The Chinese Must Go
Page 35
swers to these pressing questions for the specific purpose of excluding the
Chinese. As the state and the public made Chinese mi grants into the epitome
of alienage, they also in ven ted the very concept of the alien in modern Amer-
i ca and began to delineate its meaning in law and in practice.
The invention of the modern American alien is closely tied to the post-
bellum reconfiguration of citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment opened
the possibility that people of Chinese ancestry would someday be U.S. citi-
zens by birth— a prospect that galvanized the movement for exclusion. Long
before Chinese mi grants arrived in the United States, American leaders
feared that social heterogeneity could undermine their republican experi-
ment. In the antebellum period, social hierarchies and internal exclusions
promised to mitigate the power of undesirable minority groups, but with
the postbellum expansion of citizenship and enfranchisement came height-
ened fears of the destructive power of cultural diversity on American society.8
In response, the public and the state both turned to proj ects of African Amer-
ican and Native American assimilation with newfound vigor and became
particularly obsessed with the “inassimilability” of the Chinese.
With birthright citizenship newly open to the Chinese, anti- Chinese ad-
vocates worked to narrow the other two ave nues to citizenship: naturaliza-
tion and immigration. Since 1790, the privilege of naturalization had been
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239
confined to “ free white men.” When American diplomats negotiated the Bur-
lingame Treaty in 1868, they reaffirmed Chinese ineligibility. In 1870, Con-
gress returned to the question of naturalization as they debated how to
grant citizenship to newly emancipated slaves who were foreign- born. Some
believed that it was time to strike the word “white” from Amer ica’s natural-
ization statutes and allow the Chinese to enjoy the same rights as all other
immigrants. But many congressmen, including Senator William Stewart of
Nevada, argued that the recent extension of citizenship had gone far enough.
“ Because we have freed the slaves and then given them their civil and po-
liti cal rights, does it then follow that we must extend those po liti cal rights
to all people throughout the globe?” Stewart queried. For him, the answer
was clearly “no,” for this would “render American citizenship a farce.”9 As
fences came down within the postbellum nation, Stewart believed that walls
needed to go up at its borders. In the end, Congress agreed, and naturaliza-
tion rights were only extended “to aliens of African nativity and to persons
of African descent.” Not all congressmen were content with this decision,
however. “If you deny citizenship to a large class, you have a dangerous ele-
ment,” Senator Samuel Pomeroy of Kansas cautioned, “you have an ele ment
you can enslave; you have an ele ment in the community you can proscribe.”
He recognized that a permanent alien underclass would be in grave danger
of abuse. Few heeded his warning.10
After consigning Chinese mi grants to permanent alienage without a path
to citizenship, the federal government then moved to restrict their entry and
curtail their rights. When anti- Chinese advocates violently asserted their
status as rights- bearing citizens, Congress responded with an expanding
program of exclusion. First came the Page Act of 1875, which slowed the
migration of Chinese women and, as a result, the birth of Chinese Ameri-
cans. Then the Angell Treaty of 1880 and the Restriction Act of 1882 tempo-
rarily limited Chinese labor migration. When pushed by the unpre ce dented
outbreak of anti- Chinese vio lence in the mid-1880s, Congress turned to a
unilateral policy of exclusion in 1888 and, after more vio lence, expulsion
in 1892.
As we have seen, the expansion of border control and the continual efforts
of Chinese mi grants to challenge it provoked a series of key judicial decisions
regarding the rights of aliens. Previously, the Supreme Court had found
constitutional grounds to regulate immigration, but in 1889, the court
declared immigration an extra- constitutional matter of sovereignty. With the
240
THE CHINESE MUST GO
plenary power doctrine, the court granted Congress absolute power to de-
fine, exclude, and expel aliens, virtually abdicating authority to review the
po liti cal branches in this domain. Nineteenth- century racial fears and prej-
udices permeated these judicial rulings. The Supreme Court proclaimed Chi-
nese migration “an Oriental invasion” and “a menace to our civilization” as
it denied aliens the full constitutional guarantees of due pro cess and equal
protection in matters of immigration and naturalization. An alleged Chi-
nese alien could be in defi nitely detained, summarily excluded, denied
government- appointed counsel, and expelled after an administrative hearing.
Through these rulings, the court cemented the disadvantages of alienage and
enhanced the privileges of citizenship.11
However, Chinese plaintiffs also made some significant legal gains on be-
half of aliens. For example, Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886) and Wong Wing v.
