<Li> House agreed to Senate amendment on May 3, 1882 (Agreed) </Li> <Li> Signed into law by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882 </Li> <P> The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers . The act followed the Angell Treaty of 1880, a set of revisions to the US--China Burlingame Treaty of 1868 that allowed the US to suspend Chinese immigration . The act was initially intended to last for 10 years, but was renewed in 1892 with the Geary Act and made permanent in 1902 . The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first law implemented to prevent a specific ethnic group from immigrating to the United States . It was repealed by the Magnuson Act on December 17, 1943 . </P> <P> The first significant Chinese immigration to North America began with the California Gold Rush of 1848--1855 and it continued with subsequent large labor projects, such as the building of the First Transcontinental Railroad . During the early stages of the gold rush, when surface gold was plentiful, the Chinese were tolerated, if not well received . As gold became harder to find and competition increased, animosity toward the Chinese and other foreigners increased however . After being forcibly driven from mining by a mixture of state legislators and other miners (the Foreign Miner's Tax), the immigrant Chinese began to settle in enclaves in cities, mainly San Francisco, and took up low - wage labor, such as restaurant and laundry work . With the post-Civil War economy in decline by the 1870s, anti-Chinese animosity became politicized by labor leader Denis Kearney and his Workingman's Party as well as by California Governor John Bigler, both of whom blamed Chinese "coolies" for depressed wage levels . Public opinion and law in California began to demonize Chinese workers and immigrants in any role, with the later half of the 1800s seeing a series of ever more restrictive laws being placed on Chinese labor, behavior and even living conditions . While many of these legislative efforts were quickly overturned by the State Supreme Court, many more anti-Chinese laws continued to be passed in both California and nationally . </P>

The chinese exclusion act of 1882 was significant in american immigration history because