Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Marcie Gorsuch
Emma Lazarus
Birds of Passage
Angel Island
Japanese Immigration
Contract Labor
Immigration Restriction
http://stories.washingtonhistory.org/Railroads/Teaching/MiddleSchool.aspx
SSUSH14 The student will explain Americas evolving relationship with the world at the turn
of the twentieth century.
a. Explain the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and anti-Asian immigration sentiment on the west
coast.
Essential Question: (Learning Question)
Who was involved in the expulsion of Chinese people from the US?
What motivations did they have? Were they economic, political, social?
What kind of effect did the Chinese Exclusion Act have on the people it
targeted?
Compare and contrast the U.S. federal governments policy towards Chinese
Americans and Japanese Americans during the late 1800s.
Materials: (include at least one primary source)
Document Based Essay: Evaluate the U.S. federal governments policy towards
Chinese Americans during the late 1800s.
Depth of Knowledge level: Analysis and synthesis will be required as well as identification
of supporting details related to the topic. Students will be taking an AP exam and so will need to
identify and evaluation Americas policy towards.
Modeling/Guided Practice/Independent Practice elements: The teacher will use the
reading entitled Migration and Disease as a modeling exercise from Digital history. The two
questions given at the end of the reading will serve as same prompts for the students. They will
be asked to identify their own investigative type questions that could be used in addition to the
original two given.
Elements of Teaching American History Grant activities incorporated into the
lesson:
Sourcing - Specifically with the cartoons and interview, students will be expected to
think about what the authors intention and message would be. Who would support or
appreciate the cartoon? Why did the author create it?
Contextualization Students will need to consider the location ( west coast) and
situation in time of the documents and cartoons. Each document will need the reader to
consider the dates and visualize what was happening during this time period that led to the
passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Close Reading Students will need to use this when reading the guided readings and
information related to the Chinese Exclusion Act. Students will need to consider what each
source identifies as motivation for the anti Asian policies. Also, students should be attentive to
the descriptions and stereotypes associated with the Chinese.
Corroboration Students will use the essential questions given in the lesson to
identify motivations and effects of the Anti Asian sentiment as it resulted in the exclusion and
discrimination aimed at the Chinese in 19th century America.
1.
Racial tensions finally snapped in 1882, and Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882,
barring immigration for ten years; the Geary Act extended the act for another ten years in 1892,
and by the Extension Act of1904, the act was made permanent.
created competition on the job market. By 1882 the Chinese were hated enough to be banned
from immigrating; the Chinese Exclusion Act, initially only a ten year policy, was extended
indefinitely, and made permanent in 1902. The Chinese resented the idea that they were being
discriminated against, but for the most part they remained quiet. In 1943, China was an important
ally of the United States against Japan, so the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed; however, a
lasting impact remained. The act was both cause and effect: it came from decades of Chinese
discrimination, and initiated decades of Chinese exclusion.
The Chinese flocked to America in search of opportunities; most fled from their collapsing
empire for economic reasons. The Gold Rush happened during a period of poverty in China,
which both pushed and pulled the Chinese to emigrate. In California, the Chinese newcomers
soon became an exploited work force, especially since they were predominantly male, but the
wages they received in the burgeoning 1850's economy were still "considerably higher than they
could earn at home" (Daniels 15). Many Chinese became miners, and some developed the
laundry business (highly lucrative in overpopulated San Francisco).
But opposition in California was both immediate and strong. During the Gold Rush, thousands of
Americans from the East, where they had opposed European immigration, frequently came with
nativist attitudes. And non-American whites (Irish, Russian), who had suffered from Eastern
nativism, saw that in attacking the Chinese, they elevated their own (shaky) status. Thus, Chinese
immigrants faced discrimination from many different groups, including American miners, who
felt that the hard-working and low-paid Chinese were reducing their wages.
It is the duty of the miners to take the matter into their own hands and erect
such barriers as shall be sufficient to check this asiatic inundation The
Capitalists who are encouraging or engaged in the importation of these
burlesques on humanity would crown their ships with the long tailed, horned
and cloven-hoofed inhabitants of the infernal regions if they could make a
profit on it. (McLeod, qtd. in Daniels, 34)
Thus, during the financially unstable 1870's, the Chinese became an ideal scapegoat: they were
strangers, wore queues, kept to their own kind, and were very productive (conditions not
inspiring great love, especially among the American laboring class). Legislation, including
immigration taxes, and laundry-operation fees, passed in order to limit the success of the Chinese
workers. Cartoons and other propaganda reinforced the view that the Chinese "worked cheap and
smelled bad" (Daniels 52); demonstrators marched with anti-Chinese slogans.
