11/22/2007

The Chinese American experience, with its trials and triumphs, comes to mind every December 17, the anniversary of the 1943 repeal by Congress of the Chinese Exclusion Act of May 6, 1882. With only a few exceptions, this law barred any Chinese from immigrating to the United States, and marked the first time U.S. immigration policy singled out citizens of a particular nation for wholesale discrimination. 

This dark period in U.S. history was born out of the widely held belief that the Chinese were incapable of “assimilation” into American society. Nevertheless, despite more than 60 years of systematic disenfranchisement, Chinese continued to migrate to the United States because it remained a country where they could find employment and fulfill many of their dreams.

Today, the United States is experiencing a period of sizable immigration from China. According to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), 664,812 Chinese immigrated to the United States from 1990 through 2000. Chinese and other Asian immigrants are now often called the “Model Minority” because their children quickly attain relatively high levels of education (21.6 percent of Chinese Americans had a bachelors degree in 1990 vs. 13.1 percent of the total U.S. population) and relatively high incomes (the median income of Chinese Americans was $41,316 in 1989 vs. $35,225 for the total U.S. population).  

Even so, new challenges face the Chinese community as it seeks to expand its involvement in the American political process and to assist large numbers of new immigrants to integrate into U.S. society. In addition, the problems associated with human smugglers, or “snakeheads,” have grown to serious proportions. While the Chinese community has made great strides in overcoming racial discrimination and poverty over the decades, obstacles remain.

There are records of Chinese immigrants in California as early as 1815, and Chinese students were brought by missionaries to Massachusetts for schooling in 1847. However, the first large wave of Chinese immigration to the United States began during the California gold rush in 1848. The immigrants themselves referred to the United States as the “Golden Mountain.” In the years that followed, the Chinese - especially those coming from the Canton area of south China - worked in mining, construction, and the building of the intercontinental railroad. By the 1870s there were over 63,000 Chinese immigrants in the country. Although most lived in California, many had moved eastward into cities such as New York.

However, the United States suffered through a depression in the 1870s that was particularly severe in California. This economic downturn fed strong anti-Chinese attitudes that sometimes turned violent. The Chinese were willing to work for lower wages than “whites” and were more reluctant to unionize, which led U.S. labor leaders to label them “cheap working slaves.” The result was virulent resentment. White Americans claimed the Chinese were stealing their jobs and draining the United States of gold by sending much of their earnings back to relatives in China. 

Congress was pressured to investigate these claims and by 1880 the U.S. government bowed to anti-Chinese sentiments and signed a treaty with China permitting the United States to limit, but not completely prohibit, Chinese immigration.  In 1882 there were 110,000 Chinese in the country. Congress claimed that “the coming of Chinese laborers to this country endangers the good order of certain localities” and on December 17, 1882, passed the first Chinese Exclusion Act. 

The new law halted all immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years and prohibited Chinese already residing in the United States from obtaining citizenship. The 1882 Act was renewed in 1892 and made permanent in 1902. The Immigration Act of 1917 expanded the prohibition against immigrant laborers to nearly all Asian countries, including the Middle East and India, creating “an Asiatic barred zone.”