During this period of time there were a lot of immigrants coming to the U.S. After the "original" immigrants moved here there was a new set known as the "new immigrants." They all came from Southern and Eastern Europe. After they settled here the Chinese began to emerge. Thousands upon thousands of Chinese immigrants came to the U.S. year after year and the Europeans began looking at it as a problem. The Chinese began taking their jobs and replacing the original immigrants. There was soon a law passed in 1883 by President Chester Arthur stating that Chinese people may not emigrate to the U.S. if they are laborers. I included this political cartoon to show just how the Europeans felt about the Chinese.
In this political cartoon the Chinese man is sitting outside of the "Golden Gate of Liberty." There is a sign outside of the gate basically stating that pretty much all men are accepted including hoodlums, but the Chinamen are not to be admitted. The caption says "The only one barred out." The Europeans don't believe the Chinese deserve liberty or freedom in the U.S. All they do is take away their jobs and start trouble and they don't want that in their country. This just goes to show you how bad they treated people who weren't the same as them. They did the same thing with the Native Americans and the African Americans. The Europeans take people as a threat instead of accepting them for who they are. I've learned that they seem to slowly forget that they were all once immigrants too.
This political cartoon is dealing with the same issue, the Chinese Exclusion Act. This one shows Irish "thugs" trying to attack one Chinese man. If you analyze the picture you can see all of the rude and disgusting things that the Europeans thought of the Chinese on the back wall, For example, "Vicious, Immoral, Heathenish." The woman hovering over the man seemed to be looked at as a symbol of freedom, maybe the Statue of Liberty. All the way in the back there is a noose hanging from the tree. During this time period this is how they used to kill off people they thought were doing wrong. This picture is significant because it is showing that everyone deserves liberty and equality. Everyone emigrated to the U.S. for a specific reason and they all deserve a fair chance for a decent life. This picture just taught me how hard life must've been for the Chinese during this time. It was hard coming to the U.S. trying to start a new life, and being put down all of the time.
Photographs:
Data/Graph:
This data is showing the amount of Chinese and Japanese immigrants that were emigrating to the U.S. From 1860-1890 the amount of Chinese immigrants increased enormously. Towards the beginning of the 1900's is when the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed so on the chart you can see a significant decline in the amount of immigrants coming from China. The Japanese population didn't really start increasing until 1920's. From this chart you can learn or see exactly how this law affected this specific group of people. Once the numbers began increasing it became too much for the U.S. to handle and you can see what it did to the Chinese population.