United States (1896) established that aliens retained certain fundamental
rights based on their personhood and territorial presence. In 1898, United
States v. Wong Kim Ark affirmed the citizenship of all children born within
the territorial limits of the United States regardless of their parents’ immi-
gration status. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled against the U.S. solic-
itor general who, on behalf of the William McKinley administration, argued
that the Chinese should be denied even birthright citizenship. In each of these
landmark decisions, the rights of the Chinese became a test case for the rights
of all aliens in Amer ica.12
This is not to say that Chinese exclusion single- handedly built the scaf-
folding of modern American gatekeeping. Only a few months after Con-
gress passed the Chinese Restriction Act, it also federalized the restriction
of paupers, criminals, and “unfit” individuals in the 1882 Immigration Act.
During the 1880s, Congress federalized both Chinese restriction and general
immigration control, but it maintained two separate systems of enforcement
until 1909 and enacted separate immigration laws until 1924. For de cades,
the exclusion of all Chinese laborers and the restriction of certain un-
desirable immigrants developed along separate but parallel lines. Despite
these legal and bureaucratic divisions, officials enforcing general immigra-
tion laws borrowed strategies from the enforcement of Chinese exclusion and
vice versa.13
Although Chinese exclusion was not the sole progenitor of national gate-
keeping, it did establish the formal and substantive meaning of modern
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241
alienage. With the General Immigration Act of 1891, Congress used the
pre ce dent of Chinese exclusion to deny judicial review in all immigration
hearings, and the Supreme Court soon confirmed that the plenary power
doctrine applied to all aliens. This removed immigration cases from the ju-
dicial system, where aliens had previously claimed constitutional guaran-
tees of equal protection and due pro cess, and placed them within a distinct
system of summary administrative proceedings, where federal officials had
broad discretionary power. Still, white aliens never felt the effects of plenary
power quite as directly as the Chinese. For them, naturalization, or even
declaring the intent to naturalize, offered a safeguard against many of the
disabilities of alienage.14
Mi grants from other Asian nations, who began to arrive in significant
numbers in the 1890s, found their experience hewed more closely to that of
the Chinese. Court rulings gradually confirmed that Japa nese, Koreans, and
South Asians shared with the Chinese legal nonwhiteness and the inability
to naturalize. Chinese exclusion laws had inaugurated the practice of re-
stricting mi grants by nativity, and in the early twentieth century the federal
government extended this policy to mi grants from other Asian nations. The
comprehensive immigration law of 1924 continued along these lines by cre-
ating a three- tiered immigration program. The Johnson- Reed Act excluded
all immigrants from Asia, exempted all immigrants from the Western hemi-
sphere, and granted graded quotas for immigrants from Eu rope (with pref-
erence for nationalities believed to be more easily assimilated). To implement
this general immigration law, federal officials deployed tactics of surveillance,
detention, interrogation, and removal first tested on the Chinese.15 And, on
a more fundamental level, they relied on the consolidated concept of alienage
that exclusion had produced.
National gatekeeping certainly helped to construct the modern alien, but
so too did local vio lence and international diplomacy. The modern Amer-
ican alien was a product of the late nineteenth century, a period when racism
and imperialism converged with par tic u lar force. The outlines of alienage
were produced at the intersection of multiple formations of power— racial
bound aries, national borders, and imperial relations— and at the intersec-
tion of multiple scales— the local, national, and international.
By following the cascading effects of anti- Chinese vio lence, we have seen
how these entangled relations of power pushed the Chinese to the margins
242
THE CHINESE MUST GO
of American society and American memory. Violent racial politics and home-
grown border control infused federal law with local prejudices. And as the
Chinese became aliens in the eyes of American government, their position
fell in the local hierarchy and on the international stage. In turn, Amer ica’s
mounting ambitions in Asia helped to justify the use of plenary power at
home. From this confluence of local vio lence, national law, and international
diplomacy came the modern American alien and, not surprisingly, the “il-
legal” alien as well.
The post– Civil War rise of national gatekeeping drew a legal line between
citizens and aliens that would prove transformative and enduring. Increas-
ingly, the American public and the state imagined the nation as “hard on
the outside and soft on the inside.”16 Inclusion within the nation seemed to
necessitate exclusion at its edges. This popu lar notion, which remains sacro-
sanct in many circles to this day, originated with Chinese exclusion.17
But the true state of affairs in the late nineteenth century did not easily
align with this ideal. While the nation’s edges grew harder, in practice the
center did not quite soften. Women were not entitled to equal rights, duties,
and privileges in the post– Civil War era. And despite the extension of formal
citizenship, African American, Native American, and Mexican American
men never experienced full inclusion or equality. As the Chinese became
aliens, others became second- class citizens.
