The Chinese Exclusion Example: Race, Immigration, and American Gatekeeping, 1882-1924
Author(s): Erika Lee
Source: Journal of American Ethnic History, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Spring, 2002), pp. 36-62
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the Immigration & Ethnic History
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The Chinese
Exclusion Example:
and American
Race, Immigration,
1882-1924
Gatekeeping,
ERIKA LEE
a San Francisco
IN 1876, H. N. CLEMENT,
California
State Senate Committee
and sounded
lawyer, stood before a
the alarm: "The Chi
nese
are upon us. How can we get rid of them? The Chinese
are com
can
we
cries and portrayals
stop them?"1 Clement's
ing. How
panicked
as
an
were
of Chinese
"unarmed
invasion"
shared by
evil,
immigration
several witnesses
before the committee which was charged with investi
the "social, moral,
like Clement's
Testimony
gating
and political
effects" of Chinese
was designed
to reach a broad
immigration.2
and
audience,
were part of a calculated
political
of Chinese
Their ef
immigration.3
the committee
themselves
hearings
to
nationalize
the
attempt
question
forts proved
successful
when
the United
Chinese
Exclusion
States
Congress
on 6 May
Act
the
passed
the immi
1882. This law prohibited
a
for
gration
period of ten years and barred all
Chinese
from
naturalized
the class
immigrants
citizenship. Demonstrating
bias in the law, merchants,
and
teachers,
students,
travelers,
diplomats
were exempt from exclusion.4
of Chinese
Historians
"watershed"
laborers
have
often
in United
restrictive
significant
group of immigrants
shape twentieth-century
This observation
has
Chinese
movement,
sion have focused
noted
United
become
States
a
Act marks
race-based
the standard
immigration
of
interpretation
accounts
of Chinese
policy.5
the anti
exclu
movement
than on the almost
only a few scholars
the meanings
of this watershed
and
and
American
groups
immigrant
immigration
explore
Exclusion
Not
but until recently, most
more
on the anti-Chinese
Act
Exclusion
rather
era
exclusion
itself.6 Moreover,
Chinese
that the Chinese
history.
only was it the country's first
was
it
also the first to restrict a
law;
immigration
on
race
based
their
and class, and it thus helped to
States
preceding
six decades
of
the
the
have begun to fully
for other
its consequences
law in general.7 Numerous
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Lee
37
remain: How
questions
restriction
and
racialization
with
did
exclusion
of Chinese
the effort
of
other
as excludable
to exclude
immigrant
aliens
Chinese
groups?
contribute
influence
How
did
and
the
the
intersect
of other Asian,
southern and eastern European,
How
did
the
Chinese
Exclusion
Act itself set
immigrants?
the racialization
and Mexican
for the admission,
documentation,
significant
deportation,
precedents
of both new arrivals and immigrant communities
within
and surveillance
theUnited States?
What
becomes
as a "watershed"
of Chinese
is that the real significance
exclusion
as one of the
is thus much greater than its importance
clear
first
laws and its significance
for legal doctrine. Certainly,
immigration
sus
contract
the Page Law (which excluded Asian
labor and women
of
and
the
Exclusion
Act
the
Chinese
provided
pected
being prostitutes)
Ameri
legal architecture
structuring and influencing
twentieth-century
can
ex
It is my argument, however,
that Chinese
immigration
policy.8
clusion also introduced a "gatekeeping"
and
cul
law,
ideology, politics,
ture that transformed
the ways
in which Americans
viewed
and thought
about race, immigration,
and the United
States'
identity as a nation of
It legalized
and reinforced
the need to restrict, exclude,
immigration.
It established
and deport "undesirable"
and excludable
Chi
immigrants.
nese immigrants?categorized
by their race, class, and gender relations
as the ultimate
the models
category of undesirable
immigrants?as
by
which
to measure
the desirability
of other immigrant
(and "whiteness")
an ex
not
the
Chinese
exclusion
laws
groups. Lastly,
only provided
and undesirable
excludable,
ample of how to contain other threatening,
set
in
it
motion
also
the
and the
government
foreigners,
procedures
machinery
required to regulate and control both foreigners
to
in the United
and
and citizens
States.
arriving
foreigners
residing
to the United
Precursors
States Immigration
and Naturalization
Service,
United
States passports,
and
deporta
"green cards," illegal immigration
bureaucratic
can all be traced back to the Chinese Exclusion
tion policies
Act itself.
In the end, Chinese
not
exclusion
the
immi
transformed
Chinese
only
it forever changed America's
grant and Chinese American
community;
relationship
to immigration
in general.
CHINESE EXCLUSION AND THE ORIGINS OF AMERICAN
GATEKEEPING
to describe
of "gates" and "gatekeepers"
to
efforts
control
became
government's
immigration
The metaphor
States
the United
inscribed
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
in
Journal of American
38
national
conversations
Ethnic History
/ Spring 2002
immigration
during the twentieth century.
and
have recently written
about
range
journalists
at
the
the
"clamor
the
"the
the
gate,"
gates,"
"guarding
gatekeepers,"
the gate," etc.9 Perhaps
the best known
and
"guarded gate," "closing
most recent use of the term is the United
States Immigration
and Natu
A wide
of
a militarized
effort initiated
Operation
Gatekeeper,
the illegal entry of Mexican
into the
immigrants
near San Diego,
California.10
Although
journalists,
ralization
Service's
in 1994
to restrict
United
States
about
scholars
and academics use the gatekeeping metaphor widely,
there
policymakers,
has been little serious inquiry into how the United
States has come to
define
both
itself as a gatekeeping
nation or what that has actually
immigrants and the nation in the past and present.
meant
for
and historicizing
America's
tradition clearly
gatekeeping
in
West
Chinese
the
American
immigration
during the late
While
nineteenth
Andrew
has
century.
Gyory
persuasively
argued that
movement
the adoption of the anti-Chinese
by national partisan politi
Defining
begins with
led to the actual passage
in the 1870s
cians
was
in California
first began to talk about
in the arguments
Explicit
that would
of the Chinese
that politicians
"closing America's
for Chinese
Exclusion
Act
and anti-Chinese
in 1882, it
activists
gates" for the first time.11
exclusion were
several elements
of American
ideology:
gatekeeping
as
and
alien, threatening,
racializing
immigrants
permanently
and
aberrant
inferior on the basis of their race, culture,
labor,
gender
the danger they represented
relations; containing
by limiting economic
as well
as barring
and geographical
them from naturalized
mobility
become
the foundation
Chinese
through local, state, and federal laws and action; and lastly,
the nation from both further immigrant
incursions
and dan
citizenship
protecting
in the United
States by using the power of
gerous
already
immigrants
the state to legalize
the modes
and processes
of exclusion,
restriction,
and
surveillance,
deportation.12
the exclusion
Through
claimed
cians effectively
and
to assert American
movement,
the right
national
regional and national politi
to speak for the rest of the country
in the name of Chinese
sovereignty
both
that it was
less than the duty and the
nothing
argued
to do so for the good of
of
and
Americans
Californians
sovereign
right
testified at
the country. H. N. Clement,
the San Francisco
lawyer who
the 1876 hearings,
the themes of racial difference,
combined
explicitly
to ar
the closed gate/closed
door metaphor,
and national
sovereignty
exclusion.
ticulate
They
this philosophy.
"Have we any right to close our doors against
and open them to another?" he asked. "Has the Caucasian
one nation
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39
Lee
race any better right
answers to the above
to occupy
His
this country than the Mongolian?"
an emphatic "Yes." Citing contem
law, Clement
argued that the greatest
were
questions
porary treatises on international
fundamental
right of every nation was
nese immigration
question was nothing
and
survival
secure
future.
"A nation
self-preservation,
less than a battle
and
the Chi
for America's
a right to do everything
that can
is
and to keep at a distance whatever
has
it from
threatening
danger
its ruin," he continued. We have a great right to say
capable of causing
to the half-civilized
"You shall not come at all."13
subject from Asia,
the con
exclusion
The federal case supporting Chinese
only reinforced
and
the
restriction
nection between
sovereign rights of na
immigration
In 1889, the United
im
States Supreme Court described Chinese
as
as
in
us"
"a
"vast
hordes
of
and
upon
crowding
migrants
people
...
race
to [America's]
different
peace and security."14 The
dangerous
the right of the federal government
nation's highest court thus affirmed
to exclude Chinese,
and by doing so, it also established
the legal and
constitutional
for federal immigration
and exclu
foundation
restriction
tions.
sion based
Building
has
policy
variables.15
on national
sovereignty.
and making
and enforcing United
States immigration
involved
several
and
concerns,
always
overlapping
goals,
on
have been excluded
and restricted
the basis
Immigrants
gates
of their race, ethnicity,
class, gender,
sexuality, moral
standing, health,
and political
other
Some
of
these justifica
factors.
affiliation,
among
tions for exclusion
and restriction were more
important during certain
historical
and overlapped
periods than others. But they often intersected
with
each
and
other, working
separately
not
but
regulate
only foreign immigration,
relations
within
the
United
States.
gender
of exerting
social control
primary means
in concert
with
each
to
other
also domestic
and
race, class,
In turn, gatekeeping
became
over immigrant
communities
a
and protecting
the American
nation at large. Immigrant
laborers who
men were
a threat to American
sum
considered
white working
on
the
excluded
basis
of
class.
General
restriction
marily
laws?espe
cially those targeting immigrants suspected of immoral behavior or "likely
were
to become
female
charges"?affected
immigrants
disproportion
were
and
disease
and
contained,
monitored,
ately. Immigrant
sexuality
as
to
immi
well.
