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Land Act
federal law that ended the ability to purchase the United States public domain lands on a credit or instalment system over 4 years. -
Period: to
European immigrants
1 million of Irish, English and Germans immigrants → US -
Period: to
Migrants in Europe
37 million of migrants in Europe (déclin de la migration aux US après la 1WW) -
Pale of Jewish Settlement
The Pale of Settlement was a territory within the borders of czarist Russia wherein the residence of Jews was legally authorised. Limits for the area in which Jewish settlement was permissible in Russia came into being when Russia was confronted with the necessity of adjusting to a Jewish elements within its borders from which Jews had been excluded since the end of the 15th century. -
Know-Nothing Party
American’s first anti-immigration political party → increasing number of German and Irish immigrants settling in the US. -
Foreign Miner’s Tax Act
Passed by the California Legislature in an attempt to discourage miners who weren’t American citizens from coming to the state. Monthly tax of 3/4 dollars on foreign miners working in California.
Objective= reduce the number of foreign miners coming into California, especially from China, as anti-Chinese feeling remained high among the state’s white population.
Tax collectors focused their efforts mostly on Chinese miners, who were victims of fraud and abuse of all sorts. -
Homestead Act
Immigrants came because the government proposed to give them work on a land: It offers 160 acres of land to any citizens or would be citizens , meaning people who had asked for papers. They had to work on it for 5 years straight and couldn’t leave their job. If so, then, at the end of these 5 years, the land would be theirs. -
Contract Labor Act
Policy of encouraging immigration by supporting companies who would provide passage to their workers in exchange for labor. -
New York City Urban Tenements House Act
One of the first law to ban the construction of dark, poorly ventilated tenement buildings in the state of New York -
Burlingame Treaty in Washington
Landmark treaty between the US and Qing China, amending the Treaty of Tientsin, to establish formal friendly relations between the 2 nations, with the US granting China the status of most favored nation with regards to trade. It was signed in the capital of the US, Washington in 1868 and ratified in Peking in 1869. -
Side Walk Ordinance
Discriminatory measure which made it a crime for anyone to walk through the city (on side walks)carrying over his shoulder a pole with baskets at each end. This order was aimed at the Chinese, who were seen throughout the city delivering clean laundry in this manner. -
Los Angeles Riot
Chinese massacre → In Los Angeles, a mob of more than 500 white and Hispanic rioters murdered 17 Chinese people and burned the city’s Chinatown to the ground. -
Page Act
Blocked entry to Chinese, Japanese and other Asian laborers brought involuntarily to the US, as well as Asian women brought for the purposes of prostitution.
1880s → development of great competition between the navigation companies (→ lowering of ticket price...) -
Immigrants law in diff states
After the Civil War, some States passed their own immigrants law → Supreme Court declares that it’s the responsibility of the federal government to make and enforce immigration laws. -
San francisco anti Chinese demonstration
This riot was a three-day pogrom waged against Chinese immigrants in San Francisco (California) by the city’s majority white population. The ethnic violence which swept Chinatown resulted in 4 deaths and the destruction of more than 100 000 dollars worth of property belonging to the city’s Chinese immigrant population. The riot was triggered by a severe economic crisis that swept the United States (known to history as the Long Depression) -
Denver Anti-Chinese Riot at Chinatown
Nearly every Chinese-owned business in the city had been burned down, dozens of Chinese were injured and one died. It is one of the most shameful episodes in Denver’s history (racism, alcohol, misinformation led to the near complete demolishment of Denver’s once-thriving Chinatown.) -
Chinese Exclusion Act
Federal law / prohibited the entry of Chinese workers for 10 years.
Beginning in the 1850s, a steady flow of Chinese workers had immigrated to America. Worked in the gold mines and garments factories, built railroads and took agricultural jobs. Anti-Chinese sentiment grew as Chinese laborers became successful in America. Although Chinese immigrants make up only 0.002 percent of the United States population, white workers blame them for low wages. -
Scott Act
Congress extended domestic authority over immigration to improve enforcement of the Chinese laws .
Abolished one of the exempt statuses, returning laborers, stranding about 20 000 Chinese holding Certificates of Return outside the United States.
--> US law that prohibits US Chinese laborers from returning to the US. -
The Immigration Act
Excludes the immigration of polygamists, people convicted of certain crimes, and the sick or diseased.
Created a federal office of immigration to coordinate immigration enforcement and a corps of immigration inspectors stationed at principle ports of entry, and also the Office of the Superintendent of Immigration in the Treasury Department.
Blocked / excluded the entry of idiots, lunatics, likely to become a public charge. -
Geary Act
This Act regulated Chinese immigration into the 20th century. It prohibited the coming of Chinese persons into the US by making the Chinese exclusion act permanent.
(There were anti-Chinese agitation for the Geary act 1892 → racist campaign / and Japanese were no more welcome on the West Cost) -
Period: to
Ellis Island
historical site that opened in 1892 as an immigration station, a purpose it served for more than 60 years until it closed in 1954. -
Tenement House Act
a New York State Progressive Era law which outlawed the construction of the dumbbell-shaped style tenement housing and set minimum size requirements for tenement housing. It also mandated the installation of lighting, better ventilation, and indoor bathrooms. -
Russian Revolution
Also known as the First Russian Revolution, this revolution was a wave of mass political and social unrest then began to spread across the vast areas of the Russian Empire. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies. It was set off by the international humiliation that resulted from the Russian defeat in the Russo- Japanese War (1904-1905). Their protests ranged from liberal rhetoric to strikes and included student riots and terrorist assassinations. -
Peak Year
Expanding the categories of prohibited immigrants, formalizing a deportation process and assigning the government enhanced powers to make arbitrary judgements on admission. While the act did not specifically restrict immigrants based on their culture, ethnicity or nationality, the government could prohibit any class of immigrants when it was considered necessary or expedient. -
Gentlemen’s Agreement
Amid prejudices in California that an influx of Japanese workers would cost white workers farming jobs and depress wages, the US and Japan sign the Gentlemen’s Agreement = japan agrees to limit japanese emigration to the US to certain categories of business and professional men. -
First law about sterilisation
1rst law allowing sterilisation on eugenic grounds in 1907, Indiana -
Period: to
Angel Island
Located in San Francisco Bay, the Angel Island Immigration Station served as the main immigration facility on the West Coast of the US. -
Immigration Act
implemented a literacy test that required immigrants over 16 years old to demonstrate basic reading comprehension in any language -
Sterilised people in America
Approximately 3,000 people had been involuntarily sterilised in America -
Immigration and Naturalisation Act
Abolished an earlier quota system based on national origin and based on reuniting immigrant families and attracting skilled labor to the US. The Immigration and Naturalisation Act of 1965 loosened restrictions on immigration and fostered another wave of immigration that followed the closure of Ellis Island in 1954.