Myths of American History: Part 5

We think of America as a nation of immigrants. A place where people from all over the world were welcomed with open arms.

This is one of the most pernicious myths of American history.

The treatment received by the Chinese in America is remarkable not merely for its rabid racial hatred but that most people are unaware of it.

Chinese immigration to the United States began in the early 19th century. Most were labourers who worked on the transcontinental railroad and the mining industry. Though employers were eager to get this new and cheap labor, the danger of the “yellow peril” was continuously expounded by political parties, labor unions, and other organizations.

Newspapers condemned the policies of employers, and even church leaders denounced the entrance of these aliens into what was regarded as a land for whites only. So hostile was the opposition last that in 1882 the U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act   which prohibited immigration from China for the next ten years. This law was extended by the Geary Act in 1892.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was the only U.S. law to prevent immigration and naturalization on the basis of race.

These laws brought additional suffering as they prevented the reunion of the families of thousands of Chinese men already living in America that had left China without their wives and children.

In 1924 legislation barred further entries of Chinese. All Asians, save those from the Philippines, (which had been annexed by the United States in 1898), were denied citizenship and naturalization, and prevented from marrying Caucasians or owning land.

Only since the 1940s when the US and China became allies during World War II, did the situation for Chinese Americans begin to improve, as restrictions on entry into the country, naturalization and mixed marriage were being lessened.

In 1943, Chinese immigration to the U.S. was once again permitted — by way of the Magnuson Act — thereby repealing 61 years of official racial discrimination against the Chinese. Large scale Chinese immigration did not occur until 1965 when the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 lifted national origin quotas.

The first Chinese immigrants arrived in 1820 according to U.S. government records, but there were fewer than 1,000 before the 1848 California Gold Rush which drew the first significant number of laborers from China who mined for gold and performed menial labor. There were 25,000 immigrants by 1852, and 105,465 by 1880, most of whom lived on the West Coast. Most of the early immigrants were young males with low educational levels from the Guangdong province.