Alarmed by the japanese strategy, many U.S. policymakers felt the need to spike the propaganda guns of Japan. A retired Navy officer told a congressional committee holding hearings on the repeal bill that the Chinese exclusion laws were worth twenry divisions to the Japanese Army. Supporters of the bill argued: It is time for us to realize that if nations cannot be gracious to each other, cannot respect each others race, all talk of democracy is in vain. They also expressed fears of the war turning into a racial conflict. The Japanese have been carrying on a propaganda campaign seeking to align the entire oriental world behind Japanese leadership, seeking to set the oriental world against the occidental world, one congressman warned. They have called it a campaign of Asia for Asiatics. Sup· pose the Chinese do capitulate and join Japan, another congressman predicted, then all Asia is apt to go with her. Then you will have a race struggle in which we are hopelessly outnumbered that will last, not for 1 year or 5 years, but throughout generations to come. The handwriting seemed to be on the wall. The Chinese exclusion laws had to be repealed, for the salvation of the white race depended significantly on continued Chinese friendship and military cooperation. China, a Chicago newspaper declared, was Americas white hope in the East.48 Shortly afterward, Congress repealed the exclusion acts and provided an annual quota for Chinese immigration. Actually the law did not open even a trickle of immigration: only 105 Chinese would be allowed to enter annually, and only an annual average of fifty· nine Chinese came to the United States during the first ten years of the laws operation. The law also extended the right of naturalized citizenship to Chinese immigrants. But it required applicants to pre· sent documentation of their legal entry in the United States and to pass tests for English competency and knowledge of American history and the Constitution. Between 1944 and 1952, only 1,428 Chinese were naturalized. Nevertheless Chinese immigrants could finally seek political membership in their adopted country. One of them was Jade Snow Wongs father. At the age of sevenry plus, after years of attending night classes in citizenship, he became naturalized, h1s daughter joyfully reported. He embraced this status wholeheartedly. One day when we were discussing plans for his birthday celebration, which was usually observed on the tenth day of the fifth lunar month by thi! Chinese c..alendar, he announced, Now that I have become a Unitca States citizen, i am going to change my birthday. Henceforth, it will be on the Fourth of July. 49
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 01:30:55 +0000
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