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point, most Italian emigrants chose to move to Argentina or Australia. For a few years after the Immigration Act of 1965, Italians were the most numerous immigrant group admitted to the U.S., but few have come since then.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Gabaccia, Donna R. From Sicily to Elizabeth Street: Housing and Social Change among Italian Immigrants, 1880–1930. Albany, N.Y.: State University Press of New York, 1984.

Mangione, Jerre and Ben Morreale. La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian American Experience. New York: Harper Collins, 1992.

Salomone, Frank A. Italians in Rochester, New York, 1900– 1940. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000.

Chinese Exclusion Act 1882

Legislation

By: United States Congress

Date: May 6, 1882

Source: ‘‘Chinese Exclusion Act.’’ 22 Stat. 58, U.S. Congress, 1882.

About the Author: The Forty-seventh United States Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882; ten years later the Fifty-second Congress renewed the act’s provisions and strengthened Chinese immigra- tion laws with the Geary Act. In 1902 the restrictions on Chinese immigration were made permanent, though repealed some forty years later.

INTRODUCTION

Chinese relations with the United States stretched back to the 1784 trade expedition in which the ship the Empress of China brought American cotton and furs to China and returned with Chinese silk and spices, all with a handsome profit for the merchants involved. Over the next century, Chinese-U.S. diplomatic rela- tions centered around trade and immigration.

Early Christian missionary activity in China stretches back to the early 1800s for American and British missionaries; their forays into the Canton (Guangdong) region helped to deliver news of the United States and its culture to China. After the Opium War (1839–1842) and Britain’s forced opening of trade with China, the United States worked to

negotiate the Wangxia Treaty, which gave the U.S. unilateral trade rights and helped Americans to enter the illegal opium trade.

By the early 1850s, news of the Gold Rush in California reached China. Some of the earlier immi- grants were from Canton, where missionaries had helped native Chinese to conceptualize the U.S. and to understand more about U.S. culture. The 1850 foreign Miner’s Tax Law, passed in California, was the first in a series of state and federal laws designed to discriminate directly against the Chinese. By charg- ing an additional tax for foreign miners, authorities targeted Chinese miners for their differences while helping native-born miners. The Chinese miners called the U.S. Gam Saan, or ‘‘Gold Mountain,’’ although many white and native-born miners forced Chinese immigrants to work older (and more depleted) mines, or paid lower wages for Chinese laborers. Throughout the 1850s, the U.S. government restricted naturaliza- tion for immigrants of non-white status, placing Chinese immigrants in limbo.

By the 1860s, a substantial number of Chinese immigrants worked as railroad construction laborers; after the Civil War, and in the early 1870s when an economic depression affected the U.S., Chinese laborers were viewed by poor whites and former slaves as interlopers who took jobs away from native-born Americans. Anti-Chinese sentiment increased dramat- ically throughout the 1870s, as incidents of mob vio- lence against Chinese immigrants in Colorado, California, and Washington demonstrated increasing prejudice. An 1877 report from the Joint Special Committee to Investigate Chinese Immigration docu- mented native beliefs that Chinese workers took American jobs, that Chinese immigrants were unable to support and function in a democracy, and that the Chinese refused to learn English. By the early 1880s, Congress was prepared to curb Chinese immigration in spite of diplomatic relations with China in which the Chinese government expressed disapproval of these actions. In 1882, Congress passed The Chinese Exclusion Act.

n PRIMARY SOURCE

CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT

An Act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to Chinese

Whereas in the opinion of the Government of the United

States the coming of Chinese laborers to this country

endangers the good order of certain localities within the

territory thereof: Therefore,

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C H I N E S E E X C L U S I O N A C T 1 8 8 2

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Repre-

sentatives of the United States of America in Congress

assembled, That from and after the expiration of ninety

days next after the passage of this act, and until the expi-

ration of ten years next after the passage of this act, the

coming of Chinese laborers to the United States be, and

the same is hereby, suspended; and during such suspen-

sion it shall not be lawful for any Chinese laborer to come,

or having so come after the expiration of said ninety days

to remain within the United States.

