Chinese Exclusion Act Quizzes
Think you’ve got your head wrapped around Chinese Exclusion Act? Put your knowledge to
the test. Good luck — the Stickman is counting on you!
Q. What was the initial fear sparking the Chinese Exclusion Act?
A massive crimewave centered around the Chinatowns of the west coast.
A series of mine collapses that killed more expensive white laborers.
Godzilla. Yes, he's Japanese, but Americans at the time didn't know the difference.
A sudden shortage of demand for labor stemming from the Panic of 1873.
Q. What is the significance of including race in the text of the Chinese Exclusion Act?
It was the first law to specifically limit immigration based on ethnicity.
It was one of a series of laws now known as the Alien Acts.
It was the first act to be spurred by an economic catastrophe.
They actually meant "race" as in running, but someone messed up and everyone was too embarrassed to correct the misunderstanding.
Q. What's the difference between racism and prejudice?
Racism is specifically about race and usually carries the idea of the powerful/majority ethnic group discriminating against a weaker/minority group, while prejudice is more wide-ranging.
Racism only applies to relations between groups of European and groups of African descent, whereas prejudice can be dislike between any two ethnic groups.
Racism does not exist because scientifically speaking, races do not exist, while prejudice does exist.
Racism only applies to aliens, while prejudice only applies to humans.
Q. How specifically did the Chinese Exclusion Act stack the deck in terms of the struggle between majority and minority?
By giving the Chinese a chance to become a majority.
By causing the Chinese to clone dinosaurs.
By preventing Chinese immigration, it effectively insured Chinese people would remain minorities.
By providing a framework for similar legislation targeting other ethnic groups.
Q. Why were the Chinese uniquely vulnerable to this kind of legislation?
Their culture and religion were unfamiliar to anyone in the U.S. at that time.
Unlike other non-whites, Chinese people did not have any state or local representatives of their ethnicity.
Chinese people already had a number of discriminatory laws made against them.
The Chinese had lost the World Series, and so were due for some racist legislation.