Surveys have demonstrated the depth of anti-Chinese sentiment. A 2001 Gallup poll found that more than 80 percent of Americans viewed the PRC as “dangerous.” In another poll, a national telephone survey commissioned by the Committee of One Hundred and the Anti-Defamation League of 1,216 randomly selected adult Americans, close to half thought that Chinese Americans “passing secrets to the Chinese government is a problem.” Almost a third believed Chinese Americans were more loyal to the PRC than to the U.S. And in the political arena, Chinese and other Asian Americans stood out as the most unpopular candidates of all. Among those surveyed, more people felt reluctant to vote for an Asian American president than for a woman, an African American, or a Jewish American.

For the Chinese American community, these polls confirmed many of their worst fears—that their acceptance was linked to the ever-shifting relations between the United States and China rather than to their own particular behavior. It was sobering to consider that, more than a century after passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, they were still perceived by many to be strangers in their own country.

(Chang 396-397)