The Exclusion Acts

The Exclusion Acts: The Persecution of Chinese Americans

   Persecution and bigotry have tainted world history since the beginning of civilization. Almost every group of people has been subject to intolerance, and the United States has been no exception. One of the most upsetting acts of intolerance was the exclusion of the Chinese Americans in the 1800’s by the Caucasian community. The Chinese were seen as economic rivals who were outsourcing the Caucasians from their jobs. Their way of showing their fear was to exclude and mistreat them. Today, the view of Chinese Americans has changed greatly from low-paid workers to being known as a group of successful and hardworking people.

  The Chinese Americans were victimized because Caucasians feared losing their jobs to the Chinese, who they considered to be beneath them because of skin color. Many Chinese had immigrated to the United States to earn money to send back home to their families in China by joining the California gold rush and working on the railroads. “But the Chinese were to suffer difficulties unknown to the Americans who were also looking for gold. They were subjected to hatred, prejudice and violence in California and leaving the state was one way to escape their harsh environment.” (- El Paso Community College). They were treated differently from the other Americans who joined the gold rush in hopes of profit and were discriminated against. Persecuted for their skin color and the Caucasians’ fear of outsourcing, the Chinese faced many difficulties that other races did not.

   To the Caucasians, Chinese was a race which they thought inferior to their own because of skin color and a fear of losing their jobs to people who they considered to be beneath them. “In spite of their indispensable role in the development of the American West, the Chinese suffered severe exploitation. They were discriminated against in terms of pay and forced to work under abysmal conditions. White workers viewed them as economic competitors and racial inferiors, thereby, stimulating the passage of discriminatory laws and commission of widespread acts of violence against the Chinese.”  (- William Wei, Harp Week) The Caucasian population was afraid of that the Chinese Americans would take away their jobs. Their fear led them to treat the Chinese unfairly by forcing them to work under terrible conditions and for a lower pay than the other workers. The Caucasians mistreated the Chinese because of their desire to keep the available jobs to people of their own skin color.

   When the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was passed by President Chester A. Arthur, it was the first The Exclusion Acts ever that a specified ethnicity was restricted from immigrating to the United States of America. “This finally resulted in legislation that aimed to limit future immigration of Chinese workers to the United States, and threatened to sour diplomatic relations between the United States and China.” (U.S. Department of State, usa.gov) The United States government passed a decree that put a limit on the number of Chinese workers allowed in the country. The Chinese were excluded from U.S. citizenship, while other races were able to freely enter the country.

   After China became an ally of the United States, the U.S. government repealed the exclusion act out of embarrassment, and the restriction to the Chinese immigration was lifted. “Today, Chinese Americans are doing relatively well. They are seen as hardworking professionals or small business people, with stable families. Indeed the most recent census data indicated that they have median household incomes and educational levels higher than their white counterparts.” (- William Wei, Harp Week) The Chinese have moved from being railroad workers to now being looked upon as a hardworking ethnic minority. Today, the situation has improved, as the Exclusion Acts of the Chinese were repealed, and the Chinese were allowed into the United States.

   Almost every group of people at one point in The Exclusion Acts was victimized to persecution, bigotry, and intolerance in some way for being different. In the 1880’s, the Chinese Americans’ difference was skin color and willingness to work hard for a lower pay than other Americans. The act of discrimination put against them has nearly disappeared entirely. However, persecution still exists today in almost every society in the world, and just about every group of people was or will be subject to it in one point in time.