At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943 [Paperback]

Erika Lee (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0807854484 | ISBN-13: 978-0807854488 | Publication Date: January 17, 2007

With the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Chinese laborers became the first group in American history to be excluded from the United States on the basis of their race and class. This landmark law changed the course of U.S. immigration history, but we know little about its consequences for the Chinese in America or for the United States as a nation of immigrants.

At America's Gates is the first book devoted entirely to both Chinese immigrants and the American immigration officials who sought to keep them out. Erika Lee explores how Chinese exclusion laws not only transformed Chinese American lives, immigration patterns, identities, and families but also recast the United States into a "gatekeeping nation." Immigrant identification, border enforcement, surveillance, and deportation policies were extended far beyond any controls that had existed in the United States before.

Drawing on a rich trove of historical sources--including recently released immigration records, oral histories, interviews, and letters--Lee brings alive the forgotten journeys, secrets, hardships, and triumphs of Chinese immigrants. Her timely book exposes the legacy of Chinese exclusion in current American immigration control and race relations.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Lee has authored a masterful book, well written and based on extensive research in both English and Chinese sources."
-- American Historical Review

"Makes a very significant contribution to both Asian American history and to U.S. immigration history. The amount of research that went into this book is prodigious."
— Sucheng Chan, University of California, Santa Barbara

About the Author

Erika Lee is assistant professor of history at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (January 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807854484
• ISBN-13: 978-0807854488
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #227,353 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #28 in Books > Law > Administrative Law > Emigration & Immigration

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chinese immigration West Coast of United States, March 12, 2009

By 

igor stavinsky "igor" (igorland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943 (Paperback)

This is a wonderful book which tells the story of the west coast immigration journey which involved a controversial path. The Chinese Exclusion Act that was enacted in 1882 and updated periodically until 1943 was passed to restrict Chinese immigration into the United States. That legislation limited immigration on the basis of nationality or race for the first time. During the twentieth century, various other Asian ethnic groups were added to the excluded list to limit immigration from different parts of the Far East.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed by the 1943 Magnuson Act which permitted Chinese nationals already residing in the country to become naturalized citizens. It also allowed a federal quota of 105 Chinese immigrants per year, although significant Chinese immigration did not occur until the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965. I suggest you read further at http://www.sunglaw.com

16 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars diatribe, December 5, 2005

By 

A. E. Poe (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943 (Paperback)

Erika Lee is a very angry woman. Her diatribe on American immigration policy equates anyone who is concerned about porous borders , the enforcement of laws in a nation of laws, and containment of disease as being a racist. It's hardly fair. And it detracts from her history of immigration legislation and enforcement. Yes, the Chinese Exclusion Act was reprehensible. Yes, we were and are a nation filled with racial prejudices and hatreds.
Immigration restrictions on other ethnic groups, according to Lee, were reflections of a racist policy towards Asians. She admits that the numbers of Asian immigrants was historically small and generally confined to the west coast. She then invests California, and San Francisco in particular, with an enormous amount of political power which was used to restrict immigration throughout the country. Lee is not convincing in her contention that the immigration issue was driven purely by an irrational racist beliefs and concerns over invading Asian hordes. She did not fully explain how the United States Congress, 3,000 miles distant, and generally unaffected by Asian immigration would develop a policy arising out of racism towards a group of which they were barely aware.
Exclusion based upon race is wrong. Looking different, having different cultural traditions, and not speaking the dominant language of English were and are roadblocks for all immigrants, not just the Chinese. Lee is a constant apologist for behaving as an outsider while expecting to be treated as an insider. Blaming national policy decisions on racial attitudes is too simplistic. Lee could have made an argument which addressed the nativistic xenophobia that was prevalent in the Gilded Age which was partly due to the arrival of masses of southern and eastern European immigrants. She could have argued that the closing and consequent filling of the frontier caused concerns about immigration in general. She contends that Angel Island was more racist than Ellis Island. She is too quick to condemn.
Chapter Four does provide valuable information on Chinese coming to the United States as sojourners. She explains that the immigrants are not unskilled laborers, but rather people who could improve the nation. She provides a good comparison between unskilled Mexican and Asian immigrants who come to this country in order to provide for their families back in the home country. Although she describes how employers needed these laborers, she doesn't investigate the economic impact of taking earnings out of the country rather than investing them in the country. She also provides a good description of how the Chinese with the help of immigration attorneys sought to and often did circumvent the law. She seems to imply that if some people can find loopholes in laws, then the laws should be repealed, or that people who manage to arrive in this country illegally should be rewarded for their tenacity by receiving amnesty.
Lee has researched her subject thoroughly. Her list of oral and written primary documents is impressive. However, Lee's book graphically demonstrates the difficulty that the United States now has in reforming its immigration policies and enforcing its borders (what Lee refers to as gatekeepers). To paraphrase Robert Frost, good fences make good neighbors. It appears that a concern for national security will generate an automatic response that such concerns are racist rather than a practical solution to security issues.