Efforts
exclude
excluded
through immigration
policy
to the United
grant groups on the basis of their alleged health menace
States
and
public
constituted
the diseases
racialized
what
Alan
considered
assumptions
about
Kraut
has
most
dangerous
specific
called
immigrant
"medicalized
nativism,"
were
tied
explicitly
Homosexuals
groups.16
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to
40
Journal of American
Ethnic History
/ Spring 2002
were
in 1917 under clauses
denied entry beginning
in general
immigra
tion laws related to morality
and the barring of "constitutional
psycho
a crucial role in distin
inferiors."17 Race
consistently
pathic
played
immi
between
and "excludable"
"desirable,"
"undesirable,"
guishing
a
to establish
In doing
for
framework
so, gatekeeping
grants.
helped
race and racial
understanding
the existing
reproduced
gates have historically
mained
closed to others.
Understanding
vides a powerful
which
celebrates
and reflected,
and
reinforced,
categories
in the country.18 Thus, America's
racial hierarchy
been open only to some, while
they have re
the racialized
pro
origins of American
gatekeeping
to the popular "immigrant paradigm,"
States as a "nation of immigrants"
and
counter-narrative
the United
as a fulfillment
of the "promise of American
democ
immigration
As
critics
of the
have
this
out,
many
racy."
pointed
popular conception
racism in exclud
nation ignores the very real power of institutionalized
views
and other people of color from full and equal participa
ing immigrants
tion in the American
and polity. Explicitly
barred
economy,
society,
not
fit
do
into
the
from the country, Asian
easily
immigrant
immigrants
the
and instead, offer a different narrative highlighting
paradigm mold,
some of the
Instead of considering
democracy.19
as
or cul
traditional questions
of immigration
assimilation
history such
a gatekeeping
to under
tural retention,
framework
shifts our attention
limits
of American
and consequences
of immigration restriction, exclu
standing the meanings
for
both
communities.
and
and
sion,
deportation
immigrant
non-immigrant
as
a
the United
States
nation"
thus
Reconceptualizing
"gatekeeping
an
immi
for
Asian
and
suitable
framework
Mexican
especially
provides
two groups which have not only been among the largest immi
in the West
in the twentieth
century, but have also
grant populations
new
It does not, how
caused the most debate and inspired
regulation.20
grants,
exclude European or other immigrants nor does it func
ever, necessarily
The restrictionist
tion only in periods of intense nativism.
ideology first
came
to
to
other immi
be
extended
established with Asian
immigrants
as
eastern
Europeans,
grant groups,
they became
including southern and
in a
functioned
racialized as threats to the nation. In theWest, whiteness
sentiment away
way that deflected much of the racialized anti-immigrant
their
from southern and eastern European
and
nationally,
immigrants,
more
and
from
the
harsh
them
whiteness
exclusionary
depor
protected
II
in the pre-World War
and Mexicans
tation laws that targeted Asians
once built, the "gates" of immigration
period.21 Nevertheless,
to admit,
established
the bureaucratic machinery
and procedures
law and
examine,
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Lee
41
deny,
deport,
and naturalize
have
immigrants
in the twentieth century.
become
extended
to all
groups
and the new
Gatekeeping
immigrant
it entailed also served
immigration
legislation
to American
state
often
important?though
ignored?impetus
at
the
the
In
end
of
nineteenth
the
United
States, the
building
century.22
of Asian, Europeans,
and Mexicans
from the 1880s to
great migrations
as an
1924
coincided
administrative
with
and helped
instigate
an expansion
of the modern
state. The
restriction,
exclusion,
regulation,
inspection,
and deportation
of immigrants
of a state ap
required the establishment
to enforce the immigration
laws and to exercise
paratus and bureaucracy
control over its geographical
borders as well as its internal
and national membership.
of citizenship
immigra
Immigrants,
were profoundly
tion patterns, and immigrant communities
affected by
in which
the new laws and the ways
they were enforced. The ideology
the state's
borders
and
administrative
processes
criminalized
of
dehumanized
gatekeeping
them as "unassimilable
aliens,"
"diseased,"
"illegal." But even
and
"un
immigrants,
defining
those
invasions," "undesirables,"
nego
groups who were most affected played active roles in challenging,
nation through their interaction
tiating, and shaping the new gatekeeping
welcome
to the growth and cen
and the state. Related
officials
immigration
was also inextricably
tralization of the administrative
state, gatekeeping
at the end of the
tied to the expansion
of United
States
imperialism
with
to
States began
century. At the same time that the United
to
its national
its
unwanted
gates
sovereignty
by closing
foreign
it was also expanding
its influence
abroad through military
and
nineteenth
assert
ers,
economic
some of its immigration
laws to its new
force, and extended
For example,
in 1898
the
annexation
of
Hawaii
following
Exclusion
laws
and the end of the Spanish-American
the
Chinese
war,
were extended
to both Hawaii
and the Philippines.23
territories.
the construction
of America's
and closing
Lastly,
in the formation
"alien invasions" was
instrumental
gates to various
of the nation itself
a definition
in articulating
of American
national
Americans
learned to define American-ness,
belonging.24
identity
uct and result of Chinese
had?and
continues
exclusion,
on
influence
found
groups,
twentieth-century
immigrant
to have?pro
and
and
by excluding,
and containing
Likewise,
foreign-ness.
through the admis^
controlling,
its
States both asserted
of foreigners,
the United
sion and exclusion
a
as
a
and
nation.
reinforced
its
prod
Gatekeeping,
sovereignty
identity
patterns,
immigration
control,
and American
national
immigration
identity.
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42
Journal of American
Ethnic History
/ Spring 2002
THE EXAMPLE OF CHINESE EXCLUSION: RACE AND
RACIALIZATION
One of the most
of Chinese
exclusion was
consequences
significant
a gatekeeping
that by establishing
and
administration,
ideology, politics,
a powerful framework,
it provided
and set of tools to be used to
model,
and further racialize other threatening,
and unde
understand
excludable,
sirable
aliens.
exclude
other
Soon
calls to restrict or
excluded,
and
the
rhetoric
and strat
quickly,
important lessons from the anti-Chinese
after the Chinese
followed
were
immigrants
egy of these later campaigns drew
movement.
the class-based
For example,
the Chinese
Exclusion
Act were echoed
in
and restrictions
arguments
to bar con
in later campaigns
Mink has shown, southern and
tract laborers of any race. As Gwendolyn
eastern European
Chinese?were
immigrants?like
serfs, and slaves."25 The Democratic
the old anti-Chinese
explicit and blended
lies,
ized racial nativism
success
of Chinese
denounced
as "coo
the connections
party made
rhetoric into a more general
in its 1884 campaign handbook.
the Democrats
exclusion,
pointed
the great
Recalling
to a new danger:
on the Pacific
If it became necessary to protect the American workingmen
slope from the disastrous and debasing competition of Coolie labor, the
same argument now applies with equal force and pertinency to the impor
tation of pauper labor from southern Europe.26
In 1885, the Foran
Such connections
and arguments were
significant.
Act prohibited
the immigration
of all contract laborers.27
The gender-based
exclusions
of the 1875 Page Act were also dupli
cated in later government
attempts to screen out immigrants,
especially
to be immoral or guilty of sexual mis
who were perceived
women,
of Chinese prostitutes
deeds. The exclusion
led to a more general exclu
a larger
in the 1903 Immigration Act.28 Signifying
sion of all prostitutes
concern
was a moral problem,
that independent
female migration
other
were
the
of
laws
restricted
who
entry
immigrants
"likely to
immigration
a "crime involving moral
become public charges" or who had committed
has pointed out, such general exclu
turpitude."29 As Donna Gabbaccia
sion laws were
In practice, however,
"any
theoretically
"gender-neutral."
or
woman
of
marital
status,
any
age,
background
might
unaccompanied
as a potential public charge. Clauses
in the 1891 Immi
be questioned"
on
women
Act
excluded
moral
Sexual
misdeeds
such
gration
grounds.
were
as adultery, fornication,
all
and illegitimate
pregnancy
grounds for
exclusion.
Lastly,
echoes
of the "unwelcome
invasion"
of Chinese
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and
43
Lee
were
immigration
Japanese
birthrates
of
southern
high
Immigrant fecundity,
the Anglo-American
it was
heard
in nativist
rhetoric
and eastern
claimed,
European
cause
would
focusing
on
the
families.
immigrant
the "race suicide"
of
race.30
Race clearly intersected with such class and gender-based
arguments
to play perhaps the largest role in defining
and continued
and categoriz
to admit or exclude. The arguments
and
immigrant groups
ing which
lessons
of Chinese
exclusion
were
resurrected
over
and over
again dur
from Asia, Mexico,
ing the nativist debates over the "new" immigrants
and southern and eastern Europe,
further refining and consolidating
the
In many ways,
racialization
of these groups.
Chinese
immigrants?
racialized
to measure
as the ultimate
undesirable
alien?became
the desirability
of these new immigrants.
and James Barrett have suggested
that the racialization
the model
by which
David
Roediger
of certain immi
the racial vocabulary
which described
Ital
grant groups, and especially
as
as
were
ians
in
racialized
"guinea" and Slavic
immigrants
"hunky"
relation to African Americans
in the realms of labor and citizenship.31
I suggest
that in terms of immigration
the new
restriction,
eastern
from
and
southern
and
other
parts
immigrants
Europe, Mexico,
of Asia were more closely racialized along the Chinese
immigrant model,
However,
in the Pacific Coast states. There, immigration
and whiteness
especially
were defined most clearly in opposition
or "yellowness."32
to Asian-ness
The persistent use of the metaphor
of the closed gate combined with the
rhetoric
of "unwelcome
invasions" most
clearly reveals the difference.
the nation as slaves could
into
Americans,
originally
brought
never really be "sent back" despite their alleged
inferiority and threat to
the nation. Segregation
and Jim Crow
aimed at
legislation was mostly
"in their place." Chinese, who were racialized
keeping African Americans
African
to "Americans"
that positioned
them as polar opposites
also
were
not
in
did
the
United
States
and
themselves
often
clearly
belong
to blacks. But unlike African Americans,
compared
they could be kept
at bay through immigration
restriction. Thus,
laws served
immigration
as the gates that had to be closed against the immigrant
an
invasion;
in ways
in relation to southern and eastern European
and Mexi
argument made
can immigrants, but never applied to African Americans.
