didn’t know a lot of Asians but the ones I did growing up were mostly Southeast Asian; (Cambodian, Lao, Thai, in that order). Never knew too many East Asians & never met a Japanese person in my life so I can’t speak for them but I can personally attest to the economic plight of SE Asians. To read the model minority myth then witness the levels of poverty which they reside in were shocking. I’m talking 7 to 10 people living in 2 bedroom apartments & unlike African Americans, the fathers were always in the home so they never qualified for government housing like section 8. Very few handouts & assistance, they just humbly worked (like slaves) & endured just to keep the family together. Something I truly respect.
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Reblogged this on Failure to Listen and commented:
The United States argued that to accept Chinese Americans as citizens because of a “mere accident of birth” would be:
a most degenerate departure from the patriotic ideals of our forefathers; and surely in that case American citizenship is not worth having.
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Thank you…very interesting post…a part of hx I admit ignorance. I find Asians understand racism while many whites, males in particular will joyfully state they have no basis to understand. Racism towards Asians exist and it is called jealousy.
I admire Asian culture.
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I suspect if it wasn’t for their knowledge of rocketry and other advanced weaponry and engineering, the U.S. wouldn’t have had much of an interest in them. At the time, the Chinese were seen as only good for grunt labor.
Poor biff. All he wants is for all the brown, yellow and black people to love him and other whites like him unconditionally, no matter what ills they dish out on them. Which is why he and others are always hurt or outraged whenever minorities fail to shower their white counterparts with undying affection.
1) Language barrier
2) No desire to badmouth a guest’s country or countrymen in earshot
3) Head-in-rectum disorder
Again, you want to emulate those British chaps who used to gallivant across the globe, secure in their mastery of and superiority over all the savage nations. It’s an intoxicating, but ultimately destructive rush.
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Kiwi:
You said, “There’s no reason for Asians living in Asia to complain about white American racism since they don’t even live in America. ”
This particular article was focusing on Asians who were excluded from America, so of course the descendants of those excluded and sent back would be the proper people to complain about the exclusion (mistreatment of those who stayed in the US is another issue), rather than the descendants of those who were let in earlier and stayed–or especially the descendants of those who came in later when the doors were opened (like your family), who as you said have more in common with white Americans than the excluded Asians from Asia.
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This is so wrong on so many levels – this guy is in sore need of a US history lesson.
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@Mack
Just like what Kiwi said, this guy is completely blinded by the Perpetual Foreigner stereotype. It makes an alleged National Merit Scholar appear, well, rather dumb.
Let me ask how many native residents today in Nigeria or Ivory Coast would walk up to a white American and complain to him about the horrible injustices perpetrated by white Americans for 18th century middle passage,19th century slavery and early to mid 20th century Jim Crow and lynching. Does it make any sense that anyone would do that, even one that might be contemplating immigration to the USA? Of course, there is no reason that they would be doing that.
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@Kiwi,
It is beyond me how anyone could be so simple-minded as to assume that it only affected people excluded or sent back.
My grandparents and 2 aunts and my great uncle and dozens of my father’s cousins entered the USA during the Exclusion era. It impacted my family and the whole family narrative immensely.
Just think of all the men who grew old into their 80s or 90s, never having the chance to marry, dying a bachelor. Sometimes they made a young man age 18 or 19 marry and impregnate a wife before leaving to make sure he left an obligation back in China. Well, many times, he never saw his wife again and never met his child.
My grandfather never knew his own father. Anyhow, even if my grandfather had been able to join his father in the USA, he wouldn’t have known him for long. His father was murdered in the “driving out” process.
The exclusion act was the reason my Aunts were separated from my grandparents and why they could only come to be reunited years later.
My grandfather’s older brother as a very young man had a daughter in China around 1898-1899 and could not bring her to the USA until about 1946 (She was about age 47-48 already). It was the first time he ever saw his daughter and his first wife had died, never seeing her husband again. When I went to the home village in China in 1998, I met this women in her 80s. She had married a Chinese male relative of my father’s who visited back from the USA but died before he could bring her over. She had been a widow for some 50 years. I have literally hundreds of stories of what that Exclusion act did to people. It led to decades, sometimes a lifetime of family separation. Even after Wong Kim Ark it led to bona fide US citizens being deported (There are many documented cases). A congressional apology was the least that could be done, albeit 130 years overdue.
