In response to mounting anti-Chinese sentiment, which was especially strong on the West Coast, the U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, signed into law by President Chester A. Arthur in May 1882. This act prohibited the entry of Chinese laborers into the US for a period of 10 years, and barred Chinese from naturalizing as US citizens. The restriction on immigration applied to both skilled and unskilled laborers, as well as miners, but merchants, students, teachers, and travelers were exempted, as were diplomats (and their household servants). The law further required all Chinese traveling in or out of the US to carry certificates identifying their status (as a laborer or a member of the exempt classes). Those who had been in the United States as of November 17, 1880 were permitted to remain in the US, and to travel abroad and return. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first major law restricting immigration into the US, and the only to target a single ethnic group.

Chinese Exclusion was renewed (with harsher terms) in 1892 with the Act to Prohibit the Coming of Chinese Persons into the United States, more commonly known as the Geary Act, and extended indefinitely in 1902. Finally, in 1943, when the US and China became World War II allies, Chinese Exclusion was repealed. In 2011-12, the 112th Congress (Senate Resolution 201 [Oct. 2011] and House Resolution 683 [June 2012], issued a formal apology for the Exclusion Acts.

Anti-Chinese sentiment was fueled by economic competition, with American workers fearing what they viewed as the threat to their jobs from "cheap" Chinese labor, and also by xenophobia and racial prejudice. The anti-Chinese movement, which was especially strong in West Coast states like California, played up ideas of Chinese cultural and racial inferiority, labeling these immigrants "strange," "heathen," "vile" and "unassimilable." This view of the Chinese was not uniformly accepted by all Americans, and some were bitterly opposed to Chinese Exclusion, which they viewed as damaging to American commercial and missionary interests in China, and furthermore as contrary to American ideals of equality and fairness. The Rev. Otis Gibson, for example, was an outspoken opponent of the anti-Chinese movement.

There are a large number of primary sources relating to the history of the anti-Chinese movement and Chinese Exclusion available, including documents, photographs, cartoons, and immigration records. The following links are good places to begin your research.

The National Archives.

The Library of Congress: The Chinese in California, Classroom Materials and the American Memory website.

The Online Archive of California.

The Museum of Chinese in the Americas.

The Harvard University Library Open Collections Program.

Harper's Weekly, The Chinese American Experience: 1857-1892.

Chronology of US-China Relations, US Department of State, Office of the Historian

 For more information see this research guide produced by the National Archives.