Throwing Down the ladder by which they Rose Quizlet

During this time of intense public debate on immigration, SPICE has partnered with PBS and the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) to encourage teachers to share the American Experience film, The Chinese Exclusion Act, with students. Teachers should be advised that the film contains language that some viewers may find objectionable, so we advise that they preview the film before deciding whether or not to use it with their students. The Chinese Exclusion Act was directed by Ric Burns and Li-Shin Yu and a description of the film from PBS follows:

Examine the origin, history, and impact of the 1882 law that made it illegal for Chinese workers to come to America and for Chinese nationals already here ever to become U.S. citizens. The first in a long line of acts targeting the Chinese for exclusion, it remained in force for more than 60 years.

Despite its passage 138 years ago and its repeal in 1943, the Chinese Exclusion Act has been referenced in numerous recent articles that have focused on rising anti-Asian sentiment—including violence against Asian Americans—during the coronavirus pandemic. The Chinese Exclusion Act as well as the internment of Japanese Americans have been referenced as examples of federal acts directed at Asian immigrants and Asian Americans in U.S. history. Given these recent references, the film can provide students with an overview of the Chinese Exclusion Act as they try to better understand the news. CAAM Executive Director Stephen Gong feels that many of the lessons from the film are relevant to the United States today. He stated, “We are thrilled to have partnered with Curriculum Specialist Waka Brown and the SPICE program at Stanford on the Teacher’s Guide to The Chinese Exclusion Act. This standards-compliant and comprehensive guide will help ensure that the important lessons of the Exclusion Act will become a regular part of secondary curriculum for generations to come.”

In order to help teachers use the film in their classrooms, SPICE partnered with CAAM to develop a teacher’s guide for the film. PBS LearningMedia recently posted the teacher’s guide for teacher use. Both the film and teacher’s guide are offered at no charge.

SPICE Curriculum Specialist Waka Brown, who wrote the teacher’s guide, noted that the guide is designed to meet certain national history, social studies, geography, and common core standards for high school. Brown also feels that the film is ideal for courses at the collegiate level in areas like ethnic studies, U.S. history, Asian studies, law, and political science. Brown decided to focus the activities in the guide around the following essential questions.

• What factors led to increased immigration from China to the United States?
• How did the Chinese adapt to life in the United States that sometimes included hostility directed at them?
• How did Chinese immigration to the United States intensify ethnic and cultural conflict and complicate the forging of a national identity?
• What role did new laws and the federal judiciary play in instituting racial inequality and in disfranchising various racial groups such as the Chinese?
• What factors led to immigration restrictions of the Chinese and ultimately exclusion?
• What arguments and methods did Chinese in the United States use to acquire equal rights and opportunities guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution?
• How have ideals and institutions of freedom, equality, justice, and citizenship in the United States changed over time and from one community to another?

This may be an opportune time to have students consider these questions not only in the context of the Chinese American experience in the 19th century and today, but also to have students discuss the relevance of the questions to other groups who have immigrated to the United States and continue to do so today.

SPICE would like to express its appreciation to Adrian Arima and Monica Yeung Arima for funding the development of the teacher’s guide.

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Nast is most famous for his 160 political cartoons attacking the criminal characteristics of Boss Tweed, a politician notable for controlling New York’s corrupt Democratic political organization, Tammany Hall.

The modern image of Santa Claus and the elephant representing the Republican party were Nast creations. Nast’s work represents the final maturation of the political cartoon into the form that we are familiar with today.

Political cartoons of this era were mostly published in magazines such as Harper’s Weekly, Puck, Judge, and more – although many were also published in newspapers.

Click on each image to enlarge.

 The Great Republican Reform Party
Louis Maurer, 1856, for Currier and Ives, New York, New York

The Republican Party of the mid-nineteenth century was composed of a wide array of reformers and disparate groups. This cartoon mocks the Republicans by lampooning “typical” Republicans who are depicted here calling on their candidate for the 1856 United States presidential election, John C. Frémont.