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I meant to ask if anyone read the novel “Eat a Bowl of Tea” by Louis Chu or saw the movie (1989) directed by Wayne Wang and starring veteran Chinese-American actor Victor Wong and Russell Wong played his son.
Anyhow, the movie’s opening scenes depict Chinatown c. 1948 – a community full of aging old bachelors and no women – a consequence of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Russell Wong’s character (Ben Loy) is one of the few young men allowed to go to bring back a wife from China in an arranged marriage because discharged US veterans were allowed to go bring back a wife not subject to the measly quotas enacted after the Repeal of the Exclusion Act. His character meets his mother for the first time in his first visit over 20 years, a period in which she has never seen her husband.
It was a comedy, but it did capture some of the essence of life in the late 1940s, a community robbed of family life.
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@ Jefe
I think Biff, being a National Merit Scholar and all, was being deliberately obtuse, but thanks for the great comments in answer to him!
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I strongly suspect that Congresswoman Judy Chu is one of those very direct descendants of those affected by the Chinese Exclusion Act. Her parents married just before coming to the USA in 1948. The vast majority of those who came between WWII and 1965 were for family reunification after the Chinese Exclusion Act and her parents are from the same region in Guangdong as the 19th century and early 20th century immigrants. I would not be surprised if her father and grandfather had been separated for many decades, or if they had never met each other before 1948. Or maybe her father or mother never even met their fathers at all due to the Exclusion Act.
There must have been some personal reason why she introduced the resolution into Congress.
Kudos to her to get the apology resolution passed in Congress in 2012. It was long overdue.
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Thanks, Abagond.
“deliberately obtuse” – sounds trollish.
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Alright, Jefe, if you can show I am a “troll”, then of course I can be banned. Good work. Notice how I said “mistreatment of those who stayed in the US is another issue”. That would include certain family members of yours, but not those of the vast majority of current Asian Americans (like Kiwi’s). That was the point I was trying to make. Also, you are half white and half Chinese.. so your evil white perpetrator half (of course it doesn’t matter if any of your actual ancestors were directly involved as long as the skin color was white) cancels out your good asian victim half. You have no more standing as a victim, except of yourself.
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deliberate obtuseness – UGH
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Kiwi said: “The reason people like jefe might not identify so much with their white side is that white society doesn’t accept mixed people”.
So instead of “white society”, let’s look to “East Asian society”. Would a half Black, half Asian kid be more accepted in Japan, Korea or even China than a half Black half white kid in the U.S. or Europe? I think you know that the answer is “no”.
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@ Biff
Your question was about Jefe. He grew up in the US. What goes on in Japan or wherever hardly matters in this case.
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Abagond, Kiwi used the term “white society”. My point in using a contrast was to demonstrate that “white society” is not uniquely messed up. I understand that the central focus of your blog is to criticize “white society”, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that it is very often better than the alternatives.
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Geez biff…lecturing Abagond on what (you think) his blog’s all about and what he shouldn’t “lose sight” of? That’s rather arrogant of you.
And the semantics game you’re playing concerning Asians who were sent back during the time of the Act and those who weren’t…I thought the story’s focus was on the country that created that policy and how that policy negatively impacted both “Asia Asians” and “Asian Americans”, namely in terms of being unable to reunite with their loved ones on American soil or, more importantly, the men being unable to bring in Chinese brides.
But the largely-white GIs were able to bring as many “war brides” as they wanted. Interesting, that.
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@ Kiwi
Something both Biff and Randy seem to assume is that people in Asia are more racist than White Americans. The underlying message is: “Stop complaining about Whites – Asians are worse.”
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Kiwi:
Interesting link. The fact that Chinese would sometimes pay a foreigner to pretend to have an overseas business that is working with them doesn’t disprove Asian racism. The rent-a-foreigner thing is interesting though. I read a more recent article on the company in question and advertisements for getting foreigners to report crimes. There was only one comment posted and it was as follows:
“Foreigners are despised in China. What could be worse than being White in China? A Leper? Anyway, the notion that we are somehow afforded some ‘special treatment’ by cops that would just as soon shake us down and tear up our passports, or question us for 3 hours about every trip we’ve been on in the last 3 years. And locals want THAT treatment? Insane.
