Few Japanese immigrated to the United States until the late nineteenth century. The increase in immigration resulted largely from two factors: worsening conditions in Japan and the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 in the United States, which created an economic gap to fill. Seeking a better life, Japanese immigrated in greater numbers to the United States, and for most of the nineteenth century they were discriminated against less than the Chinese. White Americans viewed Chinese immigrants as “backward” and viewed Japanese immigrants as more “civilized” and embodying more American ideals than Chinese immigrants. Prior to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Page Act of 1875, which prohibited the entry of Asian women for “lewd and immoral purposes,” was largely used to prevent the immigration of Chinese women, particularly those traveling alone. As Chinese women, subject to humiliating interrogations by immigration officials, stopped even trying to immigrate, Japanese women began to do so in significant numbers with men. They worked alongside them in the field and, as this excerpt shows, also had the extra labor of housework.