Pod Insights Stuff You Missed in History Class SYMHC Classics: Chae Chan Ping vs. United States About this episode This 2021 episode covers the Chinese Exclusion Act, the United States’ first major immigration law. As its name suggests it specifically targeted people from China, and it led to Supreme Court cases that set the stage for later restrictions.
See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
0:04 Tracy V. Wilson? You ever show up late to the game and your friends already saved your seat, your drink, even a plate? That's looking out. That's having your back. And that's exactly what AT&T does with the AT&T Guarantee. They know staying connected matters, so they actually guarantee a network that comes through when it counts. AT&T has connectivity you can depend on, or they'll proactively make it right, just like that friend who takes care of things before you even ask. AT&T: Connecting Changes Everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com/guarantee for details. The Old Gays are back with Silver Linings, their lovable podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare.
0:45 Tracy V. Wilson? Robert, Mick, Bill, and Jessa strut back down memory lane for season two, sharing lessons on life, love, and loss. These are the kind of insights that only come from experience. So tune in to Silver Linings with The Old Gays on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Workplace chaos. We've all been there. Deadlines are slipping, projects are piling up, and suddenly you realize the missing piece is the right person. That's when you say, this is a job for sponsored jobs. With Indeed Sponsored Jobs, your job post gets a boost so you can connect with quality candidates faster. In fact, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs.
1:28 Tracy V. Wilson? Spend less time searching and more time interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.
1:42 Holly Frey? We've all tumbled down an internet rabbit hole trying to self-diagnose, and it leaves us more anxious than informed. Our feeds are full of wellness trends, but how do we know what's real, what's exaggerated, and what's just wrong? Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association breaks it all down. Emmy-nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends, not to cancel them, but to understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. So listen to Health vs. Hype wherever you get your podcasts.
2:16 Tracy V. Wilson? Happy Saturday. Coming up, we have an episode that's related to the Chinese Exclusion Act and the history of immigration from China to the United States. We've talked about a lot of the background and context for this before on a number of different episodes, including the one on the US Supreme Court decision in Chai Changping versus the United States.
2:38 Holly Frey? This episode came out on April 19, 2021, and it is today's Saturday Classic. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.
2:57 Tracy V. Wilson? Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
3:01 Holly Frey? And I'm Holly Frey.
3:02 Tracy V. Wilson? We've gotten several requests to do an episode on the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. And that's something that we've mentioned in, I feel like, a lot of previous episodes. And it's gotten a longer discussion in some specific episodes, like the Delano Grape Strike and Canary Row, and our brief history of foreign foods in the US, and then especially our two-parter on Executive Order 9066 and the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. So the Chinese Exclusion Act was really the first big piece in just a long history of United States immigration laws intended to keep so-called undesirables
3:43 Tracy V. Wilson? out of the country and to maintain white racial purity. It was the United States' first major immigration law, and as its name suggests, it specifically targeted people from China. It made it illegal for Chinese laborers to enter the US for 10 years, and then it was extended under the Geary Act in 1892 and then made permanent in 1902.
4:06 Tracy V. Wilson? It wasn't repealed until 1943. That was under the Magnuson Act, although that act also set a quota on Chinese immigration that worked out to a maximum of just about 105 people a year. So not many at all. But the Chinese Exclusion Act also had a much broader impact beyond its exclusion of Chinese immigrants and beyond its setting the foundation for later laws that targeted other groups. When it was challenged before the Supreme Court, the court's decisions established what's known as the plenary power doctrine for immigration law. Basically, that's the idea that the US government's legislative and executive branches have
4:46 Tracy V. Wilson? virtually unlimited authority to regulate immigration without a lot of oversight from the courts, even if those same regulations would be considered discriminatory if they were applied to US citizens. So today, we are going to talk about the Chinese Exclusion Act. We're also going to talk about the Supreme Court case that's most closely associated with all this, and that is Chia Chiang Ping versus the United States.
5:13 Holly Frey? For the most part, immigration in the US from China started after the end of the First Opium War. Briefly, Britain wanted to import Chinese goods like tea and silk, but China didn't really have a need for Britain's usual exports. So to offset that imbalance, Britain started trading opium from India into southern China. Opium, of course, is a highly addictive narcotic, and although it had been introduced into China before this point, the British opium trade was socially and economically devastating.
