Be First, Be Smarter, or Cheat: Averting Chinese Exclusion

[Admiral Matt]

You'd think it was Operation Sealion.

After refreshing myself with a few searches of past threads over the years, it's striking that the Chinese Exclusion Act has come up a fair number of times, always with assertions of its absolute inevitability, never with substantial examination of that "fact." Considering the flexibility we have in exploring long-shot outcomes on the board, sometimes ad nauseam (I'm looking at you, Confederate/Axis/Loyalist victories), I think the topic deserves more attention.

So, consider this a space to brainstorm PODs that result, ultimately, in changes to the history of immigration restrictions towards Asian immigration in general, with a focus on the US and Chinese immigrants in particular. Feel free to share if you have ideas.

 

[Admiral Matt]

Ah right, the title.

I've never seen it suggested that a Chinese community might exist in what would become US territories prior to US annexation, when obviously that could have happened. In Hawaii, it did happen. (Note that alternate US expansion on the Pacific gives some mild flexibility to what regions that actually entails.)

I've never seen serious attention to altering the whole context which enabled and accelerated legislation for excluding non-white labor entering from the Pacific. I mean, this is alternate history after all.

I've never seen a focus on the OTL efforts at "workarounds" to avoid the Act and get cheap industrious labor from Asia. The latter is what created the Japanese American community - the stakeholders who wanted those workers could as easily have turned to ethnic Chinese from the Philippines, DEI, or Malaya to seek a familiar sort of employee who legally would simply not be Chinese.

 

[Admiral Matt]

One glaring issue I have noticed in explanations of why this was unavoidable was that political and economic context has a tendency to be ignored in these discussions: Evidence of the tremendous racial animus of Western states at the time is often offered, therefor of course nothing could have averted legislation to give the people what they want....

Alternate politics first:

What if the Jacksonian small-D democratization of the US is averted or delayed? Landowners, industrialists, business owners... many constituencies would have been happy to ignore the racial objections of the proles, and those people had had a stronger grip on the US government a half century earlier. If too few of those who despise nonwhite immigration can vote, Chinese exclusion becomes much less likely.

What the US Pacific is divided between a free state north and slave state south? Would a southern state already partly organized on nonwhite labor join arms with the rest of the West against Asian immigration?

What if California's eastern border averts the existence of Nevada? That's two less senators serving Western interests and virulently anti-Chinese constituencies.

What if the US Civil War is delayed? Bleeding Kansas on the OTL schedule is easy to avert. John Brown's raid is easier. Without the war Nevada statehood will be averted or significantly delayed, and party politics may be in regular deadlock focused on the eastern divide on slavery.

What if an alternate Reconstruction Era leaves big business with a stranglehold on politics, or at least on one party? Keep that party from power for a decade and the Chinese population could easily double in the interim.

Well, that's a start. Thoughts thus far?

 

[NotStaleBread]

I very much share the frustration with the constantly repeated argument that the Chinese Exclusion Act was inevitable. I think that your suggestions on what might possibly avert it are reasonable. Off the top of my head, there are two broader tracks that I also think have potential. First is for China to be in a better position. If it is, it may be able to compel America to not violate the Burlingame Treaty's provisions on immigration. In a similar vein, a more powerful China might affect racial attitudes and perceptions in America positively, at least in regard to East Asians (or maybe just Chinese people specifically). The other way I thought it could be averted is through the Supreme Court. There's this article which goes over that possibility. It is (unfortunately for me) written by a right wing libertarian so it has clear biases, but the initial POD it presents is a very curious one, that being the Supreme Court saying the government had no right to regulate immigration except for criminals, spies, and similar groups. The Chinese Exclusion Act (and ones that followed it up) OTL led to the Supreme Court deferring to the federal government on immigration policy. I've read that the decision was 9-0 in favor of doing so, however, so getting at least five judges that would say otherwise is probably an uphill battle. Another way to have the Supreme Court decide against the act, though, can probably come from Reconstruction. Either Reconstruction going better (perhaps as in Red_Galiray's Until Every Drop of Blood is Paid), leading to less racism generally in America, or a change in the amendments passed after the Civil War. If wording is changed in the 14th amendment which is on how one gets citizenship or the 15th amendment which attempts to prohibit discrimination based on race (or maybe an entire amendment focusing on the rights of non-citizens of different races), then the Supreme Court may have to rule the Chinese Exclusion Act unconstitutional. Admittedly, this sort of ruling would assuredly lead to a work around by lawmakers ala Jim Crow and separate but equal, but I suspect these work arounds would at least let in a trickle of Chinese immigration.

 

[Gabingston]

I think something like a numerical quota could have been a realistic alternative to the Chinese Exclusion Act. Chinese (and other East Asian) immigration wouldn't be banned, but only X amount could immigrate to the U.S. each year (maybe 10,000 or so, which would be a far smaller amount than the numbers of immigrants coming from Europe and thus wouldn't have a huge impact on the demographics of the country).

