PBS’ ‘American Experience’ recalls when Chinese workers were outlawed
On May 6, 1882, President Chester A. Arthur signed into law the Chinese Exclusion Act, prohibiting the immigration of Chinese laborers into the United States. It was the first such law to target a specific ethnic group and its enactment would set the tone of U.S. immigration policy for the next 60-plus years and beyond, a story told in a new “American Experience” installment premiering this week.
In “The Chinese Exclusion Act,” premiering Tuesday, May 29, on PBS (check local listings), the two-hour documentary from Ric Burns and LiShin Yu explores this little-known piece of legislation and its effect on American civil liberties, immigration and culture and looks at the forces that gave rise to it, and how we define what it means to be an American.
“The legislation stated that if you were Chinese, you couldn’t come here,” explained Burns to a recent gathering of journalists in Pasadena, Calif., “and if you happened to be one of those twotenths of one percent (of the U.S. population at the time who were Chinese) who were already here, you would never be a citizen. You couldn’t vote. You could not own a business other than a laundry or a restaurant. You couldn’t own property. And that was doubled down on over the next few decades.”
Driving the law, then as now, were concerns that immigrants were taking jobs away from native-born citizens and labor unions’ complaints that company owners were using them to keep wages low. Over the years, the laws were extended to restrict other Asian groups until they were finally repealed by the Magnuson Act in 1943. But that hasn’t stopped the issue from being at the forefront of the national consciousness over the years, and especially today.
“This is not an immigration story,” Burns says. “This is the immigration story of America. And it is the most important story most Americans, including me until recently, really didn’t know about the formation of American policy and legislation, about, at a deeper level, the deep struggles about American identity. And what makes it, I think, so continuingly relevant and resonant today ... immigration is the top headline in almost any journal you open.”