5:45 Tracy V. Wilson? The emperor started issuing edicts against opium in 1729, but Britain kept exporting it into China in defiance of Chinese law. Eventually, China destroyed a shipment of British opium by throwing it into the sea, and Britain retaliated with force.
6:03 Tracy V. Wilson? The resulting war lasted from 1839 to 1842, and it ended with the Treaty of Nanjing, which heavily favored British interests.
6:12 Holly Frey? Although the US had also been involved in the opium trade, it wasn't one of the belligerents in this war. So it was not a party to the Treaty of Nanjing. But the US did want access to the same trading ports and other concessions that Britain had secured through that treaty. So US President John Tyler sent a delegation to China in 1844. And the result was the Treaty of Wansha, which was described as a treaty of, quote, "peace, amity, and commerce." It called for a, quote, "perfect, permanent, and universal peace, and a sincere and cordial amity between the US and China." It was the first diplomatic agreement between the US and China. And although it primarily covered US trading rights with China, it also established the right
6:57 Holly Frey? for Americans to live in five specific Chinese ports.
7:02 Tracy V. Wilson? The Treaties of Nanjing and Wansha are two of the unequal treaties that China signed with other nations in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These treaties heavily favored the interests of other nations over those of China. China had strictly limited its trade and its contact with other nations before this point. And so it went through just massive and tumultuous social and economic changes as a result of these treaties and the concessions that they granted to other nations.
7:32 Holly Frey? On top of that, the Taiping Rebellion was partially fueled by this upheaval and dissatisfaction over these new foreign influences in China. It started in 1850 and led to the deaths of more than 20 million people. Then unresolved issues from the First Opium War fed into the Second Opium War, that started in 1856. There were massive floods and famines in China in the mid 19th century as well.
7:59 Tracy V. Wilson? In the wake of all this violence and chaos and destruction, people understandably started immigrating from China to other countries. And while some people were able to pay their own way, others were essentially indentured workers or, in some cases, were the victims of trafficking.
8:16 Holly Frey? During these same years, the United States needed a new source for laborers, especially in California. The US took possession of nearly all of what is now California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico after the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848. That same year, the discovery of gold launched the California Gold Rush. So the US needed people to farm this newly acquired land, to mine gold, to build infrastructure, just on and on. They needed people.
8:46 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah, and just from a practical but also unpleasant level, people were going to have to come from somewhere else. The indigenous population of California is estimated to have been at about 150,000 people at the end of the Mexican-American War, and they faced disease, the loss of land, and genocide at the hands of white settlers and the California government over the following decades. And although some newcomers to California did bring their enslaved workforces with them, when California was admitted to the Union in 1850, it was as a free state. So the United States was just needing to bring in workers from some other source.
9:27 Holly Frey? One of the people proposing that these new laborers come from China was Aaron Haight Palmer. His memoir, Geographical, Political, and Commercial on the Present State, Productive Resources, and Capabilities for Commerce of Siberia, Manchuria, and the Asiatic Islands of the Northern Pacific Ocean, and on the Importance of Opening Commercial Intercourse with Those Countries. We love a long title. That book was addressed to President James K. Polk in 1848.
9:55 Tracy V. Wilson? In addition to summarizing, quote, "the present state, productive resources, and capabilities for commerce of several comparatively unknown countries in the East," the eighth chapter of this work was titled, quote, "Policy of Encouraging Immigration of Chinese Agricultural Laborers to California, semicolon, Railroad from the Mississippi to the Bay of San Francisco." This chapter began, quote, "With the view of bringing the fertile lands in California under early cultivation, I would suggest the policy of encouraging immigration of agricultural laborers from China to that territory. No people in all the East are so well-adapted
10:36 Tracy V. Wilson? for clearing wild lands and raising every species of agricultural product, especially rice, cotton, tobacco, sugar, and silk, as the Chinese."
10:46 Holly Frey? Palmer goes on to describe how a colony of Chinese laborers in California would also bring in trade from China and from other parts of Asia. He also advocates the construction of a railroad connecting the Mississippi River to San Francisco, which would connect the eastern US to the west coast for trade with Asia. The United States would undertake such a railroad under the Pacific Railway Act, which was signed into law in 1862.
