The United States has always been a nation of immigrants, but not all immigrants have been treated equally, especially those of non-European background.

The initial colonial settler project included European migration from France, Britain, Spain, German-speaking lands, and Holland, as well as the forcible movement of enslaved people from African countries. In the 19th century, East Asian migrants to the US, fleeing Japan and China due to the poor economic conditions and seizing a potentially temporary labor opportunity, encountered prejudice from those of European descent, who themselves were part of an ethnocultural hierarchy, with nativist discrimination targeting Italian, Irish, Slav, and Eastern European Jewish immigrants. In this context, migrants from East Asia worked in fields such as the railroad industry, mining linked to the California Gold Rush, and farming, including the Hawaii sugar plantations.

In addition to social forms of discrimination, the US introduced racist legal structures to facilitate immigration restriction for reasons of labor preference and “racial purity.” The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act suspended immigration from China; in 1902, the US made migrating from China illegal. The 1913 Alien Land Act barred “all aliens ineligible for citizenship” from owning land (86). Subsequent legislation, such as the Immigration Acts of 1917 and 1924, added further restrictions to moving to the US.