Chinese Exclusion Act 22 Stat. 58 (1882)
CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT 22 Stat. 58 (1882)
Although Chinese immigration to California probably raised both wages and living standards of white laborers, economic, political, and cultural arguments were adduced against the foreigners. Assimilation was said to be impossible: the Chinese were gamblers, opium smokers, and generally inferior. Anti-Chinese feeling became the hub for many political issues, and agitation for legislation increased. Senator John Miller of California contended that failure to enact exclusion would "empty the teeming, seething slave pens of China upon the soil of California." Although most of the nation was indifferent, opposition to exclusion was weak and disorganized; Congress thus passed its first exclusion law in 1882. The act prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the United States for ten years, although resident aliens might return after a temporary absence. Nonlaboring Chinese would be admitted only upon presentation of a certificate from the Chinese government attesting their right to come. Other sections provided for deportation of illegal immigrants and prohibited state or federal courts from admitting Chinese to citizenship. Further exclusion acts or amendments passed Congress—eleven by 1902. The most important of these were the Scott Act of 1888 prohibiting the return of any departing Chinese and the Geary Act of 1892 which extended the 1882 law.
(See chae chan ping v. united states.)
David Gordon
(1986)