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The Chinese Must Go : Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America by Beth Lew-Williams is a book available to read on EtoBox.

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The American West erupted in anti-Chinese violence in 1885. Following the massacre of Chinese miners in Wyoming Territory, communities throughout California and the Pacific Northwest harassed, assaulted, and expelled thousands of Chinese immigrants. Beth Lew-Williams shows how American immigration policies incited this violence and how the violence, in turn, provoked new exclusionary policies. Ultimately, Lew-Williams argues, Chinese expulsion and exclusion produced the concept of the “alien” in modern America. The Chinese Must Go begins in the 1850s, before federal border control established strict divisions between citizens and aliens. Across decades of felling trees and laying tracks in the American West, Chinese workers faced escalating racial conflict and unrest. In response, Congress passed the Chinese Restriction Act of 1882 and made its first attempt to bar immigrants based on race and class. When this unprecedented experiment in federal border control failed to slow Chinese migration, vigilantes attempted to take the matter into their own hands. Fearing the spread of mob violence, U.S. policymakers redoubled their efforts to keep the Chinese out, overhauling U.S. immigrati

Author

Beth Lew-Williams

Publisher

Harvard University, Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies

Published

2018

Language

EN

ISBN

9780674976016

Subjects

History, Sociology, Science

Rating

4.5 / 5 (64 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14