1882: Chinese Exclusion Act Forbids Chinese from Becoming Citizens; First Legislation to Label Specific Ethnicity as ‘Undesirable’ Immigrants

A handbill celebrating the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act. The phrase at the bottom reads: “Hip! Hurrah! The white man is on top.” [Source: Monthly Review]The US Congress denies Chinese-Americans the right to vote or be citizens by passing the Chinese Exclusion Act. Historian William Wei will later write that the Exclusion Act was driven by decades of racism against Chinese immigrants, with the express goal of “driv[ing] them out of the country. This hostility hindered efforts by the Chinese to become American. It forced them to flee to the Chinatowns on the coasts, where they found safety and support. In these ghettos, they managed to eke out a meager existence, but were isolated from the rest of the population, making it difficult if not impossible to assimilate into mainstream society. To add insult to injury, Chinese were criticized for their alleged unassimilability.” The Exclusion Act is the first such legislation in US history to name a specific group of people “as undesirable for immigration to the United States,” and “marked a fateful departure from the traditional American policy of unrestricted immigration.” [Harper's Weekly, 1999; American Civil Liberties Union, 2012] The Exclusion Act will be repealed over 60 years later (see December 17, 1943).