Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America

Winner of the Ray Allen Billington PrizeWinner of the Ellis W. Hawley PrizeWinner of the Caroline Bancroft History PrizeWinner of the Sally and Ken Owens AwardWinner of the Vincent P. DeSantis Book Prize“A powerful argument about racial violence that could not be more timely…White nationalists targeted Chinese immigrants as threats to their homes and jobs and blamed the American government for failing to seal the borders.”—Richard White, author of The Republic for Which It Stands“A riveting, beautifully written account…that foregrounds Chinese voices and experiences. A timely and important contribution to our understanding of immigration and the border.”—Karl Jacoby, author of Shadows at Dawn“Lew-Williams particularly excels at invoking the psychological effects of the law on Chinese people living in the United States.”—SlateIn 1885, following the massacre of Chinese miners in Wyoming Territory, communities throughout California and the Pacific Northwest harassed, assaulted, and expelled thousands of Chinese immigrants. The Chinese Must Go shows how American immigration policies incited this violence, and how this gave rise to the concept of the “alien” in America.Our story begins in the 1850s, before federal border control established strict divisions between citizens and aliens—and long before Congress passed the Chinese Restriction Act, the nation’s first attempt to bar immigration based on race and class. When this unprecedented experiment failed to slow Chinese migration, armed vigilante groups took the matter into their own hands. Fearing the spread of mob violence, policymakers redoubled their efforts to seal the borders, overhauling immigration law and transforming America’s relationship with China in the process. By tracing the idea of the alien back to this violent era, Lew-Williams offers a troubling new origin story of today’s racialized border.