The Trump administration is defending the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act against charges that the law had a racist intent. The surprising defense of the 144-year-old law appears in a White House report criticizing the Smithsonian Institution. That the report would attack the Smithsonian Institution was foreordained by the executive order directing it, entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” {snip}
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In a report released on July 4, the White House Domestic Policy Council accused the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History of “ideological capture” and said it “erases our heritage.” New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan describe a more than year-long effort to compel the Smithsonian Institution to adopt the viewpoints of Donald Trump, JD Vance and other administration officials.
It began with Trump’s desire to fire the director of the National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet. According to Haberman and Swan, “It soon became clear that Mr. Trump was unhappy about a photograph of himself in the Portrait Gallery. It was awful, he would say to others. He objected strongly to the text on the wall noting his two impeachments.”
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The report defends what many historians consider the most notorious immigration restriction in American history by criticizing the “didactic” (the text or information accompanying an exhibit) for the Chinese Exclusion Act. According to the White House report, “The Many Voices, One Nation didactic entitled ‘Negotiating Inclusion’ alleges that when ‘thousands of Chinese journeyed to the American West, encouraged by the promise of gold rush opportunity’ in the 1850s, ‘their race…troubled white Americans,’ leading to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, ‘the first of many restrictive immigration laws.’ Another states, ‘White laborers considered the Chinese competition and responded with hostility.’” (Emphasis added.)
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The report on the Smithsonian Institution shows White House officials may be sensitive to criticism of the Chinese Exclusion Act because the Trump administration has adopted a number of similar policies. On Dec. 16, 2025, Trump issued a proclamation that barred immigration from 39 nations, primarily Asian and African countries. The administration also has stopped all refugees from entering the United States with the exception of white people from South Africa, a development few people would have predicted prior to Trump’s second term.
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