S08: Yellow Peril

• “Yihetuan”: Righteous and Harmonious Militia
• Righteous resistance against foreign invasion
• Boxers as proto-socialists
• Killing as only one stage: foreign occupation and unequal treaties

• “Boxer”: massacres by xenophobes
• Cause of event: foreign lives were threatened
• Resonance with anti-colonial disquiet in South Africa, Philippines, and more
• Chinese Boxers compared to Native Americans

Cohen: “The history the historian creates is in fact fundamentally different from the history people make.”

• What does that mean?
• Is that a problem?
• If so, what do we do?

• Chinese Exclusion Act: How did it come to pass?
• Experiences of Chinese Americans: What are their stories?
• Migration and misinformation: Why and how did immigrants get politicized?

• Boston Tea Party: chests of Chinese tea into Boston Harbor December 16, 1773
• Target: Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed tax-free tea sales by British East India Company in American colonies
• Sons of Liberty strongly opposed taxes in Townshend Act as rights violation and destroyed EIC tea shipment

• Canton trade system (1757-1842): Hong merchants acted as exclusive liaisons between American traders and Chinese government
• Hong merchants held licenses, controlled trade, and enforced regulations
• They purchased imports, arranged exports, ensured compliance

• After the American Revolution, U.S. merchants started trading independently in the East Indies, leading to the emergence of investor-capitalists and American millionaires
• The wealth generated by this mercantile elite helped concentrate capital, create wealth, and establish modern business corporations
• American traders facilitated connections between East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Atlantic world, and the Pacific Northwest

• The end of the First Opium War and the Treaty of Nanking (1842) opened treaty ports and led to the colonization of Hong Kong.
  
• By 1843, the Canton trade system declined, and trade shifted to the new treaty ports.
  
• Hong monopolies were replaced by Chinese compradors, who acted as intermediaries for American traders.
  
• Eventually, compradors became investors in foreign firms and started their own businesses.

• In 1847, Hong studied with American missionary Rev. I.J. Roberts.
  
• He claimed to have received a revelation that he was the younger son of Jesus Christ.
  
• This belief merged Christianity, Daoism, and millenarianism.
  
• Hong became a revolutionary and religious leader in the Taiping Civil War (1850-1871), which involved 20 to 30 million people, or 5–10% of China’s population.
  

• First int’l treaty that dealt with Chinese on equal terms, signed on July 28, 1868
• Secured the rights of Chinese to free immigration and travel within the United States and most favored nation status in trade

• Labor demands for the Transcontinental Railroad in 1862.
• American business and missionary groups viewed China as: a large market for U.S. businesses; a target for Christian missions; a “sleeping giant” needing Western influence to awaken.

• 1848-1868: 100,000+, with over 45,000 returning to China
• 1869-1882: approximately 200,000 Chinese migrants
• Of them, 12,000 built the first transcontinental railway
• Gender imbalance: Male-female ratio of 27:1 in 1890
• 70%+ settled in California, or 8% of the state population

Sanitary Ordinance (1870):

• Required individuals to have at least 500 square feet of living space;
• Mainly enforced in Chinatown, leading to fines and imprisonment for many Chinese immigrants.
• Chinese individuals often refused to pay fines, overcrowding the city jail.

Pigtail Ordinance (1873, passed in 1876):

• Mandated that all prisoners in San Francisco have their hair cut to one inch in length.
• Ostensibly introduced to prevent lice and fleas in overcrowded jails, but specifically aimed at Chinese men, who traditionally wore their hair in long “queues.”

A Temporary Victory

• Justice Stephen ruled the Pigtail Ordinance unconstitutional and discriminatory, citing the Fourteenth Amendment.
• Ho Ah Kow won the case on July 7, 1879 and was awarded $10,000 in compensation.
• One of the few positive cases before the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

At the same time:

• Discrimination couched in the language of communal interests and public security.
• Law as an instrument for discrimination.

• Why did California become the center of immigration restrictions?
• How did Chinese immigration to the US become a “problem”? How did it become law?
• What was the significance of the Chinese Exclusion Act?

• What happened to the “Chinatown” and its members?
• What did the petitioners want? How did formulate their demands?
• Are there other sources we could use to understand the lives of Chinese minors?

• Over 200 round-ups targeting Chinese communities in 1880s
• 1880: Chinatown riots in Denver
• 1883: Forcible removal of Chinese migrants from Tacoma
• 1885: Rocky Springs Massacres

Open door policy:

• Official US policy towards China during the first half of the 20th century
• Promoting equal opportunity for international trade and commerce in China: Equal treatment within “spheres of interest” by various imperial powers
• Motivated by desire not to be pushed out of China by other powers

1882: Chinese Exclusion Act

• First law to bar immigration of a particular racial group to the US
• Chinese admission of US suspended for 10 years
• No Chinese admitted to citizenship

1888: Scott Act

• Congress extended domestic authority over immigration
• Abolished one of the exempt statuses, returning laborers
• 20,000+ Chinese holding Certificates of Return outside the United States stranded

1892: Geary Act

• Requirement to prove legal presence
• Introduction of immigration documentation and deportation systems

1904: Extension of Chinese Exclusion Act

• Exclusion law extended in perpetuity
• Triggered anti-American boycott in China

• Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco in 1871 to Chinese immigrant parents.
• He traveled to China in 1890 to visit family and was denied re-entry to the U.S. upon his return in 1895.
• The U.S. government argued that he was not a U.S. citizen due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which restricted Chinese immigration and denied citizenship to Chinese immigrants.

Does the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause grant citizenship to individuals born in the U.S. regardless of their parents’ immigration status?

Can the government deny citizenship to a person born on U.S. soil based on their parents’ nationality, specifically under the Chinese Exclusion Act?

A landmark ruling:

• The Fourteenth Amendment grants citizenship to children born in the U.S. to all persons, regardless of race or color.
  
• The ruling was mostly race-neutral and rejected racially determined birthright citizenship (except in the case of Native Americans).

But:

• Practical implication: ruling against Wong could threaten the citizenship of children of White immigrants seen as U.S. citizens.
• Chinese individuals remained unable to become citizens due to race-based barriers until the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943.

• Trump signed an executive order on Jan 20, 2025 to prevent US-born children from gaining automatic citizenship if neither parent is a lawful permanent resident or US citizen.
• It also prohibits federal agencies from recognizing proof of citizenship for these children.