The Chinese Exclusion Act: your guide to the 19th-century US anti-immigration laws

In the late 19th century, rising anti-Chinese prejudice paved the way for one of the most controversial laws in US history. Danny Bird explains how the legislation was passed and why its legacy is still felt today

By Danny Bird

Published: Thursday, 11 May 2023 at 12:00 am

What was the Chinese Exclusion Act?

The Chinese Exclusion Act was a federal law passed by the United States Congress that received approval from President Chester A Arthur on 6 May 1882. It was the only piece of legislation in US history to ban members of a specific nationality from entry to the country.

The law explicitly prohibited the immigration of “both skilled and unskilled laborers” from China for 10 years, although exceptions were made for those in the diplomatic service, academia and trade.

However, an amendment to the act, two years later, extended the ban to Chinese citizens of all nations, and blocked resident Chinese people from re-entry to the US should they travel abroad.

What impact did Chinese immigration have on the United States?

The discovery of gold in California in 1848 led to a frenzy that attracted fortune seekers across North America and drew many Chinese people over the Pacific. Their proclivity for extracting gold rankled white prospectors, who regarded them as interlopers and forced them onto less lucrative gold fields.

Later, the completion of the Central Pacific Railroad (the western section of the first transcontinental railroad) depended heavily on Chinese labour. Against the prevailing anti-Chinese sentiment within California, the overseer of the project, Charles Crocker, recruited Chinese labourers after insufficient takeup by white workers. At the height of construction, up to 20,000 Chinese immigrants were involved, representing approximately 90 per cent of the total workforce.

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Despite their contributions to the project, no Chinese workers are visible in this iconic image of labourers celebrating the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 (Photo by Gado/Getty Images)

Despite being paid meagre salaries and forced to fund their own sustenance, they toiled through some of the route’s trickiest sections – such as the Sierra Nevada Mountains – and regularly put their lives at risk. In 1869, a crew mostly comprising Chinese workers laid a record-breaking 10 miles of track in a single day.

Why did anti-Chinese sentiment gain a footing?

The late 1860s and early 1870s were a time of economic struggle in the US, triggered by the turmoil of the American Civil War. With a need for new workers, the Burlingame Treaty of 1868 lifted virtually all restrictions on Chinese immigration – with the western US being their main destination.

However, anti-Chinese hostility in California quickly reached boiling point, with white and Hispanic communities viewing the newer arrivals with suspicion – not least their tendency to accept work for lower wages. These tensions exploded on 24 October 1871, with the lynching of 18 Chinese people in Los Angeles at the hands of a 500-strong mob.

Anti-Chinese hostility in California quickly reached boiling point, with white and Hispanic communities viewing the newer arrivals with suspicion – not least their tendency to accept work for lower wages

Almost four years later, Congress passed the Page Act, which effectively barred east Asian women from entering the US on ‘immorality’ grounds. This, combined with the president of the American Medical Association’s opinion that Chinese sex workers were the main culprits in outbreaks of syphilis, deepened the idea that curbing Chinese immigration was necessary for public health.

As the economy stumbled, white labour leaders and politicians began openly blaming the Chinese population and demonising Chinatowns in major cities as dens of iniquity and vice. Prospective candidates within both the Republican and Democratic parties also started to adopt specifically anti-Chinese platforms in a bid to woo the electorate.

Which figures were instrumental in getting the act passed?

Prominent California labour leaders like Denis Kearney constantly berated Chinese workers in both their writings and their speeches. In one address, in 1878, he described them as “whipped curs, abject in docility, mean, contemptible and obedient in all things”. Overall, Kearney and his followers believed that the willingness of Chinese workers to accept low salaries and toil in dreadful conditions was putting them in direct competition with their white counterparts and depressing wages for all.

However, one of the biggest names in getting the act passed was the California senator John F Miller, who entered office in 1881. A former Union Army general during the Civil War, Miller seized upon the anti-Chinese prejudice from the outset of his political career, sponsoring discriminatory measures within his state prior to the national ban.

During a debate on the proposed legislation, Miller made his overtly racist views plain when he distinguished the “superiority” of white men like Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln against “all the Chinese who have lived, and struggled, and died”.

What were the consequences of the act?

According to census figures, the total Chinese population of the US dropped from 105,465 in 1880 to just 61,639 in 1920. Bans on re-entering the country tore families apart and forced many people to return home for good, while anti-Chinese sentiment flared up into violence and even massacres – most notoriously at Rock Springs, Wyoming, in 1885 and Hells Canyon, Oregon, in 1887.

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A Chinese butcher poses for a photograph outside his San Francisco shop in the mid-1880s (Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

Despite the hostility they faced, several Chinese immigrants took the US government to court and won cases that found the law to be unconstitutional, while others circumvented it and gained entry to the US illegally.

What is the legacy of the Chinese Exclusion Act today?

Four years after the act was passed, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated in New York Harbor – a symbol of America’s self-image as a land of welcome and opportunity that stood in stark contrast to the legislation that had transformed it into an exclusionary one.

The 1892 Geary Act – which obligated Chinese residents to carry papers – extended the ban by another 10 years, before being made indefinite in 1904. A raft of additional measures that aspired to limit immigrants from across eastern and southern Asia soon followed.

Four years after the act was passed, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated in New York Harbor – a symbol of America’s self-image as a land of welcome and opportunity

Nativist ideology continued to direct US immigration policy well into the 20th century, and it wasn’t until 1943 that the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed by the Magnuson Act. Chinese nationals were now able to apply for naturalised US citizenship, although a quota allowing just 105 new Chinese immigrants into the country each year was adopted.

This aspect of the system wasn’t abolished until the Immigration and Nationality Act was passed in 1965. In the early 2010s, Congress formally expressed its regret for the anti-Chinese laws of the 19th and 20th centuries, but the nativist legacy of the period that produced them remains a potent force in US politics. More recently, the ongoing tensions between Washington and Beijing in 2023 attest to a chequered past defined by mutual suspicion.

This article was first published in the April 2023 issue of BBC History Revealed