Border Hurdles for New Arrivals
Customs officials confront a backlog of Chinese passengers arriving without proper certification.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Chinese passengers who arrived on the City of Tokio numbered about 150. Many of them were not provided with certificates, but left before the law was passed and before the certificates were issued. For such cases it is necessary that the case shall be sworn to by two good witnesses before the party can land. The Custom House officials have had a lively deal on the job.
“The Custom House officials have had a lively deal on the job.”
This reflects the immediate impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which forced labor and migrants into a complex, often arbitrary legal gauntlet. It serves as a reminder that Seattle’s early growth was defined as much by these exclusionary administrative barriers as by industrial expansion.
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