Tip: Before making assumptions about yang gui zi [western ghost/devi–derrogatory term for whites], talk to JUST ONE. ONE. In your life, talk to one foreign devil before assuming that white guys in China have it nice.”
Anyway, his experience as a foreigner in China isn’t my own, but I think it would vary a lot based on your location and your occupation/income.
Even if overall Asians might treat white foreigners better than whites treat Asian foreigners, both of which are huge generalizations, it doesn’t prove they aren’t “racist”. Asians don’t try to even apologize for their racial hierarchies. They are just a fact of life to them, in general. They just put East Asians and whites at the very top of those hierarchies, so whites are almost certainly going to receive better treatment in East Asia than say a non-Chinese Malaysian who doesn’t speak the local language.
The point is not “stop complaining about whites”, but try to put complaints in global/historical context. tldr: CONTEXT.
Interesting that you’re so worried about my kids. For my family now, “racism” is not even something that is brought up. That kind of “victim” mentality just doesn’t exist. In the 2 asian languages I speak, I can’t even recall the word for “racism” being used in conversations here (except by me a couple of times). It just doesn’t occur to most Asians that all races should be equal in everything (e.g., average 100 yard dash times or average IQs). “Equalism” is really an invention of the white elite, just as “communism” was.
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@Kiwi,
This is the crux of the issue (in addition to perpetual foreigner stereotypes). That is why the discussion devolves into a whole lot of irrelevant stuff.
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Wow, so true. That might be one main reason why people in many countries seemed to believe this image of the US and Americans being essentially “white”. When I htink of all the old news footage (and films) that used to be shown from that time, it looked like a country that seemed “naturally” white.
It’s only from reading Jefe and Abagond that I realised this policy existed…
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Bulanik,
When I think that Australia is at least willing to call their past immigration policy as the “White Australia Policy”, which curiously, got started from their Chinese Exclusion policy in the last quarter of the 19th century which arose out of competition between Chinese immigrant and British migrant labour. Maybe this is one reason that Australia reminds me so much of North America.
I read a number of memoirs of Eurasians fleeing HK during WWII. Those that succeeded to hide their Asian ancestry got into Australia. But I read memoirs of a couple of people who got “detected” by the immigration officials and turned away. They got separated from their siblings and family for decades because of that policy.
But you never hear the US call their historical immigration policy as the White America policy. This is an example where “White America” could be willing to acknowledge and face their past. Instead they invented something to cover it all up – the “Model Minority” stereotype. They do not teach about the Chinese Exclusion Act and all the other subsequent ways they kept “colored” races, even people “certified Caucasians” from entering the USA or becoming citizens.
I have the sneaking feeling that the people in charge of approving what is covered in textbooks are looking for ways to reverse the 1965 immigration policy by omitting the 1882-1965 White America policy from the textbooks.(Even black commenters on this blog never realized that the USA used to allow only European immigrants to become citizens, or even enter the country.) IT is like how they are eroding all the other civil rights acts from the 1960s by omitting their history.
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Yes Jefe, we all know that school history is manipulated to fulfil an agenda. I lived in Brazil for a while. I had read extensively about the Canudos Utopia (end of the 19th century), which is quite well-known in France. It was not taught at Brazilian schools though, because it would have been a really bad example to the masses: a socialist community standing up to the governments, the army, people of all hues together…Better believe non-whites are traditionally apathetic and unable to have a philosophy, aspirations and to fight for their rights. Abagond also provides us with so many examples of history that is being re-written for the benefit of one community only. I get very very P…O.. with anti semitism, anti this anti that. If you investigate the richest world corporations and make a list of their CEOs (whose position makes them very powerful), said CEOs will be white, male, protestants, and they consciously or not (“or not” written to leave a couple of them the benefit of the doubt), co-opt people who are like them to the top or to take over from them. About 40 years ago, there was an article in Ebony titled “in my next life, I want to be a white male” (ironic of course) and listing all the damage done by that group. A lot has changed, but not enough because there is no desire to reflect and go to the root of the problems, because they are scared they might lose their power. One thing history shows though, and re-writing it can’t change that: clinging to power does not help.
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@ jefe
I really am getting a bit tired of the analogies between Australia and North America.
Look at any cultural study and it will show that the distance between Australians and North Americans is far greater than that between Australia and the UK.
