No more Chinese people?!?!

On May 8, 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress and signed by Chester A. Arthur, who was the president during that time.  This Act would ban the immigration of native Chinese and re-entry into the United States.  This means that not only are Chinese people from China banned from coming to the States, but also those from the States who left and sought to come back were also affected by this law.  This part of the law made it difficult for Chinese men to see their families both in China and America; they could go to China to visit family, but would risk not coming back to America to their settled families.  The only ones who were not affected by this Act were the non-laborers, which consisted of a small population of Chinese immigrants.  But this doesn’t mean that they were allowed in so easily.  The few non-laborers had to get certification from the Chinese government, but this was difficult to prove since the majority of Chinese immigrants were skilled/unskilled laborers or miners.

In addition to excluding laborers, Federal and State courts were not allowed to grant citizenship to Chinese residents, making them aliens for a long time.  Initially, the Act was supposed to be in effect for 10 years, but it was later extended, and eventually made permanent until the Magnuson Act of 1943 repealed it.  The Chinese Exclusion Act was significant because it was the first Federal Law that stopped the immigration of an ethnic group.

The Act was legalized solely because these immigrant Chinese were viewed as competition in the job market.  They took on the hard labor jobs in huge projects such as the Transcontinental Railroad and the Gold Rush in California.  The increasing numbers of Chinese immigrants were willing to accept the small amount of pay for their day’s work (which was about $32.50 per month, in contrast to the $52 paid to white workers), but other non-Chinese laborers (which consisted of American, Irish, and Russian miners) were affected by this. The stiff competition of these laborers gave industrialists a reason to lower wages and keep conditions poor; if the workers complained on the job, they could just fire them, and hire a Chinese laborer.  The Chinese did not object to this obvious act of injustice, and they also didn’t show any protest when the Act was passed (even though they didn’t like the Act very much).  The wages they earned in the States were more than what they earned back home, so at least they got some money at the price of civil rights.

 

Posted by Natasha Rivero