7/31/2019 Chinese Immigration Act
11/11
21 The Debate on the Chinese Exclusionary Act and Its Repeal
jobs as had followed previous wars.102
102AAmerica, Asia, and the Future,@ 82.
As can be seen, then, a multitude of arguments were offered both
for
and against the repeal of the legislation just as many arguments
were
made for the passage of it. The debates over the decision to
pass this
controversial piece of legislation in 1882 were much more
intense and
thorough than the debates to repeal the act in 1943. In 1882,
the debatewas prolonged over many days in Congress. The act to
repeal the
legislation was debated for on a few hours over a couple days to
pass
both the House and the Senate. In 1882 when the measure was
first
enacted, the country was divided regionally over the issue. The
western
and southern states favored the measure, while the northeastern
and
middle western states were opposed to the law. The act to repeal
the
legislation, though, did not appear to be regional. The western
states
that had fought the hardest for the measure were some of the
same ones
who were leading the fight to repeal the legislation in 1943.
Many of thearguments in the two debates were the same. The
protection of
American laborers was foremost in the passage of the act as well
as in
the opposition to its repeal. Other major arguments that
appeared in
the debates were the economic motives both for and against
Chinese
immigration, and unfortunately, racism was also deliberated at
length.
In the end, though, it was decided there was no special need to
continue
to restrict only Chinese immigration. By the 1940s there were
already
many measures to restrict immigration from all regions and
countries of
the world so that the Chinese were no longer perceived as a
threat toAmerican interests. However, the first step in this
restriction of
immigration began in response to this question of Chinese
immigration.