As early twentieth-century
nativist
literature and organization
records
restriction and exclusion was quickly
illustrate, the language of Chinese
to apply to succeeding
refashioned
groups of immigrants. These connec
to
clear
and nativ
intellectuals,
contemporary
tions?though
politicians,
not been made forcefully
ists?have
historians.
enough by immigration
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44
Journal of American
Ethnic History
/ Spring 2002
the intellectual
Reflecting
segregation within
immigration
history, many
have
from Asians
and
the study of European
separated
immigrants
"different"
and
John
Latinos,
citing
experiences
Higham,
problems.33
the leading authority of American
nativism
claimed
that the anti-Asian
were
movements
"historically
tangential" to the main currents of Ameri
Edith Abbott, who authored one of the first comprehen
can nativism.
of immigration,
immi
argued that "the study of European
not
for
it
be
the
student
with
complicated
by confusing
gration
the very different problems
of Chinese
and Japanese
Carl
immigration."
a founder of the field, devoted much
to
considered
attention
Wittke,
sive
studies
should
in his important
but
survey of American
immigration
history,
was
in
that
their
"a
brief
and
interlude
the
strange
argued
history
general
to America."34
account of the great migrations
As many have pointed
Asians
intellectual
within
is a
out, continued
segregation
history
immigration
In the case of exclusion,
fruitless endeavor.35
and immigra
restriction,
nativism was not only directly
tion law, it is now clear that anti-Asian
was
but
in
for American
fact the dominant model
nativist
connected,
in the early twentieth century.
and politics
the
exclusion
of Chinese,
Americans
Following
new
alarmed
with
became
increasingly
immigration
ideology
on
the West
Coast
from Asia, particu
the new im
portrayed
larly from
and India. Californians
Japan, Korea,
as yet another "Oriental
news
and San Francisco
invasion,"
once
more
to
to
to
readers
the
front
and
battle
hold
papers urged
"step
the Pacific Coast for the white
before
race."36 Like the Chinese
them,
to be threats due to
these new Asian
immigrants were also considered
migration
their race and their labor. The Japanese were especially
feared, because
in agriculture
of their great success
and their tendency to settle and start
in the United
to the Chinese who were
families
States (as compared
The
and cultural ideology
that came to be
mostly
sojourners).
political
in the anti-Japanese
movement
the new
used
connected
immediately
Japanese
threat with
the old Chinese
one. Headlines
in San Francisco
in the Immigration
from Asia"
newspapers
phase
that the "Japanese
the
Chinese."
the
Place
of
and warned
[were] Taking
similar charges of being unassimilable
and exploitable
Moreover,
cheap
the Japanese were
labor were made against the Japanese. And because
even more "tricky and unscrupulous"
as well as more "ag
supposedly
talked
gressive
and warlike"
of "Another
even "more
than the Chinese,
they were considered
the connections
leaders made
explicit. Denis
Political
objectionable."37
the charismatic
Kearney,
the anti-Chinese
headed
leader of theWorkingmen's
movement
in San Francisco
spear
party which
during the 1870s,
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Lee
45
the Chinese
found
other. A
to be synonymous
to each
"problems"
in
recorded
1892
the
reporter
Kearney
berating
are
to
another
of
breed
Asiatic
slaves
[who]
rushing
and Japanese
Sacramento
"foreign Shylocks
fill up the gap made vacant by the Chinese who are shut out by our
laws ... Japs ... are being brought here now in countless
to
numbers
our domestic
demoralize
and discourage
labor market." Kearney mus
ingly ended his speech with "The Japs Must Go!"?a
highly original
revision of his "the Chinese Must Go!" rallying cry from the 1870s.38 In
of San Francisco
the Chi
1901, James D. Phelan, mayor
spearheaded
nese
Exclusion
Convention
"For Home,
Country,
United
States Senate
of
1901
under
it around
and centered
and Civilization."
the slogan,
Later,
"Stop
the theme
in 1920 he ran for the
the Silent
Japanese).39
The small population
of Asian
Indian immigrants
also
of nativists, who regarded them as the "most objectionable
Invasion"
(of
felt the wrath
of all Orien
States.40 In 1905, the San Francisco-based
Japanese
Korean Exclusion
renamed
itself the Asiatic
Exclusion
League
League
in an attempt to meet the new threat. Newspapers
of "Hindu
complained
tals" in the United
Hordes"
to the United
States.
Indians were
"dirty, diseased,"
.. and
a citizen.
not fit to become
immigrant...
States." Their employment
entirely foreign to the people of the United
as
by "moneyed
capitalists"
expendable
cheap labor and India's large
with
millions
of emaciated
upon millions
population
"teeming
sickly
coming
"the worst
type
of
also hearkened
back to the charges
existing on starvation wages"
of a cheap labor invasion made
immi
Chinese
and
against
Japanese
Hindus
grants.41
Likewise,
ferred back
Mexican
following
tion was
the racialized
to Chinese
1920s, Mexican
and many
nativism,
charges
cultural
had
immigrants
as racial
classified
targets
immigrants were
long-standing
of the arguments directed towards Mexicans
lobbied
at the Chinese.
of Chinese
understanding
nativists'
established,
a
crucial
role
played
long been
and Mexicans
As Mae
of Mexican
also
re
inferiors,
Long
immigration.
as
often
served
laborers
immigrants
agricultural
replacement
the exclusion
of Asian
their
immigra
immigrants.42 Although
largely protected by agricultural and industrial employers
through
the
earlier
definitions
of
racial
echoed
Because
the legal, political,
and
as
permanent
immigrants
foreigners
between Chinese
direct connections
in racializing
as foreign.
Mexi
characterizing
Mexicans
Ngai has shown for the post-1924
period,
cans as foreign, rather than the natives of what used to be their former
and
"distanced
them both from Anglo-Americans
homeland,
culturally
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46
Journal of American
from
Ethnic History
as a region" and made
as "illegal."43
Mexicans
it easier
the Southwest
and criminalize
Nativists
used
the Chinese
on the basis
foreign
unassimilability.
framework
George
Department
Agricultural
to whites
inferior
cially
to restrict,
to characterize
of two main
/ Spring 2002
deport,
as
Mexicans
racial
and racial
arguments:
inferiority
P. Clemens,
the head of the Los Angeles
County
were
ra
that Asians
and Mexicans
explained
because
they were physically
highly suitable for
were
the degraded agricultural
labor in which
often
The
they
employed.
due to their
tasks involved were those "which the Oriental
and Mexican
crouching and bending habits
to adapt himself
cally unable
are fully adapted, while
the white
to them."44 While
Chinese were
to be biologically
inferior
to
assimilate
alleged
inability
ered
were
to their status as heathens
due
is physi
consid
and their
in an Anglo-American
mold, Mexicans
"hybrid race" of Spanish and Indian ori
as an ignorant
degraded
invasion of
increased, fears of a foreign
immigration
gin.45 As Mexican
one
to
the
unassimilable
laborers
similar
Chinese
cheap,
rippled through
out the nativist
literature. Major Frederick Russell Burnham warned
that
"the whole
Pacific
for the Exclusion
Coast would
Acts.
in blood
have been Asiatic
Our whole
Southwest
will
today except
be racially Mexican
is placed upon them."46
in three generations unless some similar restriction
(Burnham, of course, conveniently
ignored the fact that the Southwest?
as well
as most
of the American
West?had
already been "racially
west.) V.S. McClatchy,
long before he himself had migrated
introduction of
editor of the Sacramento
Bee warned
that the "wholesale
Mexican"
Mexican
peons" presented
Increased Mexican
California's
"most
serious
problem"
in the
to Texas was especially
contested,
migration
to
the
of
there explicitly
California
and
pointed
example
to
to
allude
their
state's
future.
"To
Mexicanize
immigration
1920s.47
and nativists
Chinese
or Orientalize
Texas
H. Rowell
is a crime," raged one nativist.48 Chester
that the Mexican
invasion was even more detrimental
California
argued
at least the "Chinese
coolie"?"the
ideal
than the Chinese
one, because
not "plague us with his progeny. His wife
and
human mule"?would
children are in China, and he returns there himself when we no longer
or easy to
he argued, might not be so compliant
need him." Mexicans,
send back.49
The
between
comparisons
extended
the Chinese
Chinese
and Mexicans
continued.
Other
racial unassimilability
argument to Mexi
cans by claiming
that they "can no more blend into our race than can the
or the Negro."50 Anti-Mexican
nativists
issued a
Chinaman
increasingly
nativists
call for restriction
by explicitly
framing
the new Mexican
immigration
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47
Lee
exclusion.
the old argument for Chinese
Railing
against
problem within
Burnham
the need for cheap Mexican
blamed the immigra
labor, Major
the
of the 1920s just as Denis Kearney
had blamed
tion promoters
the 1870s. "It is the old
and their "Chinese
pets" during
capitalists
an
of
the
word
for
word!" wrote Burnham.
