Asiatic Exclusion League
The Asiatic Exclusion League (often abbreviated AEL) was an organization formed in the early 20th century in the United States and Canada that aimed to prevent immigration of people of Asian origin. United States In May 1905, a mass meeting was held in San Francisco, California to launch the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League. Among those attending the first meeting were labor leaders and European immigrants, Patrick Henry McCarthy of the Building Trades Council of San Francisco, Andrew Furuseth, and Walter McCarthy of the International Seamen's Union. Following the first meeting, the San Francisco Chronicle published a picture of laborers who collected at the meeting saying: "Some present owned their own little homes; while a majority know what it is to sit with the good wife of an evening, figure on approaching rent day and make up the cash on hand to see if there is enough to carry the family over to the next day." The Chronicle also mentioned of resilience coming from the men attending the meeting, angrily ranting against the foreign men who were preventing them from owning homes and achieving a middle class life. In December 1907, the organization was renamed the Asiatic Exclusion League to