编者按：排华法案的历史和背景是每一个美国华人都应该了解的。本文翻译 《大英百科全书》相关条目，供大家参考。

Chinese Exclusion Act, formally Immigration Act of 1882, U.S. federal law that was the first and only major federal legislation to explicitly suspend immigration for a specific nationality. The basic exclusion law prohibited Chinese labourers—defined as “both skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining”—from entering the country. Subsequent amendments to the law prevented Chinese labourers who had left the United States from returning. The passage of the act represented the outcome of years of racial hostility and anti-immigrant agitation by white Americans, set the precedent for later restrictions against immigration of other nationalities, and started a new era in which the United States changed from a country that welcomed almost all immigrants to a gatekeeping one.
排华法案，前身是1882年移民法案，是美国联邦法律中第一个也是唯一一个明确暂停特定国籍移民的主要联邦立法。排华法案的基本内容禁止被定义为“技术和非技术工人以及从事采矿业的劳工”的中国劳工入境。随后的法律修正案阻止了离开美国的中国劳工回国。该法案的通过代表了多年来美国白人种族敌对和反移民的鼓动，开启了一个新纪元，自此以后，限制其他国籍移民的措施开始出现，美国从此从一个几乎欢迎所有移民的国家转变为一个设置移民门槛的国家。

The Act
法案

The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress and signed by Pres. Chester A. Arthur in 1882. It lasted for 10 years and was extended for another 10 years by the 1892 Geary Act, which also required that people of Chinese origin carry identification certificates or face deportation. Later measures placed a number of other restrictions on the Chinese, such as limiting their access to bail bonds and allowing entry to only those who were teachers, students, diplomats, and tourists. Congress closed the gate to Chinese immigrants almost entirely by extending the Chinese Exclusion Act for another 10 years in 1902 and making the extension indefinite in 1904.
排华法案于1882年由国会通过，并由切斯特·阿瑟（Chester A. Arthur）总统签署。它执行了10年，1892年的基瑞法案又让它延长了10年，该法案还要求中国血统的人携带身份证明，否则将会面临驱逐出境。后来的措施还对中国人施加了一些其他限制，比如限制他们获得保释金，只允许教师、学生、外交官和游客入境。国会在1902年将排华法案再延长10年，并在1904年无限期延长，几乎完全关闭了对中国移民的大门。

The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943 with the passage of the Magnuson Act, which permitted a quota of 105 Chinese immigrants annually. Various factors contributed to the repeal, such as the quieted anti-Chinese sentiment, the establishment of quota systems for immigrants of other nationalities who had rapidly increased in the United States, and the political consideration that the United States and China were allies in World War II.
1943年，随着《马格努森法案》的通过，排华法案被废除，该法案每年允许105名中国移民。导致这一废除的因素是多方面的，如反华情绪的平息、应对美国迅速增加的其他少数族裔移民的配额制度的建立，以及美国和中国在二战中互为盟友的政治考虑。

Causes And Effects
排华案的原因和后果

Many scholars explain the institution of the Chinese Exclusion Act and similar laws as a product of the widespread anti-Chinese movement in California in the second half of the 19th century. The Chinese had constituted a significant minority on the West Coast since the middle of the 19th century. Initially, they laboured in gold mines, where they showed a facility for finding gold. As a result, they encountered hostility and were gradually forced to leave the field and move to urban areas such as San Francisco, where they were often confined to performing some of the dirtiest and hardest work. Americans in the West persisted in their stereotyping of the Chinese as degraded, exotic, dangerous, and competitors for jobs and wages. Sen. John F. Miller of California, a proponent of the Chinese Exclusion Act, argued that the Chinese workers were “machine-like…of obtuse nerve, but little affected by heat or cold, wiry, sinewy, with muscles of iron.” Partly in response to that stereotype, organized labour in the West made restricting the influx of Chinese into the United States one of its goals. In other words, the exclusion was the result of a grassroots anti-Chinese sentiment. Other scholars have argued that the exclusion should be blamed on top-down politics rather than a bottom-up movement, explaining that national politicians manipulated white workers to gain an electoral advantage. Still others have adopted a “national racism thesis” that focuses on endemic anti-Chinese racism in early American national culture.
许多学者将排华法案和类似法律的制定归咎为19世纪下半叶加州广泛的反华运动的产物。自19世纪中叶以来，中国人在西海岸已成为一个重要的少数族裔。最初，他们在金矿场工作，他们在那里展示了挖掘黄金的能力。结果，他们遭遇敌意，逐渐被迫离开工作场地，搬到旧金山等城市地区，在那里他们常常只能从事一些最肮脏、最艰苦的工作。在西方，美国人坚持他们对中国人的成见，认为中国人是堕落的、异心的、危险的，是工作和工资方面的竞争对手。加州参议员约翰米勒（JohnF.Miller）是排华法案的支持者，他认为中国工人“像机器一样……神经迟钝，但不受环境影响、肌肉发达。”由于这种部分的成见，西方的劳工组织促使限制中国人涌入美国成为其目标之一。换言之，这种排斥是草根反华情绪的结果。其他学者认为，这种排斥应该归咎于自上而下的政治，而不是自下而上的运动，他们解释说，国家政客操纵白人工人以获得选举优势。还有一些人相信“民族种族主义论点”，这种论点重点描述的是早期美国民族文化中普遍存在的反华种族主义。