Chinese
echo
stuff,
[18]70s,
that
laws?and
Burnham
also
viewed
Moreover,
immigration
specifi
measures
used against
the Chi
cally the same types of exclusionary
remedy: "Let us refuse cheap labor. Let us restrict
and go steadily on to prosperity
and wealth
just as
immigration
were
In
did after the Asiatic
Exclusion
Acts
many nativ
passed."51
nese?were
the only
Mexican
we
the image of Mexicans
merged with that of the biologically
and
inferior, unassimilable,
immigrant.
threatening Chinese
At the same time, some of the race and class based
and
theories
ists' minds,
used
arguments
certain European
against
Asians
and Mexicans
were
to
being
applied
in the Northeast
immigrant groups as well, especially
first landed and
States, where most European
immigrants
settled. As John Higham
and Matthew
Jacobson
have shown, a
Frye
sense of "absolute difference"
which
already divided white Americans
ern United
to certain European
from people
of color was
nationalities.
extended
Because
distinctive
differences
between
native
white
Ameri
physical
cans and European
ists "manufactured"
immigrants were
racial difference.
not
readily apparent, racial nativ
Boston
like Nathaniel
intellectuals
an elabo
all promoted
and Francis Walker
Shaler, Henry Cabot Lodge,
as
rate set of racial ideas that marked
southern and eastern Europeans
different
and
Immigration
In response
inferior,
Restriction
a threat to the nation.
A new
nativist
group, the
in 1894.52
League,
(IRL) was formed in Boston
to the increase in immigration
from southern and eastern
to
nativists
elaborate upon this new
and
began
identify
Europe, many
threat. In many ways,
between
they began to make direct connections
and the established
the "new" European
Asian
threat. Both
immigrants
inferior to Anglo-Saxons,
and their use as cheap
groups were
racially
labor
threatened
ians and French
native-born
Canadians
Both
Ital
Anglo-American
workingmen.
were explicitly
to
immi
Chinese
compared
given the dubious honor of being called the
grants. Italians were even
and French Canadians were
of Europe"
labeled the "Chinese
"Chinese
States." As Donna Gabaccia
has argued, Chinese
and
of the Eastern
an ambiguous,
and
Italians "occupied
position
overlapping
intermediary
in the binary racial schema." Neither
black nor white, both were seen as
"olive," or "swarthy." Their use as cheap
inbetween?"yellow,"
Italians were often called "European
also linked the two together.
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labor
coo
Journal of American
48
Ethnic History
/ Spring 2002
lies" or "padrone coolies." The large-scale migration
of Italians to other
countries also prompted
similar versions of invasion rhetoric used against
the Chinese. An Australian
restrictionist
argued in 1891 that the country
was
"in danger of the Chinese
of Europe flowing
into our shores."53
were
to
Canadians
Chinese
due to their
compared
immigrants
norms. An 1881 Mas
to Anglo-American
inability to assimilate
alleged
French
state agency report charged that French Canadians were
the
care
our
for
the Eastern
States" because
"they
nothing
..
a home among us, to dwell
institutions..
They do not come to make
to sojourn a few years as
with us as citizens....
Their purpose
ismerely
sachusetts
"Chinese
aliens."54
of
In 1891, Henry
grants?another
to make,
since
threatening
they appear
that the Slovak
immi
opined
a
us
not
for
group?"are
good acquisition
to have so many
items in common with the
Cabot
Lodge
another leading nativist, went even fur
Stoddard,
Lothrop
were not only "like the Chi
that
Eastern
Europeans
arguing
were
in
Eastern
fact
Asian.
nese;" they
part
Europe, he explained, was
situated "next door" to Asia, and had already been invaded by "Asiatic
Chinese."55
ther by
hordes" over the past two thousand years. As a result, the Slavic peoples
were mongrels,
"all impregnated with Asiatic Mongol
and Turki blood."56
race and class-based
to Chinese
connections
Such explicit
immigra
in defining
and articulating
nativists'
tion were effective
problems with
exclusion
rhetoric was one with
The old Chinese
immigrants.
were familiar by the 1910s, and it served as a strong
Americans
on the national
to build new nativist arguments
from which
foundation
newer
which
level. The
Restriction
League used this tactic masterfully.
Immigration
In a 1908 letter to labor unions,
the organization
affirmed
that Chinese
was
was "only
the
ultimate
that
the
Orient
but
warned
evil,
immigration
one source of the foreign cheap labor which
so
competes
ruinously with
our own workmen,"
grants from Europe
The
IRL charged
and Western
Asia
that the stream
of other
immi
was "beginning
to flow,"
and
measures
as
to
it
the
check
would
did
coolie
"swell,
it,
proper
one laboring community
after another."57
labor, until it overwhelms
the IRL defined the issues and political
In another letter to politicians,
without
even more clearly. The letter asked congressmen
and senators
positions
across the country to identify the "classes of persons" who were desired
and not desired in their state. The IRL made
this task simple by offering
deemed
"desirable"
and
them pre-set
lists of groups
themselves
they
The politicians
"undesirable."
needed only to check the groups in order
In the "desired"
of preference.
native born"
"Americans,
categories,
came second. British,
topped the list. "Persons from northern Europe"
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Lee
49
In contrast, Asi
[sic], and Germans were also included.
and
Eastern
and
the
atics,
illiterates,
Europeans,
generic "for
all lumped together
in the second
list of supposed
eign born" were
and excludable
unwanted
immigrants.58 The IRL could make no clearer
Scandanavians
Southern
statement:
the new
threat from Europe
and the old threat from Asia were
one.
and dynamics
of race relations and
regional politics
of whiteness,
about
the connections
be
divergent
opinions
new
one
tween the old Asian
the
and
problem
European
immigration
existed on the West Coast. On the one hand, the danger posed by the
Due
to different
definitions
two groups was
connected
and fed off of each other. The
explicitly
virulent anti-Asian
broadened
"America
campaigns
appeals to preserve
was
for all Americans"
and called into question
who
and
who was
just
not a "real American."
The San Francisco-based
Asiatic Exclusion
League
a
to the country
and passed
in order to prevent
insurrec
that all aliens were
implied
dangerous
that aliens should be disarmed
resolution
tion. Other
nativists
in California
immi
fears of the degraded
expressed
gration entering the country from both Asia and Europe.59 Homer Lea,
of the "Yellow
for example,
the author and leading proponent
Peril"
of America,
that the growing
of Japanese domination
warned
from
the
Europe augmented
immigration
Japanese danger by "sapping
America's
racial strength and unity."60 The California
branch of the
theory
Junior Order United
allied
themselves
with
American
Mechanics,
the Asiatic Exclusion
a long-lived
nativist group,
and
that
announced
League
southern Europeans were semi-Mongolian.61
On the other hand, demonstrating
the importance of regional dynam
ics in the continuing
consolidation
of the construction
of whiteness,
some West Coast nativists made very careful distinctions
between
clos
ing America's
a continuation
tier," Western
people of color.
In
gates to Asians while
leaving them open to Europeans.
a
to preserve
of the West's
"white man's
fron
campaign
at the expense
nativists
of
tended to privilege whiteness
many of the leading nativists were Euro
Significantly,
or
first
American
Denis
themselves.62
pean
immigrants
generation
an
was
leader
of
the
anti-Chinese
Irish
Party
Kearney,
Workingmen's
was
leader of the anti-Japanese movement,
immigrant. James D. Phelan,
In the multi-racial
of
Irish American.
the claims to and privileges
West,
whiteness
curred
were
the
important. The
1901 Chinese
oc
best expression
of this sentiment
an
event
Exclusion
Convention,
orga
of Chinese
exclusion
immigrants. While
during
to lobby for the permanent
attendees
rallied around the convention
nized
theme
of protecting
the Ameri
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Journal of American
50
can
"home,
country,
an open-door
fended
impassioned
can himself)
tion, declared
and
civilization,"
towards
policy
speech, A.
/ Spring 2002
keynote
speakers
strongly de
In an
all European
immigrants.
Sbarboro,
(an Italian
of the Manufacturers'
president
that in California:
Ethnic History
immigrant/Italian
and Producers'
Ameri
Associa
want the Englishman, who brings with him capital, industry and
enterprise; the Irish who build and populate our cities; the Frenchmen,
with his vivacity and love of liberty; the industrious and thrifty Italians,
come with poetry and
who cultivate the fruit, olives, and vines?who
music from the classic land of Virgil, the Teutonic race, strong, patient,
and frugal; the Swedes, Slavs, and Belgians; we want all good people
from all parts of Europe. To these, Mr. Chairman, we should never close
We
our doors, for although when the European immigrant lands at Castle
Garden he may be uncouth and with little money, yet soon by his thrift
and industry he improves his condition; he becomes a worthy citizen and
the children who bless him mingle with the children of those who came
before him, and when the country calls they are always ready and willing
to defend the flag to follow the stars and stripes throughout the world.63
Sbarboro, by explicitly
including Italians and Slavs, indeed, all immi
all
of
from
parts
Europe, with the older stock of immigrants from
grants
and Belgium,
made clear that the difference
France, Sweden, Germany,
was not among European
but between Euro
nationalities,
race
in the white
in
this
Asian
case,
pean and,
immigrants. Membership
was tantamount. The southern and eastern European might
arrive at the
he
but they were
nation's
assimilable,
ports as poor and "uncouth,"
to be made
explained.
condition"
The
his
of the United
States would
"improve
a "worthy citizen." Lest doubts still remained
Sbarboro refined his assimilation
argument to point
environment
and make
him
among his audience,
to the second generation.
He explained
children would mingle with native-born
that the European
children
American
immigrant's
and in learn
such
become
citizenship,
they would
ing the true ideals of American
homeland
the
defend
that
their
beloved
would
throughout
patriots,
they
same
do
the
Chinese
would
The belief
that second-generation
world.
was
unimaginable.
