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African American History before 1877

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African American History before 1877

Page law of 1875 was signed as a law by President Ulysses Grant. The Act forbade the
import of unfree workers and females availed for "immoral determinations" but was imposed
principally against the Chinese (Peffer, 1986). Legislated among the spread of the anti-Chinese
commitment from the west coast to the rest of the U.S, this regulation was the early
determination to confine Asian settlement without tentatively restricting Asian immigration on
the ground of race as an alternative restricted the select person’s classifications whose labor was
alleged as coerced and immoral. Famine and poverty pushed numerous Chinese individuals to
pursue opportunities in the U.S. In initial periods; the Chinese were welcomed. Inexpensive
Chinese labor was applicable to fulfill the certainty in "manifest intention" maintained by
numerous white Americans during the period. The regulations supported Chinese workers'
immigration, who were observed as much more reliable and less demanding than the white
workforce. The 1868 Burlingame Treaty was the transnational contract signed between U.S. and
China that permitted the Chinese to enter the United States liberally. The chief reason for this
Treaty was to ensure "the sufficient Chinese labor supply.” Chinese people were employed to
work in various jobs. They built towns, railroads, and businesses like restaurants and laundries.
They worked on farms and in mines. They also offered domestic services. Their job was vital to
the westward enlargement. Nevertheless, they get little or no credit for their determinations and
are frequently hate crimes victims and laws of anti-Asian.
The Page Act prohibited immigrants from Japan, China, or any oriental nation from
entering into the contract for immoral or lewd purposes.” The Act additionally banned the
importation of employees from the nations mentioned above "without their voluntary and free
consent. The Page Act entailed various components; nevertheless, the ban on Chinese females
was the one that was efficiently and profoundly enforced. Because of the anti-miscegenation
regulations in the U.S., the prohibition of Chinese women stopped Chinese males from having
families. Due to the Act, the Chinese registered female immigrants to male immigrants ratios in
the San Francisco area dropped approximately from 12:1 to merely 21:1 in five years (Loh-
Hagan et al., 2021).
The Act was ground-breaking in that it resulted in many anti-Asian regulations, most
outstandingly, the Chinese Exclusion Act. However, various other national and state laws
favored Chinese and Asian immigrants. The Act of 1917 Immigration prolonged the Chinese
segregation regulations to people from India, the Philippines, and Japan; the whole “barred
Asiatic zone” from Southeast Asia to the Middle East was established. All the Asians, despite the
various cultures and ethnicities, were put together as "Asiatic." Additionally, numerous racist
regulations barred Asians from marrying white individuals, attending white learning institutions,
testifying in the law court against white individuals, possessing property and land, and holding
professional and commercial licenses. The Asian Americans were constrained to specific parts of
the city and were obligated to form and dwell in the ethnic enclaves. These policies and laws
were preordained to sustain white supremacy (Wilson, 2022). The Page Act legacy is evident in
current immigration rules permitting the family’s separation. One of the long-lasting impacts of
the Page Act was to stigmatize Asian women. Additional to being pretty racialized, Asian
females were sexualized and fetishized. The stigma is evident in dominant representations and
images of Asian females as submissive and exotic.
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References
Loh-Hagan, V., Kwoh, J., Chang, J., & Kwoh, P. (2022). Excluded From History: The Page Act
of 1875. Social Education, 86(2), 73-78.
Peffer, G. A. (1986). Forbidden families: Emigration experiences of Chinese women under the
Page Law, 1875-1882. Journal of American Ethnic History, pp. 28–46.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27500484
Wilson, K. H. (2022). The Reconstruction Desegregation Debate: The Policies of Equality and
the Rhetoric of Place, 1870-1875. MSU Press.