 

[Admiral Matt]

I very much share the frustration with the constantly repeated argument that the Chinese Exclusion Act was inevitable. I think that your suggestions on what might possibly avert it are reasonable. Off the top of my head, there are two broader tracks that I also think have potential. First is for China to be in a better position. If it is, it may be able to compel America to not violate the Burlingame Treaty's provisions on immigration. In a similar vein, a more powerful China might affect racial attitudes and perceptions in America positively, at least in regard to East Asians (or maybe just Chinese people specifically). The other way I thought it could be averted is through the Supreme Court. There's this article which goes over that possibility. It is (unfortunately for me) written by a right wing libertarian so it has clear biases, but the initial POD it presents is a very curious one, that being the Supreme Court saying the government had no right to regulate immigration except for criminals, spies, and similar groups. The Chinese Exclusion Act (and ones that followed it up) OTL led to the Supreme Court deferring to the federal government on immigration policy. I've read that the decision was 9-0 in favor of doing so, however, so getting at least five judges that would say otherwise is probably an uphill battle. Another way to have the Supreme Court decide against the act, though, can probably come from Reconstruction. Either Reconstruction going better (perhaps as in Red_Galiray's Until Every Drop of Blood is Paid), leading to less racism generally in America, or a change in the amendments passed after the Civil War. If wording is changed in the 14th amendment which is on how one gets citizenship or the 15th amendment which attempts to prohibit discrimination based on race (or maybe an entire amendment focusing on the rights of non-citizens of different races), then the Supreme Court may have to rule the Chinese Exclusion Act unconstitutional. Admittedly, this sort of ruling would assuredly lead to a work around by lawmakers ala Jim Crow and separate but equal, but I suspect these work arounds would at least let in a trickle of Chinese immigration.

Regarding the first, I had a similar idea. A strong China acting assertively could change how any such laws were passed, as there would be a greater impetus to get it done without harming Pacific trade. Japan later implemented just that IOTL - immigration was still mostly cut off, but it was done by agreement with Tokyo and crucially left the door open for female relatives and wives to join Japanese American men. This sustained the population and made the community disproportionately healthy and successful compared with the Chinese American community, which had been barred from bringing in women 7 years before the Chinese Exclusion Act.

What if a "gentleman's agreement" forbidding Chinese immigration was accomplished by treaty with Beijing, instead of simply a US law? That method was discussed as an alternative in OTL. By allowing in female relatives and wives of existing Chinese Americans, the Chinese community would avoid declined and instead grow as it Americanized, meaning it would accrue greater economic and some (quite limited, clearly) political power. That's closer to the track of other immigrant groups, which would create a bit of a lever to potentially wedge the door open more in later generations.

A different immigration policy is absolutely possible. I don't quite see how you get a majority in favor of denying the Federal Government the power to regulate immigration, even by radicalism. After all, most radicals don't want to reduce the powers of the state, they want to point them in the correct direction often while expanding them.

I could certainly see Chief Justice Lincoln writing an opinion forbidding discrimination on the basis of race in a radical timeline, but that only works if he has a majority. A good option for a less tragically botched 1864-1876, perhaps. That said, if racial discrimination is forbidden, national discrimination probably would not be - so Malaya would have a law to close the loophole by which its Chinese community was immigrating, and before long each Asian polity would be specified.

I like the alternate 14th/15th idea, but I don't have any sense of what might be plausible change to achieve that legal dynamic.

 

[Admiral Matt]

Hawai’i is one option I'd like to dig into somewhat more. While US business was defeated on the issue in starting in the mid-1870s, US businesses abroad had no such obstacles encouraging Chinese settlement. Those Chinese settlers entered the country by annexation. If the population – particularly the female population – had been much higher, the ensuing marriages as some of these women move to the mainland would have largely averted demographic collapse.

Option 1: What if there's an early annexation of Hawaii? The very wealthy local white population will not be interested in leaving their plantations unworked, and mainland whites will have no interest in doing it for them. You could see a CEA in that timeline with a huge loophole for immigration to US Pacific territories, which will eventually act as a back door into North America itself.

Of course it's also possible that the CEA would proceed as it did in OTL, and this simply averts the Hawai'i of our timeline, in which 1 in 3 people have some Chinese ancestry. Perhaps it's much more Filipino, Japanese, or even South Asian; alternately the Great Migration could have a minor terminus in Hawaii. Interestingly different, but never mind - not what we're going for.

Option 2: What if Chinese immigration to Hawaii is much higher before annexation? Between 1852 and 1899 (historical annexation took place in 1897) about 46,000 Chinese people immigrated there, with a total 1900 population of nearly 26,000. This does not count the apparently common mixed race people of Chinese-native-Hawaiian descent. The total population of the islands was 147,000 at the time.

Population at annexation being around 200,000 with the difference mostly being a tripled Chinese community is probably conceivable if we assume the trend began early and ignore the possibility annexation would be butterflied. Statehood would not soon come... probably. But that's a huge community of Chinese Americans with adult daughters who would be free to move to the mainland and reinvigorate communities there.

 

[Admiral Matt]

I think something like a numerical quota could have been a realistic alternative to the Chinese Exclusion Act. Chinese (and other East Asian) immigration wouldn't be banned, but only X amount could immigrate to the U.S. each year (maybe 10,000 or so, which would be a far smaller amount than the numbers of immigrants coming from Europe and thus wouldn't have a huge impact on the demographics of the country).

I think that's possible, but the timing is tricky unless the context is changed. The problem is that a moderate law didn't have a place in the politics of the time. If we change the politics a lot or the economic forces, or simply have the law put forward much earlier before Western voting power and racial animus had spiked, I could see something like that.