Rolling back the years

Pat Buchanan would take us back to the halcyon days of the 19th century when "separate but equal" was constitutional, women couldn't vote, and our newspapers ran political cartoons like this:


Think Progress » Buchanan: Americans Should Consider Allowing Only White Immigrants

Today on CNN, John King asked Buchanan if he “wants to set a policy where only white english-speaking people can come to America.” Buchanan said that “the American people should decide who comes.” Buchanan added that he believes “we should favor folks from cultures and civilization that have been assimilated before,” i.e. white Europeans.

A brief history lesson follows.

Chinese Exclusion Act (United States)

The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law passed on May 6, 1882, following 1880 revisions to the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. Those revisions allowed the U.S. to suspend immigration, and Congress subsequently acted quickly to implement the suspension of Chinese immigration.

The act excluded all Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States for 10 years. Amendments made in 1884 tightened the provisions that allowed previous immigrants to leave and return, and clarified that the law applied to ethnic Chinese regardless of their country of origin. The act was renewed in 1892 by the Geary Act for another 10 years, and in 1902 with no terminal date. It was repealed by the 1943 Magnuson Act, allowing a national quota of 105 Chinese immigrants per year, although large scale Chinese immigration did not occur until the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965.

The act was passed in response to the large number of Chinese who had immigrated to the Western United States as a result of unsettled conditions in China and the availability of jobs working on railroads. Most came on five year labor contracts. It was the first immigration law passed in the United States targeted at a specific ethnic group.

When will we ever learn?

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