SEC. 2. That the master of any vessel who shall knowingly

bring within the United States on such vessel, and land or

permit to be landed, any Chinese laborer, from any foreign

port or place, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor,

and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not

more than five hundred dollars for each and every such

Chinese laborer so brought, and maybe also imprisoned for

a term not exceeding one year.

SEC. 3. That the two foregoing sections shall not apply to

Chinese laborers who were in the United States on the

seventeenth day of November, eighteen hundred and

eighty, or who shall have come into the same before the

expiration of ninety days next after the passage of this act,

and who shall produce to such master before going on

board such vessel, and shall produce to the collector of

the port in the United States at which such vessel shall

arrive, the evidence hereinafter in this act required of his

being one of the laborers in this section mentioned; nor

shall the two foregoing sections apply to the case of any

master whose vessel, being bound to a port not within the

United States, shall come within the jurisdiction of the

United States by reason of being in distress or in stress

of weather, or touching at any port of the United States on

its voyage to any foreign port or place: Provided, That all

Chinese laborers brought on such vessel shall depart with

the vessel on leaving port.

SEC. 4. That for the purpose of properly identifying

Chinese laborers who were in the United States on the

seventeenth day of November eighteen hundred and

eighty, or who shall have come into the same before the

expiration of ninety days next after the passage of this act,

and in order to furnish them with the proper evidence of

their right to go from and come to the United States of their

free will and accord, as provided by the treaty between the

United States and China dated November seventeenth,

A cartoon critical of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 depicts the United States building a wall against Chinese immigration—using

bricks of jealousy and non-reciprocity and ‘‘congressional mortar’’—at the same time that China is tearing down a wall against trade with

the United States. THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.

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C H I N E S E E X C L U S I O N A C T 1 8 8 2

eighteen hundred and eighty, the collector of customs of

the district from which any such Chinese laborer shall

depart from the United States shall, in person or by deputy,

go on board each vessel having on board any such Chinese

laborers and cleared or about to sail from his district for a

foreign port, and on such vessel make a list of all such

Chinese laborers, which shall be entered in registry-books

to be kept for that purpose, in which shall be stated the

name, age, occupation, last place of residence, physical

marks of peculiarities, and all facts necessary for the iden-

tification of each of such Chinese laborers, which books

shall be safely kept in the custom-house; and every such

Chinese laborer so departing from the United States shall

be entitled to, and shall receive, free of any charge or cost

upon application therefor, from the collector or his deputy,

at the time such list is taken, a certificate, signed by the

collector or his deputy and attested by his seal of office, in

such form as the Secretary of the Treasury shall prescribe,

which certificate shall contain a statement of the name,

age, occupation, last place of residence, personal descrip-

tion, and facts of identification of the Chinese laborer to

whom the certificate is issued, corresponding with the

said list and registry in all particulars. In case any Chinese

laborer after having received such certificate shall leave

such vessel before her departure he shall deliver his cer-

tificate to the master of the vessel, and if such Chinese

laborer shall fail to return to such vessel before her depar-

ture from port the certificate shall be delivered by the

master to the collector of customs for cancellation. The

certificate herein provided for shall entitle the Chinese

laborer to whom the same is issued to return to and re-

enter the United States upon producing and delivering the

same to the collector of customs of the district at which

such Chinese laborer shall seek to re-enter; and upon

delivery of such certificate by such Chinese laborer to the

collector of customs at the time of re-entry in the United

States said collector shall cause the same to be filed in the

custom-house and duly canceled.

SEC. 5. That any Chinese laborer mentioned in section four

of this act being in the United States, and desiring to depart

from the United States by land, shall have the right to

demand and receive, free of charge or cost, a certificate

of identification similar to that provided for in section four

of this act to be issued to such Chinese laborers as may

desire to leave the United States by water; and it is hereby

made the duty of the collector of customs of the district

next adjoining the foreign country to which said Chinese

laborer desires to go to issue such certificate, free of

charge or cost, upon application by such Chinese laborer,

and to enter the same upon registry-books to be kept by

him for the purpose, as provided for in section four of

this act.

