Comparative Studies 241
Prof. J. Wu and Steve Yao
Lecture 4
Exclusion and Resistance
I. Asian immigrants as transnational industrial reserve army
A. Economically beneficial for capitalists but socially inferior
B. Focus of hostility for non-Asian workers - class hostility channeled into racial antagonism
II. Hostility towards Asian Immigrants
A. Economic Discrimination
Alien Land Laws
B. Political Disenfranchisement
People v. Hall
"aliens ineligible for citizenship"
1790 Right of naturalization to "free, white person"
Ozawa v. U.S. (1922)
U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923)
C. Physical Violence
D. Social Discrimination and Segregation
Forced assimilation
Anti-miscegenation
E. Immigration Exclusion
Page Law 1875
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907)
Immigration Act of 1917 (Barred Zone)
Ladies’ Agreement of 1920
Immigration Act of 1924
(national quotas based on 2% of 1890 census)
Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934
III. Strategies for Resistance
A. Personal Forms of Resistance
1. immigration & emigration strategies
"Paper Sons and Daughters"
2. economic strategies
circumventing Alien Land Laws
ethnic enclaves
3. formation of families -
"bachelor" societies
nuclear families
interracial families
4. formation of communities and creation and maintenance of culture
B. Organized Forms
1. class strategies - strikes
2. race-based strategies - litigation
3. nationalism
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