Chinese Exclusion Act 1882

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Chinese Exclusion Act 1882

Legislation

Date: May 6, 1882

Source: "Chinese Exclusion Act." 22 Stat. 58, U.S. Congress, 1882.

About the Author: The Forty-seventh United States Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882; ten years later the Fifty-second Congress renewed the act's provisions and strengthened Chinese immigration laws with the Geary Act. In 1902 the restrictions on Chinese immigration were made permanent, though repealed some forty years later.

INTRODUCTION

Chinese relations with the United States stretched back to the 1784 trade expedition in which the ship the Empress of China brought American cotton and furs to China and returned with Chinese silk and spices, all with a handsome profit for the merchants involved. Over the next century, Chinese-U.S. diplomatic relations centered around trade and immigration.

Early Christian missionary activity in China stretches back to the early 1800s for American and British missionaries; their forays into the Canton (Guangdong) region helped to deliver news of the United States and its culture to China. After the Opium War (1839–1842) and Britain's forced opening of trade with China, the United States worked to negotiate the Wangxia Treaty, which gave the U.S. unilateral trade rights and helped Americans to enter the illegal opium trade.

By the early 1850s, news of the Gold Rush in California reached China. Some of the earlier immigrants were from Canton, where missionaries had helped native Chinese to conceptualize the U.S. and to understand more about U.S. culture. The 1850 foreign Miner's Tax Law, passed in California, was the first in a series of state and federal laws designed to discriminate directly against the Chinese. By charging an additional tax for foreign miners, authorities targeted Chinese miners for their differences while helping native-born miners. The Chinese miners called the U.S. Gam Saan, or "Gold Mountain," although many white and native-born miners forced Chinese immigrants to work older (and more depleted) mines, or paid lower wages for Chinese laborers. Throughout the 1850s, the U.S. government restricted naturalization for immigrants of non-white status, placing Chinese immigrants in limbo.

By the 1860s, a substantial number of Chinese immigrants worked as railroad construction laborers; after the Civil War, and in the early 1870s when an economic depression affected the U.S., Chinese laborers were viewed by poor whites and former slaves as interlopers who took jobs away from native-born Americans. Anti-Chinese sentiment increased dramatically throughout the 1870s, as incidents of mob violence against Chinese immigrants in Colorado, California, and Washington demonstrated increasing prejudice. An 1877 report from the Joint Special Committee to Investigate Chinese Immigration documented native beliefs that Chinese workers took American jobs, that Chinese immigrants were unable to support and function in a democracy, and that the Chinese refused to learn English. By the early 1880s, Congress was prepared to curb Chinese immigration in spite of diplomatic relations with China in which the Chinese government expressed disapproval of these actions. In 1882, Congress passed The Chinese Exclusion Act.

PRIMARY SOURCE

CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT

An Act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to Chinese Whereas in the opinion of the Government of the United States the coming of Chinese laborers to this country endangers the good order of certain localities within the territory thereof: Therefore,

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after the expiration of ninety days next after the passage of this act, and until the expiration of ten years next after the passage of this act, the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States be, and the same is hereby, suspended; and during such suspension it shall not be lawful for any Chinese laborer to come, or having so come after the expiration of said ninety days to remain within the United States.

SEC. 2. That the master of any vessel who shall knowingly bring within the United States on such vessel, and land or permit to be landed, any Chinese laborer, from any foreign port or place, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars for each and every such Chinese laborer so brought, and maybe also imprisoned for a term not exceeding one year.

SEC. 3. That the two foregoing sections shall not apply to Chinese laborers who were in the United States on the seventeenth day of November, eighteen hundred and eighty, or who shall have come into the same before the expiration of ninety days next after the passage of this act, and who shall produce to such master before going on board such vessel, and shall produce to the collector of the port in the United States at which such vessel shall arrive, the evidence hereinafter in this act required of his being one of the laborers in this section mentioned; nor shall the two foregoing sections apply to the case of any master whose vessel, being bound to a port not within the United States, shall come within the jurisdiction of the United States by reason of being in distress or in stress of weather, or touching at any port of the United States on its voyage to any foreign port or place: Provided, That all Chinese laborers brought on such vessel shall depart with the vessel on leaving port.

