The First Immigration Law and How it Targeted Asian Women

But Have You Heard About?

What did you think of todays' episode?

Sorry, I didn't have a great title to come up with for this episode, but I wanted to get right to the point.
I wanted to use my platform to talk about how Asian hate and discrimination isn't new in this country. It literally started with the first Asian immigrants coming to America to escape harsh economic conditions landing in present day California during the height of the California Gold Rush. Within 30 years, US Congress passed the Page Act of 1875 which indiscriminately targeted the immigration of Asian women, creating an imbalance of Asian men to women. Many of these men that came over to work, predominately on the transcontinental railroad, weren't able to bring their partner with them and wound up leaving to go back to China. If an Asian woman wanted to go through the immigration process post Page Act, they were usually humiliated and harassed. You can even view poems written by mostly Chinese immigrants in San Francisco here:
https://www.aiisf.org/poems-and-inscriptions
The discrimination and stereotypes of Asian immigrants continued past the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 as well. Just because we do not hear as much about it in American history does not mean it didn't happen. It did, and we are for the better to recognize it, teach it, and learn from it to be better now.
Afong Moy, the first female Chinese immigrant was considered an oddity and even though she helped to educate those that wanted to be, was used by white men for profit. She sadly had stereotypes made of her, and had stereotypes projected at her when she toured with PT Barnum. If you would like more on her:
https://lithub.com/the-life-of-afong-moy-the-first-chinese-woman-in-america/
If you would like more on how polygamy, prostitution impacted federal immigration laws, here's the other article I mentioned:
https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6520&context=faculty_scholarship