“Why did white Americans support the passage of the Chinese Exclusion act of 1882” This act was passed because the immigrating Chinese were finding success and the whites who were in direct economic competition with them were scared to lose their high social presence to someone who they saw as very different to them. My first piece of evidence comes in the form of A political cartoon drawn by Thomas Nast for a northern magazine called Harper's Weekly, in which he displays a representation of America protecting a Chinese man against a mob of distraught German and Irish thugs. One of the signs carried by these thugs had the words “If our ballot will not stop them coming to our country the bullet must” (Thomas Nast) written in bold. From this, …show more content…
One instance of this accusation is within the speech given to the workingmen of San Francisco on August 16, 1888, trying to inspire them to resist the presence of the Chinese more than they have been doing before the act was passed. One of the main argument is brought up through the lines “This state of things brings a terrible competition our own people, who must live as civilized Americans, and the Chinese, who live like degraded slaves. We should understand that this state of things can no longer be endured.” (Speech Giver). From this quote we gain that the immigrating whites did not approve of how the Chinese were getting a lot more jobs than they were, bringing it back to that the Chinese must work for so little that the companies can hire multiple for the price of a white man, and such no white man shall be hired. “ pro-China wealthy man of the land, have been wide-awake and have succeeded in reviving the importation of Chinese slave-labor” (Speech Giver). This part of the speech implies that bosses of the factory style businesses were working to get Chinese to America even after the Act was passed. Along this same argument comes a part that is a point to question in the legitimacy of the speech, when referring to statistics of how many Chinese are being imported the speech giver says “So that now, hundreds of thousands of Chinese are every flocking into our State.”(Speech Giver). but that's