11:12 Tracy V. Wilson? As a side note here, Palmer would also go on to draft such documents as Plan for Opening Japan, which formed the foundation for Commodore Matthew Perry's voyage to open Japan to Western trade by force. Palmer petitioned Congress for compensation and recognition for his work. He was apparently very annoyed that he had not been recognized or paid for all of this. That led to an Act for the Relief of Aaron H. Palmer in 1861, and under that act, he was paid $3,000.
11:45 Holly Frey? In the wake of all this, the number of Chinese people living in the US rose dramatically. In 1840, there were four people of Chinese origin known to be living in the United States. In 1850, there were just over 4,000. But by 1860, that number had grown to almost 35,000. That's a big number, and it sounds like a huge increase, and it is, but it's still tiny compared to the total US population of 31 million people at the time.
12:13 Tracy V. Wilson? So at the national level, looking at things from the federal government's perspective, these were desperately needed, relatively inexpensive workers who were doing critical manual labor. Some of that labor was incredibly difficult, unpleasant, and dangerous. That was especially true as Chinese workers started building the transcontinental railroad. They made up between 80 and 90% of the workforce on the railroad's western portion. But locally, white people in the western US, especially in California, saw Chinese immigrants as a threat. This was especially true during the gold rush as white miners tried to exclude Chinese people from mining camps and prevent Chinese people from staking claims.
12:57 Tracy V. Wilson? Basically, as soon as Chinese immigrants started branching out beyond doing manual labor, white people resisted. We will get into more about that after a quick sponsor break.
13:11 Speaker 03 First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?
13:13 Tracy V. Wilson? Hey, everybody. It's Tracy from Stuff You Missed in History Class. That's Alan Goya, a planning engineer at AT&T. He's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, defining the fan's experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.
13:34 Speaker 03 It was going to rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.
13:42 Tracy V. Wilson? That includes field services manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.
13:48 Speaker 04 Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.
13:54 Tracy V. Wilson? And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.
13:58 Speaker 04 To actually see the whole stadium light up and data is flowing is a beautiful thing.
14:02 Speaker 03 What the fans experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.
14:05 Tracy V. Wilson? AT&T, connecting fans to what they love. Connecting changes everything. So you're considering getting a home security system, but you want something that fits your space. Well, with ADT Blue, it's easy to customize a system that's right for you and set it up yourself. Just pick the kit and monitoring plan that makes sense for your home. Let's say you're worried about package theft. The ADT Plus app can walk you through setting up a new doorbell camera kit. Once it's installed, ADT Pros can help you keep tabs on it 24/7, or you can manage it yourself from the ADT Plus app. There are no long-term contracts, so you can change your monitoring plan whenever you want. The flexibility doesn't end there.
14:46 Tracy V. Wilson? You can add to your system as you need to with things like extra cameras or motion sensors. Some life decisions are hard, but thanks to ADT Blue, you can DIY trusted ADT home security in a snap. Head to ADT.com/BLU to build your system today. And to hear more about home protection and other grown-up topics, check out new episodes of Grown-Up Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
15:18 Tracy V. Wilson? Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jessa have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends
16:02 Tracy V. Wilson? proving that queer joy only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
16:18 Tracy V. Wilson? For any small business owner, there's a moment when you realize the next hire could be the difference between staying busy and actually growing. The challenge is finding the right person without wasting time sorting through candidates who aren't the right fit. That's where Indeed Sponsored Jobs comes in. When workplace chaos hits and you need someone who can step in and make a difference, this is a job for Sponsored Jobs. It helps put your job in front of candidates who match the criteria that matter most to you, whether that's skills, experience, certifications, or location. And you're certainly not alone in using Indeed. Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. That's millions of businesses turning to Indeed to help solve hiring challenges and
17:02 Tracy V. Wilson? find people who can help drive results. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. Get your $75 sponsored job credit today at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now, then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. During the 1850s and 60s, the state of California started really trying to discourage immigration from China and to place restrictions on Chinese people who were already in the state.
17:46 Tracy V. Wilson? In 1854, the California Supreme Court issued its decision in People versus Hall, which ruled that Chinese people could not testify against white people in court. The language of the court's ruling was explicitly racist, including describing Chinese people as inferior. In 1858, California passed a law that barred Chinese and Mongolian people from entering the state, where generally there were also just the same kinds of discriminatory segregation laws that we've seen in other contexts and laws that were just applied only to the Chinese population and not to everyone else.
