The Chinese Exclusion Act
This law suspended the immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years and made all Chinese immigrants, including scholars and those from other social classes, ineligible for naturalization; this marked the first time immigration in the US was explicitly restricted on the basis of race.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was meant to reduce the number of Chinese laborers arriving in the US, particularly in California where more than 25,000 Chinese immigrants had settled by 1851. Chinese workers first migrated to the US to work in the gold mines, but they also took work on farms and in factories. In the late 1860s, 15,000 – 20,000 Chinese immigrants were hired to build the Central Pacific Railroad, making up 90% of the railroad workforce. After construction ended, thousands of Chinese immigrants were left unemployed. The high rate of unemployment and anti-Chinese sentiment led to passage of The Chinese Exclusion Act, banning entry of Chinese workers and denying all Chinese immigrants a path to citizenship.
