More than a century before US President Donald Trump began blocking arrivals from the Middle East and Africa, the US immigration debate was already being forged in the crucible of Chinese exclusion.
On May 6, 1882 — the eve of the greatest wave of immigration in US history — then-US president Chester Arthur signed a history-making, yet little-known piece of legislation called the Chinese Exclusion Act.
The law, not repealed until 1943, banned workers from the Middle Kingdom and ended naturalization for Chinese nationals — the first time the US had singled out a particular nationality.
The new regime severely complicated life for more than 100,000 ethnic Chinese already in the US, many recruited to build a transcontinental railroad, but facing racism from white workers.
This obscure, yet resonant aspect of US history is explored in The Chinese Exclusion Act, a timely new Public Broadcasting Service documentary debuting on May 29 from Emmy-winning filmmakers Ric Burns and Yu Li-shin (虞麗幸).
“This is not simply an immigration story, it is the American immigration story,” Burns told the Television Critics Association (TCA) in southern California in January.
The White House’s biggest disagreements with Beijing these days center on trade rather than immigration, although liberals worry that Trump is ushering in a new era of isolationism with his “America first” rhetoric against migrants.
Burns and Yu examine the economic, social, legal, racial and political dimensions of the act, the events that gave rise to it and the effect it continues to have on US culture and identity.
Chinese-Americans could not vote, but the community filed about 10,000 lawsuits, establishing bedrock principles on birthright citizenship, access to education and equal protection under the law.
“In the process of resisting the discriminatory laws, the Chinese community helped define, in the most positive ways, what American citizenship is,” executive producer Stephen Gong (江文韶) said.
The complex relationship between China and the US began with the founding of the republic, when trade with China emerged as crucial to US economic independence.
Through the dramatic westward expansion in the 1840s, supercharged by the Gold Rush, the US became a bona fide global superpower.
Workers spilled into the new territory of California from the Pearl River Delta in southern China, seeking their fortune and fleeing the unrest precipitated by the Opium Wars.
“The Gold Rush for Anglo-America was a kind of shock therapy — and an object lesson in the fact that there were other kinds of people on the planet,” historian Kevin Starr, who died in January last year, says in the film. “California was a laboratory for the larger process of adjustment that began nationally.”
Eventually the gold mines began to dry up and Chinese immigrants became targets for reprisals by white miners whose resentments were inflamed by local politicians.
The transcontinental railroad, completed in 1869, transported cheap labor east and virulent racism against Chinese spread countrywide, fanned by the economic crash of the 1870s.
Suddenly the “China Question” was front and center in the theater of US political debate.
“We have today to decide whether we shall have on the Pacific coast of the United States the kingdom of Christ or the kingdom of Confucius,” then-US senator James Blaine told fellow lawmakers.
The act was passed and racist purges multiplied catastrophically as 300 towns and cities from Wyoming to Oregon turned against their Chinese-American inhabitants.
Interracial marriages were banned, while authorities prevented Chinese-Americans from returning after visiting loved ones back home and banned Chinese from owning property and businesses.
The act formed the foundation of US immigration policy, implemented with cold-blooded efficiency at the Angel Island barracks in San Francisco harbor.
Between 1910 and 1940, 175,000 Chinese immigrants passed through the station, but 18 percent of newcomers were rejected, often after grueling interrogations and harrowing detentions.
The anti-Asian discrimination was extended in 1917 to bar workers from an area that stretched from Japan to Turkey — ushering in immigration restrictions that would endure for a half-century.
Activists have said that when US Congress repealed the act, the US was in the throes of World War II and primarily concerned that Japan was citing the law in propaganda questioning China’s alliance with Washington.
The US still let in only 105 Chinese each year and did not open up to large-scale immigration by non-Europeans until a landmark 1965 law championed by then senator Ted Kennedy.
The US House of Representatives in 2012 formally expressed regret for the country’s anti-China policies, eight months after the US Senate had passed its own apologetic resolution.
“If there is a word that defines the Chinese-American experience, and Asian-American experience, it’s exclusion,” University of California, Berkeley professor emeritus Wang Ling-chi (王靈智) says in the film.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS