Episode Details

In this episode, we explore how chinese exclusion invented american gatekeeping. I want you to try and imagine a map of the United States, but mentally erase all the checkpoints, you know, the border patrols, the visa applications, the quotas. Right, like they're all blank. Exactly. Imagine a time when the borders of this country were just entirely open, like there were no federal immigration restrictions at all. None. You could arrive from anywhere, step off a boat and just walk into the country to start a new life. It sounds almost like a fantasy today, right? considering how heavily regulated and monitored modern borders are. Oh, totally. But for the first century of American history, that was the baseline reality. The whole paradigm of what a border even meant was fundamentally different. It was... I mean, mostly just a line on a map, not a fortress. OK, so let's unpack this because that massive pivot is exactly what we are political calculus. Specifically, the presidential election year of 1876. It was an incredibly tight, highly competitive national race between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden. Let me guess. California's electoral votes were the tiebreaker. California held the keys to the White House. Californian politicians knew their state was a swing state and they played their hand brilliantly. What were they doing before this election? Before 1876, California had repeatedly tried passing its own state -level anti -Chinese laws, but the State Supreme Court, or federal judges, kept striking them down because immigration is a federal jurisdiction. Ah, so the state realizes they can't legally do it themselves. They have to basically blackmail the federal government into doing it for them. Exactly. They launched a master class in PR and political pressure. They held massive rallies of 20 ,000 people in San Francisco. The city's board of supervisors sent delegations back