

	Throughout the course of history there have always been minorities that suffer under the oppressive constraints of the ruling elite class.  In America, the motherland of Democracy and civil freedoms, this hypocritical oppression of minorities was blatantly obvious. Asian immigrants coming to America in hopes of a prosperous life were met with hostility and were stripped of all rights and were denied citizenship solely due to their ancestry.  The United States government failed in the protection of the rights of Asian and European immigrants and African Americans in the post civil war era which marked a decline on the decline of democracy. Modern democracy assumes having rights and being free as much as these rights do not coincide unjustly with the rights of another individual.  The government needed to insure the protection of the rights of minorities, both legal and economic in nature to uphold the idea of a modern democracy. However, the government did not provide the necessary support to guarantee the economic opportunity, legal protection, and voting rights of the minorities, and as a result the United States was unable to uphold the ideals of democracy that it was conceived.
	In America there was always a majority that threatened the minority by violating the citizenship and liberties of the minority. Minorities such as Asian and European immigrants struggled for equality in America. For example, Asians were discriminated against and used as cheap labor when they immigrated to America, and Africans were slaves until the Civil War. Political equality has not been achieved because America is a capitalistic society where class is emphasized. There cannot be political equality if equality is not established. Africans were given a 3/5 vote while whites had a full vote which is a violation of equal rights of democracy which was a result of the failure of the United States to uphold the law ensure economic and legal rights of all citizens(textbook).  
	Immigration restriction laws were a product of the popular belief of the inferiority of the new wave of immigration from southern and eastern Europe and Asia.  The laws developed from ideological claims that the immigrants were inassimilable to American culture and the theory of eugenics.  The laws were also derived from economic claims that immigrants stole capital from the United States and undercut skilled labor. There was no place or sanctuary given to these faceless cheap laborers.  The Asian Americans were no exception to racism and segregating laws. The political deception and allowance of bigot laws kept the Asian people oppressed and gave no room for further economic and legal advancement. This country we have come to know as the land of freedom and opportunity is built on the labor of oppressed and segregated people. What was once seen as the land of opportunity instead became the land of racism, oppression, and back breaking work. 	
	As the Chinese took over most of the jobs, complaints about the Chinese started to surface. This led to the passing of the Exclusion Act of 1882. The Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first time in history that an immigrant group was excluded on the basis of race. The Chinese would work for wages that were considered extremely low, which made them cheap labor, and they were considered as unclean, and biologically inferior, and inassimilable. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act closed the door to all Chinese laborers from immigrating for ten years. This Act also ruled that Chinese could not be granted as naturalized citizens. The Exclusion Act would be one of the many laws that would be passed by the U.S. discriminating against Asian immigrants. The first of the two anti-Japanese laws was the Alien Land Law of 1913, which in consequence forbade ineligible citizens to own or lease land within California(website 2). The second anti-Japanese law passed was the Immigration Act of 1924, which did not allow for any further immigration from Japan to be allowed in California. The lack of federal intervention gave way to the passage and acceptance of the Alien Land Law of 1913. One of the most notorious laws passed to exclude and eliminate Japanese immigrants was the Immigration Act of 1924. This law completely denied Japanese immigrants access or entrance into California. The arguments surrounding this debate showed through to the inconsistency of the follow through and logic of the law creators. The Japanese were not content by the United States actions and lack of intervention on behalf of the executive branch of the federal government. The Japanese community was faced with a direct opposition and form of racism solely excluding them out. While Supreme Court justices were supposed to be the most objective and fair of all the men of the land, in the case of Takao Ozawa the Supreme Court this was proven false by adding to the anti-Asian sentiment by providing a legal basis for discrimination. Takao Ozawa tried to file for United States citizenship October 14, 1914.  In the opinion of Justice Sutherland:
The appellant is a person of the Japanese race born in Japan. He applied, on October 16, 1914, to the United States District Court for the Territory of Hawaii to be admitted as a citizen of the United States. His petition was opposed by the United States District Attorney for the District of Hawaii. Including the period of his residence in Hawaii, appellant had 	continuously resided in the United States for twenty years. He was a 	graduate of the Berkeley, California, High School, had been nearly three years a student in the University of California, had educated his children in American schools, his family had attended American churches and he had maintained the use of the English language in his home. That he was well qualified by character and education for citizenship is conceded. The District Court of Hawaii, however, held that, having been born in Japan and being of the Japanese race, he was not eligible to naturalization under 	@ 2169 of the Revised Statutes, and denied the petition. (website 2)
 The fact that he was of Japanese ancestry alone meant he would be denied the right of citizenship. The case was soon taken before the Supreme Court only to have the same denial outcome. The Supreme Court ruled that because he "clearly" was not white he could not be a citizen no matter how much he contributed to America(website 2). The Japanese came into America and with their hard work, helped transform America into a better nation. They felt they had at least earned themselves the right to become a citizen; only to have the Ozawa decision give them nothing to show for all their hard work. In democracy the basic belief is that all men are created equal and that everyone has an equal voice in politics.  This judgment shows the decline of democracy in the US by restricting and limiting the rights of people habiting the US.  Under constitution it may have been constitutional to deny Asian American citizenship but it went against the basic democratic principle that all men are equal and should have the same power of voice in politics. The Ozawa case reinforced Asian American discrimination. It provided a legal basis for which discrimination could take place. Because Asians could not become citizens, therefore they had no rights in America and this would later result in riots against the Asian American community. Although the Naturalization Act of 1870 granted the right of naturalization to "aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent," Chinese immigrants would be forced to wait until 1943 before obtaining the right to become citizens.
