“Hereafter, we are to keep our hand on the door-knob, and admit only those whose presence we desire.”
- Chicago Times, 1882
“In 1888, Congress took exclusion even further and passed the Scott Act, which made reentry to the United States after a visit to China impossible, even for long-term legal residents.” |
“The Geary Act, passed in 1892, required Chinese aliens to carry a residence certificate with them at “[Its] humiliating provision called for two white witnesses to testify to a Chinese person’s immigration status.” Click to download and view with Adobe Acrobat
White Witness Letter example |
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1901_newspaper_fight_for_exclusion.pdf | |
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“The Chinese Exclusion Act was renewed again in 1902 and made permanent in 1904.”
- Erika Lee, author of The Making of Asian America
“The Immigration Act of 1917 adds to the number of "undesirables" banned from entering the country. The definition includes but is not limited to "idiots," "feeble-minded persons," "epileptics," "insane persons," alcoholics, "professional beggars," all persons
"mentally or physically defective," polygamists, and anarchists.”
- Museum of Chinese in America in New York City
Asiatic Barred Zone Act
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1921 Emergency Quota Act
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“The 1917 Act implemented a literacy test that required immigrants over 16 years old to demonstrate basic reading comprehension in any language. It also increased the tax paid by new immigrants upon arrival and allowed immigration officials to exercise more discretion in making decisions over whom to exclude. Finally, the Act excluded from entry anyone born in a geographically defined 'Asiatic Barred Zon'.” |
“The objective of this act was to temporarily limit the numbers of immigrants to the United States by imposing quotas based on country of birth. Annual allowable quotas for each country of origin were calculated at 3 percent of the total number of foreign-born persons from that country recorded in the 1910 United States Census.” |
“The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia.”
- Office of the Historian