Anti Chinese Rhetoric : The Recession Hit

With riots and protests to his previous veto of the bill, President Chester Arthur signed “An Act to Execute Certain Treaty Stipulations Relating to the Chinese” into law.” Nicknamed the Chinese Exclusion Act, it was one of the first Federal laws that discriminated against immigrants by their ethnicity. It remained law for over sixty years before Congress repealed it in 1943 to help improve Chinese morale against Japan. While originally intending to stay law for only ten years, it was renewed many times. In 1892, it was renewed as The Geary Act and in 1902 it was made permanent; requiring that Chinese immigrants carry with them there certificate of residence.The hostility against Chinese immigrants had been going on for decades prior to the Exclusion Act, going as far back as the end of the California Gold Rush. While Chinese immigrants were often discriminated it was at a local, not federal level. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the Gilded era’s worst policy because it negatively helped redefine the US federal government's stance on immigrants, had many people openly opposing it, and the arguments for the Act were mostly untrue.

Both migrated towards cities in order to find work. However, even once they found work they received low wages and endured dangerous working conditions. Child labor was also common as displayed in document C where a child working in a sweatshop. Parsons stated “can you not see that it is the INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM and not the “boss” which must be changed?”. She argued that it was not industrialization but corruption and the actions of the bosses that created this situation consisting of unfair treatment of workers (To Tramps – the unemployed, the disinherited and miserable, 1884). In addition, many were discriminated against even in society. The Chinese Exclusion Act demonstrates the racism that still existed in American society during this time period. It stated, “the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States be, and the same is hereby suspended (United States At Large).” At first immigrants were needed to fuel industrialization, but once the United States believed there were enough they limited their immigration and unfairly excluded the

Immigration was a crucial aspect of the Gilded Age although it brought many issues to the USA. The large influx of Chinese brought out America’s racist views and caused the economy to be affected negatively. To begin with in the California gold rush, the large number of Chinese were blamed for taking all the gold and they were forcefully relocated to the city to work labor jobs. This large growth of laborers caused businesses to lower their average wages and non-immigrant Americans were unable to find jobs. Ones that did already have jobs were angered by the lower wages. Since the economy in the 1870s was in decline, Anti-Chinese groups, such as the Supreme Order of Caucasians, formed to protest against Chinese immigrants all across USA. Labor

The economic crash of the 1870’s eventually led to the xenophobia against the Chinese that populated approximately one-tenth of California’s population. 1849 saw the arrival of the Chinese, when mining was at its peak. Following the transcontinental railroad led to the rise of xenophobia when the aforementioned economic

American citizens despised the Chinese workers because they worked very hard and followed instructions for very little pay, as stated in a speech given by a German immigrant on the Chinese exclusion act he said “It is almost impossible for a poor white servant girl to find employment in a white family. No! The mistress of the house wants a Chinaman. Why? He is very handy. She can say, ‘John Chinaman, do this’, and John does it, and John never says a word”. The white immigrants assumed that the Chinese were doing this to spite them and steal the jobs the white immigrants and American citizens thought they were entitled to. Another example of Americans and white immigrants accusing the Chinese of taking

One of the first significant pieces of federal legislation aimed at restricting immigration was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned Chinese laborers from coming to America. Californians had agitated for the new law, blaming the Chinese, who were willing to work for less, for a decline in wages.The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States. Those on the West Coast were especially prone to attribute declining wages and economic ills on the despised Chinese workers. Although the Chinese composed only .002 percent of the nation’s population, Congress passed the exclusion act to placate worker demands and assuage prevalent concerns about maintaining white “racial purity.”

