The National Council of Chinese Americans is calling on President Obama to apologize for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. reports the China Daily.
It was the first law in the United States to ban an entire race of people and it wasn’t repealed until 1943, but it wasn’t until recently that both houses of congress formally issued an apology to the Chinese American community.
“Only the president has not closed this shameful chapter in American history with an apology,” reads a petition on the White House’s We the People website.
The President must formally respond to the petition if it can reach 100,000 signatures by April 20. Right now it is well short at 2777 as of Tuesday night.
“It used to be 25,000, which is what we thought we would need, but the White House increased the threshold to be 100,000 signatures now,” said Xue Haipei. president of the council.
You can read more about this effort in the China Daily.