Exclusion of Chinese Americans in History

The years between 1850 and 1880 marked a huge difference in the way Chinese immigrants were treated in California. Numerous economic transformations occurred during these years, changing the way white Californians, specifically Nativists, felt towards the Chinese. This was the beginning of what became a history of exclusion of Chinese immigrants in California that had many long-term consequences for the Chinese. Starting in the 1850’s Chinese immigrants came to California in large numbers. They were not so …

…Clinton administration. This stereotype of the mysterious foreign Oriental has had a negative, long lasting impression to the American consciousness. With the passage of the 1882 Exclusion Act (Lee 2), and continuing to the headline “American beats Kwan”, Asian Americans are racialized both as non-white and non-citizens, foreign and unassimilable (Volpp12). The economic transformations of the 1850’s through the 1880’s in California, and reaction of the white immigrants, Nativists, has had severe, painful and long lasting conseq