18:23 Holly Frey? At the same time, the United States was signing new treaties with China. In 1858, the US and China signed the Treaty of Tianjin, which supplemented and revised the Treaty of Wanchia. The Treaty of Tianjin again emphasized this idea of establishing a "firm, lasting, and sincere friendship between the two nations."
18:44 Tracy V. Wilson? The treaties of Tianjin and Wanchia both outlined various rights and protections for American citizens who were living in China, but they didn't really do the same for Chinese citizens who were living in the United States, or really mention Chinese immigration to the US at all. That changed with the Burlingame-Seward Treaty of 1868. That was named for US Minister to China Anson Burlingame, who had started working directly for the Chinese government, and for Secretary of State William Seward.
19:16 Holly Frey? In addition to, again, reiterating and expanding American trading rights with China, this treaty also specified that both Chinese and American citizens had a "inherent and unalienable right to change their home and allegiance." In other words, Americans could immigrate to China, and Chinese people could immigrate to the US without restriction. At the same time, "Nothing herein contained shall be held to confer naturalization upon citizens of the US in China, nor upon the subjects of China in the United States." US citizens could also enjoy all the privileges of a public education under control of the Chinese government, and Chinese citizens could do the same in the US. Chinese and American
20:01 Holly Frey? citizens were each allowed to establish their own schools in the other country as well.
20:06 Tracy V. Wilson? But even as the federal government was establishing this pretty unrestricted right to immigrate between China and the United States, discrimination against Chinese people already in the United States was really increasing. The same types of racist stereotyping that had been used to justify slavery was used to justify discrimination and violence against Chinese immigrants. Chinese men were described as being useful only for manual labor, while Chinese women were cast as sex workers. Compounding, all of this were perceptions that Chinese people would work for such low wages that they made it impossible for white people to compete. Employers also started bringing in Chinese workers to break strikes,
20:51 Tracy V. Wilson? and that drew the ire of the workers they were replacing and the unions that represented them.
20:56 Holly Frey? And the language used to describe Chinese workers often carried a connotation of damage and destruction. These immigrants were described as an invasion, or a flood, or a deluge, or even a plague of locusts. The idea was that once the railroad was finished, or the mine was played out, or the crop was brought in, then these workers would swarm into another area and destroy everything in their path. This was worsened by the panic of 1873, which kicked off a financial depression, and also led to increased competition for fewer and fewer jobs.
21:31 Tracy V. Wilson? White communities and business leaders along the West Coast, especially in California, started pressing the federal government to take action against this supposed Chinese threat. In 1875, less than a decade after signing the Burlingame Treaty, the federal government responded to this with the Page Act.
21:51 Holly Frey? The Page Act barred US citizens from bringing, quote, "any subject of China, Japan, or any Oriental country" "into the US without their free and voluntary consent." In other words, it banned Americans from bringing indentured or otherwise unfree workers to the US from these countries. Section 3 of the Page Act also began, quote, "The importation into the United States of women for the purposes of prostitution is hereby forbidden." And it empowered port collectors to inspect vessels and their passengers to confirm that this law was being followed.
22:26 Tracy V. Wilson? The Page Act essentially assumed that Asian women immigrating to the US were sex workers, and it subjected them to degrading and humiliating exams and interrogations upon arrival.
22:38 Tracy V. Wilson? Before this point, Chinese immigrants to the US had been predominantly male, since so many were being contracted to work as manual laborers. But the Page Act became an even bigger deterrent for women, and it reinforced stereotypes that connected Asian women to sex work. Combined with a rise in anti-miscegenation laws, which made it illegal for people of different races to marry, this meant that the vast majority of Chinese people in the US were single men, or men whose families were back in China. It was basically a deterrent to forming actual families and communities here in the US. We talked about some similar stuff in our Delano grape strike episode with Filipino
23:23 Tracy V. Wilson? workers who were not permitted to have wives, or to bring their wives from the Philippines.
23:30 Holly Frey? Yeah. 1875 was also the year that Chai Chong Ping arrived in the US to work. And he worked in the United States for the next 12 years. And during those years, the US continued to pass new restrictions on immigration from China and other parts of Asia, and on Chinese immigrants already in the country. California adopted a new state constitution in 1879, which included Article 19, it was simply called Chinese. Section 2 of this article began, quote, "No corporation now existing or hereafter formed under the laws of this state shall, after the adoption of this constitution, employ directly or indirectly in any capacity any Chinese or Mongolian."
