The History Lessons of Xenophobia

Donald Trump is right about one thing. Calls for banning racial or ethnic groups from the country are nothing new. Imagine a travel and immigration ban against immigrants from the Arabian Peninsula to Indonesia, covering much of the Muslim World -- all in the interests of the health of the country and national security. That’s exactly what happened in the decades after Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, back in 1882. Jack Tchen is author of Yellow Peril? An Archive of Anti-Asian Fear. He’s a professor at NYU and founder of the Museum of Chinese in America.