We even have very different religious roots – Australia, for example, was not founded (as was the US) on Puritan (Protestant) ethics. Catholics have been a part of this country since its very beginning – more than half the passengers on the First Fleet were Irish convicts. Our makeup and history is far less Protestant and this causes a very wide cultural gulf between Australians and Americans/Canadians, in my view. Plus we’ve only been around for just over 200 years.
Our racial history is also completely different. We don’t have the same legacy of slavery BUT I would argue that the history of anti-Asian/’brown’ racism here has been far worse than in the US.
I have to say that I do find it extremely irritating when Americans make generalisations about other countries, based on American paradigms. I found Abagond’s posts about Australia irritating too – like you, he visited once for a few days and made a number of assumptions based on that.
That’s all I have to say.
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Hi wordy,
No one is saying that Australia is the same as the USA. There are a few commonalities and HEAPS of differences. And I don’t think ppl base their thoughts solely on a holiday visit.
Why don’t you submit a post on a relevant Australia related topic (eg, the White Australia policy) to address some points you feel people have misconceptions about. That would be terrific.
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[…] "The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) was a US law that shut off all immigration from China to the US except for scholars, merchants, diplomats and professionals. It is where the American idea of “illegal aliens” comes from, the beginning of the country’s racist immigration policies.At first immigration from China was limited, then Japan and Korea (1907), then the Asiatic Barred Zone (1917) and then southern and eastern Europe (1924). On top of that, Chinese and Mexicans were being driven out by violence and deportation.That is why the US was so lily-white in the 1950s. Some think of that as the “natural” state of the country, but it was the creation of a set of racist policies that began with the Chinese Exclusion Act, policies that were not overturned till 1965." […]
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There is a good series of panel discussion videos taken on the 125th anniversary (2007) of the 1882 Exclusion Act.
It is in 8 parts, and unfortunately there is no playlist to play it in logical order. The only playlist I found played it in random order mixed up with a lot of other videos.
Anyhow, here is part 1 and part 2 (about 5-6 mins each). You will have to click on part 3 to continue.
Part 1 (http://youtu.be/01rhshKsAy4)
Part 2 (http://youtu.be/Y1QACaUEZWU)
What I found interesting was that
– most of the situation of modern day immigration policy and procedures can be traced to the events of that time (as Abagond alluded to).
– legal residents had to carry specific govt issued ID cards to demonstrate they had the right to be present in the USA.
– Even native born American citizens had to carry these ID cards. This has never been required of other US citizens.
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@Abagond
I knew that it did not specifically exclude persons from China, but persons of Chinese descent. It was mentioned again in the series of videos that I mentioned above, but I had to look up exactly what happened.
I found out what happened, and here is a source
(http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/tu_exclusion_doc_3.html)
The Exclusion Act was amended in 1884 to clarify some ambiguities
ie,
– “labourers” – referred to all skilled and unskilled labour, thereby defining it more strictly. Obviously, this will exclude many in the “professional” category.
– “Chinese” did not just refer to people from China or Chinese citizens, but also persons “or of such other foreign Government of which at the time such Chinese person shall be a subject”. So the exclusion act was based purely on “race” and not National Origin or nationality.
The video series above highlighted this point. There was no restriction on the entry of Canadian citizens into the USA during the whole history of the act (1882-1943), it turns out except for those of Chinese descent. The speaker in the video stated that when a native born Canadian citizen with 50% Chinese ancestry arrived at the border, he would be refused entry.
I have read that some persons entered the USA through Mexico and claimed that they were Mexican. I know of some who entered through other Latin American countries, so I suppose this method may have been used by some.
Finally,
The Act was passed in 1965, but did not become fully effective until July 1, 1968.
(http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=47)
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Can someone tell me if they have a similar reaction to these university students when asked if they know what is “The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882”?
(http://youtu.be/B38UeHjEspc)
What is telling, is that not only whites, blacks and Latinos not aware of what that was, but that all the Asian-American students were completely clueless. The only one who came remotely close was the guy at 4:20 (although he got the facts wrong). The guy at 3:33 at least took a wild guess it had something to do with immigration.
This is a key point of US history, and has framed the immigration debate in the USA up until the present day. How can ordinary citizens weigh in on the immigration debate today if they don’t know about its history?
Is it really omitted from the general high school history courses as this video suggests?