24:15 Holly Frey? Section 3 reads in its entirety, quote, "No Chinese shall be employed on any state, county, municipal, or other public work, except in punishment for crime."
24:26 Tracy V. Wilson? Also, in 1879, the US Senate and House passed a bill that mandated that ships arriving in the United States could carry no more than 15 Chinese workers. President Rutherford B. Hayes vetoed this bill because it conflicted with the treaties in place with China, including the Burlingame Treaty. But then to address that, he sent a commission to China headed by diplomat James Angel to negotiate a new treaty. And the result of that negotiation was the Angel Treaty, signed in 1880.
24:59 Holly Frey? The Angel Treaty was written to apply only to laborers, although the definition of laborer expanded over time. It read in part, quote, "Whenever, in the opinion of the government of the United States, the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States or their residence therein affects or threatens to affect the interests of that country, or to endanger the good order of the said country or of any locality within the territory thereof, the government of China agrees that the government of the United States may regulate, limit, or suspend such coming or residence, but may not absolutely prohibit it."
25:37 Tracy V. Wilson? This treaty's second article declared that, quote, "Chinese subjects, whether proceeding to the United States as teachers, students, merchants, or from curiosity, together with their body and household servants, and Chinese laborers who are now in the United States, shall be allowed to go and come of their own free will and accord, and shall be accorded all the rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions which are accorded to the citizens and subjects of the most favored nation."
26:08 Holly Frey? However, just two years after signing the Angel Treaty, the United States passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, or, as it was formally known, "an act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to Chinese." It banned Chinese laborers from coming to the US for 10 years, and it defined laborers as, quote, "both skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining."
26:34 Holly Frey? And it also included this clause, "No state court or court of the United States shall admit Chinese to citizenship."
26:42 Tracy V. Wilson? Now, you could make the argument that because this applied only to laborers, it was not absolutely prohibiting people from coming from China to the United States, which is like the Angel Treaty had said that the US could limit, but not absolutely prohibit. That's still kind of like, well, technically, level of argument. This act did not apply to Chinese people who were already in the US before the Angel Treaty was signed, or to people who arrived within 90 days of the passage of the Exclusion Act, at least in terms of the ability to come and go. The, the fact that they then could not become citizens that applied to everyone. And this established a process to take place at American ports,
27:27 Tracy V. Wilson? which would document the right of these people who, you know, were exempt under this part of the treaty to come and go. The Customs Collector would document all Chinese passengers on departing vessels. And then these passengers were entitled to receive a certificate that would, quote, "entitle the Chinese laborer to whom the same is issued to return to and re-enter the United States upon producing and delivering the same to the Collector of Customs of the district at which such Chinese laborer shall seek to re-enter." So basically, if you were already here, you were supposed to be able to come and go. You could return to China or go somewhere else and then come back in the United States.
28:07 Holly Frey? In practice, this act banned virtually all immigration to the US from China. And it also sparked a massive amount of horrific anti-Chinese violence in the US. There had been mass anti-Chinese violence before this point. As one example, on October 24th, 1871, a white man was killed during a shootout involving several Chinese men. And in retaliation, a white mob attacked the Chinese community of Los Angeles, lynching at least 17 people. But after the Exclusion Act was passed, white communities on the West Coast felt empowered to purge their Chinese populations, and they subjected Chinese neighborhoods to riots and other mass violence.
28:50 Tracy V. Wilson? Multiple cities and towns expelled their entire Chinese population, including Tacoma, Washington, which force marched its remaining Chinese residents out of town on November 3rd, 1885. At least 28 Chinese men were massacred in Rock Springs, Wyoming, on September 30th of 1885. This whole period came to be known as the Driving Out, and it really had a lot of similarities to the mass violence against Black communities that we've talked about in previous episodes, including our episode on the Red Summer of 1919.
29:26 Holly Frey? There was a widespread perception outside of the Chinese community that Chinese immigrants were ignorant and illiterate. But really, the Chinese immigrant community in the US was deeply interconnected, organized, and legally very savvy. Chinese benevolent and mutual aid associations had started to form in the US almost as soon as Chinese immigrants had started arriving. In 1882, the Six Most Powerful formed the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, also known as the Chinese Six Companies. Its leadership included Chinese merchants and other wealthy and prominent people, and it kept attorneys on retainer to deal with legal issues that involved Chinese immigrants. So did the Chinese consulate.
