Gentlemen's Agreement -ME- Selena Yoder

The Gentlemen's Agreement 

              After the huge influx of immigrants, many Americans began to discriminate against the newest immigrants. These feelings announced themselves in the Workingman’s Party of California, led by Denis Kearney, who was an Irish immigrant. They fought to cut off the Asian immigrants and ended up landing seats in California’s legislature. From there, they pressured Congress to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act, a law that disallowed immigration from Chinese for ten years and blocked the Chinese already in the country from becoming citizens.

              The discrimination did not just stop at the Chinese, in 1906 the board of Education in San Francisco ordered that all Chinese, Korean, and Japanese children to go to a racially segregated school in Chinatown. Japan took offense to the horrid treatment their people were being given. As a response President Roosevelt invited the school board leaders to the White House. He proposed an idea where the Asian children could go back to their regular school, and he would stop immigration from Japan. He then proceeded to discuss a deal with Japan, who agreed to limit emigration to the US. This became known as the Gentleman’s Agreement because no papers were filed and it depended on both sides to carry out their end of the bargain.