History of the United States II / Unit 2 USH2 0186 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
The Chinese Exclusion Act
The idea
Chinese immigrants faced legal barriers at every level. Federal law had barred them from naturalised citizenship since seventeen ninety. In eighteen seventy-nine California's new constitution denied the vote and state employment to Chinese residents who had become citizens. On May sixth, eighteen eighty-two, the Chinese Exclusion Act suspended the immigration of Chinese labourers for ten years. It was renewed and extended, and Digital History notes that most Chinese immigrants were barred until nineteen forty-three.
In practice
Three layers of law, state and federal, closing one door after another over ninety years.
Where people slip
The ban lasted sixty-one years, from eighteen eighty-two to nineteen forty-three. Digital History notes that many of the earliest immigration restrictions were aimed at Asian immigrants. Unit nine returns to immigration quotas, and unit fourteen to their repeal.
Your place on the trail
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