{"id":94,"date":"2025-05-29T08:34:37","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T12:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/people.bsu.edu\/econbriefs\/?p=94"},"modified":"2025-05-29T08:34:37","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T12:34:37","slug":"lessons-from-the-chinese-exclusion-act-by-dr-cecil-bohanon-and-dr-john-horowitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.bsu.edu\/econbriefs\/2025\/05\/29\/lessons-from-the-chinese-exclusion-act-by-dr-cecil-bohanon-and-dr-john-horowitz\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from the Chinese Exclusion Act \u2013 by Dr. Cecil Bohanon and Dr. John Horowitz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Americans have long worried about competing with immigrant labor and have been suspicious of immigrants&#8217; cultures and customs. The <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.archives.gov\/milestone-documents\/chinese-exclusion-act\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">1882 Chinese Exclusion Act<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> banned skilled and unskilled Chinese\u202flaborers from entering the country for ten years. The Act was extended in 1892 and made permanent in 1902.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559731&quot;:720,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">In 1882, Senator James Slater, a Democrat from Oregon, argued: \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bound-congressional-record\/1882\/04\/26\/senate-section\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">We who are pressing this bill understand it to be a bill in the interest of labor. We understand it to be a measure to protect labor, to keep him from being ground down by the capitalists by employing Chinese labor so cheaply that the white man, or the American citizen, if you prefer the term, is unable to live at the prices for which these immigrants will work\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> Many, including Missouri\u2019s Democratic Senator George Vest, made disparaging comments about the immigrants: \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.govinfo.gov\/content\/pkg\/GPO-CRECB-1882-pt4-v13\/pdf\/GPO-CRECB-1882-pt4-v13-9.pdf\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">There is not an American instinct among them\u2026They come among us and are a fungi upon our body politic<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559731&quot;:720,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">As is the case today, others had more liberal sentiments. Massachusetts\u2019 Republican Senator Henry Dawes said, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bound-congressional-record\/1882\/04\/26\/senate-section\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cI do not know any particular difference between Asiatic labor and European labor; it is labor, and it never occurred to me that the difference between men was the difference in the places where they were born. I always supposed it was a difference in the character of men.\u201d<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559731&quot;:720,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">In a recent NBER working paper, \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nber.org\/system\/files\/working_papers\/w33019\/w33019.pdf\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">The Impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act on the Economic Development of the Western U.S.<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\">,\u201d the authors find that the Chinese Exclusion Acts did reduce the number of Chinese living and working in the United States. Many of the immigrants either went back to China or migrated to other countries, such as Mexico. However, fewer Chinese workers did not increase the employment of white and U.S.-born workers. Instead, the reduction in Chinese workers led to reduced economic growth in the Western United States until at least 1940. White and U.S.-born workers, the intended beneficiaries of the Act, were, on average, not made better off.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559731&quot;:720,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">One reason many American workers were worse off was because Chinese labor filled market niches that made American workers more productive. Chinese labor was what economists call complementary to U.S. labor. For example, the Chinese worked disproportionately in sectors such as transportation, mining, and personal services, and they were not fully replaced when they left.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559731&quot;:720,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Yet again, a policy\u2019s actual consequences differ from its stated goals.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559731&quot;:720,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Americans have long worried about competing with immigrant labor and have been suspicious of immigrants&#8217; cultures and customs. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act banned skilled and unskilled Chinese\u202flaborers from entering the country for ten years. The Act was extended in 1892 and made permanent in 1902.\u00a0\u00a0 In 1882, Senator James Slater, a Democrat from Oregon, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[795],"tags":[950,952,155,739,147,524,953,949,520,97,954,553,951],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-immigration","tag-1882-chinese-exclusion-act","tag-capitalist","tag-culture","tag-economic-growth","tag-economics","tag-economist","tag-henry-dawes","tag-immigrants","tag-labor","tag-market","tag-market-niche","tag-price","tag-senator-james-slater"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Lessons from the Chinese Exclusion Act \u2013 by Dr. Cecil Bohanon and Dr. John Horowitz - Econ Briefs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/people.bsu.edu\/econbriefs\/2025\/05\/29\/lessons-from-the-chinese-exclusion-act-by-dr-cecil-bohanon-and-dr-john-horowitz\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lessons from the Chinese Exclusion Act \u2013 by Dr. Cecil Bohanon and Dr. John Horowitz - Econ Briefs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Americans have long worried about competing with immigrant labor and have been suspicious of immigrants&#8217; cultures and customs. 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