The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first federal legislation to prohibit an entire nation of people from coming to the United States. It instigated a century or more or immigration regulations and codified "illegal" immigration. Dr. Ben Railton joins the show to explore the act. Ten years ago, Ben wrote about how the legislation still reverberates throughout the twentieth century, and in this episode we bring that history to bear on current events.

Essential Reading:

Benjamin Railton, The Chinese Exclusion Act: What It Can Teach Us about America (2013).

Recommended Reading:

Hidetaka Hirota, Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy (2017).

Jane Hong, Opening the Gates to Asia: A Transpacific History of How America Repealed Asian Exclusion (2019).

Erika Lee, America for Americans and The Making of Asian America (2016).

Liel Leibovitz and Matthew Miller, Fortunate Sons: The 120 Chinese Boys Who Came to America, Went to School, and Revolutionized an Ancient Civilization (2011).

Beth Lew-Williams, The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America (2021).

Robert Weir, Knights Unhorsed: Internal Conflict in a Gilded Age Social Movement (2000).

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