5 Must Read Books on Chinese American History

At America’s Gate: Chinse Immigration During the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943 by Erika Lee

What happened after the passage of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act? At America’s Gate investigates its impact on Chinese immigrants and on the U.S. as a nation. 

Documenting the hardships that Chinese immigrants endured, Lee also explores their creative responses to the exclusionary policies- resistance, fraudulent papers, and illegal immigration. 

Lee probes how the enforcement of exclusionary laws transformed the U.S. into a gatekeeping nation equipped with unprecedented border control, surveillance, and deportation policies. The act’s legacy is more than relevant today.