Final answer:
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 denied citizenship to Chinese immigrants, created a sense of alienation, and stigmatized them with a second-class status by explicitly barring them based on race and class, contributing to a climate of hostility and discrimination against all Chinese in America.
Step-by-step explanation:
The correct answer to how the Chinese Exclusion Act worked to stigmatize the citizenship status of Chinese Americans is A) By denying citizenship to Chinese immigrants, creating a sense of alienation and second-class status. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States based on race and class. This act did so by barring the immigration of Chinese laborers, explicitly targeting people of Chinese descent, and thereby lodging an institutional form of racial discrimination into the fabric of American society. It denied Chinese immigrants the right to become naturalized citizens, thereby legislating an atmosphere of intolerance and classifying them perpetually as alien.
Furthermore, by labeling Chinese immigrants as 'imports' rather than 'immigrants', a conspiratorial notion was created, depicting Chinese workers as a threat to American jobs and contributing to a climate of hostility and discrimination. Even those who were born in the United States or had lived there for generations were affected as the law cast a shadow over the entire Chinese American community. This environment of exclusion marginalized Chinese Americans, placing them outside the national identity and conferring upon them a lasting mark of foreignness and second-class status.