30:10 Tracy V. Wilson? This led to a huge number of court cases as people started arriving from China into the United States without that certificate that was described under the Chinese Exclusion Act that would guarantee them the right to return. In some cases, this was because they were really new arrivals. They hadn't been in the United States before. But there were plenty of reasons that people might really be returning to the US having left previously, but without the right paperwork to prove that they had previously been in the country. They could have left the United States before the Exclusion Act was passed, at which point no such certificates were being issued. Or they just might not have been issued one.
30:52 Tracy V. Wilson? The Act said that they were entitled to it, not that they were guaranteed to receive it.
30:57 Holly Frey? This caused problems at the ports as officials had to work out whether people really were legally allowed to enter the US. These cases often wound up in courts. The collector of the Port of San Francisco claimed that of the more than 2,600 Chinese people allowed into the US in the first 14 months after the Act was signed, more than a third of them had come through the courts without a reentry certificate.
31:22 Tracy V. Wilson? This was a big deal. On January 26, 1884, Judge Ogden Hoffman of the US District Court for the Northern District of California included this statement in his ruling on one of these cases. Quote, "If the Chinese immigrants come in the future and anything like the number in which they have recently arrived, it will be impossible for the courts to fulfill their ordinary functions. There remain on the calendar of the District Court, I am informed, 190 cases. For five or six weeks, even with night sessions, I have been unable to make any great impression on them. All ordinary business, public and private, of the court is necessarily suspended, or
32:05 Tracy V. Wilson? if resumed, these passengers, many of whom may be entitled to their discharge, are left, either in custody or on bail, awaiting the determination of their cases. It is therefore an urgent necessity that Congress, by committing that duty to commissioners or by some other mode, should relieve the courts of the burden of passing on these cases."
32:30 Holly Frey? To close these legal loopholes, on July 3, 1884, the US government broadened the Chinese Exclusion Act, making those reentry certificates issued at port the only evidence that could establish a person's right to reenter the United States. But this expansion didn't make any provision for people who had left the US before it was passed. This led to a Supreme Court case involving Chu Hong, who had left the US for Hawaii in 1881 and had tried to return to the US in 1884.
33:02 Tracy V. Wilson? In this case, Young was allowed to enter the US because the court found that the law had not intended to strip people of rights they had previously had under the treaty, which included being able to come and go. Justice Stephen Field, who will come up again, dissented with this ruling, arguing that it was, quote, "wholly immaterial to inquire whether, by the act assailed, it has departed from the treaty or not, or whether such departure was accidental or designed, and if the latter, whether the reasons therefore were good or bad." During the oral arguments, Field had also said, quote, "Congress never supposed that Chinamen intended to go back to China and stay several years. If they do not come back at once, they should not be allowed to come at all."
33:46 Tracy V. Wilson? We're going to get into Chai Chong Ping's case after we pause for a sponsor break.
33:54 Tracy V. Wilson? Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jess A. have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane, navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy
34:39 Tracy V. Wilson? only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
34:54 Tracy V. Wilson? For any small business owner, there's a moment when you realize the next hire could be the difference between staying busy and actually growing. The challenge is finding the right person without wasting time sorting through candidates who aren't the right fit. That's where Indeed Sponsored Jobs comes in. When workplace chaos hits and you need someone who can step in and make a difference, this is a job for Sponsored Jobs. It helps put your job in front of candidates who match the criteria that matter most to you, whether that's skills, experience, certifications, or location. And you're certainly not alone in using Indeed. Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. That's millions of businesses turning to Indeed
35:36 Tracy V. Wilson? to help solve hiring challenges and find people who can help drive results. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. Get your $75 Sponsored Job credit today at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now, then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.
36:06 Speaker 05 Livright, publishers of John U. Bacon's New York Times bestseller, The Gales of November, a chronicle of the S. S. Edmund Fitzgerald's 1975 shipwreck. Never has it been told better than by Mr. Bacon in this colorful book, writes John J. Miller of the Wall Street Journal, while author Hampton Seitz proclaims that it's destined to be a classic. The Gales of November, now in paperback.
36:35 Tracy V. Wilson? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG.
