Lunch and Learn: Connecticut Political Figures and the Chinese Exclusion Act

In this presentation, Judge Henry Cohn discusses his research on the opposition to the Chinese Exclusion Acts by two Connecticut Senators and one Massachusetts Senator.
Congress passed statutes in the late 1880’s that discriminated against Chinese immigrants. The two sitting U.S. Senators from Connecticut, Joseph Roswell Hawley and Orville Hitchcock Platt, and Massachusetts Senator George Frisbie Hoar, closely tied to Connecticut, unsuccessfully opposed passage of these statutes. The Senators’ opposition, while an initial failure in the U.S. Senate, formed the basis for the repeal of these statutes in 1943.
These Senators formed friendships with the adults and met the students from the Chinese Educational Mission, a cultural and educational exchange program headquartered in Hartford.
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