From Chinese Exclusion to General Asian Subordination The horrendous treatment of Chinese immigrants in the 1800s by federal, state, and local governments, as well as by the public at large, represents a bitter underside to U.S. history. Culminating the federalization of immigration regulation, Congress passed the infamous Chinese exclusion laws barring virtually all immigration of persons of Chinese ancestry and severely punishing Chinese immigrants who violated the harsh laws. Discrimination and violence, often rooted in class conflict as well as racist sympathies, directed at Chinese immigrants already in the United States, particularly in California, fueled passage of the laws. The efforts to exclude future Chinese immigrants from our shores can be seen as linked to the deeply negative attitude toward Chinese persons already in the country.
The Supreme Court emphasized national sovereignty as the rationale for not disturbing the laws excluding the "obnoxious Chinese" from the United States. In the famous Chinese Exclusion Case, the Supreme Court stated that "[t]he power of exclusion of foreigners [is] an incident of sovereignty belonging to the government of the United States, as a part of [[[its] sovereign powers delegated by the Constitution." Similarly, in Fong Yue Ting v. United States, the Court reasoned that "[t]he right of a nation to expel or deport foreigners ... is as absolute and unqualified as the right to prohibit and prevent their entrance into the country." Congress later extended the Chinese exclusion laws to bar immigration from other Asian nations and to prohibit the immigration of persons of Asian ancestry from any nation. The so-called Gentleman's Agreement between the U.S. and Japanese Governments in 1907-08 greatly restricted immigration from Japan. The Immigration Act of 1917 expanded Chinese exclusion to prohibit immigration from the "Asiatic barred zone." A 1924 law, best known for creating the discriminatory national origins quota system, allowed for the exclusion of noncitizens "ineligible to citizenship," which affected Asian immigrants who as non-whites were prohibited from naturalizing. Continued: http://pnews.org/ArT/WaR/Exc.shtml
