San Gabriel Valley elected officials gathered Monday to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act’s repeal and to warn against modern federal policies that target specific ethnic groups.

Signed into law in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited all immigration of Chinese laborers into the United States. The 1875 Page Act had already banned Chinese women from immigrating to the U.S., effectively isolating the Chinese people who had immigrated before then.

The exclusion act was the first and only U.S. law to ever prevent all members from an ethnic group from immigrating. Signed into law Dec. 17, 1943, amid World War II, the Magnuson Act repealed the exclusion act.

Monday’s remembrance at the Sheraton Los Angeles San Gabriel, organized by the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, brought together local elected officials who warned that past atrocities would be repeated if people did not remember them.

Via a 2012 resolution by U.S. Representative Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park, the U.S. House of Representatives formally expressed regret for the Chinese Exclusion Act and other legislation that discriminated against people of Chinese origin in the U.S.

Chu said that while the repeal is important to the Chinese American community, it has importance to minorities across the country who are being targeted by current Trump administration policies.

“It’s important to our country because we now face a president who’s promoting anti-immigrant policies, and we have to be ever-vigilant,” Chu said. “We have to make sure the American public is educated about the dangers of what could happen to our civil liberties if such an act is ever passed again.”

While it is a testament to progress that the exclusion act has been repealed longer than it was in effect, Alhambra Mayor Jeff Maloney said, the American people still have work to do.

“This issue continues to rear its head, whether it’s the suggestion that Vietnamese War refugees who have been living in this country for decades be deported, whether it’s fear-mongering and scapegoating of migrants coming from Central America, whether it’s thinly veiled attempts to ban an entire religious group from even visiting this country,” Maloney said. “There’s a lot to work to do.”

In June, Alhambra joined a national campaign to recognize Chinese-American veterans who fought in World War II.

At Monday’s remembrance, Maloney was joined by other local city officials, including San Gabriel Vice Mayor Jason Pu and council members Chin Ho Liao and Denise Menchaca, and Monterey Park Mayor Peter Chan.

In 2010, former state Assemblyman Mike Eng, who served as master of ceremonies for the remembrance, brought forward a resolution that declared Dec. 17 the Day of Inclusion to be celebrated by all immigrants.

Eng praised the community organizations in attendance Monday for their work advocating on behalf of Chinese Americans, including the Chinese American Citizens Alliance Greater San Gabriel Valley and Los Angeles chapters, the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, the Chinese American Museum, the Organization of Chinese Americans Greater Los Angeles Chapter and the San Gabriel Valley Civic Alliance.

“History is not changed because an elected official stands and says it should be changed,” Eng said. “History is changed because of hundreds, many times thousands, of unsung heroes who step up and say, ‘No more, never again.’”