Imagine if 99% of Americans, including the vast majority of black Americans, had never heard of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Fourteenth Amendment or Plessy v. Ferguson or Jim Crow?
I bet they can tell you about Crispus Attacks, which for all purposes, was just a token mention and not really relevant to the development of US history or any modern social issue. All it tells me is that a black person died for a country that would not make black people citizens and keep them in slavery.
Finally, can anyone tell me if the last girl interviewed looks Blasian? 🙂
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@ Jefe
Thanks for the video and the correction. I updated the first paragraph accordingly (and added a link for Arizona SB1070 under See Also).
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Thanks.
Gives food for thought that this modern day racist anti-immigrant sentiment and legal framework being pushed today is all modeled after the Exclusion Act of 1882, the one that most Americans today, even Asian-Americans, are totally unaware of.
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Exhibit in NY coming this fall
“Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion”
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/07/chinese-american-exhibit_n_5528081.html?utm_hp_ref=arts)
2 interesting points (for me):
1. The ID card for Anna May Wong (Hollywood Actress)
Although Ms. Wong was a native born American, she was forced to carry an ID card indicating how she was admitted to the USA.
2. The 1940s photo of the young ladies in New York contains one of my relatives – really shocked to see it.
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@ Jefe
I shan’t be anywhere near NY this Autumn, but wouldn’t it be something if this exhibition was the subject of a post?
The old photos are well worth closer inspection (I shall be inspecting them more closely when time allows), and the watercolor depicting Chinese labourers laying the transcontinental railroad track through the Sierra Nevada mountains, opened a little window in my head! LOL!
I’ve never seen anything like it and don’t know this history more than “something like that happened in America”.
Thanks, Jefe.
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Jefe, a question:
How was this Law was enacted at the Mexican border?
Cheng Chui Ping, aka Sister Ping, used to smuggle considerable numbers of Chinese emigrants into the USA. She died recently, and its just occurred to me that she can’t have been the first to smuggle Chinese into the US since the restrictions enforced in 1882. I know that Chinese workers / slaves came to Mexico and other Hispanic countries, and some made their way into the US using different means after 1882.
Border crossings could not just have been made by Mexicans seeking to come to the US. Are there any Chinese communities that sprang up in the borderlands between the USA and Mexico due the restrictions from this Act?
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Hi Bulanik,
Thank for your bringing this up. Let’s see if we can try to clear up a couple things.
A. Timeline
Pre-1882, Chinese immigration to the USA was probable 90% labourers and male. There were few students and merchants (although a few went on to those occupations later on).
1882-1906: Chinese immigration to USA was cut off. Some could still enter other countries (eg, Mexico, Cuba) and enter that way. However, the Chinese exclusion Act was revised in 1884 to exclude by RACE, ie, by descent. So, any Chinese immigrant from Mexico would pretend to be Mexican to enter the USA. There is evidence that some Chinese actually entered the USA that way.
1907-1943: Entry via Mexico did continue at a small pace. However, following the SF Earthquake, there was a steady trickle of paper sons and daughters who came as “children” of “US Citizens”. However, spouses could not enter as spouses of US citizens, so a common way was for a brides to enter as a paper daughter. Still, the emphasis for Chinese men was to bring their sons, and if they could not get a document “proving” that they were a US citizen AND had evidence that they went back to China to have a son, they would buy the paper from someone else. A black market for these documents was created.
1943-1965: Through a series of Acts (repulsion of Chinese Exclusion Act and other Asian exclusion Acts and the War Brides Act of 1947), people could enter under new categories (eg, spouse of US citizen). Still, legal quotas were so miniscule that some paper sons and daughters still entered the USA.
1965-1968: Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 passed, allowing for family reunification to take place. Student visas became easier to obtain.
1968: The 1965 act comes into full force, opening up slots for visas not under previous categories.
For the first decade, the majority of visas under the “Chinese” category went to Taiwan (although there were others who came under family reunification). After the USA split Taiwan and China from each other, there started to be more immigrants from Mainland China who did not come for study or for family reunification. Since the late 1970s, many of these came from Fujian province. After a few came in, the attraction to the USA for Fujian people grew and the demand for visas increased manifold, but few of those went to labourers. That caused a new explosion in illegal immigration in the 1980s-1990s.
