City of Immigrants – resources
#1 Timeline – The Chinese in the United States
Timeline:
1783 – Empress of China travels to China and opens trade
1840s – Opium Wars between England and China
1882 – Chinese Exclusion Act – prohibited immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years, renewed; prohibited naturalization (citizenship) for resident aliens
1884 88 – various restrictions on Chinese already here: ban on contract labor (1885); anti miscegenation laws; ban on reentry and entry of wives of Chinese here; Scott Act prohibited virtually all Chinese immigration including those seeking re-entry.
1889 Supreme Court in Chae Chan Ping vs. US – upholds principle that entire race nay be barred if deemed unassimilable1898 – Supreme Court upholds voting rights for those born here
1892 – Geary Act strips legal rights of mist Chinese immigrants
1894 China agrees to prohibiit all emigration to the United States in return for return of readmission rights (does away with Scott Act)
1898 – In United States vs. Wong Supreme Court rules person born in the US of immigrant Chinese parents is of American nationality by birth
1900 US declares Open Door policy – claims equal treatment in China to other nations; Supreme Court rules wives and children of treaty merchants may come to US
1904 – All Chinese excluded from US and its territories
1906 Asian Indians denied US citizenship
1908 Gentleman’s Agreement bars further Japanese immigration to US
1911 Sun Yat-sen republican revolution
1911 Dillingham Commission report assumes two categories of immigrants: “old immigrants’ – Anglo Saxons and “New Immigrants” southern Europe. Describes categories clearly marking # 2 inferior.
1917 Asiatic Barred Zone Act – immigration from South or Southeast Asia barred; creates literacy test. Excludes Japanese from Philippines
1919-20 Professor John Dewey lectures ion China
1921 Immigration Act of 1921 – National Origin System established, based on number immigrants and their descendents from each country.
1922 Cable Act revokes American citizenship from and women marrying an alien ineligible for citizenship.
1923 Chinese student immigration ended; Supreme Court upholds state alien land Acts – US vs. Bhagat Singh
1925 – Supreme Court upholds law that wives of Chinese not entitled to enter country during the six-week period following the Japanese capture of the city of Nanking, the former capital of the Republic on December 13, 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War . During this period, hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers were murdered and 20,000–80,000 women were raped by soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army.
1942 Exclusion lifted WW II
1945 War Brides Act – wives and children of Chinese-American citizens who fought in War allowed to enter country
1949 Communist revolution in China
1951 re-admittance to US banned after Chine invades Korea during Korean Way
1950 involved in rise of the Civil rights movement
1952Immigration and Nationality Act – removes ban on Chinese immigration but keeps quota system in place
1961 Affirmative Action for federal workers – JFK Civil Rights Law – no segregation in federal housing, discrimination in public accommodations
1965 Voting rights Act Immigration and Naturalization Act Abolishes quotas (from 1924); allows 20,000 from each country with priorities to skills, presence of family in country
Discrimination lifted in Housing, in schools (1971) Foster integration through “bussing.”
1972 President Richard Nixon travels to China
1974 Supreme Court Lau vs. Nichols validated law to guarantee education to non-English speakers
1980 Refugee act – established new criteria for immigration – humanitarian and economic reasons
196 Immigration reform and Control Act – prohibits hiring illegal immigrants
1988 reparations to Japanese Americans put in internment camps during WW II
1990 Immigration Act; creates hate crimes law; guarantees inter-racial adoption; apologizes to Hawaii