The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred practically all

Chinese from American shores for ten years, was the first federal

law that banned a group of immigrants solely on the basis of race

or nationality. By changing America's traditional policy of open

immigration, this landmark legislation set a precedent for future

restrictions against Asian immigrants in the early 1900s and

against Europeans in the 1920s.

Tracing the origins of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Andrew

Gyory presents a bold new interpretation of American politics

during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age. Rather than directly

confront such divisive problems as class conflict, economic

depression, and rising unemployment, he contends, politicians

sought a safe, nonideological solution to the nation's industrial

crisis--and latched onto Chinese exclusion. Ignoring workers'

demands for an end simply to imported contract labor, they

claimed instead that working people would be better off if there

were no Chinese immigrants. By playing the race card, Gyory

argues, national politicians--not California, not organized

labor, and not a general racist atmosphere--provided the motive

force behind the era's most racist legislation.