Arrival in the United States

The California gold rush (1848-1855) was one of the first events that attracted Chinese immigrants to the United States. China received word of the gold rush in 1849 and within two years 25,000 people had emigrated to America to try their hand at mining.[1] Once in the United States, other job opportunities arose, causing some to stay longer in order to make a living. One of the earliest opportunities was agricultural labor on Southern plantations after the Civil War.[2] A second was working for the Union Pacific laying the track for the transcontinental railroad in the mid-1860s.[3] Chinese laborers worked in farming, fishing and manufacturing.[4] They often took jobs that white Americans were averse to, such as laundry and domestic services.[5]

Californians, Inc. View of San Francisco's Chinatown, 1862-1963 (New York Public Library Digital Collections)

While early Chinese immigrants to America were welcomed, they were still unable to naturalize as a result of the United States Nationality Act of 1790 and the Burlingame Treaty.^[6] By the 1880s, Chinese immigrants were located throughout the United States in both urban and rural communities. Large urban communities came to be known as “Chinatowns.” These communities resembled both the village and kinship groups that had been present in China.^[7] Despite continuing efforts to assimilate, immigrants from China were increasingly subject to animosity, not only from white Americans but also from European immigrants and the recently emancipated black population.^[8] Available labor was the main contention. The largest anti-Chinese group was the Irish Roman Catholic population who had immigrated to the United States due to the Potato Famine in 1845 C.E.^[9] Chinese labor was used widely as a threat to enact domination over all laboring populations.^[10] Chinese laborers quickly went from being the “model immigrant” to one of the most resented groups of people in the United States.