The exclusion laws had dramatic impacts on Chinese immigrants and communities. They significantly decreased the number of Chinese immigrants into the United States and forbade those who left to return. According to the U.S. national census in 1880, there were 105,465 Chinese in the United States, compared with 89,863 by 1900 and 61,639 by 1920. Chinese immigrants were placed under a tremendous amount of government scrutiny and were often denied entry into the country on any possible grounds. In 1910 the Angel Island Immigration Station was established in San Francisco Bay. Upon arrival there a Chinese immigrant could be detained for weeks to years before being granted or denied entry. Chinese communities underwent dramatic changes as well. Families were forced apart, and businesses were closed down. Because of the severe restrictions on female immigrants and the pattern of young men migrating alone, there emerged a largely bachelor society. Under the continuing anti-Chinese pressure, Chinatowns were established in urban cities, where the Chinese could retreat into their own cultural and social colonies.
排华法案对中国移民和社区产生了巨大的影响。它显著减少了进入美国的中国移民数量，禁止那些离开的人返回美国。根据1880年美国全国人口普查，美国共有105,465名中国人，而1900年为89,863人，1920年为61,639人。中国移民受到了政府的大量审查，经常以任何可能的理由被拒绝入境。1910年，天使岛移民站在旧金山湾成立。一名中国移民抵达后，可能会被拘留数周至数年，然后才被批准或拒绝入境。华人社区也经历了巨大的变化。家庭被迫分开，企业也被关闭。由于对女性移民的严格限制和年轻男性移民单独限制，出现了以单身为主的社会状况。在持续的反华压力下，唐人街在城市中建立起来，中国人可以在那里回归到自己的文化和社会团体中。

The excluded Chinese did not passively accept unfair treatment but rather used all types of tools to challenge or circumvent the laws. One such tool was the American judicial system. Despite having come from a country without a litigious tradition, Chinese immigrants learned quickly to use courts as a venue to fight for their rights and won many cases in which ordinances aimed against the Chinese were declared unconstitutional by either the state or federal courts. They were aided in their legal battles by Frederick Bee, a California entrepreneur and attorney who was one of the principal American advocates of the civil rights of Chinese immigrants and who represented many of them in court from 1882 to 1892. They also protested against racial discrimination through other venues, such as the media and petitions.
被排斥的中国人并不是被动地接受不公平待遇，而是利用各种手段挑战或规避法律。其中一个工具就是美国的司法系统。尽管中国移民来自一个没有诉讼传统的国家，但他们很快学会了将法院作为争取自己权利的场所，在许多针对中国人的法令被州或联邦法院宣布违宪的案件中胜诉。他们在法律斗争中得到了弗雷德里克·比（Frederick Bee）的帮助，他是加州企业家和律师，是美国主要的中国移民民权倡导者之一，他在1882年至1892年期间代表他们中的许多人出庭。他们还通过媒体和请愿等其他途径抗议种族歧视。

Some Chinese simply evaded the laws altogether by immigrating illegally. In fact, the phenomenon of illegal immigration became one of the most significant legacies of the Chinese-exclusion era in the United States. Despite the disproportionate time and resources spent by U.S. immigration officials to control Chinese immigration, many Chinese migrated across the borders from Canada and Mexico or used fraudulent identities to enter the country. A common strategy was that of the so-called “paper son” system, in which young Chinese males attempted to enter the United States with purchased identity papers for fictional sons of U.S. citizens (people of Chinese descent who had falsely established the identities of those “sons”). Thus, Chinese exclusion was not only an institution that produced and reinforced a system of racial hierarchy in immigration law, but it was also a process that both immigration officials and immigrants shaped and a realm of power dominance, struggle, and resistance.
一些中国人只是通过非法移民来逃避法律。事实上，非法移民现象成为美国排华时代最重要的遗产之一。尽管美国移民官员花费了不成比例的时间和资源来控制中国移民，但许多中国人还是从加拿大和墨西哥跨境移民，或使用欺诈身份入境。一个共同的策略是所谓的“合约儿子”制度，在这种制度下，年轻的中国男性试图带着为儿子购买的虚假美国公民身份证件（来自虚假认定这些“儿子”身份的华裔）进入美国。因此，排华不仅是一种在移民法中产生和强化种族等级制度的制度，而且是移民官员和移民共同塑造的过程，是一个权力主导、斗争和反抗的领域。

The impact of the exclusion laws went beyond restricting, marginalizing, and, ironically, activating the Chinese. It signaled the shift from a previously open immigration policy in the United States to one in which the federal government exerted control over immigrants. Criteria were gradually set regarding which people—in terms of their ethnicity, gender, and class—could be admitted. Immigration patterns, immigration communities, and racial identities and categories were significantly affected. The very definition of what it meant to be an American became more exclusionary. Meanwhile, Chinese-exclusion practices shaped immigration law during that time period. Believing that courts gave too much advantage to the immigrants, the government succeeded in cutting off Chinese access to the courts and gradually transferred administration of Chinese-exclusion laws completely to the Bureau of Immigration, an agency operating free from court scrutiny. By 1910 the enforcement of the exclusion laws had become centralized, systematic, and bureaucratic.
排华法案的影响不止造成了各种限制和排挤华人的现象，讽刺的是，这些法案还激起了华人的血性。这标志着美国从以前的开放移民政策向联邦政府控制移民的政策转变。逐步确定了按种族、性别和阶级划分的接受标准。移民模式、移民社区、种族身份和阶级受到显著影响。对美国人的定义变得更具排他性。与此同时，排华习俗在这一时期影响了移民法。政府认为法院给予移民太多好处，成功切断了华人进入法院的渠道，并逐步将排华法的管理完全移交给移民局，移民局是一个不受法院审查的机构。到1910年，排他法的执行已经变得集中化、系统化和官僚化。