Restrictions on Chinese Immigration
What were the major ways in which Chinese immigration was restricted, and how did most Americans view the Chinese during this period?
Earlier, the federal government had encouraged Chinese immigration to the U.S. with the Burlingame Treaty with China in 1868. However, just over ten years later, the U.S. government turned around with the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882.(1) President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act, ceasing Chinese immigration to the U.S. for ten years and forbidding the Chinese to become American citizens. In 1884, the Chinese Exclusion Act was amended to make it harder for the Chinese people who had previously worked in the U.S. to return back to the country. The Exclusion Act did not become permanent until 1902.(2)
|
Support for anti-Chinese legislation was national and widespread. Especially in the American West, Americans believed that the Chinese were the leading cause of unemployment and economic issues in the United States and looked down upon them.(3) The anti-Chinese groups formed the Workingmen's Party of California and were led by Denis Kearney. The Workingmen's Party of California's main goal was to prevent Chinese immigration and employment because there was high competition for jobs that whites desired. The party believed that wealthy Chinese business owners in San Francisco used Chinese labor to lower wages and take advantage of white workers.(4) Denis Kearney, the leader of the Workingmen’s Party of California, was Irish, and his supporters led an anti-Chinese riot. In comparison to Chinese workers, Irish laborers had more freedom and were much better off legally. Irish workers felt competition from the Chinese workers because the Chinese were able to execute their low-paying jobs with greater skills than the Irish, and they often used the slogan, "Chinese Must Go!"(5) In one meeting of the Workingmen’s Party of California, Denis Kearney stated, “We intend to try and vote the Chinaman out, to frighten him out, and if this won't do, we will kill him out… We are going to arm ourselves to the teeth… The heathen slaves must leave this country if it costs 10,000 lives.”(6)
|
Soon, these ideas were spreading, and politicians began taking on racist views and making plans that were anti-Chinese. Throughout the mid-1880's the anti-Chinese movement became more violent. For example, in 1885, the growing tension escalated when white vigilantes attacked the Chinese community in Rock Springs, Wyoming, killing and driving away many Chinese people. All throughout California, unemployed white workers violently protested against the Chinese by beating and shooting them, and even piling them onto trains to force them to leave.(7)
|
The racial characteristics that had earlier been used to describe blacks and Indians were now qualities that were associated with the Chinese. Firstly, “the racial imagination of white society” compared the characteristics of the Chinese and blacks.(8) The Chinese were portrayed as wild and uncivilized, heathen, and lecherous, and were believed to threaten the purity of the white race.(9) The San Francisco Chronicle associated the Chinese “coolie” with the African American slave: “When the coolie arrives here he is as rigidly under the control of the contractor who brought him as ever an African slave was under his master in South Carolina or Louisiana.”(10) Furthermore, like the Indians, the Chinese were socially inferior to whites and were under federal government control, and some believed that the Chinese should be assigned to reservations, just like what the Indians experienced previously.(11) Many believed that “the winning of the West from the ‘red man’ would be in vain, if whites were now to surrender the conquered land to a ‘horde of Chinese.’”(12)
The fears among many Americans also extended deeper than race. The removal of the Chinese through the Chinese Exclusion Act not only was an effort to eliminate problems that whites believed they were inflicting on their lives, but it also symbolized the need to relieve the tensions present in white society. Americans sensed that the Chinese played a major role in labor strikes and causing large-scale chaos, exacerbating the conflict between the classes of white labor and white capital in American society. The social strife in American society played a large role in anti-Chinese views.(13)
However, the contribution of Chinese labor was essential to the industrial development of America, especially in California, as thousands of Chinese factory laborers worked tirelessly even at lower wages compared to the wages of white men. Therefore, American solution to these social and racial problems while also maintaining industry growth was to “reduce the Chinese into a permanently degraded caste-labor force: they would be in effect a unique, transnational industrial reserve army of migrant laborers forced to be foreigners forever.”(14) The Chinese would serve the industrial production needs of the country and nothing more. Chinese employers like railroad executive Charles Crocker forced their Chinese workers to return to China after working for a certain period of time in America, as other Chinese workers would then come to replace them. This constant coming and leaving would become an ongoing cycle for the Chinese, making them “strangers” to America for their whole lives. The difference and separation in the workforce according to race led to greater hostility and resentment toward the Chinese. Due to anti-Chinese legislation and ongoing racial antagonism, the Chinese population diminished from 105,465 in 1880 to 89,863 in 1900 to 61,639 in 1920.(15)
The fears among many Americans also extended deeper than race. The removal of the Chinese through the Chinese Exclusion Act not only was an effort to eliminate problems that whites believed they were inflicting on their lives, but it also symbolized the need to relieve the tensions present in white society. Americans sensed that the Chinese played a major role in labor strikes and causing large-scale chaos, exacerbating the conflict between the classes of white labor and white capital in American society. The social strife in American society played a large role in anti-Chinese views.(13)
However, the contribution of Chinese labor was essential to the industrial development of America, especially in California, as thousands of Chinese factory laborers worked tirelessly even at lower wages compared to the wages of white men. Therefore, American solution to these social and racial problems while also maintaining industry growth was to “reduce the Chinese into a permanently degraded caste-labor force: they would be in effect a unique, transnational industrial reserve army of migrant laborers forced to be foreigners forever.”(14) The Chinese would serve the industrial production needs of the country and nothing more. Chinese employers like railroad executive Charles Crocker forced their Chinese workers to return to China after working for a certain period of time in America, as other Chinese workers would then come to replace them. This constant coming and leaving would become an ongoing cycle for the Chinese, making them “strangers” to America for their whole lives. The difference and separation in the workforce according to race led to greater hostility and resentment toward the Chinese. Due to anti-Chinese legislation and ongoing racial antagonism, the Chinese population diminished from 105,465 in 1880 to 89,863 in 1900 to 61,639 in 1920.(15)