Based on the readings and film, Chinese immigrants were excluded and banned from basic rights such as working, letting their children attend school, and even migrating to the United States. For example, in the excerpt of Luibheid, “Entry denied: Controlling Sexuality at the Border”, it states, “Immigrants designated as undesirable were those who could be classified as convicts, contract laborers, and Asian women coming to work in prostitution.” The text further goes on to say Chinese people, especially women, were dehumanized to the point where Chinese women were seen as prostitutes in the eyes of the law, the children were not allowed schools at all unlike Black and Native Americans who were in segregated schools, and Chinese men were thought to steal jobs. In the article, “The first Mexican border was actually a wall to keep out Chinese people”, it says, “Editorial cartoons in newspapers of the time depicted the Chinese as shifty villains. New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley summed up the climate of the era: “The Chinese are uncivilized, unclean, and filthy beyond all conception without any of the higher domestic or social relations; lustful and sensual in their dispositions; every female is a prostitute of the basest order.” This was followed by the Exclusion Act which was a law that gave permission for the government to discriminate against any race who was not white to prevent them from immigrating to the U.S. According to the text, “How early SF kept Chinese children out of the schoolhouse”, it quotes, “They were denied even separate schools like those accorded to blacks and Indians, who were granted that right in 1874. The Chinese community argued that it was grossly unfair that they had to pay taxes and yet were denied the right to send their children to public schools. In 1878, 1,300 people of Chinese descent petitioned the Legislature, arguing that the 3,000 Chinese children in the state had the right to a public education.” They were supported by some clergymen, but as a result anti-Chinese mobs killed anyone who opposed them such as the Rev. William Gibson and the state took no action. These events show how history repeats itself when people do not learn from them like how Trump and his administration made it more difficult for immigrants to seek a better life in the United States and focused on targeting mostly Mexicans. One thing that stuck out to me from the readings was that Mexico was once allowed to cross the border freely in order to work in the United States without any hostile reactions like today. As mentioned before, history tends to repeat itself when the same mistakes are made and when the wrong individuals are put in charge, it can be a disastrous result for the people.
Powered by:
top