37:02 Holly Frey? CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions. Each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other? Tune in to find out. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
37:36 Tracy V. Wilson? As we said earlier, Chai Chongping traveled into the United States from China in 1887, and he worked in the US for the next 12 years. Beyond that, we don't know a lot about him. I have a lot of unanswered questions specifically about his name. Like, I don't know how his name was written in Chinese characters and how that was romanized, because the romanization methods that exist today, like, had not really been developed yet when he
38:01 Holly Frey? Right.
38:01 Tracy V. Wilson? immigrated. There are just, uh, some question marks about how he would have written or said his own name. On June 2, 1887, he set sail for China aboard the steamship Gaelic for a visit. Before the ship left the port, he got the required certificate that would allow him to re-enter the United States when he got back. On September 7, 1888, he set sail from Hong Kong aboard the Belgique. That was a British vessel that was under charter to an American company, and it was bound for San Francisco. The Supreme Court's decision in his case says that he arrived in San Francisco on October 8, but newspaper reports about the
38:45 Tracy V. Wilson? vessel's arrival say that it was on the 7.
38:47 Holly Frey? However, on October 1, 1888, while he was still in transit, President Grover Cleveland signed the Scott Act into law. And the Scott Act barred reentry for Chinese immigrants to the US, no matter when they first arrived in or how long they had lived in the country. The US and China had been working on yet another treaty. This time, China had proposed that it curtail immigration to the US with the hopes that it would ultimately protect its citizens who were in the United States. But the resulting treaty banned immigration to the US for 20 years and the return of Chinese workers to the US. This led to a huge outcry and China refused to ratify the treaty.
39:32 Holly Frey? So the US acted unilaterally and put the same basic provisions in place with the Scott Act.
39:37 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah, at this point, China really had no confidence that the United States was willing or able to protect Chinese citizens who were living on American soil. The Scott Act made that reentry certificate that Chai Chongping had obtained before leaving the United States invalid, and he was not at all unique in this situation. Even though only a few of these cases made it all the way to the Supreme Court, it's estimated that the Scott Act invalidated the reentry permits of as many as 20,000 Chinese people, and that as many as 600 of them were in transit to the United States when it was passed.
40:17 Tracy V. Wilson? Just in terms of the passengers aboard the Belgique, there were 176 people from China, all of whom were kept there, confined to the ship, under guard by port officials.
40:29 Holly Frey? Attorneys began filing petitions on behalf of those 176 people, some of them arguing that they had technically been under US jurisdiction before the Scott Act was signed, since the Belgique was operating under an American charter. A petition for Chai Chongping was filed on October 10th, and he was issued a writ of habeas corpus.
40:50 Tracy V. Wilson? Chai Chongping's hearing was before the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of California, and the judge ruled that his detention aboard the Belgique was legal. Because of the Scott Act, he had no legal right to enter the United States anymore. But his attorneys argued that this was in violation of existing treaties between the United States and China, including the Burlingame Treaty.
41:15 Holly Frey? His appeal went to the Supreme Court, where it was argued on March 28th and 29th of 1889. The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution is worded as "applying to persons, not citizens." So a person cannot be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Chai Chongping's attorneys made an argument that his right to re-enter the US was effectively property and that he could not be stripped of it without due process. They also reiterated the idea that his exclusion from the US ran against existing treaties with China.
41:49 Tracy V. Wilson? However, the Supreme Court was unanimous in its decision, which was issued on May 13th, that Chai Chongping did not have the right to re-enter the United States, regardless of what the treaties in place between the US and China actually said. In terms of federal laws and international treaties, the court ruled that neither of them had automatic precedence over the other. So whichever one was the most recent was the one that applied to the situation.
42:18 Holly Frey? But the court also went way beyond answering just this one specific question. Stephen Johnson Field, writing for the majority, wrote, quote, "To preserve its independence and give security against foreign aggression and encroachment is the highest duty of every nation. And to attain these ends, nearly all other considerations are to be subordinated. It matters not in what form such aggression and encroachment come, whether from the foreign nation acting in its national character, or from vast hordes of its people crowding in upon us."
42:51 Tracy V. Wilson? The court's opinion was also pretty broad in how it approached the idea of race and assimilation. Quote, "If therefore, the government of the United States, through its legislative department, considers the presence of foreigners of a different race in this country who will not assimilate with us to be dangerous to its peace and security, their exclusion is not to be stayed because at the time, there are no actual hostilities with the nation of which the foreigners are subjects."
