The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of America — John Shaqi
The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of AmericaDu Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
History
The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of America
Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
African Americans -- History; United States -- Race relations
By an act of March 3, 1875, the National Government made its first
attempt to restrict immigration; this act prohibited the bringing in
of alien convicts and of women for immoral purposes. On May 6, 1882,
Congress passed and the President approved another act “to regulate
immigration”, by which the coming of Chinese laborers was forbidden
for ten years. The story which led up to this Act of Congress is a
long one, and the details cannot be given here. Briefly, conditions in
California following the Burlingame treaty of 1868, owing to the influx
of Chinese labor, resulted in the organization of a workingman’s party
headed by Dennis Kearney, and forced the Chinese question as one of the
dominant issues of State politics. Resolutions embodying the feelings of
the people on Chinese immigration were presented to the Constitutional
Convention of 1879. The State Legislature enacted laws against this
immigration. Subsequently pressure was brought to bear on the National
Government, a new treaty with China was negotiated, and finally the law
of 1882 was passed by Congress, restricting for ten years the admission
of Chinese laborers, both skilled and unskilled, and of mine workers also.
Ever since the passage of this law, the Federal Government has pursued
a more restrictive and exclusive immigration policy. The next law was
passed in August, 1882, prohibiting the immigration of “any convict,
lunatic, idiot, or any person unable to take care of himself or herself
without becoming a public charge.” Then, in 1885, came another act
known as the “Alien Contract Labor Law”, forbidding the importation
and immigration of foreigners and aliens under contract or agreement
to perform labor in the United States. In 1891 came the law called the
“Geary Act” which amended “the various acts relative to immigration and
the importation of aliens under contract or agreement to perform labor”.
This act extended Chinese exclusion for another ten years, and required
the Chinese in the country to register and submit to the Bertillon test
as a means of identification. In 1893 two acts were passed; one which
gave the quarantine service greater powers and placed additional duties
upon the Public Health Service, and another which properly enforced
the existing immigration and contract labor laws. In 1902 the law
of exclusion was made permanent against Chinese laborers. So, since
1875, the United States has passed laws excluding Chinese entirely and
virtually excluding the Japanese, and both these races are ineligible to
citizenship. In 1907, an act was passed “to regulate the immigration of
Aliens into the United States”, which excluded imbeciles, epileptics,
those so defective either physically or mentally that they might become
public charges; children under sixteen not with a parent, etc.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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