and southern borders, or smuggled into San Francisco harbor by men like
Captain Rinder of the steamship Mongolia. While exclusion certainly fell
short of its proclaimed purpose, an enhanced system of border control left
a lasting mark on the nation. In the short term, it deterred countless would-
be mi grants from attempting the hazardous journey and former vigilantes
from continually renewing their vio lence. In the long term, it set legal and
procedural pre ce dents that stripped aliens of many judicial rights and ex-
panded state surveillance targeting them. From this time forward, aliens
encountered the border at the territorial edges of the nation and deep within
them.
AFTERLIVES UNDER EXCLUSION
209
Table 7.1 Arrivals and Rejections of Chinese at U.S. Ports, 1894–1924
Year
No. Arrivals
No. Rejected
Percent Rejected
1894
6,840
1,241
18.1%
1895
2,732
657
24.0%
1896
4,031
415
10.3%
1897
6,919
402
5.8%
1898
7,475
280
3.7%
1899
6,668
950
14.2%
1900
6,859
1,065
15.5%
1901
4,982
918
18.4%
1902
3,768
335
8.9%
1903
3,549
567
16.0%
1904
4,409
1,295
29.4%
1905
3,086
481
15.6%
1906
2,937
205
7.0%
1907
3,514
259
7.4%
1908
4,988
364
7.3%
1909
8,072
564
7.0%
1910
7,860
969
12.3%
1911
5,972
692
11.6%
1912
6,023
400
6.6%
1913
6,532
386
5.9%
1914
6,908
410
5.9%
1915
6,723
268
4.0%
1916
6,448
437
6.8%
1917
6,000
321
5.4%
1918
3,805
308
8.1%
1919
3,851
151
3.9%
1920
5,658
125
2.2%
1921
10,686
296
2.8%
1922
12,832
515
4.0%
1923
13,663
706
5.2%
1924
13,583
751
5.5%
Source: Adam McKeown, “Ritualization of Regulation: The Enforcement of Chinese
Exclusion in the United States and China,” American Historical Review 108, no. 2 (April 2003): 390. Totals include immigrants, aliens, and Chinese who claimed U.S. citizenship.
Exclusion in the Overseas Empire
At the turn of the twentieth century, U.S. imperialism and Chinese exclusion
went hand in hand. As immigration officials worked to seal Amer ica’s territo-
rial borders, the U.S. armed forces pushed to extend those borders abroad.
Following the ten- week Spanish- American War in 1898, the U.S. military
210 EXCLUSION
took control of the former Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico, Guam, Cuba,
and, following another three- year war with local forces, the Philippines. As
part of the war effort, the United States also annexed Hawai‘i in 1898, which
would serve as a way station to Asia. Following a long history of continental
expansion through war and settler colonialism, Amer ica emerged from the
conflicts of the turn of the twentieth century with a new island empire.47
Of these territories, Cuba, Hawai‘i, and the Philippines already had siz-
able Chinese populations. The global forces of empire and capitalism that
drove Chinese mi grants to the U.S. West had also landed them in these other
economies of extraction. There were approximately fifteen thousand Chinese
in Cuba, twenty thousand in Hawai‘i, and as many as a hundred thousand
in the Philippines. Over the previous de cades, the two Spanish colonies and
the Kingdom of Hawai‘i had experimented with importing Chinese workers
and, subsequently, restricting and regulating them. In 1883, Hawai‘i limited
Chinese arrivals to 2,400 a year, but made an exception for agricultural
guest workers in 1890. The Spanish crown had long levied steep taxes on
Chinese foreigners, and regional authorities in the Philippines also sporadi-
cally excluded or expelled local Chinese.48 With the arrival of U.S. forces
and bureaucrats, a new brand of stringent and systematic exclusion came to
all these islands.49
Vigilante vio lence had played a pivotal role in the creation of Chinese ex-
clusion, and now state vio lence expanded its reach. Congress wrote provi-
sions for Chinese exclusion into its joint resolution to annex the Hawaiian
Islands in July 1898.50 In the Philippines, the U.S. military administration
announced a policy of Chinese exclusion two weeks before the United States
officially wrested control from Spain. For over a year, Chinese exclusion in
the U.S.- occupied Philippines was more extreme than any previous iteration,
barring all Chinese, regardless of class, until December 5, 1899. Through
military decree, the United States also extended exclusion to Puerto Rico in
1899 and Cuba in the final days of U.S. occupation in 1902. That year, when
Congress renewed Chinese exclusion for another de cade, it enshrined the
policy in all insular territories.51
As Amer ica’s empire expanded into the Pacific, controversies erupted over
what to do with Amer ica’s new colonial subjects of questionable racial status.
