(birds squawking) ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: On June 30, 1885, as the fund-raising campaign for the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty finally began to pick up speed, a letter appeared in the pages of "The New York Sun" written by a young Chinese immigrant and recent college graduate named Saum Song Bo, who had come to America years earlier as a small boy, and who dreamed of becoming a lawyer.

SAUM SONG BO (dramatized): "Sir: A paper was presented to me yesterday "for subscription among my countrymen "toward the Pedestal Fund of the Statue of Liberty.

"My countrymen and myself are honored "in being thus appealed to "as citizens in the cause of liberty.

"But the word liberty makes me think of the fact "that this country is the land of liberty "for all men of all nations except the Chinese.

"That statue represents Liberty holding a torch-- "which lights the passage "of those of all nations who come into this country.

"But are the Chinese allowed to come?

"Are the Chinese here allowed to enjoy liberty "as men of all other nationalities enjoy it?

"Free from the insults, abuse, assaults, wrongs, and injuries "from which men of other nationalities are free?

"By the law of this nation, "a Chinaman cannot become a citizen.

"Whether this statute against the Chinese "or the Statue of Liberty "will be the more lasting monument to tell future ages "of the liberty and greatness of this country "will be known only to future generations.

Saum Song Bo."

(distant voice speaking Chinese dialect) (bell tolling) (horse whinnying) NARRATOR: The solitary arm of the unfinished Statue of Liberty had languished on Madison Square in New York for more than five years when on May 6, 1882-- on the eve of the greatest wave of immigration in American history-- President Chester A. Arthur signed into law an extraordinary piece of federal legislation.

It was called the Chinese Exclusion Act-- and it was unlike any law enacted since the founding of the Republic.

Singling out as never before a specific race and nationality for exclusion, it made it illegal for Chinese workers to come to America and for Chinese nationals already here ever to become citizens of the United States.

Fueled by deep-seated tensions over race and class and national identity that had been festering since the founding of the Republic, it was the first in a long line of acts targeting the Chinese for exclusion-- and it would remain in force for more than 60 years.

It continues to shape the debate about what it means to be an American to this day.

(seagull squawking) RENQIU YU: Chinese Americans always have this identification with the founding principle of this country, so beautifully laid out by the Founding Fathers and so eloquently articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution.

The Chinese identify with this fundamental principle of liberty, equality, and justice for all, and all men are created equal.

Now, how can you say that this is a group of people who are biologically and culturally unfit to live a civilized life, to appreciate and practice American culture, political and religious ideals.

That's why I think a lot of Americans had a hard time to learn that the Chinese Exclusion Act really exists for 60 years.

They couldn't believe it, the government did that.

MAE NGAI: We have to remember that for most of the 19th century, immigration into the United States was basically open.

You just showed up.

So the Chinese exclusion law is one of the first really comprehensively restrictive laws.

And it's also the first and only time in the entire history of the United States that a group is singled out by name-- Chinese, by name-- as being undesirable.

So this is truly a remarkable moment.

JEAN PFAELZER: Starting in California, the Chinese were marked as different.

And I see the 1882 bill as a link in a chain of bills and a chain of legislation, and race riots and purges that are trying to move the country toward ethnic cleansing.

The 1882 bill was not about labor.

I think it was about white purity, and, "How do we get rid of people who were different?"

DAVID LEI: Many people think of this exclusion law as being very racist, very unfair.

But if you look at the world at that time-- every country was like that, and almost every ethnicity.

Try to be a citizen of China, or try to be a citizen of Japan, is impossible unless you're ethnically Chinese or Japanese.

But this is a group of people-- Chinese-American, the Chinese that were here-- who actually fought back and made America better than what it was, and helped make America what it is today-- the values that we have, including equal protection under the law; rights to education; what it means to be American, what makes you American, to be born here.

All these weren't defined.

JOHN KUO WEI TCHEN: The 1882 exclusion law has been forgotten.

But once we remember it, it is outrageous.

And it's probably why we've forgotten it, because it is so outrageous.

Many Americans today cannot believe this happened.

How could this country-- in its culture, in its politics, in its economics-- do what it did against a whole class of people?

The exclusion law said, "That whole race of people are banned from this country."

So it's a racial exclusion law.

So that banning of a whole category of people directly challenges foundational questions of what American freedom means, and what American history means, who "We the people" can constitute.

K. SCOTT WONG: I think it's essential that Americans know about the exclusion of Chinese-- not because it's the Chinese, but because it reflects how America has come to develop, how America saw itself at one time, and how it continues to see itself.

It has much to do with the character of our national history.

And that, to me, is the most important thing in understanding how we became who we are today.

Some of it has to do with the fact that we excluded Chinese for 60 years.