Chinese+Exclusion+Acts

=**Chinese Exclusion Acts**= In the 1850s, Chinese workers migrated to the United States, first to work in the gold mines, but also to take agricultural jobs, and factory work. Chinese immigrants became important in building railroads in the American west, and when Chinese laborers grew successful in the United States, a number of them became entrepreneurs. They were encouraged to emigrate because of the need for cheap labor, and were employed largely in the building of transcontinental railroads. By 1867 there were some 50,000 Chinese in California, most of them manual laborers.

Their numbers continued to increase after the conclusion in 1868 of the Burlingame Treaty with China, which guaranteed the right of Chinese immigration it did not, however, grant the right of naturalization. As the numbers of Chinese laborers increased, so did anti-Chinese sentiment among other workers in the American economy. In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was also signed by President Chester A. Arthur. The Chinese Exclusion Act  prevented all  Chinese  immigration specifically, and it was renewed in 1892 after it expired. In 1902, the Chinese Exclusion act  was renewed again, this time for an indefinite period. Both pieces of legislation were passed in response to the idea that Asian immigrants posed a threat to American society. Along the West Coast especially, Asians had been seeking their fortunes since the mid 1800s. Some of these immigrants worked hard to achieve their goals, but they were still unable to become citizens or own land. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the nation's first law to ban immigration by race or nationality. All Chinese people--except travelers, merchants, teachers, students, and those born in the United States--were barred from entering the country. Federal law prohibited Chinese residents, no matter how long they had legally worked in the United States, from becoming naturalized citizens. From 1850 to 1865, political and religious rebellions within China left 30 million dead and the country's economy in a state of collapse. Meanwhile, the canning, timber, mining, and railroad industries on the United State's West Coast needed workers. Chinese business owners also wanted immigrants to staff their laundries, restaurants, and small factories.

The Geary Act, passed in 1892, required Chinese aliens to carry a residence certificate with them at all times upon penalty of deportation. Immigration officials and police officers conducted spot checks in canneries, mines, and lodging houses and demanded that every Chinese person show these residence certificates. In China, merchants responded to the humiliation of the exclusion acts by organizing an anti-American boycott in 1905. Though the movement was not sanctioned by the Chinese government. It received unofficial support in the early months. President Theodore Roosevelt recognized the boycott as a response to unfair American treatment of Chinese immigrants, but with American prestige at stake he called for the Chinese government to suppress it. The Chinese Exclusion Acts were not repealed until 1943, and then only in the interests of aiding the morale of a wartime ally during World War II.



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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act

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