SEC. 6. That in order to the faithful execution of articles

one and two of the treaty in this act before mentioned,

every Chinese person other than a laborer who may be

entitled by said treaty and this act to come within the

United States, and who shall be about to come to

the United States, shall be identified as so entitled by the

Chinese Government in each case, such identity to be

evidenced by a certificate issued under the authority of

said government, which certificate shall be in the English

language or (if not in the English language) accompanied

by a translation into English, stating such right to come,

and which certificate shall state the name, title or official

rank, if any, the age, height, and all physical peculiarities,

former and present occupation or profession, and place of

residence in China of the person to whom the certificate is

issued and that such person is entitled, conformably to the

treaty in this act mentioned to come within the United

States. Such certificate shall be prima-facie evidence of

the fact set forth therein, and shall be produced to the

collector of customs, or his deputy, of the port in the

district in the United States at which the person named

therein shall arrive.

SEC. 7. That any person who shall knowingly and falsely

alter or substitute any name for the name written in such

certificate or forge any such certificate, or knowingly utter

any forged or fraudulent certificate, or falsely personate

any person named in any such certificate, shall be deemed

guilty of a misdemeanor; and upon conviction thereof shall

be fined in a sum not exceeding one thousand dollars, and

imprisoned in a penitentiary for a term of not more than

five years.

SEC. 8. That the master of any vessel arriving in the United

States from any foreign port or place shall, at the same

time he delivers a manifest of the cargo, and if there be no

cargo, then at the time of making a report of the entry of

the vessel pursuant to law, in addition to the other matter

required to be reported, and before landing, or permitting

to land, any Chinese passengers, deliver and report to the

collector of customs of the district in which such vessels

shall have arrived a separate list of all Chinese passengers

taken on board his vessel at any foreign port or place, and

all such passengers on board the vessel at that time. Such

list shall show the names of such passengers (and if

accredited officers of the Chinese Government traveling

on the business of that government, or their servants, with

a note of such facts), and the names and other particulars,

as shown by their respective certificates; and such list

shall be sworn to by the master in the manner required

by law in relation to the manifest of the cargo. Any willful

refusal or neglect of any such master to comply with the

provisions of this section shall incur the same penalties

and forfeiture as are provided for a refusal or neglect to

report and deliver a manifest of the cargo.

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C H I N E S E E X C L U S I O N A C T 1 8 8 2

SEC. 9. That before any Chinese passengers are landed

from any such line vessel, the collector, or his deputy, shall

proceed to examine such passenger, comparing the cer-

tificate with the list and with the passengers; and no pas-

senger shall be allowed to land in the United States from

such vessel in violation of law.

SEC. 10. That every vessel whose master shall knowingly

violate any of the provisions of this act shall be deemed

forfeited to the United States, and shall be liable to seizure

and condemnation in any district of the United States into

which such vessel may enter or in which she may be

found.

SEC. 11. That any person who shall knowingly bring into or

cause to be brought into the United States by land, or who

shall knowingly aid or abet the same, or aid or abet the

landing in the United States from any vessel of any

Chinese person not lawfully entitled to enter the United

States, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and

shall, on conviction thereof, be fined in a sum not exceed-

ing one thousand dollars, and imprisoned for a term not

exceeding one year.

SEC. 12. That no Chinese person shall be permitted to

enter the United States by land without producing to the

proper officer of customs the certificate in this act required

of Chinese persons seeking to land from a vessel. And any

Chinese person found unlawfully within the United States

shall be caused to be removed therefrom to the country

from whence he came, by direction of the President of the

United States, and at the cost of the United States, after

being brought before some justice, judge, or commis-

sioner of a court of the United States and found to be

one not lawfully entitled to be or remain in the United

States.