Two ways to enter:
1. Sneak in on boats under cover. – the most famous one was the Golden Venture that landed in Far Rockaway Queens, NY in 1993.
2. Get false documents that one is the child or spouse of a US citizen (not unlike the paper sons and daughters of 70-90 years earlier).
–> this lead to a new black market for the “snake heads”. A Few hundred thousand entered the USA this way since 1980, mostly from Fujian.
These are NOT related to either the brain drain, the “old school” pre-1965 or refugee immigrants. Their first choice of entry is to New York, not San Francisco. They have transformed the old Chinatown in Manhattan and helped grow a new one in Sunset Park Brooklyn.
B. Chinatowns in Mexico
Mexicali in Baja California just south of the US border formed in the late 19th century mostly by Chinese immigrant labourers to Mexico. Undoubtedly they played a role in helping some Chinese immigrants to Mexico enter the USA.
The early immigrant labourers were Cantonese, coming from the same areas as the ones to the USA.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown,_Mexicali)
However, non-Chinese mexicans moved steadily there and eventually outnumbered the Chinese. As the article says, a smaller newer influx of immigrants have come since 2000, and are still mostly Cantonese from the similar areas in Guangdong province or Hong Kong. So, they are likely NOT connected to the snake heads that smuggled in the ones from Fujian province.
C. Summary
Yes, some Chinese entered the USA via Mexico during the Exclusion era, but I don’t think it is connected directly to the Cheng Chui Ping (Sister Ping)’s smuggling, although she probably did smuggle people in through 3rd countries, including Mexico.
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Jefe,
Although not great in number, this is the tip of a whole other dimensional iceberg. Interesting… Curiously enough, I have heard part-Chinese Hispanics say that they aremestizo and only “look” Chinese.
This may have been a kind of “passing” to get onto the USA’s borders, and “move on” in that country?
I think that might be true of those that went to Ecuador, too, even if the only evidence I have for that is merely anecdotal: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/09/05/nominations-for-hispanic-heritage-month/#comment-252123
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Also, there is this book “Making the Chinese Mexican: Global Migration, Localism, and Exclusion in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands”, by Grace Delgado.
From the info accompanying it, it examines “the Chinese diaspora in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands… a fresh perspective on immigration, nationalism, and racism through the experiences of Chinese migrants in the region during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.”
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Chinese mexicans, and their relationship with the USA, would be an excellent topic for a post. Please do it.
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@ Jefe, I am not that confident about my abilities to do so…
However, I believe I should at least get this book as a starting point. 😀
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You could summarize a relevant portion of that book. You can frame it as your take on what the author is saying. You do not need to know everything about it.
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Bulanik,
Really looking forward to your sharing this. I am aware that many Chinese went straight to Mexico instead of the USA because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, so it would be interesting to see how they utilized that potential loophole, eg, perhaps trying to pass as Mexican to enter the USA.
Canadians of Chinese descent, on the other hand, were refused at the border. However, my grandfather first entered the USA via Montreal (and on to New York). Maybe they were less strict regarding paper sons at the NY – Quebec border.
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NBC News had a special report on the 71st anniversary of Repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act on December 17th.
The Chinese Exclusion Act Ended Seventy-One Years Ago, Today
(http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/chinese-exclusion-act-ended-seventy-one-years-ago-today-n270276)
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This has been festering in my mind for months and I need to expose the sick mind of a certain willfully obtuse commenter.
(https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/chinese-exclusion-act/#comment-236903)
This is simply, SICK.
Suppose that it was my white great-grandfather who was the one who lynched my Chinese great-grandfather. That does NOT cancel anything out.
Can you tell a black American that since it was their white great-grandfather who raped her black great-grandfather and lynched her grandfather, that means that it all “CANCELS OUT”?
(to get a visual reference – consider the situation in the movie “The Butler”. The protagonist’s mother was obviously a very light “colored” person – her white ancestor could very well be a relative of the man who shot and killed his father. The fact that the protagonist shares ancestors with the man who killed his father does not “cancel out” his victimization.)
Can you tell a black-white biracial kid that since his KKK affiliated aunts and uncles violently prevented blacks from integrating, and later prevented the kid himself from integrating white schools or neighborhoods, that it doesn’t matter as one cancels the other out?
The descendant is not a victim of the event?
Oh, Please.
Malcolm X had a white grandfather. That did not cancel out ANY of his experience.