SEC. 4. That for the purpose of properly identifying Chinese laborers who were in the United States on the seventeenth day of November eighteen hundred and eighty, or who shall have come into the same before the expiration of ninety days next after the passage of this act, and in order to furnish them with the proper evidence of their right to go from and come to the United States of their free will and accord, as provided by the treaty between the United States and China dated November seventeenth, eighteen hundred and eighty, the collector of customs of the district from which any such Chinese laborer shall depart from the United States shall, in person or by deputy, go on board each vessel having on board any such Chinese laborers and cleared or about to sail from his district for a foreign port, and on such vessel make a list of all such Chinese laborers, which shall be entered in registry-books to be kept for that purpose, in which shall be stated the name, age, occupation, last place of residence, physical marks of peculiarities, and all facts necessary for the identification of each of such Chinese laborers, which books shall be safely kept in the custom-house; and every such Chinese laborer so departing from the United States shall be entitled to, and shall receive, free of any charge or cost upon application therefor, from the collector or his deputy, at the time such list is taken, a certificate, signed by the collector or his deputy and attested by his seal of office, in such form as the Secretary of the Treasury shall prescribe, which certificate shall contain a statement of the name, age, occupation, last place of residence, personal description, and facts of identification of the Chinese laborer to whom the certificate is issued, corresponding with the said list and registry in all particulars. In case any Chinese laborer after having received such certificate shall leave such vessel before her departure he shall deliver his certificate to the master of the vessel, and if such Chinese laborer shall fail to return to such vessel before her departure from port the certificate shall be delivered by the master to the collector of customs for cancellation. The certificate herein provided for shall entitle the Chinese laborer to whom the same is issued to return to and reenter the United States upon producing and delivering the same to the collector of customs of the district at which such Chinese laborer shall seek to re-enter; and upon delivery of such certificate by such Chinese laborer to the collector of customs at the time of re-entry in the United States said collector shall cause the same to be filed in the custom-house and duly canceled.

SEC. 5. That any Chinese laborer mentioned in section four of this act being in the United States, and desiring to depart from the United States by land, shall have the right to demand and receive, free of charge or cost, a certificate of identification similar to that provided for in section four of this act to be issued to such Chinese laborers as may desire to leave the United States by water; and it is hereby made the duty of the collector of customs of the district next adjoining the foreign country to which said Chinese laborer desires to go to issue such certificate, free of charge or cost, upon application by such Chinese laborer, and to enter the same upon registry-books to be kept by him for the purpose, as provided for in section four of this act.

SEC. 6. That in order to the faithful execution of articles one and two of the treaty in this act before mentioned, every Chinese person other than a laborer who may be entitled by said treaty and this act to come within the United States, and who shall be about to come to the United States, shall be identified as so entitled by the Chinese Government in each case, such identity to be evidenced by a certificate issued under the authority of said government, which certificate shall be in the English language or (if not in the English language) accompanied by a translation into English, stating such right to come, and which certificate shall state the name, title or official rank, if any, the age, height, and all physical peculiarities, former and present occupation or profession, and place of residence in China of the person to whom the certificate is issued and that such person is entitled, conformably to the treaty in this act mentioned to come within the United States. Such certificate shall be prima-facie evidence of the fact set forth therein, and shall be produced to the collector of customs, or his deputy, of the port in the district in the United States at which the person named therein shall arrive.

SEC. 7. That any person who shall knowingly and falsely alter or substitute any name for the name written in such certificate or forge any such certificate, or knowingly utter any forged or fraudulent certificate, or falsely personate any person named in any such certificate, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor; and upon conviction thereof shall be fined in a sum not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisoned in a penitentiary for a term of not more than five years.

SEC. 8. That the master of any vessel arriving in the United States from any foreign port or place shall, at the same time he delivers a manifest of the cargo, and if there be no cargo, then at the time of making a report of the entry of the vessel pursuant to law, in addition to the other matter required to be reported, and before landing, or permitting to land, any Chinese passengers, deliver and report to the collector of customs of the district in which such vessels shall have arrived a separate list of all Chinese passengers taken on board his vessel at any foreign port or place, and all such passengers on board the vessel at that time. Such list shall show the names of such passengers (and if accredited officers of the Chinese Government traveling on the business of that government, or their servants, with a note of such facts), and the names and other particulars, as shown by their respective certificates; and such list shall be sworn to by the master in the manner required by law in relation to the manifest of the cargo. Any willful refusal or neglect of any such master to comply with the provisions of this section shall incur the same penalties and forfeiture as are provided for a refusal or neglect to report and deliver a manifest of the cargo.

