Asian exclusion has always been part of U.S. society: scholar

NEW YORK, April 23 (Xinhua) -- Racism has always been part of the Asian American experience, Mae Ngai, Asian American Studies and history professor at Columbia University, has said in an article published on The Atlantic.

"If we don't understand the history of Asian exclusion, we cannot understand the racist hatred of the present," Ngai said Wednesday in the American magazine.

In the late 19th century, white Americans passed a series of laws to exclude Chinese people from immigration and citizenship, while facing the prospect that Chinese and other Asians might become a significant portion of the U.S. population, the article said.

Exclusion soon extended to all Asians and remained in the U.S. law until 1952, and its rationale -- that Asians pose a racial danger to American society -- has endured in our politics and culture till present, she said.