WE WANT NO SLAVES OR ARISTOCRATS
THE COOLIE LABOR SYSTEM LEAVES US NO ALTERNATIVE
STARVATION OR DISGRACE
3. MARK THE MAN WHO WOULD CRUSH US TO THE LEVEL OF THE MONGOLIAN
SLAVE WE ALL VOTE
WOMEN'S RIGHTS AND NO MORE CHINESE CHAMBERMAIDS (Daniels, 38)
4.
5.
The Chinese resented the fact that they were being discriminated against, yet they continued to
immigrate to the United States because they felt their opportunities in the United States were still
better than in China.
For sixty-one years, the Chinese were excluded from entering the United States and becoming
natural citizens when on December 17, 1943, the United States Congress pass the Chinese
Exclusion Repeal Act, which allowed Chinese to enter the United States legally once again.
The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed mainly for political reasons rather than for human
rights reasons. The main political reason was that the Chinese became an ally of the United
States extremely fast when World War II broke out. Since the Chinese were viewed as allies now,
the American government wanted to keep sentiments between the two countries high, so the
Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed, and Angel Island no longer remained a detainment center
for Chinese immigrants. This was a victory for people from China and Chinese-Americans;
however, the American reputation remains tainted by its inhumane and racist exclusion policies
towards the Chinese in the latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century.
Bibliography: BOOKS:
Choy, Philip. Dong, Lorraine. Hom, Marlon. The Coming Man. University of
Washington Press: Seattle and London, 1994.
Daniels, Roger. Asian America. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988.
Jones, Maldwyn Allen. American Immigration. The University of Chicago Press:
Chicago, 1960.
Knoll, Tricia. Becoming Americans. Coast to Coast Books: Portland, 1982
6.
Japanese Immigration
Period: 1880-1920
Overpopulation and rural poverty led many Japanese to emigrate to the
United States, where they confronted intense racial prejudice. In
California, the legislature imposed limits on Japanese land ownership, and
the Hearst newspaper ran headlines such as 'The Yellow Peril: How
Japanese Crowd out the White Race.'
The San Francisco School Board stirred an international incident in 1906
when it segregated Japanese students in an 'Oriental School.' The
Japanese government protested to President Theodore Roosevelt.
Roosevelt negotiated a 'gentlemen's agreement' restricting Japanese
emigration.
Contract Labor
Period: 1880-1920
During the 19th century, demand for manual laborers to build railroads,
raise sugar on Pacific Islands, mine precious metals, construct irrigation
canals, and perform other forms of heavy labor, grew. Particularly in
tropical or semi-tropical regions, this demand for manual labor was met by
indentured or contract workers. Nominally free, these laborers served
under contracts of indenture which required them to work for a period of
time--usually five to seven years--in return for their travel expenses and
maintenance. In exchange for nine hours of labor a day, six days a week,
indentured servants received a small salary as well as clothing, shelter,
food, and medical care.
An alternative to the indenture system was the "credit ticket system." A
broker advanced the cost of passage and workers repaid the loan plus
interest out of their earnings. The ticket system was widely used by
Chinese migrants to the United States. Beginning in the 1840s, about
380,000 Chinese laborers migrated to the U.S. mainland and 46,000 to
Hawaii. Between 1885 and 1924, some 200,000 Japanese workers went to
Hawaii and 180,000 to the U.S. mainland.
Indentured laborers are sometimes derogatorily referred to as "coolies."
Today, this term carries negative connotations of passivity and
submissiveness, but originally it was an Anglicization of a Chinese work
that refers to manual workers impressed into service by force or
deception. In fact, indentured labor was frequently acquired through
deceptive practices and even violence.
Between 1830 and 1920, about 1.5 million indentured laborers were
recruited from India, one million from Japan, and half a million from
China. Tens of thousands of free Africans and Pacific Islanders also served
as indentured workers.
The first Indian indentured laborers were imported into Mauritius, an
island in the Indian Ocean, in 1830. Following the abolition of slavery in
the British Empire in 1833, tens of thousands of Indians, Chinese, and
Africans were brought to the British Caribbean. After France abolished
slavery in 1848, its colonies imported 80,000 Indian laborers and 19,000
Africans. Also ending slavery in 1848, Dutch Guiana recruited 57,000
Asian workers for its plantations. Although slavery was not abolished in
Cuba until 1886, the rising costs of slaves led plantations to recruit
138,000 indentured laborers from China between 1847 and 1873.