Bruce Lee had a white grandfather and was born in the USA. That did not stop US television from cutting him out and replacing his character with a white guy in yellowface. It did not stop his not being accepted as American and the deep prejudice and discrimination he faced when he dated and later married his wife.
It did not “cancel” anything out.
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I want a t-shirt with this photograph on it. Ahead of his time indeed
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A new documentary completed this year will air on PBS in 2017, entitled The Chinese Exclusion Act . Here is the long trailer:
(https://youtu.be/d3YwtmZwpIY)
Behind the scenes Commentary on the film:
(https://youtu.be/lQ8FJY-Ylxs)
As we are on the eve of new immigration bans to be enacted in the next administration, it may be apt to reflect on the US’s history with racial immigration bans. In 2012, Congress passed an official resolution to apologize for what they did.
Yet, the new Congress seems poised to do it again.
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During Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we can expect a lot of articles to appear this month.
Will Trump Repeat the Historic Chinese Exclusion Act Mistake?
(http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/will_trump_repeat_the_historic_chinese_exclusion_act_mistake_20170428)
Judy Yung is professor emerita of American Studies at UC Santa Cruz, the author of “Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island,” and a volunteer with NoMoreExclusion.org.
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Frederick Douglass on Chinese immigration.
His statement still applies today to all immigrants.
“I have said that the Chinese will come, and have given some reasons why we may expect them in very large numbers in no very distant future. Do you ask if I would favor such immigrations? I answer, I would. ‘Would you admit them as witnesses in our courts of law?’ I would. Would you have them naturalized, and have them invested with all the rights of American citizenship? I would. Would you allow them to vote? I would. Would you allow them to hold office? I would.
“But are there not reasons against all this? Is there not such a law or principle as that of self-preservation? Does not every race owe something to itself? Should it not attend to the dictates of common sense? Should not a superior race protect itself from contact with inferior ones? Are not the white people the owners of this continent? Have they not the right to say what kind of people shall be allowed to come here and settle? Is there not such a thing as being more generous than wise? In the effort to promote civilization may we not corrupt and destroy what we have? Is it best to take on board more passengers than the ship will carry? To all this and more I have one among many answers, altogether satisfactory to me, though I cannot promise it will be entirely so to you.
“I submit that this question of Chinese immigration should be settled upon higher principles than those of a cold and selfish expediency. There are such things in the world as human rights. They rest upon no conventional foundation, but are eternal, universal and indestructible. Among these is the right of locomotion; the right of migration; the right which belongs to no particular race, but belongs alike to all and to all alike. It is the right you assert by staying here, and your fathers asserted by coming here. It is this great right that I assert for the Chinese and the Japanese, and for all other varieties of men equally with yourselves, now and forever.
“I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity, and when there is a supposed conflict between human and national rights, it is safe to go the side of humanity. I have great respect for the blue-eyed and light-haired races of America. They are a mighty people. In any struggle for the good things of this world, they need have no fear, they have no need to doubt that they will get their full share. But I reject the arrogant and scornful theory by which they would limit migratory rights, or any other essential human rights, to themselves, and which would make them the owners of this great continent to the exclusion of all other races of men. I want a home here not only for the negro, the mulatto and the Latin races, but I want the Asiatic to find a home here in the United States, and feel at home here, both for his sake and for ours.
“Right wrongs no man.”
Frederick Douglass, Dec. 7, 1869.
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150 years later, and that is still the debate.
It summed up the nativist white sentiment in the 1860s and it is still here in the 2010s
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Today, October 24th, is the 146th anniversary of the largest mass lynching in US history, the Los Angeles Massacre of 1871, 11 years before the Chinese Exclusion Act.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_massacre_of_1871
Interestingly, a new movie set against the backdrop of this massacre, “The Jade Penchant” (2017) has just been completed and will be screened next week in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-chinese-massacre-of-1871-comes-to-the-big-screen-300542113.html
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Historian John Jung did an hour long presentation on the Chinese Exclusion Act last month at UCSD.
The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882-1943) and Lingering Harm
(https://youtu.be/lnEUDX9dQXw)
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There’s nothing wrong with a country choosing which groups it wants migrating into the country. I wouldn’t have focused on excluding Chinese (I’d have focused on excluding Muslims, who can never truly assimilate into a Western culture)
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