Chang, professor of history and humanities at Stanford University and author of Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad. “Many Chinese workers sent remittances back to their families in China, so lived fairly frugally,” says Gordon H. Racial biases meant employers paid Chinese workers less than their white peers-a disparity that caused them to be accused of undercutting their competition. The new arrivals were overwhelmingly male the discriminatory Page Act of 1875 had sharply curtailed the number of Chinese women entering the United States.Īnti-Chinese resentment was fueled by white laborers, many of whom were recent immigrants themselves. They found work digging mines, canning salmon, logging in nearby forests and laying railroad tracks. Railroads raced to connect the East and West coasts as part of America’s rapid Westward expansion.īy the 1860s, Chinese immigrants began settling in the Seattle area. The first Chinese settlers in America came in the wake of the California Gold Rush of 1849, which drew prospectors from across the globe. government issued more restrictive immigration policies that created a precedent for race-based immigration quotas. The actions were part of a brutal wave of anti-Chinese violence that rocked the American West in the second half of the 19th century, displacing more than 20,000 Chinese people between 18, there were at least 200 purges of Chinese residents in California alone. In response, the U.S. The Tacoma Riot of 1885 and Seattle Riot of 1886 drew national attention to the burgeoning coastal cities in Washington territory for their forced expulsion of their Chinese populations by angry-and largely white-mobs.
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