These distinctions
from
southern
creasing
country
about
important. The debates
were
and
Mexico
Asia,
Europe,
Chinese
immigration,
concerning
immigration
clearly con
and an in
debates
across the
of politicians,
Americans
and
policy makers,
to
doors open to
Sbarbaro's
keep America's
disregarded
pleas
to earlier
nected
were
and eastern
number
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51
Lee
on
people from all parts of Europe" and supported restrictions
eastern
Sbarboro's
Europe. Nevertheless,
immigration from southern and
to
to differentiate
from Asians
attempts
pointed
European
immigrants
"all good
in the ways
in which European, Asian,
and Mexi
significant distinctions
can immigrants were racially constructed
and regulated by immigration
came in much
law. First, southern and eastern European
immigrants
than did the Chinese,
and their whiteness
secured them
greater numbers
the right of naturalized
nied naturalization
by
de
while Asians were consistently
citizenship,
law and in the courts.64 This claim and privilege
gave European
immigrants more access to and opportuni
in the larger American
ties of full participation
and
economy,
polity,
were
were
restricted,
they
society. Although
they
eventually
greatly
never excluded
as Mae Ngai has shown, the
like Asians.
For example,
of whiteness
Act
Immigration
to Europeans?a
the invented category
of "national ori
applied
a
classification
that
shared
whiteness
gins"
presumed
from
with white Americans
them
and which
non-Europeans.
separated
... for
immi
The Act thus established
the "legal foundations
European
Americans."
Chinese,
grants [to] becom[e]
Japanese, Korean,
Filipino
as "aliens ineligible
to citi
and Asian
Indian immigrants were codified
1924
zenship."65
Mexican
pean
differed from both southern and eastern Euro
immigration
on a range of issues. First was Mexico's
and Asian
immigration
to the United
States
proximity
Mexico
border which facilitated
As historians
even
and the relatively
porous United
to
and
from
the United
migration
were
have
considered
shown, Mexican
immigrants
"safe" from mainstream
nativism
States
States.
treated differently,
to their status as
due
to be "birds of passage,"
return
residents and their propensity
season ended, and thus, not settling in the
after the agricultural
own contentious
States permanently.66 Mexico's
history with the
States
States and the "legacy of conquest"
also colored United
long-term
ing home
United
United
Mexican
can
relations, racialized Mexicans
American
immigrant and Mexican
as inferiors,
life within
and structured Mexi
the United
States
in
In the post
that contrasted
ways
sharply with other immigrant groups.
as "illegal," an all-encom
1924 period, Mexicans
would be categorized
not
which
racial
any claim of belonging
category
only negated
passing
to
in a conquered
immi
but
also
extended
both Mexican
homeland,
Americans.67
grants and Mexican
differences
These
significant
to shape both immigration
and immigrant
life in distinct ways for these groups. Still, the
regulation
rhetoric and tools of gatekeeping,
first established
exclusion,
by Chinese
functioned
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Journal of American
52
were
Ethnic History
/ Spring 2002
in defining
the issues for all groups and set important
for
Race, gender, and class
precedents
twentieth-century
immigration.
based arguments were used to categorize Asian,
southern and eastern
as
and Mexican
and even
inferior, undesirable,
immigrants
European,
instrumental
to the United
States. Each group held its own unique position
dangerous
within
the hierarchy of race and immigration,
but all eventually
became
an
to
to
law
limit
and
their
immigration
ideology
designed
subjected
into the United
entry
By
only
States.
the early twentieth
in relation
sounded
Thomas
general.
century, the call to "close the gates" was not
to Chinese
in
but to immigration
immigration,
and
former
the
editor
of
Atlantic
Aldrich,
poet
Bailey
to the new
from southern and eastern Eu
immigrants
in 1892 by publishing
"The Unguarded
rope arriving in Boston
Gates,"
... accents
a poem demonizing
the new arrivals as a "wild motley
throng
alien to our air."68 Just as H. N. Clement
of menace
had suggested
in 1876, Madison
Grant,
"closing the doors" against Chinese
immigration
the well-known
nativist and leader of the Immigration Restriction
League
reacted
Monthly
called
the flood gates" against
for "closing
in 1914.69 At
and eastern Europe
southern
the "new
immigration"
time, Frank
the same
from
Julian
another nativist
that unregulated
Warne,
leader, warned
immigration
from Europe was akin to "throwing open wide our gates to all the races
of the world."70
solution, all agreed,
lay in immigration
policy,
were
to increase the control
of federal
laws
passed
The
and
threatening
a literacy
quired
and regulation
immigrants.
Immigration Act of 1917
test for all adult immigrants,
restrictions
tightened
The
inferior
and as a concession
to politicians
radicals,
suspected
a newly-erected
denied entry to aliens living within
this zone
called the "Asiatic Barred Zone." With
States
Malay
effectively
excluded
all immigrants
States, Arabia,
Afghanistan,
Islands.71 The 1921 and
Polynesian
restricted
and a succession
of
re
on
on the West
Coast,
area
geographical
in place,
the United
from
India, Burma, Siam, the
of
and most
of the
Russia,
part
1924 Immigration Acts drastically
from southern and eastern Europe and perfected
immigration
and
the exclusion
of all Asians,
except for Filipinos.72 Although
Filipino
from
the
1924
Mexican
remained
Act, Filipinos
exempt
immigration
were
in 1934.73 Both Filipinos
and Mexicans
faced massive
excluded
deportation
the 1930s,
and repatriation programs
By
during the Great Depression.
the cycle that had begun with Chinese
exclusion was made
complete.74
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Lee
53
THE EXAMPLE OF CHINESE EXCLUSION:
REGULATION
IMMIGRATION
out of Chinese
that developed
of race and immigration
structure
to
the
which
other
provided
ideological
immigrant
Ex
and racialized.
The passage
of the Chinese
groups were compared
in drastic changes
in immigration
clusion Act also ushered
regulation
The
concepts
exclusion
itself and set the foundation
for twentieth-century
policies
and processing
of newly-arriving
only for the inspection
but also for the control
designed
not
immigrants,
of potentially
dangerous
immigrants
already in
in immi
the country. Written
into the act itself were five major changes
means
All
of
would
become
standard
gration
regulation.
inspecting,
in
and deporting
admitting,
processing,
tracking, punishing,
immigrants
the United
Act
for the
laid the foundation
First, the Exclusion
of the country's first federal immigrant
While
inspectors.
until 1894 and did not
of Immigration was not established
States.
establishment
the Bureau
gain jurisdiction
tors for Chinese
Customs
over
Service)
on behalf
the Chinese
exclusion
laws until
(under the auspices
immigrants
were
the first to be authorized
of the federal government.75
the 1875 Page Law and the Chinese Exclusion
officials
neither a trained force of government
officials
with
bureaucratic
which
female
1903, the inspec
the United
States
to act as immigration
Prior to the passage
of
Act
in 1882,
there was
interpreters nor the
the new law. As George
of the Page Law first estab
and
to enforce
machinery
Peffer has illustrated, enforcement
Anthony
lished the role of the United
States collector
Chinese
of
of customs
as examiner
of
an
and their documents,
passengers
thereby establishing
often overlooked?prototype
for immigration
legis
important?though
lation and inspection.76
Sections four and eight of the Chinese Exclusion
Act
extended
the duties
of these officials
all arriving Chinese.
Inspectors were
the United
Chinese
laborers departing
Second,
the federal
the enforcement
to include
the examination
also required to examine
States as well.77
of the Chinese
Exclusion
of
and clear
laws set inmotion
first attempts to identify and record the move
government's
of immigrants,
and
financial
ments,
returning
relationships
occupations,
of the
Because
of
the complexity
citizens.
and
native-born
residents,
were
Chinese
that
laws and immigration
officials'
attempting
suspicions
to enter
the country
under
en
the government's
pretenses,
an elaborate
tracking system of registra
fraudulent
involved
practices
of
tion documents,
certificates
forcement
identity,
and voluminous
interviews
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of
54
Journal of American
individuals
and their families.78
Section
Ethnic History
/ Spring 2002
four of the Exclusion
Act
estab
lished "certificates
of registration"
for departing
laborers. Such certifi
cates were to contain the name, age, occupation,
last place of residence,
and facts of identification
of the Chinese
laborer.
personal description,
This
information
was
also recorded
in the customs-house.
re-enter
the United
The
and the delivering
the [docu
upon producing
of customs." The laborer's return certificate
is the
document
to an immigrant
group by the federal
as an equivalent
passport facilitating
re-entry
remained
the only immigrant group required
issued
and it served
government,
into the country. Chinese
to hold
such
re-entry permits
Immigration Act of that year
mits for other aliens.79
As
other
established
scholars
until 1924, when
the new
(or passports)
issued?but
did not require?reentry
per
have
for Chinese
class Chinese
exempt
to be kept
registry-books
to
the holder
"return and
States
to the collector
ment]
first reentry
in specific
certificate
entitled
out, the documentary
pointed
requirements
women
under the Page Law and
emigrating
travel
students,
teachers, diplomats,
(merchants,
under the exclusion
laws also set in motion
ers) applying for admission
an "early version ofthat
system of 'remote control'
involving passports
and visas" in which United
States consular officials
in China and Hong
the admissibility
of immigrants
prior to their departure
Act of 1882 placed
States. While
the original Exclusion
in the hands of Chinese
this responsibility
officials
alone,
government
an 1884 amendment
United
States
officers
the
task
of
gave
diplomatic
Kong verified
for the United
verifying
the facts
so that the
so-called
"section
six
certificates"
re
could be considered
evi
quired of exempt class Chinese
"prima facie
dence of right of re-entry."80
in an effort to crack down on illegal entry and residence,
Eventually,
to require all Chinese
the Chinese
Exclusion
laws were amended
resi
in the country to possess
"certificates
of residence"
and
already
"certificates
of identity" that served as proof of their legal entry and
to documents
lawful right to remain in the country. These precursors
now commonly
known as "green cards," were first outlined
in the 1892
dents
which
Amendment,
Geary Act and 1893 McCreary
required Chinese
laborers to register with
the federal government.
