Chinese Immigration

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was an important act in achieving immigration rights. The act was put in place to outlaw Chinese immigration. The Chinese had fled into our country, becoming immigrants, because the Americans saw that they were good workers and good people to hire because of loyalty and dedication. Unfortunately this didn’t end as planned because the Chinese started overpopulating our country and taking the jobs. The Chinese Exclusion act of 1882 was passed for a couple of reasons. One reason that it was passed was to keep the Chinese population from expanding and taking all the employment from Americans and other immigrants. They seemed to have felt threatened by them because they were coming over in large numbers. In document c, it said that “the boot, shoe, and cigar industries were almost entirely in their hands.” The opportunity for Americans to own the industry were slipping away and that made them feel threatened too. For example, The time-line shows that there were over 100,000 Chinese workers in America. In document C, it explains that the “pro-Chinese wealthy men had succeed in reviving the importation of this Chinese salve-labor.” Document C also says that the Chinese worked like degraded slaves. So that meant that the Americans weren't getting jobs and there were hundreds and thousands of Chinese coming into our country each week. That became out of control. Document C stated by thee working men of San Francisco was that “This state of things brings about a terrible competition between our own people who live like civilized Americans, and the Chinese, who live like degraded slaves.” This meant that competition between the Americans and Chinese was almost unfair to the Americans because it was our country and we were getting taken over by Chinese workers. Americans also thought they could possibly hire other immigrants for less money even know that the Chinese were “excellent and faithful” workers, according to document D. Overall,