This unit examines how the interplay of economic distress, racism, and political ambition led to Chinese exclusion by identifying some of the key actors, analyzing the arguments they made for the necessity of exclusion, and examining the political factors that led Congress to act. After reading this unit, you should be able to answer the central question: What factors contributed to the popularity of anti-Chinese sentiment in the nineteenth century and the eventual abandonment by the United States of its policy of admitting immigrants irrespective of race, nationality, or country of origin? Through investigation of the documents in this unit, you will develop the historical thinking skills of causation, comparison, continuity and change over time, and, through your written response to the central question, argumentation.