Congress and the public debated the place that Filipinos, Puerto Ricans, and
Hawaiians should occupy in the nation, but they continued to set the Chi-
AFTERLIVES UNDER EXCLUSION
211
nese apart. American leaders believed that extending Chinese exclusion to
the territories was essential to safeguard “native” populations from “alien”
labor competition, dissuade interracial marriage with inferior “Mongolians,”
and prevent a backdoor entrance into the mainland. Touting American
imperialism as a benevolent act, U.S. administrators described Chinese ex-
clusion as a policy of protection for their new colonial subjects. Despite
protests by American businessmen, William Howard Taft, who served as
the first ci
vilian governor of the Philippines in the de cade before he became
U.S. president, argued that exclusion was essential. If the U.S. allowed Chi-
nese laborers to enter the country, he claimed it could “arouse the enmity”
of the Filipinos “and induce them to a belief that the American Government
would exploit the islands.” As one newspaper opined, exclusion in the Phil-
ippines would promote the goal of Filipino “self- government” and uphold
American ideals of “benevolent assimilation.”52
Chinese diplomats watched with obvious distress as exclusion enveloped
Amer ica’s insular territories. When exclusion came to Hawai‘i, Chinese Min-
ister Wu Tingfang protested. “To single out the Chinese alone for exclusion
from the islands is to lower the whole nation in the eyes of the world,” he
wrote to Secretary of State John Hay. “Particularly if there is no discrimi-
nating legislation against any other Asiatic people.” When exclusion was
extended to the Philippines, Wu became worried about more than sym-
bolism. He believed the policy would have exceptionally “evil effects” in the
Philippines, because “for centuries” there had been “very intimate and impor-
tant relations” between China and neighboring islands. Many of the Chi-
nese in the Philippines were “native- born” or “intermingled by marriage with
the Philippine race,” and these overseas Chinese maintained “extensive social
and commercial relations” with China. Wu found it deeply troubling that the
United States had brought its border to China’s backyard.53
Though Chinese diplomats had effectively acquiesced to exclusion in the
Gresham- Yang Treaty of 1894, they found this brazen expansion of the policy
intolerable. In January 1904, the Imperial Court announced its decision to
terminate the treaty in hopes of negotiating a new pact. The result bore an
eerie resemblance to the crisis of 1888. As U.S. diplomats scrambled to put a
new treaty in place, Congress was determined to settle the question unilat-
erally. With a unan i mous vote in the House and strong support in the Senate,
Congress passed a simple bill to abrogate the treaty and extend Chinese
212 EXCLUSION
exclusion in defi nitely. On April 27, 1904, President Theodore Roo se velt
signed the final Chinese Exclusion Act into law.54
Chinese diplomats denounced the act, but the loudest voice of protest
came from the Chinese public. Shanghai, which had become a hub for U.S.
imports, became the central organ izing point for a transnational protest
movement. On May 10, 1905, the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce declared
its intent to boycott the United States, starting August 1, urging joint action
by telegraphing merchant guilds in twenty- one cities across China. The mer-
chants imagined a comprehensive boycott or ga nized through native- place
organ izations, in which longshoremen refused to unload U.S. goods, stu-
dents walked out of U.S. schools, employees resigned from U.S. companies,
merchants banned U.S. imports, and consumers rejected U.S. products. The
Baohuang hui (Protect the Emperor Society), a po liti cal reform association
of overseas Chinese, pledged financial support from Chinese merchants in
the United States and spread the news to Japan, Hawai‘i, the Philippines,
and Hong Kong. The transnational movement was built on preexisting
Chinese networks of communication, kinship, trade, and migration that
spanned the Pacific world.55
In China, intellectuals launched a campaign to educate the public and
rally them to the cause, writing anti- American editorials, speeches, pam-
phlets, novels, and songs. Though boycotters demanded an end to Chinese
exclusion, the movement rallied around more than immigrant rights. Their
writings routinely connected the history of anti- Chinese vio lence, Chinese
exclusion, and U.S. imperialism. Boycotters pressed the Imperial Court to
avoid signing another unequal treaty, arguing that acquiescence would en-
danger Chinese mi grants, entrench Chinese exclusion, and lower China’s
status in the world. One protest song, timed for the Mid- Autumn Festival,
urged people to avoid U.S. flour while preparing mooncakes for the holiday.
