An immigration primer: Part 2
In 1882, President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first major law restricting immigration. The act authorized the restriction of Chinese immigration and forbade courts from granting citizenship to Chinese residents.
The law was prompted by economic fear, according to the Harvard Open Collections Program's website. On the West Coast especially, native-born Americans held racist views and blamed the Chinese for unemployment and declining wages. The act wasn’t repealed until 1943 – during World War II, when China was an ally.
2. In April 1939, Dorothy Thompson, journalist and wife of writer Sinclair Lewis, went before a Senate subcommittee to argue in favor of a bill to admit 20,000 children ages 14 and under to the U.S. The children were:
A) German
B) Polish
C) Russian
D) Italian
