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the Chinese Historical Society of America and the Chinese American Citizens Alliance present


 
   
  

  


 
  
   
 


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Philip P. Choy Gallery OurAmericanCitizenship.org CHSA

1882 In 1882, Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act. It prevents people of Chinese descent from becoming citizens, and—except for members of a few narrowly-defined professions—from immigrating to the U.S. at all. Many families are split, with wives and children stranded overseas.

1892 Congress renews Chinese Exclusion in 1892, and requires only people of Chinese descent to register and carry special identification. The Chinese of America conduct massive civil disobedience to the registration scheme, and fight the law in the courts. Excluded from a prominent whites-only organization for men born in California, a group of Chinese San Franciscans become the Native Sons of the Golden State, to assert their equal right to U.S. citizenship.

1902 Congress renews Chinese Exclusion indefinitely, and re-creates it as “Asiatic Exclusion.” The N.S.G.S. reorganizes as Chinese American Citizens Alliance, to fight for equal protection under the law nationally. The Alliance works for immigration reform, lobbying to allow family reunification. In 1965, President Johnson abolishes the Exclusion law, calling it “un-American in the highest sense.”

1965