CONTEXT:
The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) marked both a pivot in U.S. history and a continuation. It was pivotal in that it ended the traditional U.S. policy of open immigration and began an era of restrictions that culminated in the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, which imposed strict quotas based on racial and ethnic criteria. It was also a continuation of a U.S. tradition of intolerance, an intolerance explicitly grounded in racism and in ethnic and religious bigotry. As both pivot and continuation, Chinese exclusion lays bare many of the most crucial fault lines of post–Civil War America.
The purpose of this assignment is to help you understand the interplay of economic distress, racism, and political ambition that led to Chinese exclusion by identifying some of the key actors, analyzing the arguments they made for the necessity of exclusion, and examining the political factors that led Congress to act.
Through investigation of the documents in this unit, you will develop the historical thinking skills of causation, comparison, continuity and change over time, and, through your written response to the central question, argumentation.
PROMPT:
What factors contributed to the popularity of anti- Chinese sentiment in the nineteenth century and the eventual abandonment by the United States of its policy of admitting immigrants irrespective of race, nationality, or country of origin?
