Week 13

Derek Chang Guest Speaker Intro to China Migration to the US

● Chinese railroad workers
○ White overseers
○ 1863-1869; first transcontinental railroad
○ 15,000 - 20,000 Chinese laborers hired by Charles Crocker’s Central Pacific Railroad
○ Built 700 miles of track from California to Utah
○ Extremely dangerous: work happened year round (harsh winters), dynamite, accidents
● Chinese Exclusion
○ Movement to ban Chinese immigrants in the late 19th century
○ 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act - first US legislation to exclude a specific ethnic/national
group
■ amended and strengthened in 1888
○ Bars laborers but an exception for merchants (not clearly defined) for 10 years; after that
it was strengthened
○ 1892 - certificates of residence were required by Chinese people
○ 1902 - included prohibition of Chinese from “insular territories” (Philippines); ethnically
based prohibition
○ 1904 - extended indefinitely
○ 1943 - Magnuson Act, repealed (partially)
Political and ideological historical narrative of Chinese immigration
● First period - 1848-1882
○ 1848 Gold rush - first large scale immigration from China
■ there are Chinese people in the US already, small communities of Chinese sailers
in ports in NY, Boston, Philadelphia
○ Next 30 years - migration from China increases rapidly
■ 35,000 in 1850; 105,000 by 1880
● labor demand for transcontinental railroad
● Period of Exclusion 1875-1965
○ 1875 Page Act - barred Chinese (or any “Oriental”) women from entering the US for
“lewd or immoral purposes”
■ Assumption of sexuality of Chinese women
○ 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
○ 1924 Immigration Act - bars anyone from Asian continent
● Post Exclusion Period 1965 - Present
○ 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act/Hart Celler Act - abolishes quotas on particular
national groups for immigration
■ from quotas (limits) to hemispheric limits
■ height of the Cold War and the Space Race; needed engineers and scientists -
prioritizes people from different education
● Model minority myth beginnings - easier to become a citizen if you’re an
engineer
■ didn’t think they’d have a lot of Asian people immigrating; but it was a huge deal
Alternative Narrative
 ● Migration was a labor migration
○ Chinese migrants often came from a small region of Southern Chinese; economic, social,
political disruption
■ tax burdens from the Opium War; unequal treaties between China and European
merchants
■ people need to move
○ People leave a village to go to different places - other villages, the Philippines, Australia,
South Africa, The Caribbean, etc
■ family and village strategies of having their young men leaving
■ the US migration is not the sole place
○ Economic development in the US - territorial expansion, Gold Rush
■ development of: agricultural sectors, cities,
○ Racialized laborers; treated differently than most white laborers
■ “they’re different from other races” - hard working, barred from becoming US
citizens (they COULDN’T be involved in politics)
■ 1790, not that many Chinese people so Congress didn’t talk about them
■ 1870’s - National Descent Act specifically only allows white and Black people to
be US citizens, excluding Chinese people
■ If they’re not a citizen - they can testify on a jury, they can’t own land “Aliens
ineligible for citizenship”
● Chinese Laborers on the Economy from capitalists
○ Chinese laborers were supported by capitalists (landowners, business owners) as “cheap
labor”
■ debates on whether they actually affected economics, but these landowners chose
to hire these laborers for less money instead of US citizens
○ Chinese Exclusion
■ function of diminishing US labor needs and racialized labor politics
■ Exemplified economic control
○ 3 months after the Civil War, the South has to think of new labor sources instead of
slavery
■ foreign nations help supply their labor; turned to China - “great surplus of labor
of the most hardy character…which can be controlled…they’ve shown no
disposition to politics”
Legacies
● Model minority myth (seed being planted as them being hard workers compared to other
immigrants)
● As perpetual aliens - even if you’re a US citizen, you can be treated as if you’re not (investigation
of Chinese American engineers; anti-Asian violence and racism in recent times)
● Acceptance and belonging is dependent upon foreign relations and is conditional (when we’re not
at war, not competing, not a pandemics central to Asia; when we need their labor, they’re a part of
us)
● What does it mean to be in a country that has never wanted you in the first place?