Introduction
Despite immigrating to the US almost at the same time that white Europeans were immigrating to the New World, Asians never enjoyed the same rights as White Americans until recently. The Asian population in the US increased as they participated in the construction of railway networks across the country.
Discussion
Their large numbers and willingness to accept lower wages meant White Americans who wanted to work in railway construction had to accept the low wages or stay unemployed. These labor market tensions created tensions that the majority of White politicians sought to tame by enacting laws and regulations against the Asian population in the US. Despite the continued significant increase in the Asian population in the US especially during the gold rush, US politicians gave into internal political pressure to enact discriminatory laws and regulations against the Asian population.
The legislation most synonymous with the 19th Century era of Asian restrictions in the US was the Chinese Exclusion Act. This Act was enacted in Congress and sought to curb the immigration of Chinese into the US (Treitler, 2013). Despite the Chinese population composing an insignificant part of the population, Congress passed this legislation due to complaints about lower wages and deteriorating economic conditions by Americans in the west where the Chinese population had settled. The Geary Act passed in 1892 put further restrictions on Asian immigration into the US by requiring Chinese in the US to carry documentation and extending the Exclusion Act’s restrictions by a further ten years (Treitler, 2013). Those without the requisite documentation would be subjected to hard labor or deportation.
Conclusion
A challenge to the constitutionality of these legislations failed in the US Supreme Court and Chinese immigration to the US was permanently banned in 1902 (Treitler, 2013).
Reference
Treitler B. V. (2013). The ethnic project: transforming racial fiction into ethnic factions. Stanford University Press