Abstract
They were discriminated against, but they were unstoppable. This is the main reason why the Chinese exclusion act was passed. The Chinese came to the U.S for job opportunities in the transcontinental railroad and to make money from the California gold rush. After the gold rush ended and the railroad was complete the problems began; the white Americans believed that the Chinese were talking their jobs. They started protesting and rioting asking for a ban against the Chinese. Finally they got what they wanted and in 1882 the Chinese exclusion act was passed. The Statue of Liberty was a symbol of freedom and opportunity for all, and this was the case until President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese exclusion act. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited the entrance of Chinese into the country for ten years under penalty of imprisonment and deportation (Anonymous 2009). The Americans blamed the Chinese for unemployment because they believed that the low- paid Chinese workers were taking their jobs. (Anonymous 2010) The act was put into place to stop the economic fears of the white Americans west after the gold rush. (Bodenner 2006) The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first law to ban a specific ethnic group from immigrating to the U.S. (Wu 2016) There were two major reasons for the Chinese to come to the U.S; the first was for opportunity and the second was to escape the economic hardships in China. (Wu 2016) The Chinese were the ideal workers; they were hard working and were willing to work for less than the white Americans. (Wu 2016) They were discriminated against, but they were unstoppable. This was one of the reasons the Chinese exclusion act was set in place, the Americans blamed unemployment, and declining wages on the Chinese Workers and they started a protest against all Chinese. (Bodenner 2006) The California Gold Rush of 1849 and civil war in China caused a sudden and dramatic influx of Chinese immigrants to the American West. (Bodenner 2006) On January 24, 1848 a construction crew working near Sacramento California discovered a few gold nuggets along the riverbank of the American river. (Anonymous, 2010) Word spread and thousands of people from around the world, including the Chinese came in search of this precious metal. (Anonymous 2010) The hardworking Chinese, who accepted low wages and were willing to work under dangerous conditions, were the optimal people for the job. (Wu 2016) The business owners would hire brokers to pay for the transportation of the Chinese across the Pacific Ocean. (Bodenner 2006) The Chinese would pay off the debt with their mine earnings, and they hoped to make profit after and go back to China rich. (Bodenner 2006) The second reason was the economic hardships in China. This was what inflated the number of Chinese workers. In 1850, followers of Hung Hsiu-ch'üan, a Christian schoolmaster from the southern province of Guangdong, revolted against the Quing dynasty; this was known as the Taping Rebellion. (Feigon 2015) The rebellion turned into a war that lasted for 14 years. The war took the lives of 20 to 30 million Chinese. (Bodenner 2006) Those who survived the war faced food shortages and terrible employment opportunities. (Bodenner 2006) While this was going on in China, the U.S the economy was flourishing. Job opportunities included work in agriculture, timber, and, most important the transcontinental railroad. (Anonymous 2010) The transcontinental railroad traversed from coast to coast and was taken up by two private companies, the Union Pacific Railroad, which started in Omaha, Nebraska, and the Central Pacific railroad, which started in Sacramento, California. (Anonymous 2010) There was skepticism about whether the Chinese laborers, who averaged a height of 4'10'' and a weight of 120 pounds, would be able to handle the strenuous work, which involved 80-pound ties and 560-pound rail sections. (Bodenner 2006) But they proved their skeptics wrong; they outperformed others so that nine out of ten Central Pacific workers who lasted thorough the projects were Chinese. (Bodenner 2006) Although they played an important role in the completion of the railroad, they were paid significantly less than their white comrades for the same work. (Bodenner 2006) For example, for work on the railroad in Nevada and Utah the Chinese received $26 and they had to pay for their own boards, while the white workers got paid $35 and received a free board. (Doolittle 2015) Some forms of