Areas that had never relied on slave labor also imported indentured
workers. After 1850, American planters in Hawaii recruited labor from
Immigration Restriction
Period: 1880-1920
Gradually during the late 19th and early 20th century, the United States imposed additional
restrictions on immigration. In 1882, excluded people were likely to become public charges.
It subsequently prohibited the immigration of contract laborers (1885) and illiterates
(1917), and all Asian immigrants (except for Filipinos, who were U.S. nationals) (1917).
Other acts restricted the entry of certain criminals, people who were considered immoral,
those suffering from certain diseases, and paupers. Under the Gentlemen's Agreement of
1907-1908, the Japanese government agreed to limit passports issued to Japanese in order
to permit wives to enter the United States; and in 1917, the United States barred all Asian
immigrants except for Filipinos, who were U.S. nationals. Intolerance toward immigrants
from southern and eastern Europe resulted in the Immigration Act of 1924, which placed a
numerical cap on immigration and instituted a deliberately discriminatory system of national
quotas. In 1965, the United States adopted a new immigration law which ended the quota
system.
During the 20th century, all advanced countries imposed restrictions on the entry of
immigrants. A variety of factors encouraged immigration restriction. These include a concern
about the impact of immigration on the economic well-being of a country's workforce as well
as anxiety about the feasibility of assimilating immigrants of diverse ethnic and cultural
origins. Especially following World War I and World War II, countries expressed concern that
foreign immigrants might threaten national security by introducing alien ideologies.
It is only in the 20th century that governments became capable of effectively enforcing
immigration restrictions. Before the 20th century, Russia was the only major European
country to enforce a system of passports and travel regulations. During and after World War
I, however, many western countries adopted systems of passports and border controls as
well as more restrictive immigration laws. The Russian Revolution prompted fear of foreign
radicalism exacerbated by the Russian Revolution, while many countries feared that their
societies would be overwhelmed by a postwar surge of refugees.
Among the first societies to adopt restrictive immigration policies were Europe's overseas
colonies. Apart from prohibitions on the slave trade, many of the earliest immigration
restrictions were aimed at Asian immigrants. The United States imposed the Chinese
Exclusion Act in 1882. It barred the entry of Chinese laborers and established stringent
conditions under which Chinese merchants and their families could enter. Canada also
imposed restrictions on Chinese immigration. It imposed a "head" tax (which was $500 in
1904) and required migrants to arrive by a "continuous voyage."
8.
Wong Tung Jim Interrogation, 1928. Testimony of Wong Tung Jim (Jimmie
Howe), page 1,
December 29, 1928, Chinese Exclusion Act immigration case files, Records of
the Immigration
and Naturalization Service, Record Group 85, National Archives-Pacific Alaska
Region
(Seattle), Case 29160, ARC Identifier 298955.
Thomas Nast
when it had spread across the Far East, Middle East, Russia, Germany, Africa, and the
Americas. More than 300,000 people died of cholera in famine-stricken Russia alone.
To prevent the disease from entering the United States, the port of New York in 1892
imposed a 20 day quarantine on all immigrant passengers who traveled in steerage. This
measure, which did not apply to cabin-class passengers, was designed to halt foreign
immigration, since few steamships could afford to pay $5,000 a day in daily port fees. Other
cities including Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit, imposed quarantines on immigrants
arriving in local railroad stations. Congress in 1893 adopted the Rayner-Harris National
Quarantine Act which set up procedures for the medical inspection of immigrants and
permitted the president to suspend immigration on a temporary basis.
A fear that impoverished immigrants will carry disease into the United States has recurred
during the 20th century. In 1900, after bubonic plague appeared in San Francisco's
Chinatown, public health officials in San Francisco quarantined Chinese residents. In 1924, a
pneumonia outbreak resulted in the quarantining of Mexican American immigrants. After
Haitian immigrants were deemed to be at high risk of AIDS during the 1980s, they were
placed under close scrutiny by immigration officials.
Questions to think about?
1. What factors might make a specific population particularly vulnerable to disease?
2. In your view should immigrants be viewed as a possible source of disease? Or is such
a fear overdrawn?
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