The Chinese Exclusion Act barred ethnic Chinese from citizenship and immigration

Evidence

Even though most Americans know about the World War II internment of Japanese Americans (and Donald Trump’s prevaricating thoughts on it), the race-based anti-immigrant legacy of our nation was already cemented in the prior century. Sixty years before WWII, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first major law restricting immigration to the United States solely based on someone’s ethnicity. This racist legislation was enacted in response to irrational economic fears; native-born Americans were attributing their own unemployment and declining wages to the influence of Chinese workers (and later Japanese and all other Asian ethnicities) whom they also viewed as racially inferior. The Chinese Exclusion Act was signed into law on May 6, 1882 by President Chester A. Arthur and effectively halted Chinese immigration to the states for ten years. It also prohibited Chinese people from becoming US citizens, even if they already legally resided in America. — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 745

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 745
• XREF: connects to: Muslims were barred from US citizenship from 1790 to 1944 — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 147; Group scapegoating has recurred against Jews, Irish, Chinese, Roma, and LGBTQ people — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 37; The Chinese Exclusion Act transformed America into a gatekeeping nation — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 746 (+7 more)

Related

• Chinese exclusion in the 1880s supplied no precedent for European-immligrant restriction (similarity 0.86)
• Relaxed immigration to Chinese immigrants required ally status and decades more (similarity 0.85)
• Chinese exclusion laws forced immigrants to fabricate paper families to prove citizenship. (similarity 0.84)
• The Chinese Exclusion Act transformed America into a gatekeeping nation (similarity 0.83)
• Yellow-peril fear produced the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and 1917 bar (similarity 0.83)
• Chinese immigrants were barred from US citizenship until 1943 (similarity 0.82)
• Muslims were barred from US citizenship from 1790 to 1944 (similarity 0.81)
• US law racialized entire geographical regions to bar Asian immigrants (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Anti-Chinese sentiment drove a 1917 Asian immigration ban. #expands (0.75)
• Relaxed immigration to Chinese immigrants required ally status and decades more #expands (0.70) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 750
• A religious identity coded as non-white could legally bar naturalization. #expands (0.60)
• The United States sharply restricted West Indian immigration after 1925 #expands (0.55)