racism like this did surface in other parts of their lives. California imposed higher taxes and license requirements on the Chinese, and the white miners formed anticoolie clubs, clubs that discriminated against unskilled native Chinese laborers, they boycotted everything made by the Chinese. (Doolittle 2015) But, the Chinese were so highly valued by the mine companies that any efforts to oppress them never made much of a difference. (Doolittle 2015) The white protestors couldn’t get rid of them because the control was in the hands of the federal government; the discriminatory state laws and acts of violence failed to keep Chinese from entering the country. (Bodenner 2006) The official acceptance of Chinese by the federal government in America happened when the treaty of Burlingame 1868 was signed it provided the approval for movement of people between countries. (Anonymous 2003) This treaty allowed them to live in the U.S, but it did not grant them rights. Instead, they were placed in the category of “aliens ineligible to citizenship”. (Anonymous 2003) The Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 guaranteed citizenship for all persons born in the U.S but that meant to only second generation Chinese which were very few in number so the law deprived the Chinese of basic rights including the right to vote. (Anonymous 2003) Ninety percent of the Chinese immigrants that came to the U.S lived in the western states, and more than two thirds were in California. (Bodenner 2006) The Chinese were welcomed, but by the time the Gold Rush had ended and the railroad was complete the Chinese workers started looking for other jobs. (Wu 2016) Competition for jobs became cutthroat particularly after the Panic of 1873 which triggered a depression in Europe and North America. (Blanke 2010) The Chinese workers were willing to work for less than the Americans, and as a result they began taking jobs, that supposedly belonged to the Irish- Americans. (Bodenner 2006) As the job competition increased, violence against the Chinese escalated. (Bodenner 2006) Mob violence broke out. (Bodenner 2006) In October of 1871 over 500 white men entered Chinatown in San Francisco and attacked, robbed, and murdered members of the Chinese population; this became known as the Chinese massacre. (Bodenner 2006) Unemployment among the white laborers rose dramatically, it reached about 14 percent by 1876. (Bodenner 2006) Mob violence flared up again when the unemployment rate reached 20 percent. (Bodenner 2006) The unions and the anti-Chinese organizations in California became active during the 1870s, and they brought attention to this issue. (Wu 2016) In July workers in San Francisco went on a strike, they protested, rioted, burned down Chinese businesses, and attacked many Chinese bystanders. (Wu 2016) A man named Denis Kearny, an Irish American citizen, spread resentment against the Chinese; he formed the Workingmen's Party of California (WPC) and popularized the battle cry, “The Chinese must go”. (Carlsson 1995) The WPC was fighting for a ban on Chinese labor, arguing that the Chinese had decreased the wages of working white Americans. (Carlsson 1995) They claimed that it would be in interest of both business owners and Chinese workers. (Carlsson 1995) The WPC succeeded in changing the California constitution in 1879; they enacted a complete ban on Chinese employment and protected California from the Chinese. (Carlsson 1995) The WPC and organizations from the neighboring started coming together. (Carlsson 1995) This was during two election years—1878 and 1879. (Carlsson 1995) The democrats and the republicans wanted the western votes and both parties enlisted anti-Chinese policies in their platform. (Bodenner 2006) Congress passed the Fifteen Passenger Bill; it limited the number of Chinese passengers permitted on vessels arriving at U.S ports to 15. (Bodenner 2006) However this was vetoed by President Rutherford B. Hayes, he said that the law violated the unlimited immigration clause of the Burlingame Treaty. (Bodenner 2006) Then in early 1880 Hayes appointed James Angell, president of the University of Michigan, to renegotiate the Burlingame Treaty with China. (Bodenner 2006) China gave the U.S government power to regulate the immigration of Chinese laborers in the U.S. (Bodenner 2006) However, China specified that those traveling to the United States as "teachers, students, merchants, or from curiosity" and their servants, as well as Chinese workers already in the United States, should maintain the