Chinese Immigration to California: Welcomed Workers, Shunned Immigrants

Anthony W Baker

doi:10.32996/jhsss.2020.2.5.7

Abstract

This paper explores the complex relationship linking the collapse of the mining and railroad industries, anti-Chinese sentiment, and the passage Chinese Exclusion Act. Although difficult to tease out, the paper also explores how these immigration issues, prompted primarily by domestic concerns, were intertwined with the diplomatic relationship between the United States and China, as it evolved over the period of 1858 through 1880. this paper looks at historical newspapers written in the early Californian state in the 1850s to the 1860s to understand how changing attitudes towards Chinese immigrants affected local anti-Chinese laws and how these local attitudes shaped national laws. This paper will show that while Chinese workers were welcomed early on for providing cheap labor, overtime they would be increasingly prejudiced against and blamed for growing labor disputes between white workers and corporations. Ultimately Chinese immigration would be scapegoated as the reason for declining wages by white workers in order to pass anti-Chinese laws. The United States moved towards exclusion as a domestic policy, an apparent contradiction of its diplomatic policy of forging closer ties in an attempt to take advantage of Chinese trade.

Highlights

1 Chinese immigrants to the American West in the mid- to late-19th century aided the process of integrating these territories into the union
Difficult to tease out, the paper explores how these immigration issues, prompted primarily by domestic concerns, were intertwined with the diplomatic relationship between the United States and China, as it evolved over the period of 1858 through 1880. this paper looks at historical newspapers written in the early Californian state in the 1850s to the 1860s to understand how changing attitudes towards Chinese immigrants affected local anti-Chinese laws and how these local attitudes shaped national laws
This paper looks to explore the relationship of the collapse of the mining and railroad industries and anti-Chinese sentiment with the passage Chinese Exclusion Act, as well as the American Chinese Diplomatic relationship as it evolved over the period of 1858 through 1880 and the United States of America moved towards exclusion as a domestic policy, which contradicted American Chinese diplomatic policy which wanted closer ties in an attempt to take advantage of Chinese trade

Summary

Introduction

From 1850 until the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, Chinese laborers immigrated to the American West looking for work. In 1859, an article, entitled CHINESE IMMIGRANTS published in Sacramento Daily Union, the author makes the point that California businesses have been using the influx of Chinese labors to reduce and undermine white wages in the state, pointing to the Chinese ability to work and live on lower wages, thereby reducing the wages of the mining industry

Results

Conclusion