United States
The Asiatic Exclusion League was formed as the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League on 14 May 1905 in San Francisco, California, by 67 labor unions. Among those attending the first meeting were labor leaders (and European immigrants) Patrick Henry McCarthy of the Building Trades Council of San Francisco and Andrew Furuseth and Walter McCarthy of the Sailor's Union. The group's stated aims were to spread anti-Asian propaganda and influence legislation restricting Asian immigration. Specifically targeted were Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans. The League was almost immediately successful in pressuring the San Francisco Board of Education to segregate Asian school children. By 1908, the Asiatic Exclusion League reported 231 organizations affiliated, 195 of them labor unions. After the league's President, Olaf Tveitmoe, had a stroke in 1917, activity dwindled.
The proceedings of the League's 12 April 1908 meeting in San Francisco sum up much of their goals and the reasons for them. Firstly, the League demanded that all Asiatic immigration to the United States mainland and insular possessions be halted. Secondly, they protested against the U.S. government entering into any agreement with foreign nations about the number and class of people that will leave that nation for the U.S. Also, they demanded that the regulation and legislation pertaining to immigration be a matter to be decided upon by Congress alone. Thirdly, it was the opinion of the Asiatic Exclusion League that the Asian immigrants are "entirely ignorant of our sentiments of nativity and patriotism, and utterly unfit and incapable of discharging the duties of American citizenship." The League claimed that the introduction of said "non-assimilable" immigrants would "degrade, if not effectively destroy" American institutions and ways of life, as well as tarnish American morality and "Christian civilization." Fourthly, the League claimed that the low standard of living and cheap labor of Asian immigrants would result in "irreparable deterioration of American labor." Lastly, it was believed that these Asian immigrants were loyal to their countries of origin and hostile to the American people.
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