The resulting
certifi
cates of residence
the name, age, local residence
contained
and occupa
as the act noted),
as well
as a
tion of the applicant
(or "Chinaman"
laborer
photograph.
Any Chinese
a certificate
United
States without
adjudged
to be unlawfully
found within
of residence
in the United
States,"
the jurisdiction
of the
to be "deemed and
was
and vulnerable
to arrest
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55
Lee
of
The Bureau
and deportation.81
a similar
to demand
authority
Immigration
of
"certificate
used
its administrative
identity" for all exempt
merchants,
teachers, travelers, students, and others begin
in 1909. While
the Bureau believed
that such certificates
would
class Chinese
ning
serve as "indubitable
for legal
of legal entry" and thus, protection
it
and residents,
also subjected
all non-laborer
Chinese?
immigrants
to be exempt from the exclusion
laws?to
the same
who were supposed
of
and
surveillance
Chinese
laborers.
system
registration
governing
Ap
of an existing
the plan was an extension
system of registration
parently,
for Chinese
used
immigrants
lawful residence
were
"green
The
ments
main
not
until
to new
issued
eventually
cards")
issuance
from Hawaii.82 Other
entering the mainland
to
hold
similar
documents
their
required
proving
Americans
were
first
proof
1928 when
immigrants
replaced by
after 1940.83
and
over
surveillance
the "alien
institutionalization
Chinese
verifying
in the country
identification
cards" were
"immigrant
for
residence.
These
permanent
arriving
immigrants'
a highly
codified
the Chinese
registration
of
receipt
cards"
(i.e.,
such
documentary
require
to enter, re-enter, and re
system of control and
organized
rights
in America.
Much
of the rationalization
behind
such documentary
the prejudiced
stemmed from
requirements
belief that it was, as California
Thomas
Congressman
Geary explained,
to identify
it
[one] Chinaman
[from another.]"84 Although
"impossible
was
an unprecedented
form of immigration
and surveillance
regulation
at the time, this method
eventu
of processing
and tracking immigrants
to
became
central
America's
control
of
and
ally
immigrants
immigration
in the twentieth century.
a system of registering
to establishing
and tracking immi
set another precedent
Act
the Chinese
Exclusion
by defining
as a criminal offense.
It declared
that any person
immigration
In addition
grants,
illegal
who
secured
or through imperson
identity fraudulently
a
of
fined $1000,
and
misdemeanor,
guilty
to
for
five
who
aided
and
years. Any persons
up
imprisoned
knowingly
abetted the landing of "any Chinese
person not lawfully entitled to enter
States" could also be charged with a misdemeanor,
the United
fined, and
for up to one year.85
imprisoned
and punishing
led to the estab
illegal immigration
directly
Defining
as
lishment of the country's first modern
laws
well, and one
deportation
of the final sections of the Act declared
that "any Chinese
person found
ation was
certificates
of
to be deemed
within
the United
States shall be caused to be removed there
unlawfully
from to the country from whence
he came."86 These
initial forays into
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Journal of American
56
/ Spring 2002
Ethnic History
be even further codified
of immigration would
regulation
seven years later in the Immigration Act of 1891.87
institutionalized
and
federal
CONCLUSION
in 1882 fundamentally
The passage
of the Chinese
Exclusion
Act
to the United
States and the country's
transformed
both immigration
to immigration.
It was
the first of many
restriction
and
relationship
the legal realm.
exclusion
laws, but its significance
goes far beyond
Chinese
exclusion
saw and defined
the very ways
in which Americans
helped re-define
race in relation to other immigrant groups and trans
to immigration
in general. The end result
the notion of guarding America's
gates
to
in
order
Americans.
protect
foreigners
formed America's
was
relationship
that embraced
a nation
"undesirable"
against
a national
to other immi
reality and was extended
the early twentieth
century. Both the rhetoric
became
Gatekeeping
grant groups throughout
and the tools used in the battle
over Chinese
over
later debates
exclusion
In many
were
in
repeated
be
Chinese
ways,
immigrants
immigration.
Nativists
others were measured.
by which
repeatedly
to ways
in which
the new Asians, Mexicans,
and Europeans
pointed
were "just like" the Chinese.
They also argued that similar restrictions
exclusion
should be established.
By 1924, the cycle begun with Chinese
came
the models
was
to
and gatekeeping
had changed from being the exception
complete,
and other
the rule. Immigration
and inspections,
passport
inspectors
the
and
criminalization
of im
surveillance
requirements,
documentary
and the deportation
standard
migration
of immigrants
illegally
Nativists
to be
found
in the country
States.
in the United
all became
operating procedures
to ask "how can we stop immigrants?"
longer needed
the answer in Chinese
exclusion.
no
had found
They
NOTES
Numerous
people
have
read
earlier
versions
of
this
article,
and
I have
benefited
greatly from their comments: David Roediger, George Anthony Peffer, Paul Spickard,
Catherine
Claudia
Ceniza
Choy,
Sadowski-Smith,
LeMay
provided
1. California
Immigration:
early
State
It's
Jigna Desai,
and
the
Pat McNamara,
anonymous
reader
Claire
Liping Wang,
the Journal.
from
guidance.
on Chinese
Committee
Senate,
Special
Immigration,
and Political
Social, Moral,
1878),
(Sacramento,
Effect
and
Fox,
Michael
Chinese
p. 275.
2. San Francisco Alta California, 6 April 1876, as cited in Andrew Gyory,
Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act (Chapel Hill, N.C.,
1998), p. 78.
This content downloaded from 128.195.73.114 on Mon, 02 Nov 2015 02:43:26 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Lee
57
3. Andrew Gyory, Closing
New
in American
Immigrants
the Gate, p. 78; Gwendolyn Mink, Old Labor and
Political
Union,
Development:
and
Party,
1875
State,
1920 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1986), p. 73.
4. Act of May 6, 1882 (22 Stat. 58).
5. Roger Daniels, "No Lamps Were Lit for Them: Angel Island and the Histori
ography of Asian American Immigration," Journal of American Ethnic History, 17,
1 (Fall 1997): 4; Andrew Gyory, Closing the Gate, pp. 1, 258-9.
6. Recent
are Lucy
exceptions
Laws
Salyer,
as
Harsh
Immi
Chinese
Tigers:
grants and the Shaping of Modern Immigration Law (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1995);
Sucheng Chan, ed. Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community inAmerica,
1882-1943 (Philadelphia, 1994); Sucheng Chan and K. Scott Wong, eds. Claiming
America: Constructing Chinese American Identities During theExclusion Era (Phila
delphia, 1998); Mae Ngai, "Legacies of Exclusion: Illegal Chinese Immigration
18, 1 (Fall
During the Cold War Years," Journal of American Ethnic History,
1998): 3-35.
7. Lucy Salyer has demonstrated how Chinese exclusion shaped the doctrine
and administration of modem immigration law. Lucy Salyer, Laws Harsh as Tigers,
xvi-xvii.
pp.
8. On the Page Law, see George Anthony Peffer, If They Don't Bring Their
Women Here: Chinese Female Immigration Before Exclusion (Urbana, 111., 1999).
For
9.
see Michael
example,
C.
LeMay,
Gatekeepers:
Immigra
Comparative
tion Policy (New York, 1989); Michael C. LeMay, From Open Door to Dutch
Door: An Analysis of U.S. Immigration Policy Since 1820 (New York, 1987);
Nathan
Glazer,
at
Clamor
the Gates:
The New
American
Immigration
Fran
(San
cisco, 1985); Norman L. and Naomi Flink Zucker. The Guarded Gate: The Reality
of American Refugee Policy (New York, 1987); Andrew Gyory, Closing the Gate.
10. Richard Rayner, "Illegal? Yes. Threat? No," New York Times Magazine, 1
at a Price,"
January 1996; Daniel B. Wood, "Controlling Illegal Immigration?But
Christian Science Monitor, 4 October 1999; "Fifth Year of Operation Gatekeeper
Stirs Debate" Siskind's Immigration Bulletin, (October 1999), available from http://
wwxv.visalaw.com/99oct/21oct99.html.
11. Andrew
12. On
and American
R.
Mary
Chinese
Coolidge,
1909); Neil Gotanda, "Exclusion and Inclusion: Immigra
Immigration (New York,
tion
pp. 1-2.
see in general,
the Gate,
Gyory,
Closing
the anti-Chinese
movement,
in Across
Orientalism,"
Asian
the Pacific:
Americans
and
Glo
balization, ed. Evelyn Hu-DeHart (Philadelphia, 1999), pp. 129-132; Gyory, Clos
ing the Gate, Robert G. Lee, Orientals: Asian Americans inPopular Culture (Phila
delphia, 1999), pp. 51-64; Karen J. Leong, "A Distant and Antagonistic Race:"
Constructions of Chinese Manhood in the Exclusionist Debates, 1869-1878," in
Across
the Great
Divide:
Cultures
in
of Manhood
the American
West,
ed.
