The history of America is one that has always tried to reconcile the desire to make real the symbolism of the Statue of Liberty with a fervent desire to maintain not just a Euro-centric culture, but one specifically connected to the English-language culture prevalent throughout Europe. For this reason, it should be surprising that the first immigration policy written with the stated intent of curtailing immoral behavior should also have been the stimulus for implicit and later explicit obstruction of exotic foreign cultural invasion (Zhu).
The implicit xenophobia of the Page Act became explicit with the ten year moratorium that was the centerpiece of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (Chinese Immigration and the Chinese in the United States). The influx of Chinese laborers who helped build the transcontinental railroad was much-needed and they were good at their job, but the massive numbers proved to be merely the first in a long line of attempts to maintain the solid WASP stock. That stock could be poisoned not just by exotics, but inferior Europeans ranging from convicts and lunatics to the diseased and polygamists (Immigration Legislation).
Of course, it is worth noting that anti-immigration restrictions allegedly targeting pure economic protection did not begin with calls for a wall along the Mexican border. The Alien Contract Labor Act 1885 and the Payson Act of March 3, 1887 both couched suspicion of foreigners within wildly differing economic terms (Summary of Immigration Laws).
What is really worth remembering is why most immigrants come to America—and it’s not to steal culture or jobs or status—is pretty well summed up in a famous book about the immigrant experience: as information about the potential of what waits here for immigrants reaches across borders, emigration becomes about possibilities for a better life (Lintelman 2009).
- “Chinese Immigration and the Chinese in the United States.” National Archives and Records Administration. National Archives and Records Administration, n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2016. http://www.archives.gov/research/chinese-americans/guide.html
- “Immigration Legislation.” Archive.org. Cornell University Library, n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2016. https://archive.org/stream/cu31924021134204/cu31924021134204_djvu.txt
- Lintelman, Joy K. I Go to America: Swedish American Women and the Life of Mina Anderson. Saint Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society, 2009. Print.
- “Summary of Immigration Laws.” Summary of Immigration Laws. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2016. http://people.sunyulster.edu/voughth/immlaws1875_1918.htm
- Zhu, Ming M., The Page Act of 1875: In the Name of Morality (March 23, 2010). Available at SSRN:http://ssrn.com/abstract=1577213 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1577213