	Basically, the Chinese saw America as a land of opportunity because they believed it was a land of wealth, equality, and freedom. The Naturalization Act of 1790 denied citizenship of many Chinese immigrants so they suffered politically. Also, the Chinese exclusion act of 1882 limited further Chinese immigration. Clearly, the Chinese were not a part of the people. The Chinese struggled for this democracy that did not exist for them, but only for white males who racially discriminated and took advantage of them. 
	 To many Americans, men and women from southern and eastern Europe seemed uneducated, backward and outlandish in appearance-impossible to assimilate. "These people are not Americans," editorialized the popular journal Public Opinion(textbook).
were the Irish and Germans. The Irish were pushed out of Ireland due to poverty and British tyranny. The English discriminated the Irish in Ireland. "Every Irishman shall be forbidden to wear English apparel of weapon upon pain of death. That no Irishman, born of Irish race and brought up Irish, shall purchase land, bear office, be chosen of any jury or admitted witness in any real or personal action." In America, the reciprocated the beliefs that were set against them in England and protested the immigration from such countries as Italy saying that such people were unfit to rights here to vote and own property. Many of the Irish who were the once the persecuted were now persecutors.  This sentiment against southern and eastern Europeans was the main reason in the lack of democracy found in THE nation of democracy.  The US government severely failed in its objective to provide economic and legal rights at home while it sought to do so in its goals of imperialism. 
	Many of the Germans left Germany because its political leaders did not care or showed little interest for democracy and socialism. Germans had also struggled in land ownership and freedom or religion. Therefore, many Germans migrated to America because they believed America could provide them political and religious freedom. The Germans were actually successful as immigrants because they adapted to America's capitalistic society. The struggle for democracy seems to be the main reason why Europeans migrated to America. However they ended up suffering exactly the same hardship and persecution they had faced in there non-democratic nation.  They were severely restricted politically because they were not allowed to vote and could not become citizens they were basically denied the democracy that was promised in this "land of the free." Just like the Chinese the European immigrants were denied economic and legal protection from the lack of federal protection and action.  The vision of democracy that was promised to them was shattered to pieces as they struggled everyday to survive.
	After the civil war the majority of whites, especially those habited in the South, were greatly loath to the idea of granting former African American slaves the privilege of the constitutional guarantees of rights and opportunities of full citizens.  These people employed many various methods of keeping the ex-slaves under their oppression.  Two examples of such oppression were evident in the presidential election of 1876 and the Supreme Court.
	In the elections of 1876, the national Republican Party feared Democratic victory in the South. The eventual victory of the Democratic Party led to the massive scaling back of Reconstruction's accomplishments. Taxes were slashed; so too was spending on education, especially for black schools. Throughout the South, a campaign ensued to put blacks in "their place," which culminated around the turn of the century when one state after another passed laws providing for the rigid segregation of the races and for the disfranchisement of blacks through such devices as literacy tests, poll taxes, and political primaries that were open only to whites. These devices severely oppressed the Blacks and robbed them of their constitutional guarantees of citizenship rights.  The loss of constitutional citizenship rights of African Americans was also due to the actions of the Supreme Court as well.  Segregation was made constitutional with the ruling of the Plessy vs Ferguson case.  This ruling stated that segregation was constitutional so long as opportunities for both races were equal.  This set the course for almost the next 69 years of segregation until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 overturned the decision.  
	The government attempted to expand democracy after the Civil War but it failed in its attempt because it did not provide the necessary protection of the rights of minorities. African Americans remained under persecution by whites and were hindered in their journey for economic opportunity and independence. The effort to expand democracy was further undermined by the Supreme Court which in a set of rulings restricted federal protection of minorities. The government failed to adequately provide protection for the constitutional rights and economic opportunities for minority groups in the post-Civil War period. The failure of the government to provide federal protection under the law to the African Americans greatly undermined the efforts of the blacks. The prematurely removal of protection left blacks to fend for themselves against a society which had not altered its racist tendencies and quickly moved to suppress the blacks political power by monopolizing control of political offices and using intimidation to give the blacks away from the polls.  This shows the decrease of democracy in the United States by the various infractions of the minimum requirements of democracy to African American citizens: all adult citizens have the right to vote in elections, all adult citizens have the right to run for public office, citizens have the right to express themselves on political matters.  With the basic refusal of naturalization and citizenship to Asian Americans the basic principles of democracy were broken.  Although we are becoming more democratic, the notions of race, class, and ethnicity prevented us from being a truly democratic society in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The United States had a long journey ahead in search for the day of perfect Democracy that one day, hopefully, would become a reality.




