W omen and the Chinese Exclusion Act

Author: The African American Policy Forum Link: http://aapf.org/chinese-exclusion-act

Th e Ch in es e Ex cl us ion Act has distinctly harsh consequences for Chinese women because of the way marriage was regulated by Congress through immigration law. In her article Divesting Citizenship: On Asian American History and the Loss of Citizenship through Marriage Professor Leti Volpp describes the process through which women who were American citizens by birth lost citizenship due to the interaction of the Chinese Exclusion Act and a law passed in 1907 by Congress which states that “any American woman who marries a foreigner shall take the nationality of her husband.” While this law caused women of all races to lose their citizenship through marriage, it had a particularly devastating effect on Chinese women who were, unlike similarly situated white women, prevented from naturalizing because they were rendered ineligible for citizenship as a function of their race. By way of example, Professor Volpp includes the story of Ng Fung Sing, an American woman born in Washington State, who lost her citizenship as a result of her marriage to a Chinese man. After her marriage, Ng Fung Sing moved to China to live with her husband. Following his death two years later, Ng Fung Sing attempted to return to the United States and was prevented from doing so on the basis that she was no longer a citizen and was furthermore inadmissible as a result of her race. Volpp goes on to note that stories like those of Ng Fung Sing are generally left out of academic discussion of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which generally focuses on the effect of the Act on Chinese men. This 1886 illustration of Uncle Sam kicking out the Chinese was made four years after the U.S. passed the Chinese Exclusion Act.

“Chinese? No! No! No!” A handbill for an anti-Chinese rally held on July 23, 1892 in Takoma, Wash. Courtesy of Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma.