I feel like there were many reasons for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 has many factors that are contributing to why it was passed. The first being the quick population growth of Chinese immigrants from 1852 – 1880. In just 28 years, 81,000 Chinese immigrants had migrated to America after Chinese started arriving in 1848 when gold was discovered in California. In 1862, 20 years before the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed the Chinese formed the Consolidated Benevolent Association. I feel this had a part in the act because it made Americans feel like they were monopolizing and possibly staging an uprising.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, known for being one of the most racist pieces of immigration in American history, was passed due to the racial environment in California, and white union activities, and racist political campaigns by opportunistic politicians. Before it was passed, Anson Burlingame, the first American minister plenipotentiary, created a treaty, the 1868 Burlingame Treaty, which recognized free immigration between China and the United States, along with providing more opportunities and protection for American merchants and missionaries, and guaranteed favorable treatment to the recent immigrants and permanent residents of the two countries. After the Burlingame Treaty was in commission, California went through an economic recession,
Chinese immigrants experience much more hardship compared with what they contribute to the society. It seems that every immigrant needs to suffer a lot of bias and hardship in America because of cultural difference. Culture shock leads to many misunderstandings and causes conflicts. That is easy to understand. However, Chinese immigrants are treated unfairly because more complex reasons. These reasons include historical problems, Chinese-American cultural differences and competitive level (include education level and English level also the specialize skills). For Chinese immigrants, they contribute a lot of America society both in the technology and economy according to the public affairs television; however, many Chinese-Americans think they are “living in the jail” with no civil rights.(Public Affairs Television, Between Two Worlds) signal phrase
Chapter six examines the anti-Chinese sentiment with the emerging class antagonism and turmoil between white capitalists and workers. The unwelcomed arrival of Chinese immigrants brought along their own social organizations such as the huiguan, fongs, and tongs. These types of social organizations secured areas of employment and housing for Chinese immigrants in California. This social structure that was unknown to Anglos led them to also categorize Chinese on the same level as Indians by depicting them as lustful heathens whom were out to taint innocent white women. These images were also perpetuated onto Chinese women, thus, also sexualizing them as all prostitutes. The political status of Chinese immigrants were also heavily impacted as they could not serve as witnesses for one another and required a white man to vouch for their innocence or naturalization. The rising structure of capitalism brought more anti-Chinese sentiment from the white working class basis as they feared that the Chinese would monopolize their privilege of white free labor. The class nature of the anti-Chinese sentiment also generated hostility from white farmers as they also assumed that Chinese immigrants were out to take over their agricultural sector. These racialized class relations during the era of urban manufacturing reflected the racial segregation of labor that fostered white supremacy in California. The status of Chinese women also became affected as many were forced into prostitution to serve their patriarchal family. In order to protect the white working class, racial laws were created and directly targeted towards Chinese immigrants to protect their whiteness. Chapter seven explains the new threat of the arrival of Japanese immigrants in California. During the beginning of the anti-Chinese sentiment and white working-class racism, Japanese immigrants were also under the romanticized belief of
“The obstacles of the past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.”-Ralph Bloom. Many chinese immigrants fought for their future,lives,and rights.Chinese immigrants were misunderstood because of their culture,looks,clothing styles,etc. They were punished and treated wrong for things that they didn 't know was wrong.What would you do if you were a chinese immigrant, and you were being treated unfairly and bad?
The California Gold Rush was amongst one of the many attractions that America offered. However, the Chinese immigrants had many difficulties on their way to following the American Dream. An obstacle they had to overcome was the laws of their imperial monarchy of the time, the Qing dynasty of China. Their rule, which lasted from 1875 to 1908, had opposing views on the working class of China migrating to America and is what postponed immigration for many Chinese people. Those who were able to immigrate were second and third class and often came without much wealth, enduring the poor living conditions on their transportation, with small cabins and terrible food. When the Chinese arrived, they would wait for days, even months in the barracks of the immigration station for their interrogation that would allow them to gain entry into the United States. Their journey to America was rough, and there was almost no support for the immigrants. While living in America, the mass majority of Chinese immigrants were poor and experienced terrible living and working conditions. Many died from the toxic chemicals in the gold mines, and from the diseases transmitted from one worker to another. Often, supervisors of the mines would take advantage of the Chinese workers’ inexperience and would pay them low wages for dangerous
The Gold Rush supposedly inspired the largest mass movement of people in world history because of the incredibly large masses of gold being found in the West. People found thousands of dollars in gold and people of all different cultures and backgrounds moved Westwards in hopes of finding gold as well. The Gold Rush left a positive effect on American History because Americans became wealthier and more foreigners came to California which expanded diversity.
During the Gold Rush in the late 1840s, a vast amount of Chinese immigrants, about 335,000 people, proceeded to the West Coast of the United States. These immigrants faced a great deal of segregation and discrimination from the Americans. In many ways, the Chinese were in difficult situations when it came to retaining lives that they were accustomed to before attempting to live a better life in America.
