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The Immigration Act Of 1882

Decent Essays

With the founding of the United States government, many Americans have expressed a variety of attitudes towards those who differ from the majority culture. Furthermore, as can be seen throughout America 's history, one can pull many example of how Americans have acted towards the "other". For instance, "many Americans began to fear that the immigrants had been coming faster than they could become good Americans and be made part of American life" which provides a way of seeing how Americans felt about those traveling into the country at that time. Moreover, these attitudes towards different types of cultures were placed into policy making, religions, and languages that differed from the majority. Throughout the nineteenth century, many of the policies that were passed were formed on the idea of trying to keep the "other" from increasing into the majority. In fact, during the year 1882, the United States government allowed two major immigration laws to be passed, "the Immigration Act of 1882, a series of laws have been passed prohibiting the bringing over immigrants under contract to labor" . Additionally, the "Chinese Exclusion Act required the few non laborers who sought entry to obtain certification from the Chinese government... but this group found it increasingly difficult to prove that they were not laborers because the 1882 act defined excludables as ' skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining '" . Moreover, those policies may provide some

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