California was the state that encouraged the movement for exclusion. Before the movement, they had to overcome a huge obstacle, which was the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. The Burlingame Treaty of 1868 was between China and the United States, which protected the rights of the Chinese (Chan 26). Soon the people who were against the Chinese persuaded the executive branch of the federal government to change the Burlingame Treaty, which allowed America to “regulate, limit or suspend” but not “prohibit” the immigration of the Chinese (Chan 26). The Chinese had to suffer through many injustices, but some overcame them by learning to use the American legal system to protect themselves. What was the source of this strong opposition? Anti-Chinese movement was fueled by race and economics. “The Chinese would work for wages that wer e considered extremely low, which made them cheap labor, and they were considered as unclean, and biologically inferior, and unassimilable” (Wong 5).

After the fall of Saigon in 1975, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people from the south started to flee the country on small wooden boats across the South China Sea. They wanted to escape the corrupted Communist government. These people were once citizens of their own country, but now they are considered refugees fleeing to other countries for aid. These Vietnamese refugees are called the “Boat People.” “This movement of the Boat People reflected the ebb and flow of international politics current at the time” (Caplan 1). Their journey for freedom was not easy because it was a very harsh and devastating trip.

The first of the discriminating laws was to prevent the allowance of citizenship as well as the land ownership to be skewed amongst the anti-Japanese factions. The members of the alleged menace to native Californians were in fact few but alarmingly enough to start a hysteria amongst legislatures and its citizens. “In 1913, out of a total population approaching 2,500,000, the Japanese, by a liberal estimate, numbered about 50,000. Of approximately 27,000,000 acres of improved or unimproved land in the state, the Japanese owned 12,726 acres in 1912, much of which they had reclaimed themselves” (McClain 106). Many outside observers, as well as the Japanese community, did not understand the hastiness or drastic measures needed to be executed since their populace and land ownership was insignificant in California. The misconceptions and views on the labor hungry state of Hawaii caused the misjudgment of necessity as well as the sense of urgency to ens ure that California did not follow in the same steps as Hawaii had done before. Another reason for the ill-advised procedures of California was the lack of federal intervention and fellow state’s protests to California’s actions. “Although there were thirty-five Democrats in the legislature, only two respected the wishes of Wilson and voted against the bill. The explanation appears to be that while the Democrats sought to amend or to postpone the measure, they did not dare to violate their platform promises and vote against it” (McClain 45-46). The meager or lack thereof decisiveness played ill-fate for the Japanese Americans. Where there was no extent of help from their protesting legislatures or senators they appeared to be far outnumbered on the west coast. Speculation only goes so far that one would think that the entire nation did not agree with the course of action taken by California. Diplomatic relations with Japan had been su stained until the Alien Land Law of 1913 was passed. “There was little sympathy for the course of California outside the Pacific Coast area. As a rule the Eastern newspapers regarded the state as perversely attempting to provoke a war which the other states would have to support” (McClain 53). Undoubtedly, the very nature of excluding a single ethnicity seems too farfetched to have been exercised in a country whose ent

Some topics in this essay:
Immigration Act, Exclusion Act, Land Law, Korean Americans, Americans Asian, Los Angeles, Asian American, York Democratic, Boat People, Japanese United, asian immigrants, exclusion act, chinese laborers, boat people, african americans, race riots, alien land, land law 1913, supreme court, law 1913, los angeles, alien land law, immigration act 1924, koehn 7 exclusion, laws set specifically,