CONTEXT:
The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) marked both a pivot in U.S. history and a continuation. It was pivotal in that it ended the traditional U.S. policy of open immigration and began an era of restrictions that culminated in the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, which imposed strict quotas based on racial and ethnic criteria. It was also a continuation of a U.S. tradition of intolerance, an intolerance explicitly grounded in racism and in ethnic and religious bigotry. As both pivot and continuation, Chinese exclusion lays bare many of the most crucial fault lines of post–Civil War America.
The purpose of this assignment is to help you understand the interplay of economic distress, racism, and political ambition that led to Chinese exclusion by identifying some of the key actors, analyzing the arguments they made for the necessity of exclusion, and examining the political factors that led Congress to act.
Through investigation of the documents in this unit, you will develop the historical thinking skills of causation, comparison, continuity and change over time, and, through your written response to the central question, argumentation.
PROMPT: What factors contributed to the popularity of anti- Chinese sentiment in the nineteenth century and the eventual abandonment by the United States of its policy of admitting immigrants irrespective of race, nationality, or country of origin?
SOURCES: Use the documents in this assignment to document and proof your claims and make an historical argument.
NOTE: NO OTHER MATERIALS THAN THOSE ASSIGNED IN THIS COURSE ARE PERMITTED.
CITATIONS: The proper formatting of your citations are clearly identified in the attached documents. Use footnotes as shown in the video link that can be found with the source citations in the primary document file. A “works cited” page is not necessary.
QUOTATIONS: Pithy, useful quotations are the hallmark of an A-grade paper. Do not quote more than 1 1/2 lines and never use block quotes.
LENGTH: Your essay should be 700 words in length, footnotes excluded. You may be 10 percent above (880) or below (720) that target without any penalty
