As the Chinese took over most of the jobs, complaints about the Chinese started to surface. This led to the passing of the Exclusion Act of 1882. The Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first time in history that an immigrant group was excluded on the basis of race. .
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).
The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, also known as "An Act to Execute Certain Treaty Stipulations Relating to Chinese, closed the door to all Chinese laborers from immigrating for ten years (Chan 31). This Act also ruled that Chinese could not be granted as naturalized citizens (Wong 64). From 1882 to 1943, the entry of Chinese to America were denied. Although they denied entry to the people coming from China, the Exclusion Act did not refer to the Chinese laborers already in America. The Chinese laborers already living in America were allowed to go back to China but could only come back to America if they obtained a certificate of identification, known as a "return certificate" from the collector before leaving (Chan 60).
