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The Indicator from Planet Money

The U.S. once banned Chinese immigrants — and it paid an economic price

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.79.5K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2024

⏱️ 12 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1880, the Chinese were the biggest group of immigrants in the western U.S. But Sinophobic sentiments crystallized into racist policies and eventually the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The rationale was that banning Chinese laborers would boost job opportunities for U.S.-born workers. Today, an economist explains how the Chinese exclusion laws affected the economies of western states and what it says about our current debate over immigration and jobs.

Read the working paper co-authored by Nancy Qian.

A digital scan of the photo album in the California Historical Society's collections is available here.

For more on this period of history, check out At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943 by Erika Lee.

Related episodes:
What's missing in the immigration debate (Apple / Spotify)

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey it's Wailen real quick before the show it has been a wild exhausting election season

0:06.9

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podcast that captures the news overnight. Up first, 7 a.m. Later in the day,

0:31.1

you can find a new episode of the NPR Politics Podcast with context

0:36.2

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0:39.6

So like you get an alert, big breaking news, you don't know what to think look for the

0:44.0

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0:49.4

podcast or mPR covers one big story in depth every weekday evening.

0:54.8

They will be all over this election and its aftermath too.

0:58.5

So, up first in the morning, consider this in the evening,

1:02.0

and the NPR Politics Podcast anytime big stuff happens

1:06.2

and around the clock election news survival kit from NPR Podcasts.

1:10.9

Okay, thanks for listening. Here's the show.

1:13.4

NPR. This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong.

1:28.0

And I'm Darren Woods. In downtown San Francisco, there's a museum museum the California Historical Society it has all kinds of

1:35.9

artifacts that tell the story of the state one of these items is a kind of photo

1:41.4

album from the late 1800s and inside a small photographs of

1:45.9

Chinese people who were living in Sierra County in the northern part of the state.

1:50.6

Aaron Garcia is the museum's director of exhibitions and engagement.

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