At America's Gates

At America's Gates PDF Author: Erika Lee
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807863130
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
With the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Chinese laborers became the first group in American history to be excluded from the United States on the basis of their race and class. This landmark law changed the course of U.S. immigration history, but we know little about its consequences for the Chinese in America or for the United States as a nation of immigrants. At America's Gates is the first book devoted entirely to both Chinese immigrants and the American immigration officials who sought to keep them out. Erika Lee explores how Chinese exclusion laws not only transformed Chinese American lives, immigration patterns, identities, and families but also recast the United States into a "gatekeeping nation." Immigrant identification, border enforcement, surveillance, and deportation policies were extended far beyond any controls that had existed in the United States before. Drawing on a rich trove of historical sources--including recently released immigration records, oral histories, interviews, and letters--Lee brings alive the forgotten journeys, secrets, hardships, and triumphs of Chinese immigrants. Her timely book exposes the legacy of Chinese exclusion in current American immigration control and race relations.

At America's Gates

At America's Gates PDF Author: Erika Lee
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807863130
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 346

Get Book Here

Book Description
With the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Chinese laborers became the first group in American history to be excluded from the United States on the basis of their race and class. This landmark law changed the course of U.S. immigration history, but we know little about its consequences for the Chinese in America or for the United States as a nation of immigrants. At America's Gates is the first book devoted entirely to both Chinese immigrants and the American immigration officials who sought to keep them out. Erika Lee explores how Chinese exclusion laws not only transformed Chinese American lives, immigration patterns, identities, and families but also recast the United States into a "gatekeeping nation." Immigrant identification, border enforcement, surveillance, and deportation policies were extended far beyond any controls that had existed in the United States before. Drawing on a rich trove of historical sources--including recently released immigration records, oral histories, interviews, and letters--Lee brings alive the forgotten journeys, secrets, hardships, and triumphs of Chinese immigrants. Her timely book exposes the legacy of Chinese exclusion in current American immigration control and race relations.

Chinese Immigration Law

Chinese Immigration Law PDF Author: Guofu Liu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317167023
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Lacking a single immigration code, Chinese immigration law is widespread, encompassing a variety of laws, regulations and policies, some of which are internal and closed. There is also no immigration cases system. These factors have combined to make the study and understanding of the system difficult for those outside or unfamiliar with this area of Chinese law. To add to this complexity, since the reform and opening-up policy in 1978, Chinese immigration law has been experiencing significant change. In particular, that brought about by the acceptance of a market economy in 1991, and with access to World Trade Organization membership in 2001. Due to the dilation of the legislation, the issue of conflict between Chinese immigration law and other Chinese laws has become serious. This book provides a comprehensive, up-to-date, and readily-accessible reference to Chinese immigration law. It provides the necessary detail, insight and background information for a thorough understanding of this complex system. The book has been written on the basis of Chinese statutes while also including coverage of the relevant international instruments. The work draws on and compares Chinese and English language sources, making it an invaluable resource for both Chinese and non-Chinese readers alike.

Laws Harsh As Tigers

Laws Harsh As Tigers PDF Author: Lucy E. Salyer
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807864315
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Focusing primarily on the exclusion of the Chinese, Lucy Salyer analyzes the popular and legal debates surrounding immigration law and its enforcement during the height of nativist sentiment in the early twentieth century. She argues that the struggles between Chinese immigrants, U.S. government officials, and the lower federal courts that took place around the turn of the century established fundamental principles that continue to dominate immigration law today and make it unique among branches of American law. By establishing the centrality of the Chinese to immigration policy, Salyer also integrates the history of Asian immigrants on the West Coast with that of European immigrants in the East. Salyer demonstrates that Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans mounted sophisticated and often-successful legal challenges to the enforcement of exclusionary immigration policies. Ironically, their persistent litigation contributed to the development of legal doctrines that gave the Bureau of Immigration increasing power to counteract resistance. Indeed, by 1924, immigration law had begun to diverge from constitutional norms, and the Bureau of Immigration had emerged as an exceptionally powerful organization, free from many of the constraints imposed upon other government agencies.