Laura
McCall, Matthew Basso, Dee Garceau (New York, 2000), pp. 131-148; Charles
in
McClain, Jr., In Search of Equality: Chinese Struggle against Discrimination
Nineteenth-Century America (Berkeley, Calif., 1994); Mink, Old Labor and New
Women
Peffer,
Immigrants',
If They Don't
Bring
Alexander
Saxton,
Indispensable
Their
ment
in California
1971); K. Scott Wong,
Race:
The
Enemy:
Tigers',
spectives
Politics
on Race,
(Berkeley, Calif.,
and
Rhetoric
Racism,
and
of Exclusion,"
Ethnicity,
Labor
Here;
and
in Many
ed. Gregory
Laws
Salyer,
the Anti-Chinese
Campbell
Move
"Immigration
Americas:
as
Harsh
Critical
(Dubuque,
and
Per
IA,
1998), pp. 231-244.
13. California
nese
Immigration,
State
pp.
Senate,
276-7,
Special
emphasis
Committee
on Chinese
Immigration,
Chi
original.
14. Chan Chae Ping v. United States (130 US 581, 1889). In 1893, the Court
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
58 Journal of American
Ethnic History
/ Spring 2002
also ruled that Congress had the right to exclude and deport unwanted aliens in
1893 inFong Yue Ting v. United States (149 US 698,1893).
15. Erika Lee, "Immigrants and Immigration Law: A State of the Field Assess
ment," Journal of American Ethnic History, 18, 4 (Summer, 1999): 85-114; Elliott
Barkan
and Michael
U.S.
LeMay,
Germs,
and
Genes,
(Baltimore, 1994), p. 3.
17. Immigration Act of 1917 (39 Stat. 874). My
this
Laws
and Naturalization
Immigration
1999), p. xxii.
Silent
Travelers:
Conn.,
(Westport,
16. Alan
Kraut,
the
"Immigrant
and
Issues
Menace"
thanks toMargot Canaday for
citation.
18. Immigration policy directly shaped American "racial formation," what
Michael Omi and Howard Winant have explained as the "socio-historical process
by
which
racial
are
categories
created,
inhabited,
transformed,
and
destroyed."
Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States From the
1960s to the 1990s (1986; New York, 1994), p. 55. For a study on immigration
policy and racial formation in the post-1924 period, see Mae Ngai. "The Architec
ture of Race in American Immigration Law," Journal of American History, 86,1
(June 1999): 67-92; and Mae Ngai. "Illegal Aliens and Alien Citizens: United
States Immigration Policy and Racial Formation, 1924-1945" (Ph.D. diss., Colum
bia University,
1998). On critical race theory and the law, see Sally Engle Merry,
Hawaii:
The Cultural Power of Law (Princeton, N.J., 2000), p. 17;
Colonizing
Patricia Ewick and Susan S. Silbey, The Common Place of Law: Stories from
Everyday Life (Chicago, 1998).
19. Donna
Gabaccia,
"Is Everywhere
Nowhere?
Nomads,
and
Nations,
the
Im
migrant Paradigm of United States History," Journal of American History, 86, 3
(1999): 1115-1134; George J. Sanchez, "Race, Nation, and Culture in Recent Im
18, 4 (Summer, 1999):
migration Studies," Journal of American Ethnic History,
66-84; Lisa Lowe, Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics (Durham,
N.C.,
p.
1996),
ix.
20. Bill Ong Hing, Making and Remaking Asian America Through Immigration
Policy, 1850-1990 (Stanford, Calif., 1993). See also Jose David Saldivar, Border
Matters: Remapping American Cultural Studies (Berkeley, Calif., 1997), pp. 96-7;
Ali Behdad, "INS and Outs: Producing Delinquency at the Border," Aztlan, 23, 1
(Spring, 1998): 103-113; Timothy J. Dunn, The Militarization
of the U S.-Mexico
Border, 1978-1992 (Austin, Tex., 1996).
21. Mae
Ngai,
"The Architecture
22. I use Michael
composed
of
of Race,"
pp.
67-92.
Omi and Howard Winant's
institutions,
the policies
they
carry
out,
definition of the state as being
the conditions
and
rules
which
support and justify them, and the social relations in which they are imbedded.
Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 83. See
also, John Torpey, The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship, and the
State (New York, 2000), p. 1; David Palumbo-Liu, Asian/American: Historical
Crossings of a Racial Frontier (Stanford, Calif., 1999), p. 31; Alan Kraut, Silent
Travelers, pp. 48-9; Anistide Zolberg, "The Great Wall Against China: Responses
to the First Immigration Crisis, 1885-1925" inMigration History: Old Paradigms
and New
Perspectives,
ed.
Jan
and
Leo
Lucassen
Aristide Zolberg, "Matters of State: Theorizing
book
to International
Migration:
The American
(Bern,
1999),
pp.
Immigration Policy,"
Experience,
291-316;
and
in The Hand
ed. C. Hirschman
et al.
(New York, 1999), pp. 71-93.
23. Act of July 7, 1898: Annexation of Hawaiian Islands (31 Stat. 141) and Act
of April 30, 1900: Regarding the Territory of Hawaii (31 Stat. 161); Act of April
29, 1902: Chinese Immigration Prohibited (32 Stat. 176). On imperialism and im
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
59
Lee
migration in general, see Matthew Frye Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues: The United
States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876-1917 (New York,
2000), pp. 26-38.
24.
Lisa
"The Nation
and Beyond:
Thelen,
p. ix; David
American
States History,"
Journal
History,
of
Acts,
Immigrant
on United
Perspective
Lowe,
Transnational
86, 3 (1999): 966.
25. Congressional Record, 48th Cong., 2d sess. (February 13, 1885), p. 1634; as
cited inMink, Old Labor and New Immigrants, p. 109.
26. Democratic National Committee, The Political Reformation of 1884: A Demo
cratic Campaign Handbook (1884); as cited in Gwendolyn Mink, Old Labor and
New
p.
Immigrants,
107.
27. Act of February 26, 1885 (also known as the Alien Contract Labor Law and
the Foran Act) (23 Stat. 332).
28. Act of March 3, 1903 (32 Stat. 1222).
29. The 1882 Regulation of Immigration Act (Act of August 3, 1882; 22 Stat.
214) also excluded lunatics, convicts, and idiots. The 1891 Immigration Act added
and
polygamists
"persons
or dangerous
a loathsome
from
suffering
dis
contagious
ease." (Act of March 3, 1891; 26 Stat. 1084).
30.
Donna
Gabaccia,
From
the Other
Side:
Women,
and
Gender,
Immigrant
Life in the US, 1820-1990 (Bloomington, Ind., 1994), p. 37.
31. James Barrett and David Roediger, "Inbetween Peoples: Race, Nationality
and the 'New Immigrant' Working Class," Journal of American Ethnic History, 16,
3 (1997): 8-9.
32. Recent studies on racial formation in theWest illustrate the importance of
moving beyond the white and black binary. See Neil Foley, The White Scourge:
Mexicans,
and
Blacks,
Poor
in Texas
Whites
Cotton
Culture
(Berkeley,
Calif.,
1997); Tomas Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Su
premacy in California (Berkeley, Calif., 1994); Chris Friday, "In DueTime: Narra
tives of Race and Place in the Western United States," in Race, Ethnicity, and
Nationality in the United States: Toward the Twenty-First Century, ed., Paul Wong
(Boulder, Colo., 1999), pp. 102-152.
33. As David Roediger and James Barrett have pointed out, part of the problem
in immigration history has been a lack of attention to race (as opposed to ethnicity)
within the field. "Typical" immigration history, they write, has largely been "the
story of newcomers becoming American, of their holding out against becoming
American or, at best, of their changing America in the process of discovering new
identities." Worse, they argue, is the misguided conflation of race with ethnicity.
Stark differences between the racialized status of African Americans, Latinos, Ameri
can
and Asian
Americans
Indians,
"the
latter
became
eventually
"Inbetween
pp. 4-6.
Peoples,"
that
34
John Higham,
Land (New York,
but
no
offered
1978). Higham
substantive
European
immigrants,
Barrett
ethnic."
James
to the Second
Preface
corrective.
meant
they explain,
and David
Roediger,
and
Edition
and Afterword,
implied that he was wrong
See
also
Edith
Historical
Abbot,
in the
Strangers
in this interpretation,
Aspects
of
the Immigration Problem; Select Documents (Chicago, 1926), p. ix; Carl Wittke,
We Who Built America; The Saga of the Immigrant (New York, 1939), p. 458.
of
Many
these
oversights
were
first
pointed
out
by Roger
Daniels
in "Westerners
from the East: Oriental Immigrants Reappraised," Pacific Historical
(1966) and "No Lamps Were Lit for Them," pp. 3-18.
35.
Sanchez,
Donna
"Race,
Gabaccia.
Nation,
"Is Everywhere
and Culture,"
pp.
Nowhere?"
pp.
1115-1135;
Review,
George
66-84.
This content downloaded from 128.195.73.114 on Mon, 02 Nov 2015 02:43:26 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
35
60 Journal of American
Ethnic History
/ Spring 2002
36. "Shut the Gates to the Hindu Invasion," San Francisco Examiner, 16 June
1910; "TheWatchdog States," San Francisco Post, 24 May 1910.
37. San Francisco Bulletin, 4 May 1891, as cited in Roger Daniels, Asian
America, p. 111. "Proceedings of the Asiatic Exclusion League," July, 1911 (Allied
Printing, San Francisco, 1911).
in
38. Roger Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice: The Anti-Japanese Movement
California and the Struggle for Japanese Exclusion (Berkeley, Calif., 1962), p. 20.
39. Sucheng Chan, Asian Americans?an
Interpretive History (Boston, 1991),
p. 44.
40. "Advance Guard of Hindu Horde Has Arrived," San Francisco
August 1910, as cited in Lucy Salyer, Laws Harsh as Tigers, p. 127.
