ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Asiatic Exclusion League

Okay, so imagine that you and your friends are playing a game of tag. But then, someone says that only certain people can play the game and everyone else has to go home. That's kind of what the Asiatic Exclusion League was all about, except it wasn't a game and it was about real people and not just a friendly game of tag.

You know how we all look different, with different skin colors and features? Well, back in the old days, some people thought that if you looked a certain way, you were better than others. That's called racism, and it's not nice at all. The Asiatic Exclusion League was a group of people who believed that only certain people should be allowed to live in America, and that generally meant that they didn't want anyone from Asia (like China or Japan) to come over.

They thought that people from Asia were different and that they couldn't fit in with American society, even though many Asians had been living in America for a long time. They were afraid that Asians were taking away jobs from Americans and that they were a threat to America's security. So, they came up with laws to make it harder for Asians to come to America and to make things more difficult for those who were already here.

It's important to remember that this kind of thinking is not okay. We should all be treated the same and given the same opportunities, no matter where we come from or what we look like. It's important to be kind to others and to never exclude someone just because they're different.