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On May 6, 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. This ended Chinese immigration for the next 60 years after this. This is the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was intended to last 10 years, but was renewed in 1882 and made permanent in 1902. This was the first law ever to prevent a specific ethnic group from immigrating into the United States. The act’s main purpose was to prevent Chinese laborers from entering the United States. This did not work that well because it was hard to prove who was a laborer and who wasn’t. Since some Chinese people had left from the United States, when they tried to re-enter, they couldn’t. This -
On September 2, 1885, anti-chinese rioters set fire in Rock Springs, Wyoming, killing 28 Chinese miners and wounding 15. This was the Rock Springs Massacre. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Springs_massacre
The Rock Springs Massacre was a riot between Chinese immigrant miners and white immigrant miners. The new policy caused the Chinese to be hired over the white miners. This made the white miners angry. Racial tensions were a big factor in this riot. The massacre caused about $150,000 in property damage, which is about 3.94 million in present-day terms. Federal troops were deployed in Rock Springs to help escort the surviving chinese miners who went to Evanston Wyoming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wi -
On June 27, 1894, A U.S. District Court rules that Japanese immigrants cannot become U.S. citizens because they are not a “free white person”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790
A District Court ruling that Japanese immigrants cannot become U.S. citizens was a big deal. According to the Naturalization Act of 1790, a U.S. citizen must be a “free white person”. People who were not born in the U.S. were considered natural born citizens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790). -
On May 7, 1900, the first anti-Japanese protest was held in California. The protest was organized by different labor groups.
This protest may have been started by the Sailor’s Union. The major political speaker at the protest, named James D. Phelan, the mayor of San Francisco, brought up renewing the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This act prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers (https://books.google.com/books?id=QZg6Ft_jvJ0C&pg=RA1-PA34&lpg=RA1-PA34&dq=May+7,+1900+anti+japanese+protest&source=bl&ots=XlS19FNNl9&sig=2U2yji9YSOi00Zs42_kRzIRiaJ0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=SHruVMG8M7XdsATR_4Bo&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Ma -
In 1913, California passed the Alien Land Law forbidding “all aliens ineligible for citizenship” from owning land. 12 other states made laws similar to this.
The Alien Land Law forbidden many people from owning agricultural land or having long-term leases on it. The law did allow for land leases of three years though (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Alien_Land_Law_of_1913). This did not only affect the chinese. It also affected the indian, japanese, and korean immigrant farmers. There were loopholes in this law though, and immigrants started to figure out how to make the most of what they could (http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/alien_land_ -
In November of 1920, a new law passed in California which closed the loopholes found in the 1913 Alien Land Law.
Japanese immigration was still an issue. This new law was the state legislature's idea, and was approved by the voters. This law was amended though in 1923 to fill even more loopholes in this law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Alien_Land_Law_of_1913). The law in 1920 prohibited the transfer of land to noncitizens by sale or lease. Even if the land was purchased in a citizen’s name with an alien’s money, the land would automatically become state property (http://www.santacruzpl.org/hi -
On November 13, 1922, The U.S. Supreme court ruled on the Ozawa case. This ban would last until 1952.
Ozawa had a petition and it was declined (http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Ozawa_v._United_States/). Ozawa was born in Japan, moved to Hawaii, and then lived in California. He lived in the U.S. for 20 years when he applied for naturalization. Ozawa went to court about trying to being a U.S. citizen after he failed. The Supreme Court also ruled on two other questions that were a result of the case. One was a debate if someone from Japan could be considered “white.” And the second was if Ozawa coul -
In 1924, Congress passed the Immigration Act that would effectively end all Japanese immigration to the U.S.
This law limited the annual number of immigrants who could come into any country to 2% of the people who were already living in the United States in 1890. This revised the past laws about this, which were just basic limitations. They were not this specific (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924). There was a non-quota immigrant category also. This category included wives of unmarried children under 18 years of age and bona-fide students under 15 years of age (http://library.uwb.ed -
On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes launched two attacks on Pearl Harbor. The following day, President Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war against Japan.
2,403 people died and U.S. planes and battleships were destroyed. Japanese Americans were fired from government jobs, and had their cameras and radios taken away. Some people on the U.S. Supreme Court even accused Japanese Americans in Hawaii of helping the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor. The newspapers also showed the Japanese-American sabotage (http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/manzanar/history2.html).
