The Negroization of the Chinese Stereotype in California

Abstract

In 1852 the San Francisco Daily Alta California, the principle newspaper of early California, expressed a welcome, and more importantly, an indication of future equality for newly-arriving immigrants: Quite a large number of the Celestials have arrived among us of late. . . . Scarcely a ship arrives that does not bring an increase to this worthy integer of our population. The China boys will yet vote at the polls, study at the same schools and bow at the same altar of our own countrymen.1 One year later, in 1853, after a change in editors, the Daily Alta adopted a strongly anti-Chinese editorial stand directly opposite to that taken the previous year: have a class here, however, who have most of the vices and few of the virtues of the African and they are numerous in both town and country. We allude to the Chinese. Every reason that exists against the toleration of free blacks in Illinois may be argued against that of the here.2 The two opposed positions of the Daily Alta are indicative of the ambivalent feeling concerning the during the early years of California's settlement. Although anti-Chinese feeling developed in this early era, the Civil War diverted the attention of most Californians away from the Chinese question to the larger national issue of the day. With the end of the war and an ever increasing influx of white immigrants coming into California, the initial welcome of the Daily Alta was forgotten by the late 1860s and Californians called for the exclusion of the from the state. In a matter of years, the majority of the state, originally indifferent or mildly hostile to the Chinese, had adopted a prejudiced, strongly antagonistic view of the Chinese. During the gold rush period, people were deeply influenced with the great nationalistic pride that swept across the nation: the Pacific was won; Mexico had been defeated; and gold had been discovered. Among the new settlers in California were many persons who were hostile to