Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America, 1882-1943 [Paperback]

Charles J. McClain (Author), Christian G. Fritz (Author), Lucy E. Salyer (Author), L. Eve Armentrout (Author), Him Mark Lai (Author), Wesley Woo (Author), Sau-ling C. Wong (Author), Sucheng Chan (Editor, Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 25, 1994

In 1882, Congress passed a Chinese exclusion law that barred the entry of Chinese laborers for ten years. The Chinese thus became the first people to be restricted from immigrating into the United States on the basis of race. Exclusion was renewed in 1892 and 1902 and finally made permanent in 1904. Only in 1943 did Congress rescind all the Chinese exclusion laws as a gesture of goodwill towards China, an ally of the United States during World War II. "Entry Denied" is a collection of essays on how the Chinese exclusion laws were implemented and how the Chinese as individuals and as a community in the U.S. mobilized to mitigate the restrictions imposed upon them. It is the first book in English to rely on Chinese language sources to explore the exclusion era in Chinese American history. Sucheng Chan, Professor and Chair of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is general editor of "Temple's Asian American History and Culture Series".

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Entry Denied is essential reading; it greatly enriches our understanding of the life experiences and strategies of those Chinese immigrants who struggled to establish a place and community in an openly hostile and racist society." --China Review International "Sucheng Chan has edited a book which...should prove to be an excellent resource for scholars and laypersons alike. Especially interesting and useful is the legal history and analyses of decisions of the lower Federal Courts and the United States Supreme Court, which provide fresh information on the struggle of the Chinese against exclusion laws." --The Journal of Asian Studies "This volume is a contribution to the field of Chinese American history and reflects the 'new' scholarship in Asian American Studies... [E]ach essay, in its own emphasis, reveals how Chinese immigrants were active participants in the making of American history, challenging a repressive system on many fronts... This volume helps to illuminate Chinese America's place in the struggle for civil rights in the U.S." --The Western Historical Quarterly

From the Publisher

Legal history illuminating Chinese Americans' struggle for civil rights --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 286 pages
• Publisher: Temple University Press (January 25, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566392012
• ISBN-13: 978-1566392013
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,537,901 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sucheng Chan is Professor Emerita of Asian American Studies and Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Though her Ph.D. is in political science, she retooled herself as a historian while teaching Asian American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley because so many questions that students asked could only be answered through historical research. She is the author or editor of 18 books, 5 of which have received awards: This Bittersweet Soil: The Chinese in California Agriculture, 1860-1910; Asian Americans: An Interpretive History; Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America; Claiming America: Constructions of Chinese American Identities during the Exclusion Era; and Survivors: Cambodian Refugees in the United States. Her other books have likewise been influential in the field. She has also written dozens of articles and book chapters, some of which have won awards.
A dedicated teacher, she is the recipient of 2 Distinguished Teaching Awards (the first from the University of California, Berkeley in 1978 and the second from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1998), as well as awards for service to students, the campus community, and the profession. She was the first Asian American woman to be appointed as a provost in the 10-campus University of California system, becoming Provost of Oakes College at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1984. She moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1988, where she transformed the Asian American Studies Program into a full-fledged department in 1994, chairing the program and then the department from 1988 to 1997. She is also a co-founder of the Global Studies Program on the same campus.
She retired at age 60 in 2001 because the post-polio syndrome from which she has suffered for many years made it impossible to continue teaching. She has continued to write and is presently working on three book manuscripts: Asian America in Global Perspective; Vietnamese Refuge-Seekers and the Politics of Resettlement; and The Japanese in California Agriculture: Land, Labor, Race, and the Law, 1900-1942.