Final answer:
The paragraphs from the article "People were afraid to let Chinese in," support the idea that Americans were afraid of Chinese immigrants due to economic competition and racial biases, leading to the Chinese Exclusion Act and other discriminatory laws.
Step-by-step explanation:
In the article "People were afraid to let Chinese in," the supported statement in paragraphs 1 and 2 is c) Why Americans were afraid. This fear was largely driven by economic competition and racial biases. Chinese workers showed a willingness to work for lower wages than their white counterparts, leading to significant labor tensions and anti-Chinese sentiments.
This resulted in calls for a ban on Chinese immigration and the eventual passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which was the first U.S. law to explicitly bar a group of people based on their ethnicity. Furthermore, the derogatory labeling of Chinese as 'imports' rather than 'immigrants' contributed to the fear that these workers were maliciously brought in to undercut American labor.
Chinese immigration was further restricted by the Geary Act and by state laws such as California's 1913 law against Asian land ownership. Laws barring interracial marriages and segregated schools for Asian children were also put in place. Overall, the attitudes toward Asian immigrants, particularly the Chinese, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were characterized by hostility, discrimination, and legal exclusion.