The Chinese Exclusion Act Timeline

The U.S. Signs the Burlingame Treaty with China, to formally recognize “the inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance.”

While the stated purpose of the Page Law of 1875 is to prevent Chinese prostitutes from entering the United States, it is instead used to exclude Chinese women.

In 1882, Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act. It prevents people of Chinese descent from becoming naturalized citizens, or – except for members of a few narrowly defined professions – from immigrating to the U.S. at all. Many families are split, with wives and children stranded overseas. The act originally passes as a temporary measure to last for ten years.

Congress renews the Chinese Exclusion Act for another ten years, and requires people of Chinese descent to register and carry a Certificate of Residence. The Chinese of America conduct a massive civil disobedience against the registration scheme, and fight the law in courts.

Congress renews the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1902 and in 1904 reaffirms and makes permanent “all laws..prohibiting the coming of Chinese persons or persons of Chinese descent into the United States…”

Congress legislates that a woman who marries is assigned the nationality of her husband, regardless of whether she is a native-born citizen of the U.S.

Congress extends the Chinese Exclusion Act into “Asiatic Exclusion,” barring from admission anyone born in what Congress now call the “Asiatic Barred Zone.” It includes most of the continent of the Pacific.

The 1923 Cable Act reforms the law that removes a woman’s U.S. citizenship upon marrying a foreign national, but only if the husband is not ineligible for naturalization because of the U.S.’s “Asiatic Exclusion” policy.

The Immigration Act of 1924 again widens exclusion, creating national origins quotas that discriminate against immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and Africa.

Chinese Americans continue to fight for immigration reform, lobbying to allow family reunification. After the U.S. enters WWII as an ally of China, Congress passes 1943 “repeal” of Chinese Exclusion that restores the right to naturalization, but establishes a national origins quota that permits only 105 people of Chinese descent to enter each year. Until 1947, wives of Chinese descent are excluded from the War Brides Act of 1945, passed to facilitate the immigration of wives of U.S. servicemen.

Congress passes the Immigration Act of 1952 to create one comprehensive statute out of the multiple previous laws, and revises the national quota system to be tied to the composition of the U.S. as recorded in the the census of 1920.

In 1965, President Johnson signs the Hart Cellar Act to abolish – in 1968 – race, ancestry, or national origin as the basis for immigration, calling the previous laws, “un-American in the highest sense.”