41. San Francisco Daily News, 20 September 1910.
42.
major
writes
Sanchez
George
of
component
that
"Mexicans
the agricultural
labor
rapidly
force."
the
replaced
Sanchez,
George
Mae
"The Architecture
Ngai,
Unwanted
Abraham
Hoffman,
44.
of Race,"
Mexican
p. 91.
Americans
as
Japanese
in the Great
a
Mexi
Becoming
can American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles,
(New York, 1993), p. 19.
43.
1
Examiner,
1900-1945
Depression:
Repatriation Pressures, 1929-1939 (Tuscon, Ariz., 1974), p. 10.
45. Neil Foley, The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in
Texas Cotton Culture (Berkeley, Calif., 1997), p. 54.
46. Frederick Russell Burnham, "The Howl for Cheap Mexican Labor," in The
Alien in Our Midst or Selling Our Birthright for a Mess of Pottage, ed. Madison
Grant and Charles Stewart Davison (New York, 1930), p. 48. See also Neil Foley,
White
p. 51.
Scourge,
47. V. S. McClatchy, "Oriental Immigration"; Neil Foley, White Scourge, pp.
195, 197.
48. Foley, The White Scourge, p. 55.
49. Chester H. Rowell, "Why Make Mexico an Exception?" Survey, 1May
and
1931;
idem,
"Chinese
and
Japanese
Annals
Immigrants,"
of
the American
Acad
emy, 34 (September, 1909): 4; as cited in Foley, The White Scourge, p. 53.
50. Frederick Russell Burnham, "The Howl for Cheap Mexican Labor," p. 45.
51. Ibid., p. 48
John Higham,
52.
53.
Donna
Gabaccia,
Strangers
"The
in the Land,
pp. 132-3.
Peril'
and
the
Yellow
of
'Chinese
pp.
Europe,'"
177-9.
54. Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, Twelfth Annual Report of the
Bureau of Statistics of Labor (Boston, 1881), pp. 469-70. My thanks to Florence
Mae Waldron for this citation.
55. Lodge was quoting the U.S. Consul in Budapest. Henry Cabot Lodge, "The
Restriction of Immigration," North American Review, 152 (1891): 30-32, 35; Mat
Barbarian
Virtues,
Jacobson,
pp. 76-7.
"The Permanent
Menace
from
Stoddard,
Lothrop
Our Midst,
ed. Grant
and Davison,
pp. 227-8.
57. J.H. Patten, Asst.
Restriction
Secretary,
Immigration
thew
Frye
56.
15 October
1912, Boston
58.
J.H.
men
and
59.
1908, Scrapbooks,
Public
Patten,
Letter
League,
Alien
1894
Massachusetts.
Immigration
Restriction
League
to Congress
ibid.
League,
Proceedings,
ber, 1908, pp. 17, 19; John Higham, Strangers
Feb.
1908,
pp.
19, 71,
in
to Unions,
Immigration Restriction League Collection,
Boston,
Library,
Asst.
Secretary,
Senators,
n.d.,
Asiatic
Exclusion
in The
Europe,"
and Decem
in the Land, p. 166.
This content downloaded from 128.195.73.114 on Mon, 02 Nov 2015 02:43:26 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
61
Lee
60. Homer Lea, The Valor of Ignorance
in the Land,
Strangers
Higham,
(New York,
1909), pp. 124-8; John
172.
p.
61. Congressional Record, 61 Cong., 1 Sess., 9174; Asiatic Exclusion League,
(February, 1908), pp. 55, 57; John Higham, Strangers in the Land, p.
Proceedings,
174.
Ignatiev, andMatthew Frye Jacobson have shown,
62. As David Roediger, Noel
Irish
and
southern
eastern
and
European
asserted their "whiteness" by allying
campaigns
African
against
immigrants
themselves
Native
Americans,
constructed
commonly
(and sometimes
and Mexican
and Asian
Americans,
and
leading) racist
immigrants. See David Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and theMaking of
the American Working Class (New York, 1991); Matthew Frye Jacobson, White
ness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Cam
bridge, Mass.,
1998); Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White (New York,
1995).
63. San Francisco Call, 22 November 1901.
64. Ian F. Haney Lopez, White by Law: The Legal Construction
York 1996).
65.
"The Architecture
Ngai,
of Race,"
66. Lawrence Cardoso, Mexican
Ariz.,
(Tucson,
1980),
Hoffman,
20; Abraham
of Race (New
p. 70.
to the United States,
Emigration
1891-1931
J. Sanchez,
Mexican
American,
p. 22; George
Becoming
Mexican
Americans
in the Great Depression,
Unwanted
p.
pp.
30-32.
67.
"The Architecture
Ngai,
of Race,"
p. 91.
68. Barbara Miller Solomon, Ancestors and Immigrants: A Changing New En
gland Tradition (Chicago, 1956), pp. 82-88; Matthew Frye Jacobson, Barbarian
Virtues,
p.
181.
69. Madison Grant, The Alien inOur Midst, p. 23.
70. Frank JulianWarne, The Immigrant Invasion (New York, 1913), p. 295.
71. Immigration Act of 1917, (39 Stat. 874).
72. The Quota Act of 1921 (42 Stat. 5, section 2); Immigration Act of 1924, (43
Stat. 153). See generally, John Higham, Strangers in the Land, pp. 308-24.
73. Robert A. Divine, American Immigration Policy, 1924-1952,
(New York,
1957), p. 60; H. Brett Melendy, "The Filipinos in the United States," in Norris
ed.,
Hundley,
The Asian-American:
The Historical
ed. Norris
Experience,
Hundley
(Santa Barbara, Calif. 1976), pp. 115-6, 119-25.
74.
bom
recent
One
children
estimate
who
were
the number
places
returned
to Mexico
of Mexicans,
at one million.
American
including
See
Francisco
E.
Balderrama and Raymond Rodriguez, Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in
the 1930s (Albuquerque, N. Mex., 1995), p. 122.
75. The Bureau of Immigration was established under the Act of August 18,
1894 (28 Stat. 390). In 1900, Congress transferred the administration of the exclu
sion
laws
to
the
of
commissioner-general
ment of the law still remained with
vice.
In
Bureau
Commerce
Labor,"
76.
(32 Stat.
The Page
Labor.
"An
L., 825).
Law was
act
also
were
matters
1903, all Chinese
immigration
of Immigration
and its parent
and
to
enforced
by U.S.
3, 1875 (18 Stat. 477) George Anthony
Women
Here,
pp. 58-9;
and Immigration
Wen-hsien
Laws,"
placed
the newly
department,
the Department
establish
March
clusion
but
immigration,
the
the immigration officials
Chen,
(Ph.D.
diss.,
Consuls
enforce
everyday
in the Customs
the control
under
created
of
in Hong
Ser
of
Department
Commerce
Kong.
the
of
and
Act
of
Peffer, If They Don't Bring Their
"Chinese
University
Immigration
of Chicago,
Under
1940),
Both
Ex
p. 91.
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62 Journal of American
Ethnic History
/ Spring 2002
77. Act of May 6, 1882, (22 Stat. 58).
78. See, for example, the Chinese Arrival Files, Port of San Francisco, RG 85,
Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, National Archives, Pacific
San Bruno,
Region,
CA.
79. Act of May 26, 1924: The Immigration Act of 1924 (43 Stat. 153); e-mail
with
communication
Marian
Smith,
Historian,
U.S.
and Naturalization
Immigration
Service, 24 October 2000.
80. Section 4, Act of May 6, 1882, (22 Stat. 58); Act of July 5, 1884 (23 Stat.
115);Mary R. Coolidge, Chinese Immigration, pp. 183-5; George Anthony Peffer,
If They Don't Bring Their Women Here', John Torpey, The Invention of the Pass
pp.
port,
97-9.
81. Section 7, Act of May 5, 1892, "Geary Act," (27 Stat. 25) and Section 2,
Act of November 3, 1893, "McCreary Amendment," (28 Stat. 7).
82. United States, Department of Commerce, Annual Report of the Commis
sioner-General of Immigration for Fiscal Year 1903 (1903), 156 dinaAnnual Report
of the Commissioner-General
of Immigration for Fiscal Year 1909 (1909), 131.
83.
use
The
Consular
of
regulations
"immigrant
on July
identification
1,
1928.
The
cards"
"alien
was
first
receipt
registration
under
begun
U.S.
com
cards,"
monly known as "green cards" were the product of the Alien Registration Act of
1940 and the corresponding INS Alien Registration Program. Act of June 28, 1940
(54 Stat. 670); e-mail communication with Marian Smith, Historian, U.S. Immigra
tion and Naturalization Service, 26 October 2000; Marian Smith, "Why Isn't the
Green Card Green?" http://www.ins.usdoj.gov/graphics/aboutins/history/articles/
Green.htm.
84. Mary R. Coolidge,
Invention
of
the Passport,
Chinese
p.
Immigration,
pp. 209-33;
John Torpey, The
100.
85. Sections 7 and 11, Act of May 6, 1882, (22 Stat. 58). This second clause
added to existing terms of punishment first established by the Page Law for any
persons
caught
"importing"
either
Asian
contract
laborers
or prostitutes.
Act
of
March 3, 1875 (18 Stat. 477).
86. Section 12,Act of May 6, 1882, (22 Stat. 58).
87. This law established the Office of Superintendent of Immigration, outlined
the specific duties of "inspection officers," established amedical examination of all
incoming immigrants, and laid out rules for border inspection along the Canadian
and Mexican
borders.
The
criminal
charges
and
deportation
regulations
concerning
illegal immigrants affirmed those first laid out in the Chinese Exclusion Act. Act of
March 3, 1891. In 1894, the Bureau of Immigration was established by the Act of
August 18, 1894 (28 Stat. 390).
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