Now available online for Remembering 1882

Selected texts of the Chinese Exclusion Laws

Page Law of 1875
The stated purpose of the Page Law was to prevent Chinese prostitutes from entering the United States. Yet in practice it was used to reduce immigration of Chinese women.

Chinese Exclusion Act of May 6, 1882

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1892
Also known as the Geary Act, it required registration only of people of Chinese descent.

The Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act Approved December 17, 1943

Sources Quoted in the Remembering 1882 Traveling Exhibit

Burlingame Treaty of 1868
“The United States of America and the Emperor of China cordially recognize the inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of the free migration and emigration of their citizens and subjects, respectively for purposes of curiosity, of trade, or as permanent residents."

Chan Kiu Sing, 1904, quoted in Mary Elizabeth Burroughs Roberts Smith Coolidge, Chinese Immigration, New York: H. Holt and Company, 1909.

Choy, Philip P., “The Architecture of San Francisco Chinatown,” Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1990 Vol. 4: 37-66, San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of America.*

Fu Chi Hao, “My Reception in America,” The Outlook 1907 Vol 86: 770-773.

Ho Yow, “Chinese Exclusion, a Benefit or a Harm?” North American Review 1901 Vol 173: 314-330.

Jee Gam (also written Gee Gam), “The Geary Act: From the Standpoint of a Christian Chinese,” Our Bethany, 1892, in Chinese American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Present, Compiled and edited by Judy Yung, Gordon H. Chang, and Him Mark Lai, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.*

Pennsylvania & Reading Coal & Iron Company spokesman, [Zinn]

Wickliffe, John C., “Negro Suffrage a Failure: Shall We Abolish It?” Forum 1892.

Wilson, Thomas B., LL.D., “Why the Chinese Exclusion Law Should be Modified,” Overland Monthly, 1911.

Woo, Gilbert, “One Hundred Seven Chinese,” September 7, 1943 Chinese Times column, in Chinese American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Present, Compiled and edited by Judy Yung, Gordon H. Chang, and Him Mark Lai, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.*

Yan Phou Lee, “The Chinese Must Stay,” North American Review 1889 Vol. 148(389): 476-483.

Works Consulted

Almaguer, Tomás. 1994. Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California. Berkeley: University of California.

Barde, Robert, “An Alleged Wife: One Immigrant in the Chinese Exclusion Era,” Prologue Magazine, Spring 2004, Vol. 36 No. 1.

Campi, Alicia J. “Closed Borders and Mass Deportations: The Lessons of the Barred Zone Act,” 2005
Abstract: The Barred Zone Act of February 4, 1917, offers a cautionary lesson against immigration policies based on the exclusion of immigrants from particular countries or regions of the world.

Chinn, Thomas W., Him Mark Lai, and Philip P. Choy, eds. 1969. A History of the Chinese in California. San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of America.*

Choy, Philip P., Lorraine Dong, and Marlon K. Hom, The Coming Man: 19th Century American Perceptions of the Chinese, Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1994.

Coolidge, Mary Elizabeth Burroughs Roberts Smith, Chinese Immigration, New York: H. Holt and Company, 1909.

Dasmann, Raymond F. “Environmental Changes before and after the Gold Rush,” Chapter 5 in A Golden State: Mining and Economic Development in Gold Rush California, James J. Rawls and Richard J. Orsi, editors, 1999.

Du Bois, W. E. B., Black Reconstruction in America: 1860-1880, Cleveland: Meridian, 1964 [1935].

Friday, Chris C. 1991. Indispensable Allies: Asian Workers in the Pacific Coast Canned-Salmon Industry, 1870-1942. Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles.

Harper’s Weekly, “The Chinese American Experience: 1857-1892.” Includes primary sources originally published in Harper's

Hing, Bill Ong, Making and Remaking Asian America through Immigration Policy, 1850-1990, Stanford Univ. Press, 1993.

Hing, Bill Ong, Defining America through Immigration Policy, Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 2004.

Hittell, John S., “The Benefits of Chinese Immigration,” Overland Monthly 1886 Vol 7 (38): 120-124.

Lai, Him Mark, A History Reclaimed: An Annotated Bibliography of Chinese Language Materials on the Chinese of America, eds. Russell Leong and Jean Pang Yip, Los Angeles: Resource and Development Publications, Asian American Studies Center, University of California, 1986.*

Lai, Him Mark, "A Voice of Reason: Life and Times of Gilbert Woo, Chinese American Journalist," Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1992 Vol. 6: 83-123, San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of America.*

Lai, Him Mark, Genny Lim, Judy Yung, Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940, San Francisco: Hoc Doi (History of Chinese Detained on Island), 1980.*

Lyman, Stanford M., 2000, “The ‘Chinese Question’ and American Labor Historians,” New Politics 2000 Vol. 7(28).

Marcus, Chuck, Beret Aune, and Katie Wadell, All Persons Born or Naturalized ... The Legacy of US v Wong Kim Ark, UC Hastings College of the Law Library Exhibit, 2001.

McClain, Charles J., In Search of Equality: The Chinese Struggle Against Discrimination in Nineteenth-Century America, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

McMahon, Suzanne, Echoes of Freedom: South Asian Pioneers in California, 1899-1965, Bancroft Library Exhibit, University of California, Berkeley
on the Hart Cellar Act

Miller, Stuart Creighton, The Unwelcome Immigrant: The American Image of the Chinese, 1785-1882, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969.

Naruta, Anna, Creating Whiteness in California: Racialization Processes, Land, and Policy in the Context of California’s Chinese Exclusion Movements, 1850 to 1910. A historical and archaeological study of the Chinatowns and early development of Sacramento, San Jose, Los Angeles, Riverside, and Oakland, Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2006.

National Humanities Center, “Power in the Gilded Age,” Toolbox Library: Primary Resources in U.S. History and Literature, 2005. Includes resources for teachers

Perkins, George C., Chinese exclusion. Speech of Hon. George C. Perkins, of California, in the Senate of the United States, Wednesday, November 1, 1893. The provisions of the new Chinese law, Washington, D.C., Reprinted in Thomas B. Reed, Modern Eloquence Vol XIV: Political Oratory, Philadelphia: John D. Morris and Company, 1903.

Perkins, George C., “Why the Chinese Menace Our Institutions,” In Notable Speeches by Notable Speakers of the Greater West, Ed. Harr Wagner, San Francisco: The Whitaker and Ray Company, 1902.

Takaki, Ronald, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993.

Tchen, John Kuo Wei, Genthe's Photographs of San Francisco Chinatown, NY: Dover, 1984.*

Wells-Barnett, Ida B., On Lynchings: Southern Horrors, A Red Record, Mob Rule in New Orleans, New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969 [1892, 1895, 1900].

Wormser, Richard, Bill Jersey, Sam Pollar, and William R. Grant, The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, 1992.

Wu, Cheng-Tsu, “CHINK!”: A Documentary History of Anti-Chinese Prejudice in America, New York: The World Publishing Company/Times Mirror, 1972.

Yu, Connie Young, Chinatown, San Jose, USA, San Jose, CA: History San José, 2001[1991].*

*Titles right now available at CHSA bookstore. Call (415) 391-1188 x101 or email info@chsa.org to order.

(c) 2007 Chinese Historical Society of America 965 Clay Street, San Francisco, CA 94108 www.chsa.org