Chinese exclusion act 1882
Lets take a look at one of Americas many stains on its short history. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first federal act to stop immigration from one country specifically however it is easy to call a man lazy from a utopia. The real question we must ask ourselves is what pushed the people to want the Chinese specifically out of america? The answer lies in an economic decline when the civil war came to a halt the economy that boomed from massive government spending now was on decline as the government no longer spent that much money acquiring the massive amounts of goods necessary to fight the civil war. When economy declines the workforce looks for cheaper workers and the cheaper workers were the Chinese these were people who were extorted for cheap labor to build the transcontinental railroad, the Chinese were tolerated by the WASP but with fewer jobs and a smaller amount of gold to be mined the WASP turned their attention on excluding as many groups as possible from their gold and jobs, they targeted the Chinese and successfully had the Chinese laborers specifically banned from the U.S. This act lasted until 1943.
The Chinese people were believed to be a threat to the american people, government and the very concept of america for Americans the fear of the Chinese people coming in and taking over america was a conspiracy that held a place in the minds of the same men who knew that the evil Jewish bankers were laughing at them and stealing their hard earned labor. However the Chinese were tangible they were seen and these men voted for a political party that would address their fears. And thus the Chinese exclusion act was born. However wealthier individuals supported the act even though it wasn't in their interests having a cheap labor force was good but advocating for that labor group was not as the people would turn against the individuals who openly supported something the people hated.
The stigma against immigrants is nothing new and it hasn't washed away with time either people fear immigrants, People believe immigrants steal jobs and commit acts of terror and that has been the case for many years. The people of this nation have always believed america was a city on a hill and they want to keep it to themselves in other words America is a nice house and the american people don't want the other peoples of the world coming in and messing it up, however it is worth remembering the Americans took america from the native Americans after the natives were genocided out. American history has many stains and this is one small drop of ketchup when compared to the many other stains on the fabric of our nation however we must avoid other stains and we can only avoid them by learning from our mistakes.
I like how you chose to investigate the motives behind the Chinese Exclusion Act instead of focusing solely on what it was in general. I also think that many of the points you made about how many WASP Americans wanted the Chinese out because they were "stealing" labor by working for cheap wages in difficult conditions are similar to trends that we see now with a lot of the anti-immigration sentiment that has grown in the US and Europe in the past few years.
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ReplyDeleteI think it was very interesting how you really went into depth in describing the Chinese Exclusion Act and why it was initially enacted. I think it's interesting how, despite our modernization since this time period and out desire to call ourselves progressive and accepting, the nativist sentiments we see in your article by the WASPs have not changed much today with much of our country's strong anti-immigrant views.
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