The Chinese Exclusion Act by the 47th United States Congress (Essay Sample)

Chinese Exclusion Act:
Name:
Instructor:
University:
Course:
Date:
The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by the 47th United States Congress and signed into law by the late former President Chester A. Arthur on 6th May 1882.It remains to date one of the most severe restrictions affecting free immigration in US history. The exclusion act banned immigration of all Chinese labourers. The act was projected to last for ten years but was renewed in the year 1892 as the Geary Act and ten years later made permanent. This act became famous because it was the first ever law executed to bar a certain ethnic community from accessing United States (Newman & Schmalbach 2002).
The essence of the Chinese Exclusion Act can be traced in the year 1848 when most Chinese immigrants entered United States during the California gold rush. A lot of gold had been discovered at Sutter Mill and Chinese who were at the time undergoing miserable poverty in their country due to Taiping rebellion relocated to United States. The population of Chinese increased once more during 1960s during the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. During these times Chinese were treated with respect and dignity due to manifesting hard work and passion in their work (Newman & Schmalbach 2002).
As time went by, the supply of the gold declined and this increased competition between the Chinese and Americans in search of the precious gold. As a result the Americans started hating the Chinese as well other foreigners and the hatred increased day by day. Riots were undertaken by Americans and Chinese-Americans deportation calls made by most Americans. The American economy was performing dismally at the time due to the ended civil war. Attributing the economic poor performance to the Chinese immigration staged political attacks against the Chinese community and the Chinese Exclusion act was introduced (Newman & Schmalbach 2002).
These had a lot of negative impacts against the American Chinese who lived in the country and those who wished to immigrate to US. This exclusion act affected the skilled and unskilled labourers and all those Chinese who were working in mining's. The Chinese lived in fear and could not afford to see their relatives either in China or America for fear of being denied an entry or re-entry in the United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act syndrome continued for approximately 30 years full of racial discrimination and hatred. During this period the Chinese Americans underwent a lot of injustices (Brody, 2009).
In addition, the Chinese Exclusion Act had negative impacts on America economic prosperity. After the civil war America required a lot of money and capital to put it economy back on track. However, indirect problems persisted for instance, wage labour was exercised as the major form of employment and labour force increased because of high level of immigration and a lot of workers were laid from employment due to industrial depressions (Brody, 2009).
To restore the economy to normal proved hard because very few people from America especially the Caucasians, were willing to provide blue-collar labour and effort at the cheap cost the Chinese provided. Thus barring Chinese from immigration meant disgusting United States economy. The Chinese Exclusion Act led to the dwindling of economic productivity of the United States. This is because the people who were making the most and beneficial contribution were denied that opportunity (Brody, 2009).
The Exclusion Act had other impacts as it was further exercised by other countries like Canada twenty years later, which greatly affected the Chinese Canadians. The Canadians enhanced a head tax liability to Chinese entering Canada. However, Mexico did not introduce an immigration act and most Chinese moved to Mexico and this made US to boost it security levels along the Mexican border. Other impacts included China refusal to acknowledge US Senator Mr Henry Blair as the US Minister to China in the year 1891, due to his derogatory remarks to China when the Chinese Exclusion Act was being discussed (Brody, 20...