Immigration, Exclusion, and Taxation: Anti-Chinese Legislation in Gold Rush California

Abstract

Historical scholarship on the politics of nineteenth-century Chinese immigration emphasizes the interests of labor and management in the genesis of congressional legislation in 1882 that limited Chinese immigration into the United States. This article examines early state attempts at the exclusion of Chinese workers after the first major wave of Chinese immigration during the California Gold Rush. Opposition to exclusion occurred in California in the early 1850s because Chinese immigrants were important taxpayers when both the state and localities were experiencing major fiscal difficulties. State attempts to legislate exclusion were successful only after financial conditions improved in the late 1850s.