What Were Chinese Workers Move To The United States During The California Gold Rush?

Many Chinese workers made their way to the United States around 1848 during the California Gold Rush. By 1880, there was approximately seventy-five thousand newcomers in the Golden State which was nine percent of the state’s total population. These numbers increased because of mining and the hiring of large labor forces to conduct work on the Transcontinental Railroad across the West. Employers viewed the Chinese as “cheap labor”, and for this reason, Americans welcomed them (Kennedy and Cohen 500). These Chinese workers, composed of mostly men, came from a background of poverty and turmoil in their homeland. After the gold was becoming harder to find and competition increased, about half of the Chinese who came to America, returned to their
They worked the lowliest of jobs as “cooks, laundrymen, or domestic servants” (497). Many of the Americans complained that the Chinese were taking their jobs, which was true because they worked for less than the white man. The Chinese were also making themselves at home wherever economic opportunities presented, and they also came with their native attitudes. They created Chinatowns in “cities, railroad towns, and farming villages” (500). They had formed groups and clubs among their own people and found safety from violence and prejudice society. This then spurred into the creation of “tongs” which were secret societies that alienated from traditional-Chinese and American society. Many anti-Chinese groups were formed. The Kearneyites were a group of followers of Denis Kearney. They formed a protesting group for many issues, and one of the issues were Chinese laborers. This group in particular terrorized, tortured, and murdered the Chinese to make a point (498). Most Americans and groups like these saw Chinese laborers as menaces and as a whole, a catastrophe to
Families were torn apart because the Act also applied to those who had already settled on America’s soil. “Any Chinese who left the United States had to obtain certifications for reentry, and the Act made Chinese immigrants permanent aliens by excluding them from U.S. citizenship” (“Exclusion”). Men had little chance of reuniting with wives from their homeland or starting families in their new homes. It left them with the choice of staying for work or seeing their families again. The Act put a halt on all Chinese growing communities. In result, we do not have a large Chinese population in the United States. Another problem was that through this Act, America was hurting ties and straining our relationship with China. Their government was insulted by the strict Act. Adding to that, as the years went by the laws only became stricter and it made reentry to the United States more impossible. There was a time when merchants began an Anti-American boycott, but the Chinese government suppressed