right "to go and come of their own free will and accord." (Bodenner 2006) Congress then passed another anti-Chinese bill in 1881; this was a total ban on the immigration of Chinese laborers for 20 years. (Bodenner 2006) But the president at the time, Chester A. Arthur, vetoed the bill claiming that the 20-year ban was too harsh and not "reasonable". (Bodenner 2006) After some time of debating the subject President Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act on May 6, 1882. (Bodenner 2006) Forty thousand Chinese immigrants had entered the U.S in 1881 and within a year of the Act being passed the numbers dropped to just 23. (Wu 2016) This was the first law to ban immigration based on race. (Wu 2016) The Chinese exclusion act of 1882 prohibited the immigration and naturalization of Chinese for ten years under penalty of imprisonment and deportation. (Wu 2016) The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 stopped immigration of all Chinese laborers, either skilled or unskilled, providing specific exemptions for merchants, teachers, students and officials. (Wu 2016) During the industrial revolution, immigrants from regions other than Western and Northern Europe came into the United States. (Bodenner 2006) Chinese were one of the first Asians to immigrate in significant number. (Wu 2016) Their arrival was triggered by the job opportunities that had opened up by the Gold Rush of 1849, the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad in the 1860s, and by a civil war which had broken out in China in the 1850s. (Bodenner 2006) They were great workers in the construction and mining process but after those were complete they became tough competition for the white Americans in the work place. (Wu 2016) The white Americans saw them as a threat and did everything they could to get rid of them. The Chinese exclusion act put an end to the white Americans fears and banned all immigration of Chinese into the U.S. (Bodenner 2006) References Cited "Chinese immigration act." Chinese immigration act. Accessed April 30, 2016. http://www.lehigh.edu/~ineng/VirtualAmericana/chineseimmigrationact.html. (Galante 2003) History.com Staff. "Chinese Exclusion Act." History.com. 2009. Accessed April 30, 2016. http://www.history.com/topics/chinese-exclusion-act. (Anonymous, 2009) Encyclopædia Britannica Online, Wu, Yuning. "Chinese Exclusion Act", Last modified September 4, 2015 http://www.britannica.com/topic/Chinese-Exclusion-Act. (Wu, 2016) Bodenner, Chris. “Chinese Exclusion Act.” Issues & Controversies in American History. Infobase Publishing, 20 Oct. 2006. Wed. 6 Feb. 2013. http://icah.infobaselearning.com/icahfullarticle.aspx?ID=107565 (Bodenner, 2006) "Chinese Exclusion Act." Wikipedia. Accessed April 30, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act. (Anonymous, 2010) "Chinese Massacre of 1871." Wikipedia. Accessed April 30, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_massacre_of_1871. (Anonymous, 2006) History.com Staff. "The Gold Rush of 1849." 2010. Accessed April 30, 2016. http://www.history.com/topics/gold-rush-of-1849. (Anonymous, 2010) Feigon, Lee Nathan. "Hong Xiuquan." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. May 27, 2015. Accessed April 30, 2016. http://www.britannica.com/biography/Hong-Xiuquan (Feigon, 2015) History.com Staff. "Transcontinental Railroad." History.com. 2010. Accessed April 30, 2016. http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/transcontinental-railroad. (Anonymous, 2010) Doolittle, H. Jhon. "CHINESE-AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION TO TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD." CHINESE-AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION TO TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD. October 26, 2015. Accessed April 30, 2016. http://cprr.org/Museum/Chinese.html. (Doolittle, 2015) "Burlingame Treaty." Wikipedia. March 9, 2003. Accessed April 30, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burlingame_Treaty. (Anonymous, 2003) Blanke, David. "Teaching History.org, Home of the National History Education Clearinghouse." Panic of 1873. Accessed April 30, 2016. http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/beyond-the-textbook/24579. (Blanke, 2010) Carlsson, Chris. "FoundSF." The Workingmen's Party & The Denis Kearney Agitation -. Accessed April 30, 2016. http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Workingmen’s_Party_&_The_Denis_Kearney_Agitation. (Carlsson, 1995)
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