Excerpt from McCreary Act of 1893

Background: During the period of Chinese exclusion (1882–1943), Chinese merchants maintained the right of free travel and could pass these privileges to spouses and children, while Chinese laborers enjoyed none of those benefits. However, “merchant” and “laborer” were not professions, classes, or industries to which some individuals naturally belonged, but inventions of American policymakers. More importantly, their definitions shifted over the years. The McCreary Act of 1893 was a significant piece of legislation because it expanded the grounds for exclusion as a laborer while simultaneously raising the qualifications for merchant. The law brought into question the legal status of all Chinese business owners (restaurateurs included).

Sec. 2. The words “laborer” or “laborers,” wherever used in this act…shall be constructed to mean both skilled and unskilled manual laborers, including Chinese employed in mining, fishing, huckstering, peddling, laundrymen, or those engaged in taking, drying, or otherwise preserving shell or other fish for home consumption or exportation….A merchant is a person engaged in buying and selling merchandise, at a fixed place of business, which business is conducted in his name, and who during the time he claims to be engaged as a merchant, does not engage in the performance of any manual labor, except such as is necessary in the conduct of his business as a merchant.  Where an application is made by a Chinaman for entrance into the United States on the ground that he was formerly engaged in this country as a merchant, he shall establish by the testimony of two credible witnesses other than Chinese the fact that he conducted such business as hereinbefore defined for at least one year before his departure from the United States, and that during such year he was not engaged in the performance of any manual labor, except such as was necessary in the conduct of his business as such merchant, and in default of such proof shall be refused landing.

Source: Act of November 3, 1893 (McCreary Act), 28 Stat. 7 § Ch. 14, https://pclha.cvlcollections.org/items/show/1962).