The Chinese Must Go

The Chinese Must Go PDF Author: Beth Lew-Williams
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674976010
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
Beth Lew-Williams shows how American immigration policies incited violence against Chinese workers, and how that violence provoked new exclusionary policies. Locating the origins of the modern American "alien" in this violent era, she makes clear that the present resurgence of xenophobia builds mightily upon past fears of the "heathen Chinaman."

Paper Families

Paper Families PDF Author: Estelle T. Lau
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822337478
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
A look at how the Chinese Exclusion Act and later legislation affected Chinese American communities, who created fictitious "paper families" to subvert immigration policies.

Forbidden Citizens

Forbidden Citizens PDF Author: Martin Gold
Publisher: The Capitol Net Inc
ISBN: 1587332353
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 618

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Book Description
"Described as 'one of the most vulgar forms of barbarism, ' by Rep. John Kasson (R-IA) in 1882, a series of laws passed by the United States Congress between 1879 and 1943 resulted in prohibiting the Chinese as a people from becoming U.S. citizens. Forbidden citizens recounts this long and shameful legislative history"--Page 4 of cover.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 PDF Author: John Soennichsen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313379475
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
This in-depth examination of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 provides a chronological review of the events, ordinances, and pervasive attitudes that preceded, coincided with, and followed its enactment. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was a historic act of legislation that demonstrated how the federal government of the United States once openly condoned racial discrimination. Once the Exclusion Act passed, the door was opened to further limitation of Asians in America during the late 19th century, such as the Scott Act of 1888 and the Geary Act of 1892, and increased hatred towards and violence against Chinese people based on the misguided belief they were to blame for depressed wage levels and unemployment among Caucasians. This title traces the complete evolution of the Exclusion Act, including the history of Chinese immigration to the United States, the factors that served to increase their populations here, and the subsequent efforts to limit further immigration and encourage the departure of the Chinese already in America.

If They Don't Bring Their Women Here

If They Don't Bring Their Women Here PDF Author: George Anthony Peffer
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252067778
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
Investigates how administrative agencies and federal courts actually enforced immigration laws.

Closing the Gate

Closing the Gate PDF Author: Andrew Gyory
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 080786675X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 371

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Book Description
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred practically all Chinese from American shores for ten years, was the first federal law that banned a group of immigrants solely on the basis of race or nationality. By changing America's traditional policy of open immigration, this landmark legislation set a precedent for future restrictions against Asian immigrants in the early 1900s and against Europeans in the 1920s. Tracing the origins of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Andrew Gyory presents a bold new interpretation of American politics during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age. Rather than directly confront such divisive problems as class conflict, economic depression, and rising unemployment, he contends, politicians sought a safe, nonideological solution to the nation's industrial crisis--and latched onto Chinese exclusion. Ignoring workers' demands for an end simply to imported contract labor, they claimed instead that working people would be better off if there were no Chinese immigrants. By playing the race card, Gyory argues, national politicians--not California, not organized labor, and not a general racist atmosphere--provided the motive force behind the era's most racist legislation.

Impossible Subjects

Impossible Subjects PDF Author: Mae M. Ngai
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400850231
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 411

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Book Description
This book traces the origins of the "illegal alien" in American law and society, explaining why and how illegal migration became the central problem in U.S. immigration policy—a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about citizenship, race, and state authority in the twentieth century. Mae Ngai offers a close reading of the legal regime of restriction that commenced in the 1920s—its statutory architecture, judicial genealogies, administrative enforcement, differential treatment of European and non-European migrants, and long-term effects. She shows that immigration restriction, particularly national-origin and numerical quotas, remapped America both by creating new categories of racial difference and by emphasizing as never before the nation's contiguous land borders and their patrol. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.