SEC. 13. That this act shall not apply to diplomatic and

other officers of the Chinese Government traveling upon

the business of that government, whose credentials shall

be taken as equivalent to the certificate in this act men-

tioned, and shall exempt them and their body and house-

hold servants from the provisions of this act as to other

Chinese persons.

SEC. 14. That hereafter no State court or court of the

United States shall admit Chinese to citizenship; and all

laws in conflict with this act are hereby repealed.

SEC. 15. That the words ‘‘Chinese laborers,’’ wherever

used in this act shall be construed to mean both skilled

and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining.

Approved, May 6, 1882.

nnn

SIGNIFICANCE

The Chinese Exclusion Act revised laws from 1880 restricting Chinese immigration and ended the provisions of the 1868 Burlingame Treaty. Under the Chinese Exclusion Act, laborers were barred from entering the country for ten years, and Chinese immi- grants were prevented from becoming naturalized citi- zens. The act—the first piece of federal legislation that singled out one immigrant group—dictated Chinese immigration for the next sixty years.

As a result of the act, Chinese immigration dropped from nearly 40,000 per year to less than one hundred legal Chinese immigrants per year. Later revisions prohibited Chinese workers who had left the United States to visit China from re-entering the country and restricted the ability to bring spouses from China to the U.S.

In 1892, despite vocal opposition from Chinese business organizations, missionary groups, and some native-born supporters of Chinese immigrant rights, the Exclusion Act was renewed. The new version was called the Geary Act, and in addition to the provisions of the Exclusion Act, the Geary Act stripped Chinese immigrants of the right to post bail or to act as a wit- ness in court.

The Chinese government, angered by the restric- tions but hopeful for U.S. aid in foreign relations with Russia as well as trade, criticized the act but did noth- ing to stop it. Congregationalist missionaries, repre- sented by the American Missionary Association, feared retaliation against Americans in China when the 1882 act was up for renewal.

Small Chinese immigrant communities continued in spite of the act; ‘‘Chinatowns’’ helped maintain a sense of Chinese community in major cities such as San Francisco, though birth rates declined as the popula- tion—largely male—aged, and Chinese brides were not permitted to enter the country. The 1924 immi- gration law restricted legal immigration to no more than one hundred Chinese per year, and in 1943 the Magnuson Act repealed the strictest provisions of the 1882 Exclusion Act. The Immigration Act of 1965 finally placed Chinese immigrants on equal status with immigrants from other parts of the world seeking residency in the U.S.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Claiming America: Constructing Chinese Identities During the Exclusion Era, edited by K. Scott Wong and Sucheng Chan. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998.

I M M I G R A T I O N A N D M U L T I C U L T U R A L I S M : E S S E N T I A L P R I M A R Y S O U R C E S 81

C H I N E S E E X C L U S I O N A C T 1 8 8 2

Gyory, Andrew. Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

Lee, Erika. At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era, 1882–1943. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Web sites

National Archives and Records Administration. ‘‘Chinese Immigration and the Chinese in the United States.’’ <http://www.archives.gov/locations/finding-aids/ chinese-immigration.html> (accessed June 26, 2006).

Rosa Cavalleri: From Northern Italy to Chicago,1884–1926

Book excerpt

By: Marie Hall Ets

Date: 1970

Source: Ets, Marie Hall. Rosa: The Life of an Italian Immigrant. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970.

About the Author: Marie Hall Ets was born in Wisconsin in 1895. She was best known as a writer and illustrator of children’s books and won many awards for her work. In 1918, she became a social worker in a settlement home in Chicago, where she met Rosa Cavalleri. Rosa told her many stories of her early life in an Italian village and of her arrival in America in 1884. Ets published these stories in 1970 as Rosa, the Life of an Italian Immigrant.