43:22 Holly Frey? This opinion also framed restrictions on immigration, even if discriminatory, as a fundamental part of a nation's sovereignty. Quote, "The power of exclusion of foreigners being an incident of sovereignty belonging to the government of the United States as a part of those sovereign powers delegated by the Constitution. The right to its exercise at any time when, in the judgment of the government, the interests of the country require it, cannot be granted away or restrained on behalf of anyone."
43:53 Tracy V. Wilson? Today, Chai Chongping versus the United States is often referred to as the Chinese exclusion case, although sometimes it's also grouped in with three later cases and they become the Chinese exclusion cases together as a group. And although these decisions have been highly criticized, especially in recent years, they have never been overturned. As we said at the top of the show, together they have formed the foundation for the plenary power doctrine in the context of United States immigration law. Basically, people trying to enter the US aren't citizens, so constitutional protections against discrimination don't apply to them. And although persons already in the United States are covered under parts of the 14th
44:38 Tracy V. Wilson? Amendment, specifically the guarantee of due process, persons not already in the United States really aren't. So through these rulings, the Supreme Court took a position that the president and Congress are responsible for immigration law, not the courts, and not without much court oversight.
44:58 Holly Frey? As for Chai Chongping, we know he was forced to go back to China, but that didn't happen for a few more months. His case had become national news thanks to its potential impact on the Chinese Exclusion Act. And for weeks after the Supreme Court issued its ruling, there were headlines claiming that no one knew where he was. On June 23rd, one of his attorneys gave a statement to the San Francisco Examiner that he would let the federal marshal know when his client was ready to set sail, and that it wasn't unusual for it to take up to 30 days for a person to get their affairs in order and be ready to leave.
45:32 Tracy V. Wilson? Even though he was essentially being deported at this point, like, none of the language around this case is framed as deportation. It's framed as excluding him from entering the US, even though he had been released on bond and was already in the US. In August of 1889, his bondsman agreed to bring him to the port to board the Arabic, which was scheduled to depart for China on the 22nd of that month. It seems to have actually set sail a few days after that. According to a write-up in the New York Times, which is really insulting in its tone, so I kind of take this with a grain of salt, he refused to pay for his passage because he did not want to leave the United States in the first place.
46:14 Holly Frey? There were people who came to the US from China while the Chinese Exclusion Act was enforced. This was particularly true after the 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed most of San Francisco's public records. So, people forged documents to claim that they had been born in the US, or that they were related to US citizens. People who entered the US through this kind of forged paperwork became known as "paper sons." So it's possible that Chai Chongping returned to the US, but it is assumed that he spent the rest of his life in China.
46:46 Tracy V. Wilson? Okay, we don't really know a lot about what happened to him after this point. We don't know a lot about him as a person in general, but we do know that his case had just a monumental influence on how the courts have continued to view immigration law in the United States, and by extension, like how lawmakers make immigration policy, knowing that the plenary power doctrine is the longstanding precedent at this point.
47:18 Tracy V. Wilson? Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, our email address is [email protected] . And you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
47:40 Tracy V. Wilson? You ever show up late to the game and your friends already saved your seat, your drink, even a plate? That's looking out. That's having your back. And that's exactly what AT&T does with the AT&T Guarantee. They know staying connected matters, so they actually guarantee a network that comes through when it counts. AT&T has Connect- ...activity you can depend on, or they'll proactively make it right, just like that friend who takes care of things before you even ask. AT&T, connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com/guarantee for details.
48:13 Holly Frey? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
48:46 Speaker 05 Livright, publishers of John U. Bacon's New York Times bestseller, The Gales of November, a chronicle of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald's 1975 shipwreck. Never has it been told better than by Mr. Bacon in this colorful book, writes John J. Miller of The Wall Street Journal, while author Hampton Sides proclaims that it's destined to be a classic. The Gales of November, now in paperback.
49:15 Speaker 06 Wait, I came in for two things. How is this $47? All right, we're gonna need a plan here. Just start simple with Bank of America Advantage Safe Balance Banking. No overdraft item fees, no monthly maintenance fee if you're under 25. Oh, that's actually really simple. Safe balance banking, one less thing to figure out. Learn more at bofa.com/simplebanking. Terms and conditions apply. Bank of America and a member FDIC.
49:44 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
Previous Behind the Scenes Minis: Helen and Ada Next United States vs. Wong Kim Ark Page updated November 4, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated