The Prostitute Law

....well its not actually called that but keep reading!

The Page Act of 1875 was a law enacted by the US Congress to ' stop prostitutes from coming into the country' - An excerpt of the act follows:

"That the importation into the United States of women for the purposes of prostitution is hereby forbidden...That it shall be unlawful for aliens of the following classes to immigrate to the United States...namely persons undergoing sentence for conviction in their own country and women imported for the purposes of prostitution"


In summary, this law was mainly enacted to prevent Asian women from entering the United States to reunite with their husbands, and to prevent any women who wanted to come and start a new life. Basically the US government made it very easy for border officials to deem women immigrants prostitutes - based on nothing but appearance. They wanted to keep the Asian women out so that the Asian population could not grow any further and they simply called all the Asian women prostitutes and forbade them from entering the country.


Prior to the Page Act being passed, the Asian men in the Americas were already living in a 'bachelor's society' - meaning they lived amongst a bunch of men - there were not very many Asian women around at all because most of the men came to the New World in order to help with the railroad and the women mostly stayed behind. Because of the bachelor's society and the Page Act, this led to the majority of settler to believe two things....


1. Asian men are weird and non sexual beings
2. Asian women are exotic and prostitutes


I believe these two thoughts about Asian men and women have been perpetuated through time and that they still exist in the portrayals of Asians today as evident in some of the films we see today......( just a thought)


As mentioned in an earlier post, the United States government even went as far as to bann the entry of all Asians in 1882. The Page Act of 1875 was just part of the beginnings of further anti Asian legislation.