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Chinese immigrants and American immigration officers at Ellis Island.
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The Perils of Vilifying Chinese Migrants

As Chinese migrants arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border, politicians are reviving old anti-Chinese rhetoric that has done lasting harm.
Book cover of "The Chinese Question The Gold Rushes and Global Politics"

Who Digs the Mines?

A new book recognizes the global character of Asian exclusion.
Illustration of the first Taoist funeral procession in Los Angeles, which was held in 1872 and was led by a Taoist priest from China. Processions were held every three years until 1903, for the gods to escort the victims through the seven layers of heaven.

Is L.A. Ready to Remember the 1871 Chinese Massacre?

Long buried, the 1871 Chinese Massacre surfaces amid a significant anniversary and a new wave of violence.
Tarred as a “coolie race,” the Chinese were cast as a threat to free white labor. Train with fire around it and a face in the back.

America Was Eager for Chinese Immigrants. What Happened?

In the gold-rush era, ceremonial greetings swiftly gave way to bigotry and violence.
Chinese miners in California

The Anti-Asian Roots of Today’s Anti-Immigrant Politics

Long before Trump, politicians on the country’s West Coast mobilized a white working-class base through violent hate of Chinese and Japanese immigrants.

The Bloody History of Anti-Asian Violence in the West

One of the largest mass lynchings in the United States targeted Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles.
Illustration by Valerie Chiang; Source text from PBS; Library of Congress; Source photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnston / Library of Congress / Corbis / Getty (children); Getty (other)

The Forgotten History of the Campaign to Purge Chinese from America

The surge in violence against Asian-Americans is a reminder that America’s present reality reflects its exclusionary past.
Asian-American men waiting to be questioned by white police officers

Racism Has Always Been Part of the Asian American Experience

If we don’t understand the history of Asian exclusion, we cannot understand the racist hatred of the present.
Chinese immigrants working in a market stop to pose for a photo

The California Klan’s Anti-Asian Crusade

Whereas southern Klansmen assaulted Black Americans and their white allies, western vigilantes targeted those they deemed a greater threat: Chinese immigrants.
Trestle on Central Pacific Railroad, by Carleton Watkins, 1877.

A Campaign of Forced Self-Deportation

The history of anti-Chinese violence in Truckee, California, is as old as the town itself.
Nurse Minnie Sun holding a baby in the Chinese Hospital

When Chinese Americans Were Blamed for 19th-Century Epidemics, They Built Their Own Hospital

The Chinese Hospital in San Francisco is still one-of-a-kind.

Who Was Tank Kee?

He wanted to be an ally of the Chinese immigrant. By pretending to be one himself.
Birds eye view of the city of La Crosse, Wisconsin in 1867.

The Tacoma Method

How the Chinese community of Tacoma, Washington Territory was violently expelled in 1885, and what happened next.
Massachusetts State House
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Don’t Count on the Supreme Court to Stop Trump’s Travel Ban

Chinese exclusion in the 19th century exposes the limits of the justices' power.

How The White Establishment Waged A 'War' On Chinese Restaurants In The U.S.

Chinese restaurants are now an American staple, but in the past some Americans tried to shut them down.

Donald Trump Meet Wong Kim Ark

He was the Chinese-American cook who became the father of ‘birthright citizenship.’

From Chinese Exclusion to Pro-Palestinian Activism: The History of Politically Motivated Deportation

Removal orders targeting student activists echo America’s long past of jailing and expelling immigrants because of their race, or what they say or believe.
Collage of Chinese laborers.

When an American Town Massacred Its Chinese Immigrants

In 1885, white rioters murdered dozens of their Asian neighbors in Rock Springs, Wyoming. 140 years later, the story of the atrocity is still being unearthed.
Photo of Wong Kim Ark and document about Chinese Exclusion.

History’s Lessons on Anti-Immigrant Extremism

Even Trump’s recent assertion that he would use executive action to abolish birthright citizenship has a historical link to the Chinese American experience.
Chinese laborers engaged to work on the American Transcontinental Railroad system.

America's First Major Immigration Crackdown and the Making and Breaking of the West

Chinese immigrants sacrificed to create America's first transcontinental railroad. Its completion contributed to a backlash that led to immigration clampdown.
A Chinese American woman riveter at work.

Could “Rosie the Riveter” Be Chinese American?

Despite having their citizenship withheld before the war, Chinese American women in the Bay Area made significant contributions to the wartime labor force.
Trump at the debate in Philadelphia.

Why Republican Politicians Keep Claiming Immigrants Eat Cats and Dogs

"They’re eating the pets of the people that live there," former President Trump claimed — with no basis — at the first presidential debate.
Tiburcio Parrott sitting holding cane

Birth of the Corporate Person

The defining of corporations as legal “persons” entitled to Fourteenth Amendment rights got a leg up from the fight over a California anti-Chinese immigrant law.
Torn photos juxtaposing the face of a Black man and an Asian woman.

A New Theory of Race in America

How white-dominated racial power produces inter-ethnic group conflict.
Mabel Ping‑Hua Lee holding flowers.

The Revolutionary Chinese Suffragette Who Challenged America’s Politics

The story of Mabel Ping‑Hua Lee.
Wong Kim Ark's departure statement overlayed with his portrait.

How the Fight for Birthright Citizenship Shaped the History of Asian American Families

Even after Wong Kim Ark successfully took his case to the Supreme Court 125 years ago, Asian Americans struggled to receive recognition as U.S. citizens.
Cartoon of several Chinese-Americans holding a sign that says, "Chinatown is Not For Sale"

Dynasty Center: Exclusion and Displacement in Los Angeles’s Chinatown

The original Los Angeles Chinatown, now known as “Old Chinatown,” developed in the 1860s.
Vintage Levi's held in front of an auction crowd.

A Pair of 1880s Jeans Just Sold for $76k. Their Pocket Reveals a Complicated Piece of Levi’s History.

The vintage pair of jeans was pulled from a dusty abandoned mineshaft.
Picture of The Pekin Noodle Parlor, America's first Chinese restaurant.

The First Chinese Restaurant in America Has a Savory—and Unsavory—History

Venture into the Montana eatery, once a gambling den and opium repository, that still draws a crowd.
"Submission of the Mohawk," illustration of Native Americans making offerings to Europeans.

America and the "Heathen": How We Set Ourselves Apart From "Sh**hole Countries"

The concept of "heathenism" may seem outmoded, but it defines race and religion in America.

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