Who is included in America and who is excluded? Who can become an American? Lawmakers have determined who belongs in the United States by creating categories for groups of people and defining who does not belong. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, “Orientals,” “Mongolians,” or “Asians” became a legal racial category, targeted for exclusion from immigration and citizenship. Racist, anti-Asian laws are some of the foundations of current restrictive immigration policies and agencies, including the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). To this day, immigration status enacts powerful forms of inequality.

Throughout its history, the United States has excluded Asians from migrating and becoming American citizens, accessing education, owning property, marrying, and receiving other legal protections. This chapter examines the history of legal exclusion of Asians in the United States, and how policies affected the opportunities and everyday lives of Asians from 1790 until today. In this module, we will learn how race and citizenship categories were created and have barred Asian Americans from holding the same rights and opportunities as white people in the US.