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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello everyone, I'm Eves and welcome to This

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Speaker 1: Day in History Class, a podcast where the past becomes

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Speaker 1: the present. Today is May six. The day was May

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Speaker 1: six two. US President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese

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Speaker 1: Exclusion Act. The act banned the immigration of Chinese laborers

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Speaker 1: for ten years, though Congress later extended it on a

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Speaker 1: paper The Act still allowed Chinese merchants, students, teachers, and

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Speaker 1: diplomats to enter the US, but it prevented thousands of

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Speaker 1: people from immigrating into the country, and it established a

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Speaker 1: precedent for discriminatory race and class based immigration laws. In

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Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties, thousands of Chinese people began moving to

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Speaker 1: the United States in search of work. Many of them

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Speaker 1: moved to California to join the Gold Rush, though other

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Speaker 1: sought work in factories, minds, agriculture, domestic jobs, and the

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Speaker 1: garment industry. Many of these Chinese laborers were escaping poverty

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Speaker 1: and social unrest in China, and they often worked for

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Speaker 1: lower wages than non Chinese labors did. As more Chinese

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Speaker 1: immigrants began taking low wage jobs in the US, non

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Speaker 1: Chinese laborers began to resent the competition they created in

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Speaker 1: job markets. Anti Chinese sentiment grew. Despite the fact that

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Speaker 1: Chinese immigrants made up a lot of the labor in minds,

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Speaker 1: the first Transcontinental Railroad and other industries, they faced poor

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Speaker 1: conditions and discrimination at work and at home. California and

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Speaker 1: other states began passing anti Chinese laws. For instance, in

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty, the California state legislature passed the Foreign Minors

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Speaker 1: Tax Law, placed a monthly twenty dollar tax on miners

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Speaker 1: who were not US citizens. The act was repealed the

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Speaker 1: next year, but soon re enacted, and it led many

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Speaker 1: Chinese miners to quit their job and moved to cities

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Speaker 1: under impoverished conditions. The eighteen sixty eight Berlin Game Stewart

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Speaker 1: Treaty allowed for Chinese immigration to the US with few regulations.

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Speaker 1: It annulled many state laws that restricted Chinese immigration. That said,

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Speaker 1: laws restricting Chinese immigration were still passed. The US is

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Speaker 1: Page Act of eighteen seventy five prohibited the immigration of

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Speaker 1: East Asian forced laborers and people entering for quote a

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Speaker 1: moral purposes. This act was a thinly veiled effort to

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Speaker 1: restrict Asian immigration without doing so on the basis of race,

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Speaker 1: and it effectively ended the immigration of Chinese women. While

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Speaker 1: some advocated anti Chinese legislation by saying that Chinese immigrants

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Speaker 1: would lower American moral standards, a there's were explicit that

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Speaker 1: their concerns were based on race. A few years after

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Speaker 1: the Page Act was passed, Congress passed legislation to restrict

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Speaker 1: immigration from China. In March of eighteen seventy nine, US

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Speaker 1: President Rutherford B. Hayes vetoed the bill for violating the

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Speaker 1: Berlin Game Treaty, but he still opposed the so called

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Speaker 1: Chinese invasion, and many politicians supported the complete exclusion of

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Speaker 1: Chinese immigrants. In eighteen eighty, the Hayes administration appointed U

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Speaker 1: s diplomat James Angel to negotiate a new treaty with China.

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Speaker 1: The US ratified the Angel Treaty in eighteen eighty one,

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Speaker 1: which permitted a suspension on the immigration of Chinese laborers,

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Speaker 1: but allowed the entry and exit of those who were

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Speaker 1: already in the US. In eighteen eighty two, President Chester

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Speaker 1: Arthur vetoed a bill that banned the immigration of Chinese

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Speaker 1: laborers for twenty years, but on May sixth of that year,

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Speaker 1: he signed the Chinese Exclusion Act into law. The Acts

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Speaker 1: suspended the immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years. It

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Speaker 1: also required Chinese laborers already in the US who left

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Speaker 1: the country to get certificates of return in order to

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Speaker 1: re enter the country. On top of this, the Act

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Speaker 1: prohibited courts from naturalizing Chinese people. After the Act went

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Speaker 1: into effect, some people took violent actions to get Chinese

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Speaker 1: people out of their communities, and the Rock Springs massacre

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Speaker 1: of eighteen eighty five, which I covered in a previous episode,

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Speaker 1: White miners started a riot in Wyoming Territory that caused

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Speaker 1: the death of at least twenty eight Chinese miners and

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Speaker 1: drove many others out of town. The Scott Act of

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty eight banned the re entry of around twenty

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Speaker 1: thousand Chinese people who had left the US temporarily. The

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Speaker 1: Geary Act of eighteen ninety two renewed Chinese exclusion for

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Speaker 1: ten years, and in nineteen o two it was extended indefinitely.

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Speaker 1: The acts placed heavy restrictions on the immigration of Chinese people,

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Speaker 1: encouraged the abuse of Chinese workers, and incited increased violence, racism,

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Speaker 1: and xenophobia, but many Chinese people managed to circumvent the laws,

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Speaker 1: and some Chinese merchants organized and anti American boycott, and

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Speaker 1: many Chinese people protested and fought for their rights in court. Still,

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Speaker 1: US immigration exclusion escalated, and the Immigration Act of nineteen

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Speaker 1: twenty four banned all immigration from Asia. As immigration increased

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Speaker 1: after World War Two, Congress established quotas to regulate immigration.

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Speaker 1: The Chinese exclusion Acts were repealed in nineteen forty three

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Speaker 1: after the US and China became allies in the war

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Speaker 1: and the Magnuson Act was passed. It set the annual

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Speaker 1: quota for Chinese immigrants extremely low, at one and five people.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't until the Immigration and Nationality Act of nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty five that the National Origins quota system was abolished

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Speaker 1: and the number of Asian people immigrating to the US

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Speaker 1: increased dramatically. I'm ive Jeff Cote and hopefully you know

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Speaker 1: a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: And if you have any comments or suggestions or questions,

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Speaker 1: you can hit us up on social media where at

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Speaker 1: t d I h C Podcast. You can also send

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Speaker 1: us an email at this day at I heeart media

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Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks again for listening to the show. And

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