Chinese Images in American Dominant Culture

However, while many Americans looked down on all immigrants, the Chinese were
considered racially as well as culturally inferior. Most Americans believed that the
Chinese were too different to ever assimilate successfully into American culture. This
view was expressed and reinforced by the stereotypic images of Chinese immigrants
recorded in the media of the time.
 The Chinese Exclusion Act

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United
States. Those on the West Coast were especially prone to attribute declining wages and economic ills
on the despised Chinese workers. Although the Chinese composed only .002 percent of the nation’s
population, Congress passed the exclusion act to placate worker demands and assuage prevalent
concerns about maintaining white “racial purity.” Support for the exclusion was overwhelming,
lawmakers had fears that emanated from something deeper than race…the “industrial army of Asiatic
laborers” was exacerbating class conflict between labor and capital within white society. It became
abundantly clear to Chinese immigrants that America was staked as “a white man’s country”, and the
idea of women (wives) or families entering the country would establish a threat to a white
homogeneous society.
 The Chinese Exclusion Act

The statute of 1882 suspended Chinese immigration for ten years and declared the Chinese
as ineligible for naturalization. Chinese workers already in the country challenged the
constitutionality of the discriminatory acts, but their efforts failed. The act was renewed in
1892 for another ten years, and in 1902 Chinese immigration was made permanently
illegal. The legislation proved very effective, and the Chinese population in the United
States sharply declined. American experience with Chinese exclusion spurred later
movements for immigration restriction against other “undesirable” groups such as Middle
Easterners, Hindu and East Indians, and the Japanese.
 The Chinese Exclusion Act

The Chinese themselves remained ineligible for citizenship until 1943. Through a
combination of ingenuity and serendipity, however, Chinese devised an “extra-legal” way
to sustain their community’s future. Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire,
which destroyed all birth and immigration records, many Chinese immigrants declared
themselves to be U.S. citizens with children, usually sons, who were still in China. Since
children of U.S. citizens were, by definition, also U.S. citizens, this process created
openings on paper for Chinese children to enter the U.S. legally as citizens in spite of the
exclusion acts if they could prove their identities.