Mexican Americans had been granted U.S. citizenship through the
annexation of Texas in 1845 and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the
close of the Mexican- American War in 1848. With their formal citizenship
came legal whiteness, a fact that was confirmed by the courts in 1897. Al-
though the federal government backed Mexican American claims to citi-
zenship, local practices often denied Mexican Americans full social and
po liti cal membership. Viewed as racially ambiguous, Mexican Americans
faced widespread disenfranchisement, de facto segregation, and everyday
prejudice.18
For Native Americans, the federal government only granted citizenship
to those who were deemed assimilated and cooperative in the postbellum
era. Given the decimation of native populations through removal, disease,
war, starvation, and extermination, this did not produce a large number of
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Native American citizens. Those who did obtain formal citizenship still
found themselves unable to claim the same legal rights as white citizens. Even
progressive reformers and federal officials who had championed assimilation
policies began, by the early twentieth century, to deem Indians racially un-
suitable for full citizenship. In 1909, the Supreme Court confirmed a lesser
form of citizenship for Native Amer icas, declaring that the federal government
must continue to hold them in a form of wardship.19
During the same period, African Americans saw their legal rights dra-
matically curtailed. After the heyday of racial liberalism during Radical Re-
construction, the federal government rapidly retreated from protecting
black civil rights. Notably, white vio lence drove this racial retrenchment in
the South. In the 1890s, white vigilantes launched a lethal campaign of ra-
cial terror. This vigilantism, like that against the Chinese, was a form of vio-
lent racial politics. Through assaults on black communities, southern white
supremacists fought to subordinate African American citizens and to assert
their own po liti cal power. Besieged by violent racial politics, the federal
government sought to appease the white vigilantes. For Chinese in the
West, federal acquiescence to white vio lence meant exclusion and the ex-
tension of federal power. For African Americans in the South, appeasement
entailed federal retreat and tacit endorsement of Jim Crow. Immediately
after the Civil War, the federal government had demonstrated the power to
suppress white vio lence, but after a few years it lost its resolve. Instead, Congress
began to acquiesce to local demands for black subordination and Chinese
exclusion.20
Starting in the 1890s, southern states systematically legislated against
black enfranchisement using onerous registration requirements, poll taxes,
and literacy tests. Some of these tactics were also employed to diminish
Native American and Mexican American enfranchisement, even though the
latter group could claim both formal citizenship and legal whiteness. For
African Americans, local and state governments in the former Confederacy
went a step further and legally proscribed access to public accommodations.
relegated them to second- class status by condoning disenfranchisement and
segregation through Jim Crow laws.21 While the Chinese primarily met re-
gimes of exclusion at the border, other racial minorities faced structures of
subordination in daily life.22
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THE CHINESE MUST GO
At the opening of the twentieth century, the full significance of alienage
and citizenship remained unclear. Deep fissures within each category con-
tinued to obscure the gulf between them. Inside the nation, the federal
government had sketched the legal outlines of a universal rights- bearing
citizen. But the power of this egalitarian vision was wholly undermined by
a lack of execution. At the nation’s edges, the state had laid the legal and
bureaucratic foundation for a massive national gate. But the power of this
exclusionary vision was still checked by limited desire and uneven enforce-
ment. The interior of the nation was not as soft as it should have been; the
exterior was not as hard as it could become. While the American concept of
citizenship represented an unrealized dream of equality, the legal struc-
tures of alienage contained the per sis tent threat of tyranny.
Despite the dramatic events of the intervening century, these fundamen-
tals continue to define Amer ica today.
A P P E N D I X E S
A B B R E V I AT I O N S
N O T E S
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
I N D E X
APPENDIX A
Sites of Anti- Chinese Expulsions and Attempted Expulsions, 1885–1887
State / Territory
Town / City
County
No. Killed
Alaska
Douglas Island Mines (Juneau)
Juneau
2
California
Alameda
Alameda
California
Anderson
Shasta
California
Aptos
Santa Cruz
California
Arbuckle
Colusa
California
Arcata
Humboldt
California
Arroyo Grande
San Luis Obispo
California
Auburn
Placer
California