Chinese Exclusion Act

Impact

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 curbed the influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States. It placed burdens on Chinese laborers living in the United States who wished to leave the country and then reenter. Laws passed to strengthen the 1882 act made reentry of laborers illegal and required laborers living in the United States to prove that their residence was legal. In the long run, these laws had profound, adverse effects on Chinese communities in the United States and on their relation to the larger society. The act and the exclusion laws passed after it were designed to reduce the number of Chinese in the United States and delivered on that intent. According to U.S. Census reports, the number of Chinese in the country grew from around sixty-three thousand in 1870 to between one hundred thousand and one hundred and ten thousand in 1880 and 1890. Less than ninety thousand Chinese were counted in the 1900 census, and the number fell to approximately seventy-two thousand in 1910 and to sixty-two thousand a decade later.

Because they were passed so soon after the original bill went into force, the laws to strengthen the 1882 act show that the forces pressing for exclusion inside and outside of Congress felt the original act had not effectively dealt with the so-called “Chinese question.” Regardless of whether it satisfied supporters of exclusion, however, the 1882 act legitimated hostile treatment of a particular race and paved the way for more of the same. The push for subsequent legislation drew on the same racial and ethnic biases and attacks motivating and inspiring support for the 1882 act. The laws passed to strengthen the 1882 act upped the ante in the campaign against Chinese laborers.

The act itself stayed in place, securing the exclusion of Chinese workers and limiting Chinese immigration to the United States, until World War II. The Magnuson Act, passed in 1943, repealed the Chinese Exclusion Laws passed in 1882, 1884, 1888, 1892, and 1904. Chinese immigration was then folded into the system regulating immigration from other countries, which set limits on the number permitted to enter according to national origin. The annual quota for Chinese immigration was set at 105 per year. Not until it passed the Immigration and Nationalization Act in 1965 did Congress liberalize the number of Chinese permitted to enter and reside in the United States.