US apologizes for discriminatory laws

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On Monday, the US House of Representatives unanimously expressed regret for the passage of discriminatory laws against Chinese immigrants to the United States, particularly the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said on Tuesday that China appreciates the apology, adding that contributions by Chinese-Americans to US history deserve positive and due evaluation.

"The development of the US, an immigration country, cannot be separated from the endeavors and cooperation of many races, including Chinese-Americans," Hong said at a daily news conference.

Thanks to a grassroots campaign of Chinese-American communities across the US, the vote marked the first time the House acknowledged the laws' far-reaching injustice. It followed a similar apology approved by the US Senate in November.

Representative Judy Chu, a California Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, called Monday's passage a "breakthrough" in the "historic" effort to acknowledge the harm done by exclusion laws 130 years after its adoption.

"The trauma of the exclusion laws left a permanent scar upon generations of Chinese-Americans, splitting apart families, and disenfranchising many," Chu said before the vote. "Like all Chinese-Americans, my own grandfather did not have the legal right to become a naturalized citizen, and had to carry papers on him at all times or else be deported."

The new legislation "formally regrets the passage of legislation that adversely affected people of Chinese origin in the United States because of their ethnicity, and recognizes that the United States was founded on the principle that all persons are created equal," she added.

But the vote isn't the end of the story, the congresswoman said. She's thinking about how to educate all Americans about the exclusion laws and their legacy.

The Chinese Exclusion Laws were passed by Congress between 1879 and 1904. The laws violated the civil rights and liberties of Chinese immigrants by severely restricting their status and movement in the country, barring them from becoming US citizens, and for a decade prohibiting Chinese laborers from entering the US.

Although the laws were repealed in 1943 once China had become a US ally during World War II, Congress has never formally acknowledged that they singled out and ostracized an ethnic group, an invalidation of the United States' founding principles.

Now, more than 4 million Chinese-Americans live in the US, and their contributions have long been recognized by the broader society.

Two years ago, a petition signed by about 160 Chinese-American organizations was delivered by hand to Chu, the first Chinese-American woman elected to Congress. It urged lawmakers on Capitol Hill to formally apologize for the acts, the first major restriction on immigration to the US.

A working group, the 1882 Project, was later set up to push for passage of the House and Senate resolutions. The nonpartisan, grassroots group was led by the Chinese-American Citizens Alliance, the Committee of 100 and the National Council of Chinese Americans.

Because Japanese and Filipinos were also affected by the laws, the Japanese American Citizens League joined the effort.

Haipei Shue, president of the NCCA, said passage of the legislation in both chambers is a "milestone" in Chinese-American history, but more must be done to educate the public about the past.

About the broadcaster:

Nelly Min is an editor at China Daily with more than 10 years of experience as a newspaper editor and photographer. She has worked at major newspapers in the U.S., including the Los Angeles Times and the Detroit Free Press. She is also fluent in Korean.