“If you use American flour,” the song warned, “the cake will not be
clean / [ because] flour from the Flower Flag [country] / is [made] with Chi-
nese blood.” Hoping to convince merchants and consumers to hold firm,
boycotters invoked the history of anti- Chinese vio lence in the United States.56
Closely monitoring the spread of the boycott, President Theodore Roo-
se velt understood that the protest was a response to more than exclusion. In
a note to the secretary of the trea sury, he described the boycott as largely
“due to our own misdeeds and folly.” “We have behaved scandalously toward
Chinamen in this country,” he acknowledged. “Some of the outrages by
AFTERLIVES UNDER EXCLUSION
213
mobs which have resulted in the deaths of Chinamen were almost as bad as
anything that occurred at the hands of the Chinamen themselves in the
Boxer outbreak.”57 Attempting to mend relations with Chinese diplomats,
Roo se velt publicly called for immigration reform. He instructed the Trea-
sury Department to end all “discourtesy or harsh treatment in connection
with the Chinese merchant, traveler or student,” and urged Congress to
amend the law to further protect elites from harassment. Though Congress
proved unwilling to back down, the customs ser vice scaled back the extreme
discretionary policies put in place under Terence Powderly. The effect was
substantial: the mean annual rejection rate of Chinese mi grants had been
15 percent between 1894 and 1905, but fell to 6.3 percent in the period from
1906 to 1924. In the years following the boycott, enforcement was better
aligned with the letter of the law.58
But Roo se velt’s reaction was not simply to retreat. He paired defensive
efforts to mollify protesters with offensive mea sures to pry open China’s door.
Since the boycott only meant “heavy losses” in a few ports, the U.S. minister
to China, William Rockhill, was principally concerned that the boycott
could set “a dangerous pre ce dent if not broken.” At Roo se velt’s urging,
Rockhill warned the Imperial Court that China was in breach of the Treaty
of Tientsin signed in 1858, which granted the United States open access to
specific ports. Though China issued an edict barring the boycott and the
movement seemed to be losing strength after six months, Roo se velt began
to prepare for military action. He sent the gunboat El Cano up the Yangtze
River on a “cruise,” instructed the large battleship Oregon to lie “lazily” off
the shores of Guangzhou, and ordered 20,000 troops to the Philippines to
be “within fifty hours of China.” Roo se velt warned his secretary of state,
“The Chinese Army is far more formidable than it was five years ago. . . .
We ought not to take any chances. We cannot afford a disaster.” For de cades,
American leaders had debated the relative merits of the closed gate and the
open door, but now they were determined to advance both
proj ects si mul-
ta neously. And if force was necessary, so be it.59
In the end, crisis was averted by the quiet dissipation of the boycott.
Shanghai merchants originally proposed the transnational movement, but
when they began to lose money they also lost their resolve. Chinese wholesalers
proved the least cooperative, continuing to buy and distribute U.S. goods. It
certainly did not help matters that Chinese consumers found it difficult to
determine which goods were made in Amer ica. Under pressure from U.S.
214 EXCLUSION
diplomats and increasingly from its own subjects, the Imperial Court quashed
the boycott in many cities by the end of 1905. The already weakened move-
ment faced a final unexpected blow when, on April 18, 1906, an earthquake
and fire reduced San Francisco’s Chinatown, along with much of the rest of
the city, to ruins. The Chinese community eventually rebuilt, but the boy-
cott, suddenly deprived of a vital source of support, met a swift end.60
Chinese exclusion withstood the transnational boycott and so did Amer-
i ca’s new, more coercive, open door policy in China. Though the boycotters
won a few diplomatic concessions, they failed to shake the foundations of
U.S. gatekeeping or imperialism. Amer ica’s imperial designs once reined in
its nativist impulses, but as China’s power waned at the turn of the century,
the rules of the game shifted. Now American leaders declared exclusion
wholly compatible with the extension of American empire. By the turn of
the twentieth century, the Chinese in the United States faced exclusion on
all sides and on all scales, as racial others, unauthorized aliens, and mem-
bers of a subjugated nation.
Exclusion in the Domestic Interior
The most immediate consequences of exclusion and expulsion left a paper
trail that historians can follow. Across the U.S. West, newspapermen and
local officials described scenes of anti- Chinese vio lence, as vigilantes threat-
ened, beat, killed, and drove out the Chinese. At the border of the nation
and the empire, U.S. officials recorded the enforcement of exclusion, as they
arrested, interrogated, and deported the Chinese. Expulsion and exclusion,
however, also had more quotidian and enduring repercussions on Chinese
mobility, status, and subjectivity. At the turn of the twentieth century, Chi-
nese in the United States still felt the legal and social consequences of the
anti- Chinese movement. It is vital to recognize the men and women who
died as a result of anti- Chinese vio lence in the U.S. West, but we must also
remember those who experienced the far more common outcome: precar-
The Chinese Must Go Page 31