INTRODUCTION

This is an excerpt from the biography of Rosa Cavelleri, an Italian immigrant who arrived in America at the height of European immigration in the late nineteenth century, when she was eighteen years old. Born in a silk-making village in Lombardy, Rosa was an orphan who was brought up by various foster parents. At the age of sixteen, she was married off to a brutal older man called Santino. Shortly after their wedding, Santino joined a work gang who went to America for work in the Missouri iron mines. He soon sent a ticket for Rosa to join him there so that she could keep house for him and the other miners. She reluc- tantly left Italy in 1884 with other young women who were going to join husbands or fiancés in the United States.

Although the early waves of European immigra- tion to the United States had been from western and northern Europe, by 1890 immigrants from these areas were equaled in number by southern and eastern Europeans, especially Italians, Greeks, and Eastern European Jews. Within a few years, they accounted for two-thirds of all immigrants to the United States. While economic stability in northern Europe was reducing emigration, in the south and east a number of factors contributed to its increase. These included, for example, the displacement of rural people as a result of industrialization, unemployment, poverty, high taxation, and compulsory military service.

In Italy, labor migration to nearby countries was already commonplace. In the mid-nineteenth century, America became a viable alternative with the develop- ment of the steamship, which greatly shortened journeys. In addition, many steamship companies competed against each other to offer cheap fares. With high levels of poverty and unemployment in Italy, many Italians took advantage of the opportunity to find employment and a better life in America.

Often men emigrated first, with their wives and other family members joining them later, when the men had saved up enough money to pay for their fares. However, many single Italian women also immi- grated to America, either to join their fiancés there, or to live with relatives. One factor that affected women’s migration from Italy was their parents’ increasing dif- ficulty in providing a dowry, which in some areas of the country was expected to consist of a house, land, or furnishings. Between 1881 and 1890, around a fifth of Italian immigrants to the United States were women, but this percentage increased to thirty-nine percent between 1921 and 1930. Family networks also brought many Italians to America, forming the bases of Italian communities that developed in New York and other cities.

The Italian government also encouraged labor migration to the United States. Officially, men who were liable for military service were banned from emi- grating. However, this policy was not effectively enforced, due partly to the weak authority of the newly established government in a country only recently unified, and partly because the money emi- grants sent back to Italian families helped the Italian economy. Over time, the government introduced measures to facilitate migration, introducing a literacy program in 1901 to help migrants pass the tests being proposed as a condition of entry to the United States and recommending the establishment of employment offices for Italian immigrants in New York, to help them secure jobs there.

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work/folder-1/question.txt

For your first primary source assignment, please read and evaluate the Chinese Exclusion Act, linked here: Chinese_Exclusion_Act_1882.PDFPreview the document After you read this document and the supplemental material, please respond to the following questions based on your reading of the document. You may wish to consult your text for reference. You will need to cite in Chicago Style if you are using direct quotes or paraphrasing from outside sources. I do not expect you to be an expert in American-Chinese foreign policy relations so do your best to respond to the questions using the document, your text, and supported opinions. Please be sure to number the responses to each question as well as use COMPLETE SENTENCES to answer each of the 6 questions. 12 pt font, double spaced, Times New Roman, PDF, .doc, .docx files only! This Primary Source Assignment is due SATURDAY, JUNE 1 by 11:59PM. Questions to respond to after reading the source document: What rights should immigrants or foreign laborers have under American law? Should the Constitution be altered? Should the 14th Amendment be expanded? Was the Chinese Exclusion Act or a law like it a good idea at any point? When? If not, how can you address foreign labor crowding a finite job market? What sorts of lingering effects can a law like this have, both to a Chinese-American population and to relations between China and the United States? Should immigration be restricted in terms of ethnicity or race? Religion? Political belief? Any criteria you can think of? Why or why not? Is it ethical to use a population of people for cheap labor, as Chinese immigrants were used on the railroad, and then enact measures to keep more from immigrating? Why or why not? Do ethics like these have any basis for laws? The United States often finds itself at odds with the lofty principles espoused in the Constitution and political and economic reality. When this happens, which is more important? What's more important in the case of the Chinese Exclusion Act?