Asian-American During the Late 19th Century Asian-Americans,

Asian-American

During the late 19th century Asian-Americans, particularly those of Chinese decent went through one of the hardest, most discriminatory periods of their American history. The legal and political system restricted the freedom of Asian-Americans during the late 19th to early 20th century by implementing laws that limited their ability to freely immigrate to United States soil. One of the most severe, drastic, and discriminatory acts to come upon United States history was the Chinese Exclusion Act (Bodenner, 2006). After an influx in Chinese immigration to America during the California Gold Rush of the 1800's, a law to try to control the number of Chinese immigrants entering the United States was implemented. This law gave way to the biggest reduction in a single ethnicity in American history, as it not only prevented the Chinese from coming to America, but it also threatened those who already had their lives in the United States, with deportation (Pfaelzer, 2007).

By implementing this law it prohibited the Chinese from being able to fully exercise their rights as Americans living in the United States, therefore restricting their freedom. Afraid to exercise their own beliefs and their own values prohibited them from truly being free (Sung, 1971). Chinese-Americans were persecuted for being who they were and in return could not fully be the people that they deserved the right to be. This restricted them from fully being able to have the freedom that was given to everyone else. They could not practice their own religion, nor could they practice their own teachings, as all this gave them more reason to stand out, and therefore increased the chance of them being deported (Kanazawa, 2005).

After being such a great contributor to building the nation's backbone, the transcontinental railroad, they were then rewarded by being thrown out of the country. They no longer could grow in population due to the fear of not being treated as equally as other ethnicities and races at the time were. Generations to come were affected by this lack of freedom that the American government themselves placed on Chinese-Americans and on Chinese trying to immigrate into the country (Pfaelzer, 2007). Because of their fear of being persecuted even further, they stopped having children for the fear of them being discriminated against (Kanazawa, 2005).