Exclusion

Charles

In the nineteenth- and early twentieth centuries, Chinese and Japanese people in America were denied basic civil rights. The Exclusion Act of 1882 suspended Chinese immigration for ten years. The Act   was renewed in 1892 and made permanent in 1902. It was not repealed  until 1943.

This legislation focused on blocking Asian access to society and economy. Asians in that era were portrayed  as "Other," inferior, unable to assimilate and dishonest. Of course, if they were so different, it stands to reason they wouldn't do very well. But Asians are real people, not stereotypes. Their successes kept pace with — and often outpaced — other people's. Many felt threatened by this success, so, bigots developed a "voice" of exclusion, a rhetoric that elevated themselves by reducing Asians.

The sinister nature   of exclusion moved rhetoric away from reason and stoked fear and violence. The same arguments used against the Chinese were used against the Japanese a generation later.

Even before the dramatic migration to California, Whites had shown a propensity for excluding  people of color. Extreme reactions often occurred in times of economic stress, or whenever things appeared to change. By the 1870s, the gold rush was over, the transcontinental railroad was complete and the Civil War had ended. The economy was unstable and Anglo American opportunities for success were challenged by non-Anglos seeking their own opportunities. The dream was passing by too many White men, and resentment set in. To people unable to understand the larger forces at play, "inscrutable" Asians seemed as good a reason as any for their misfortune.

But check this out: By 1880, there were about 75,000 Chinese people in California. After the Exclusion Acts, their population dropped to about half of that. The Japanese population in California grew from 32 people in 1870 to over 10,000 by 1900. Meanwhile, California population as a whole almost doubled in those years, to 1.5 million people* — the Chinese population thus declined to near invisibility. And while Japanese growth was impressive, it actually declined by one-third as a percentage of the entire population! Anti-Asian sentiment was clearly aimed at a diminishing proportion of California population. Any "threat" they posed was utter fiction.

The racism that drove anti-Asian movements degraded everyone. Chinese and Japanese people in America suffered humiliation and violence, and were systematically blocked in the quest for the American Dream. Asian success in that time, and since, is certainly twice the accomplishment in the face of such hostility.

* From Loosley, Foreign Born Population of California, 1848-1920: A Thesis. San Francisco, 1971.