Person

Mae Ngai

Bylines

Related Excerpts

Book cover of "The Chinese Question The Gold Rushes and Global Politics"

Who Digs the Mines?

A new book recognizes the global character of Asian exclusion.
Tarred as a “coolie race,” the Chinese were cast as a threat to free white labor. Train with fire around it and a face in the back.

America Was Eager for Chinese Immigrants. What Happened?

In the gold-rush era, ceremonial greetings swiftly gave way to bigotry and violence.
Artwork depicting The Statue of Liberty's back.

America Never Wanted the Tired, Poor, Huddled Masses

The U.S. is a diverse nation of immigrants—but it was not intended to be, and its historical biases continue to haunt the present.

Great Migration Debates: Keywords in Historical Perspective

The use of the word "immigrant" in contemporary debates often reflects a lack of understanding of U.S. immigration history.
Mexican immigrants huddled in a cage during Operation Wetback.

Trump's Deportation Model

A 1950s mass deportation campaign shows that abuse and dehumanization are intrinsic to immigrant detention.
Letter from Wong Gin Fu to Wong Kim

Sadness of the Paper Son: The Travails of Asian Immigration to the U.S.

Despite the Chinese Exclusion Act, about 300,000 Chinese gained admission to the U.S. between 1882 and 1943. How did they do it?
Wong Gin Foo to Wong Kim (in Chinese), March 31, 1930.

Paper Sons in the Era of Immigration Restriction

Chinese immigration and the Immigration Act of 1924.
Former President Donald Trump in Selma, North Carolina

The Historians Take a First Crack at Donald J. Trump

On the promises and perils of very recent history.
Picture of the many different people that make up the US.

The Right to Leave

Thomas Jefferson was a proponent of open migration. But who qualified as a refugee?

How Not to Build a “Great, Great Wall”

A timeline of border fortification, from 1945 to the Trump Era.