The main subject of this chapter is to introduce the racial discrimination Asian-Americans suffered simply because of their skin color. The author argues in this chapter that Americans are frequently subject to assume that Asians are foreigners, having no knowledge of their past or family. A specific piece of evidence that the author uses to support his case is the example of when he went to college and was invited to dinners for foreign students, despite the fact that his family had lived in America for three generations.
Many miners passed through this community on their way to work the Gold Mines. The miners faced a reality filled with discrimination as the white miners resented their presence. When finding gold did not pan out, many Chinese immigrants moved on to building railroads, but because they were willing to work much cheaper than others they were often treated harshly for taking the jobs of whites who were trying to support their families but were not willing to work for the same pay. Economic difficulties were not the only reason that ethnic Chinese were looked down upon, the creation of ethnic enclaves including the largely populated China Town in San Francisco, created an image of the Chinese that conflicted with the American culture of the time. In these communities they kept much of their culture from China, they didn’t need to speak English and were isolated from other communities. According the U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, “…as with most immigrant communities, many Chinese settled in their own neighborhoods, and tales spread of Chinatowns as places where large numbers of Chinese men congregated to visit prostitutes, smoke opium, or gamble.” (Chinese Immigration and the Chinese Exclusion Acts) Many people found the purported behavior to be objectionable and harmful to the moral fiber of America. Many of the Chinese immigrants who worked to complete the railroad system ended up in San Francisco. Where the Chinese community was steadily growing. “The formation of an urban Chinese community and the industrial development of the city paralleled each other. In 1860, only 2,719 Chinese resided in San Francisco, representing 7.8 percent of the Chinese population in California. Ten years later, the Chinese population in the city had soared to 12,022, a 343
Annotation: In the 1850s, many Chinese immigrants moved to America because of the gold and jobs opportunities . In 1882, President Chester Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act . Which this document stated as that Chinese immigrants would be banned and looking for work for 10 years. I will use this in paper by saying everyone should be treated equal should be able to come to America to work and received a better life. Not everyone is coming to attack us or start another war .
The issue of racial bias against Middle Eastern Americans in the United States has only worsened as time has gone on. Racial profiling, harassment, and unfair treatment are only a few types of abuse that Middle Easterners have had to face on a day to day basis which has stirred up anger and irritation in American society. This is a serious problem because if people are treated unequally then we are no longer the “land of the free” and society cannot move forward if we have racism holding us back. There is also a global and political aspect to this in the sense that Middle Eastern countries would choose against being allies with us due to the amount of hatred they receive in the United States. This discrimination was at first believed to stem
In the midst of the 1850s, California society was under a strong effect of hostile to outsider’s act. It was known as the Foreign Miners Tax and the showing viably forced overpowering expense accumulation on the migrant workers. The act also demanded every foreign miner to pay $20 U.S. dollars each month. Due to the heavy amount of taxation, many Chinese miners refused to pay the $20 tax and left the States. The increasing number of Chinese miners leaving the country due to the Foreign Miner’s Tax, the act was then repealed in 1851 (Natasha Rivero, 2010). The law expressed that all immigrants who occupied with mining industry must comply with the tax law. This unfair demonstration brought about a gigantic disobedience from the foreign workers and their restriction was effective. The taxation of the foreign miners was lowered from $20 to $4 each month. Even though the act lowered the amount to $4 per month, many of the Chinese miners were only making approximately $6 a month. If they failed to pay the monthly tax, the Chinese workers were forced to give up their property and personal possessions (Natasha Rivero, 2010). The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first law that omitted a race. It was a law that was set up for a long time because of such a variety of migrants landing in the United States and on the off-chance that they so happened to leave the
At first the Chinese immigrants were accepted, during the early stages of the gold rush. Due to the fact that finding gold was not a competition during that time, however, the animosity towards foreigners’ sky-rocked when gold became harder to find towards the end of the gold rush. Animosity towards the Chinese immigrants grew rapidly as more and more Chinese immigrants poured into the United States for the job opportunities, the American did not like immigrants because the labor union endorsed the idea that the Chinese immigrants were after American jobs. Because the Chinese immigrants did not speak English they were often beaten. The immigrants were often harassed, robbed, and sometimes were killed. The Chinese immigrants were not only harassed by men in their adulthood but also young children. The immigrants could not do anything about it, because because they were not a citizen, therefore they had no rights, in addition, the Supreme Court decided that the Chinese could not give testament against an American. One of the major political results of the anti-Chinese movement was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The act was the first significant law containing immigration into the United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 suspended Chinese immigration
During the 1800s, many Chinese immigrants entered America to seek substantial economic wealth and a prosperous life. The first surge of Chinese immigration occurred in 1848 at Sutter’s Mill, California when gold was discovered. Since then, many Chinese immigrants entered the American workforce, and the Americans despised the fact that these incoming immigrants were taking “their jobs”. In the year 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress to limit the amount of Chinese Immigrants entering the country. There are many factors that contributed to the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act; however the most influential factors included the prevention of economic competition, Chinese persecution, and discrimination.