By 1876 there were 110.000 of them on the Pacific coast. It became obvious that a real problem was being created because the white population was still small and there was fear that it would be overwhelmed by people with lower standards of living and different social patterns. The socalled national origins quota principle for regulating immigration had not yet been evolved. So our Government did the natural thing. It passed increasingly strict exclusion laws between 1882 and 1913 whereby all Chinese were excluded as a group. The action was in violation of a treaty that we had with China guaranteeing mostfavorednation treatmentbut we took the action nevertheless. For many years we had the socalled gentlemens agreement with Japan whereby she volunteered to limit the number of Japanese coming to this country to an agreed number. .Then in 1924 the national origins quota formula was devised and enacted into law. The countries of the world were divided into three main areas. First. the independent countries of the Western Hemisphere.
Identified stereotypes
Fear that the white population would be overwhelmed by people with lower standards of living and different social patterns.