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A federal law passed in response to complaints by workers on the West Coast that competition from Chinese immigrants was driving down their wages and threatening white “racial purity.” It suspended Chinese immigration for ten years and declared Chinese immigrants ineligible for naturalization as American citizens. The law was renewed in 1892 for another ten years, and in 1902 Chinese immigration was permanently banned. Chinese immigrants did not become eligible for citizenship until 1943.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Define Chinese Exclusion Act. Chinese Exclusion Act synonyms, Chinese Exclusion Act pronunciation, Chinese Exclusion Act translation, English dictionary definition of Chinese Exclusion Act. Any of several acts forbidding the immigration of Chinese laborers into the United States, originally from 1882 to 1892 by act of May 6, 1882, then from.