“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the miserable refuse of your teeming shore. Send me these, the homeless, storm-tossed: I lift up my lamp beside the golden door. "The quote on the Statue of Liberty, engraved in 1903 The United States of America was founded on the idea that anyone could leave their misery and "make it" in America. This idea was called the American dream; a phrase that was written in around 1850. Not thirty years later, however, an entire group of immigrants would be barred from entering the country, and that ban would last sixty-one years. The Chinese Exclusion Act was signed into law by President Chester Arthur in 1882 and repealed in 1943. During that time, all Chinese workers were banned from immigrating to the United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act halted the growth of Chinese culture in the United States and led to racial stigma that fueled racism against Japan during World War II. The Chinese Exclusion Act was enacted to curb the influx of Chinese immigrants seeking work in the failing post-Civil War economies. Chinese settlers created enclaves in many West Coast cities, the most famous of which was “China -Town” in San Francesco. Anti-Chinese sentiment grew thanks to the nativist policies of Denis Kearney, his Workers' Party, and California statesman John Bigler. White power organizations also fought against Chinese immigrants, most notably the Supreme Order of the Caucasians in April 1876 and the Asiatic Exclusion League in May 1905. They claimed that Chinese workers had driven wages down to an unacceptable level, [1] the rights of Chinese immigrants, many of whom had been natural...... middle of paper...... Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882. Accessed August/September 2013. https://www.mtholyoke. edu/ acad/intrel/chinex.htm.Dundes Renteln, Alison. “A Psychohistorical Analysis of Japanese-American Internment.” Human Rights Quarterly 17, no. 4 (1995): 618-48. doi:10.1353/hrq.1995.0039.Gyory, Andrew. Closing the gate: Race, politics, and Chinese exclusion law. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Railton, Ben. The Chinese Exclusion Act: What it can teach us about America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.USA, Congress. “Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882.” Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882. 1882. Accessed August 22, 2013. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/chinex.htm.USCIS. “Records of Internees in Japanese Relocation Camps of World War II.” Documents of those interned in Japanese transfer camps during the Second World War. Accessed August 22, 2013. http://www.japaneserelocation.org/.