The first Chinese immigrants flooded to America, in the hopes of “striking gold” during the California Gold Rush of 1849. Unfortunately, the citizens of California greeted these newcomers with many unfair laws. Beginning with the Foreign Miner’s License Tax Law of 1850, the Chinese experienced nothing but bigotry from the citizens who surrounded them. This inequality peaked when President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, barring the immigration of Chinese workers for ten years. During that time, the immigration of Japanese in search of work rapidly increased. These immigrants also faced racial discrimination, from their ineligibility for citizenship to the laws prohibiting Japanese from owning land. The full

The reason people give for economic tension is that the Chinese supposedly were getting more jobs than white because they were will to work cheaper. In Lee Chews work, An Autobiography of a Chinese Immigrant, he states, “The cheap labor cry was always a falsehood. Their [Chinese] labor was never cheap, and is not cheap now. It has always commanded the highest market price…. The Chinese are such excellent and faithful workers that bossed will [hire] no others when they can get [the Chinese]” (Document D).

I first came across an organization dedicated to preserving Japanese dignity throughout history and beyond: The Japanese American Legacy Project (JALP). Its website indicated that they "were frequent targets of prejudice and political attacks for 50 years before World War II" (Densho). This site represents the organization's interests in their entirety, and describes adequate background information, which I found to be helpful. Unemployment and low wages could be equivocated to Japanese infiltration, which soon became the basis for groups to rise up in opposition, thus associations such as the Japanese Exclusion League were born. However, problems really began when businesses actively recruited Asian immigrants for tedious duties. Labor unions fired back with rallies for local elected officials to "remove all individuals of Chinese heritage from California" (Densho). The government reacted to such forceful pressure almost immediately. In 1882, a series of congressional exclusionary acts eliminated, for a period of time, what was known to the west coast as "yellow peril" (Densho). These findings were strangely new to me, so I began to browse other sources for

Interestingly, State and Federal courts still had the authority to deport Chinese resident aliens. President Chester Arthur passed it on May 6, 1882. Such a devastating act was a culmination of hatred towards Chinese people that had been brewing since the California Gold Rush. During the California Gold Rush, Chinese people had an affinity for striking gold. Jealousy from white miners pushed them towards cities like San Francisco where they started businesses (Yuning Wu).

The Chinese men were not made welcome at all; upon arriving in California, many of the Chinese men became gold miners. However, the local white people would assault and run the Chinese off plots of lands. The white people did not like the idea of having more competition and and would violently drive the Chinese competition out. One such example was in the spring of 1852; sixty white miners rode along the shore of the American River and assaulted two hundred Chinese men who shared a claim at Mormon Bar and then rode further down river to Horseshoe Bar, where they attacked another four hundred Chinese miners

About four decades later, nativist ideals were fixated on the Chinese, primarily in the West. Common prejudices were that the Chinese were ignorant, dirty and disease infested, and were taking the American-workers wages, as they were willing to work for less. The political cartoon to the right is titled,

California, along with the rest of the country, has an unfortunate history of racism towards people of Asian ancestry in the twentieth century. In 1906, Asian children

For instance, Joe R. Feagin states, “By the early 1900s agricultural and industrial expansion created an increased demand for low-wage labor in the Southwest. White employers recruited large numbers of Mexican Laborers for farms and factories, with federal assistance [...] employers and their allies in government have sought Mexican workers to do low-wage agricultural; and manufacturing jobs, even as growing numbers of political groups have agitated against such immigrants. By bringing in large numbers of Mexican workers, employers have helped to change the U.S. demographic and political landscape in often dramatic ways” (Page 242). Latino migration was often very common; workers would stay for a few years, and then go back to their country with more money than they could have made in their country of origin. Like African Americans and Native Americans, they were seen different and discriminated against. Furthermore, Asian Americans have come to the United States in waves, at different times, and for different reasons. For example, like Latino Americans, Asians also came to the United States by employers to use their labor and later Asians began to immigrate to America because of the Gold

The need to compete for possessions, jobs, and status causes people to feel animosity towards other ethnic groups. For example, during the 1800’s the Chinese occupied many of the jobs building railroads; this made the Anglo-Americans angry, they felt as if the Chinese were taking over the job market. In turn, this led the Chinese to become “victims of open discrimination and hostility”. Although the Chinese were already barred from schools and the court system, the Anglo-Americans felt that the Chinese