SEC. 9. That before any Chinese passengers are landed from any such line vessel, the collector, or his deputy, shall proceed to examine such passenger, comparing the certificate with the list and with the passengers; and no passenger shall be allowed to land in the United States from such vessel in violation of law.

SEC. 10. That every vessel whose master shall knowingly violate any of the provisions of this act shall be deemed forfeited to the United States, and shall be liable to seizure and condemnation in any district of the United States into which such vessel may enter or in which she may be found.

SEC. 11. That any person who shall knowingly bring into or cause to be brought into the United States by land, or who shall knowingly aid or abet the same, or aid or abet the landing in the United States from any vessel of any Chinese person not lawfully entitled to enter the United States, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, on conviction thereof, be fined in a sum not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisoned for a term not exceeding one year.

SEC. 12. That no Chinese person shall be permitted to enter the United States by land without producing to the proper officer of customs the certificate in this act required of Chinese persons seeking to land from a vessel. And any Chinese person found unlawfully within the United States shall be caused to be removed therefrom to the country from whence he came, by direction of the President of the United States, and at the cost of the United States, after being brought before some justice, judge, or commissioner of a court of the United States and found to be one not lawfully entitled to be or remain in the United States.

SEC. 13. That this act shall not apply to diplomatic and other officers of the Chinese Government traveling upon the business of that government, whose credentials shall be taken as equivalent to the certificate in this act mentioned, and shall exempt them and their body and household servants from the provisions of this act as to other Chinese persons.

SEC. 14. That hereafter no State court or court of the United States shall admit Chinese to citizenship; and all laws in conflict with this act are hereby repealed.

SEC. 15. That the words "Chinese laborers," wherever used in this act shall be construed to mean both skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining.

Approved, May 6, 1882.

SIGNIFICANCE

The Chinese Exclusion Act revised laws from 1880 restricting Chinese immigration and ended the provisions of the 1868 Burlingame Treaty. Under the Chinese Exclusion Act, laborers were barred from entering the country for ten years, and Chinese immigrants were prevented from becoming naturalized citizens. The act—the first piece of federal legislation that singled out one immigrant group—dictated Chinese immigration for the next sixty years.

As a result of the act, Chinese immigration dropped from nearly 40,000 per year to less than one hundred legal Chinese immigrants per year. Later revisions prohibited Chinese workers who had left the United States to visit China from re-entering the country and restricted the ability to bring spouses from China to the U.S.

In 1892, despite vocal opposition from Chinese business organizations, missionary groups, and some native-born supporters of Chinese immigrant rights, the Exclusion Act was renewed. The new version was called the Geary Act, and in addition to the provisions of the Exclusion Act, the Geary Act stripped Chinese immigrants of the right to post bail or to act as a witness in court.

The Chinese government, angered by the restrictions but hopeful for U.S. aid in foreign relations with Russia as well as trade, criticized the act but did nothing to stop it. Congregationalist missionaries, represented by the American Missionary Association, feared retaliation against Americans in China when the 1882 act was up for renewal.

Small Chinese immigrant communities continued in spite of the act; "Chinatowns" helped maintain a sense of Chinese community in major cities such as San Francisco, though birth rates declined as the population—largely male—aged, and Chinese brides were not permitted to enter the country. The 1924 immigration law restricted legal immigration to no more than one hundred Chinese per year, and in 1943 the Magnuson Act repealed the strictest provisions of the 1882 Exclusion Act. The Immigration Act of 1965 finally placed Chinese immigrants on equal status with immigrants from other parts of the world seeking residency in the U.S.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Claiming America: Constructing Chinese Identities During the Exclusion Era, edited by K. Scott Wong and Sucheng Chan. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998.

Gyory, Andrew. Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

Lee, Erika. At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era, 1882–1943. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.