The Chinese in California, 1850-1925
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Twentieth-Century Immigration Restrictions
A convention meeting in San Francisco in 1901 to discuss the re-enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Act addressed the President and Congress in a pamphlet For the re-enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Law. After providing a brief history of Chinese exclusion legislation, the pamphlet argues for the re-enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Act, reiterating the dangers of a supposed Chinese slave trade and labor competition. To these familiar complaints, the committee added the following arguments:
". . . during their long residence but few intermarriages have taken place, and the offspring has been invariably degenerate. It is well established that the issue of the Caucasian and the Mongolian do not possess the virtues of either, but develop the vices of both. So physical assimilation is out of the question. . . . The purpose, no doubt, for enacting the exclusion laws for periods of ten years is due to the intention of Congress of observing the progress of those people under American institutions, and now it has been clearly demonstrated that they cannot, for the deep and ineradicable reasons of race and mental organization, assimilate with our own people, and be moulded as are other races into strong and composite American stock.
Civilization in Europe has been frequently attacked and imperiled by the barbaric hordes of Asia. If the little band of Greeks at Marathon had not beaten back ten times their number of Asiatic invaders, it is impossible to estimate the loss of civilization that would have ensued. . . . But a peaceful invasion is more dangerous than a warlike attack. We can meet and defend ourselves against an open foe, but an insidious foe, under our generous laws, would be in possession of the citadel before we were aware. The free immigration of Chinese would be for all purposes an invasion by Asiatic barbarians against whom civilization in Europe, fortunately for us, has been frequently defended. It is our inheritance to keep it pure and uncontaminated, as it is our purpose and destiny to broaden and enlarge it. We are trustees for mankind. "
For the re-enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Law, pages 4-5 and 8-9
- What reasons does the committee give for re-enacting the Chinese Exclusion Act?
- What are the similarities and differences between the committee's arguments and the arguments people made for Chinese exclusion in the late-nineteenth century?
- What might the differences between these earlier and later arguments suggest?
The racism pervading the committee's pamphlet was the keynote for early-twentieth-century immigration policy, which sought to exclude not only the Chinese, but Japanese, Korean, and Asian Indians as well. Browse items listed under the Subject Index heading, Anti-Chinese Movement & Chinese Exclusion for texts published in the twentieth century, such as Oriental immigration on the Pacific Coast and the Senate's 1916 debate on a bill to regulate Asian immigration and residency. During the debate, James Phelan, Junior Senator from California, argues that it is necessary to protect the U.S. from Asian immigration including restrictions on Japanese immigrants.
- Why did the Senators from California and Oregon want further restrictions on Asian immigration?
- What were "picture brides"? Upon what grounds did Senator Phelan seek to restrict their immigration?
- Why were some senators opposed to the bill?
- Why do you think that the State Department asked Congress to pay close attention to the bill's use of language?
- What are the similarities between the discussion of this bill and the pamphlet, For the re-enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Law?
Some items express opposition to the exclusive immigration laws of the twentieth century. The 1902 pamphlet, Truth versus Fiction; Justice versus Prejudice... opposes the re-enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Law, while the attorney for the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Oliver Stidger, discusses the injustices of the 1924 Immigration Law in "Highlights on Exclusion and Expulsion."
- What myths are exposed in the introduction of Truth versus Fiction; Justice versus Prejudice...?
- What accusations does the pamphlet make against labor unions?
- What appeal do the writers of this pamphlet make?
- What point does the cartoon at the beginning of the pamphlet make?
Many of the immigrants who were allowed into the United States in the twentieth century came through immigration facilities on San Francisco Bay's Angel Island. The facilities were built in 1910 when China boycotted U.S. imports to protest the wretched conditions that immigrants found at the original facilities located in an old warehouse in San Francisco. Although the new facilities were an improvement, the Chinese who claimed a right to enter the United States as wives or children of residents were interrogated and detained there from several days to up to two years.
Search on Angel Island for photographs of the facilities, correspondence regarding Angel Island detainees, and a collection of poems, folk ballads, and songs reflecting the ordeal of being detained on Angel Island. Angel Island: The Ellis Island of the West, published in 1917 by The Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society, takes the reader on a tour of the immigration facilities and the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Asian Indians (Hindus) being held there:
"Passing back through the dining-room, we climb the long, broad stairway that leads up to the two-story Chinese Detention Building for the men. Sometimes there are two or three hundred men and boys up here. Some are mere boys of twelve or so, the sons of San Francisco Chinese merchants, or the alleged 'sons,' whose real status it is the perplexing task of the United States Government to determine. When we were in the main room of the Administration Building, we noticed that a railed-off section held a number of Chinese. They were witnesses, come to testify in some of the Chinese cases that are decided here."
- What is the overall message of the Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society's publication?
- Why do you think the organization created this publication?
- What is the tone of this publication? How does it portray Angel Island?
- Why do you think that the experience of being detained at Angel Island would have given rise to expressions of despair such as those contained in the Gold Mountain Ballads?
Use the Subject Index heading, Immigrants — United States — Portraits, to access photographs of Chinese who came to the United States in the twentieth century. For more information on U.S. immigration as well as interactive activities, see the Learning Page Feature, Immigration. For information on the Japanese immigration experience, see the American Memory collection, "Suffering Under a Great Injustice": Ansel Adams's Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar and its Collection Connections.