From left to right, these “typical” Republicans are an obnoxious prohibitionist, a radical feminist, a squalid Socialist, a homely free love advocate, a Catholic, and a racist black stereotype. They face Frémont who says, “You shall all have what you desire,” including “the Maine Law,” which refers to the first prohibition law in the United States enacted by the state of Maine.

The Art of Inspiring Courage
 Frank Leslie, 1863, for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, New York, New York

This cartoon sardonically depicts how family members can inspire or pressure their husbands, sons, or brothers to enlist in the Union Army during the Civil War.

The Copperhead Party – In Favor of a Vigorous Prosecution of Peace!
 Artist unknown, 1863, for Harper’s Weekly, New York, New York

Columbia, a female personification of the United States, fends off “the Copperhead Party,” or the Northern Democrats who opposed the Civil War and supported peace with the South, depicted as snakes with human heads. The Copperheads’ “vigorous prosecution of peace” is denounced in this cartoon as peace only at the expense of the Union.  

Throwing Down the Ladder by Which They Rose
Thomas Nast, 1870, for Harper’s Weekly, New York, New York

This cartoon depicts anti-immigrant Americans, under the banner of the “Know-Nothing Party,” a nineteenth-century nativist political party, throwing down the ladder “by which they rose” in an attempt to deny Chinese immigrants entry into the United States. The hypocrisy of the descendants of immigrants denying citizenship to new Chinese immigrants is on full display in this biting political cartoon.

Third Term Panic
Thomas Nast, 1874, for Harper’s Weekly, New York, New York

Cartoonist Thomas Nast featured an elephant for the first time in 1874 to represent the Republican vote. He rendered the animal, unsure of its weight, plodding through planks representing its party platform. The animals in this cartoon, including the Republican elephant, flee in terror from a donkey, representing the Democratic party, disguised under lion’s skin and wearing a collar that says “N.Y. Herald.” The New York Herald was a newspaper critical of the Republican party.

The Union as it Was
Thomas Nast, 1874, for Harper’s Weekly, New York, New York

A member of the Ku Klux Klan and a member of the White League shake hands atop a skull and crossbones. It rests above a black woman and man huddled over their dead child. In the background, a schoolhouse burns, and an African American is lynched. This cartoon is a chilling indictment of white resistance to Reconstruction and a frank depiction of the condition of formerly enslaved people in the South during the years after the Civil War.

The Tournament of Today
F. Graetz, 1883, for Puck Magazine, New York, New York

One of the defining tensions of the late nineteenth century was between labor and industry. This cartoon depicts the forces of monopolizing capitalism jousting against the forces of organized labor. Depictions of captains of industry watch the tournament on the left while a crowd of anonymous workers watches on the right. 

To Begin With, I’ll Paint the Town Red
Grant Hamilton, 1885, for Judge Magazine, New York, New York

The Devil, wearing a belt that says “Democracy” and holding a bucket of red paint labeled “Bourbon Principles,” perhaps representing blood, stands above Washington D.C. Although originally a nationwide movement, the term “Bourbon Democrat ” eventually became a moniker for Reconstruction-era Democrats, many of them Confederate veterans, who came back to power after the overthrow of Reconstruction. The Bourbon Democrats implemented new measures to ensure white supremacy and used both democratic and violent methods to gain power. 

Another Shotgun Wedding, With Neither Party Willing
Charles Jay Taylor, 1897, for Puck Magazine, New York, New York

This cartoon depicts a shotgun wedding between Uncle Sam and a young woman labeled “Hawaii.” A cartoon of former Confederate general, Ku Klux Klan leader, and US senator John Tyler Morgan forces the marriage with a shotgun. Morgan was an ardent expansionist who was also a major proponent of Jim Crow laws, racial segregation, and the annexation of Hawaii. Then-president William McKinley sanctifies the marriage without a Bible, but rather a book entitled “Annexation Policy.”

The Hyphenated American
J.S. Pughe, 1899, for Puck Magazine, New York, New York

This anti-immigrant cartoon questions the wisdom of letting so-called “hyphenated Americans,” or those that use a hyphen between their original ethnicity and their newfound citizenship (i.e. Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, etc.), vote. Many people, including Theodore Roosevelt, demanded “100% Americanism,” and were skeptical of the loyalty of “hyphenated Americans.”