The cause of anti-Chinese sentiment both in Nevada and nationally was largely due to labor-competition between Chinese and non-Chinese workers. When exploring the Anti-Chinese Movement during the late 19th century in Nevada it is important to understand various aspects of both the Chinese who immigrated to Nevada, and also the people who opposed their existence in the United States and were active in the Anti-Chinese movement. Why did the Chinese immigrate to Nevada? What type of work did they do? What brought on the Anti-Chinese movement against the Chinese? What was the movement like on local and national levels? How did the movement impact laws both nationally and locally? This website attempts to explore these various questions relating …show more content…
At one point it was estimated that 50 to 75 percent of the work force in Northern Nevada were Chinese. 1 The anti-Chinese movement and anti-Chinese sentiment were both burgeoning by 1859 in the Comstock area of Nevada. Fears of Chinese labor competition in Virginia City and Gold Hill Nevada eventually led to the Chinese being prohibited from mining, forcing them to find other jobs. 2 Prior to being barred from working in mines, the Chinese found themselves fearing for their safety. Chinese miners worked together in groups in order to protect one another from violence that resulted from anti-Chinese sentiment. 3 As the Chinese were forced into other means of employment beyond mining, they were seen as threatening an even greater variety of jobs held by others who sought to profit from the mining …show more content…
In Reno, Chinatown sat on property that was deemed valuable for it’s location, supporters of the Anti-Chinese movement attempted to take over the land. In 1908, Reno’s Chinatown was burnt to the ground after being declared a health hazard. Over 160 Chinese were left homeless as a result of the destruction of their homes.3 Also there was an uprising in Tonopah on September 2, 1903, out of fears that a railroad would connect Tonopah to other cities, potentially causing in influx of Chinese to the town. The Chinese already settled in the local Chinatown were chased out by Union officers.
The Chinese laborers were signed to five-year contracts, after those five years around half returned to China while the other half stayed, creating Honolulu’s Chinatown. The neighborhood quickly grew with around 6,000 people occupying it. But in 1886 a fire broke out and destroyed eight blocks of Chinatown. The government responded to this fire by putting building restrictions, sadly none of those were enforced causing more rickety buildings to be built. In 1900 Chinatown became quarantined thanks to the Black Death. An answer to this solution was “sanitary fires” to try to prevent further spread of the disease.
The growth of Chinese jobs in the California labor market did not stop there. Because of the hard times, employers found it especially attractive that the Chinese workers would work for long hours with low pay. Huge losses hit California in 1876 with a drought; this led to unemployment across the coast including for the Chinese. Many white investors, however, used the Chinese as scapegoats for this statewide depression, fueling the anti-Chinese fire and leading to more hostility towards Chinese workers. The firsthand account of Lee Chew, a Chinese immigrant to America in the early 1880s, shows the disparities between the white man’s perception of Chinese laborers and reality as well as the hostility that arose as a result. When Lee first arrived in America, he started working as a housekeeper for a family in California, being paid $3.50 a week and being able to keep 50 cents afterwards. For Lee and other Chinese immigrants, they believed the hostility arose from jealousy in the labor market, “because he [Chinese worker] is a more faithful worker than one of their people, [and they] have raised such a great outcry about Chinese cheap labor that they have shut him [Chinese worker] out of working on farms or in factories or building railroads or making streets or digging sewers.” Lee’s testimony shows the common ripple effects of the working restrictions white men imposed on the Chinese immigrants looking for jobs. This resulted in Chinese
During WWII and around that time period things got pretty heated towards different races, Chinese taxi drivers were bashed and when they would be selling their goods at markets to get money to even survive they would
In the mid 19th century, America was viewed as a hotspot for freedom and wealth. When the noise of the gold rush flooded the world, immigrants started to see America more appetizing than ever. The Chinese saw America as a place to have a fresh start and as a place of refuge because of it’s generosity, so they immigrated to the west in great numbers. There was a large Chinese population in Virginia and all along the Pacific coast. Writers Mark Twain and Maxine Hong Kingston both wrote in great detail about the Chinese Immigrants. They went into detail about the immigrants and how they came over and why. Although Twain and Kingston both wrote about the immigrants in a positive light, Twain was sympathetic of the immigrants and Kingston focused more on their image and her ancestors.
A Chinese immigration political cartoon by Thomas Nast from an 1871 Harper’s Weekly magazine, displays criticisms of Chinese immigrants to the US on a wall (Doc. B). These complaints include, “They are dishonest and false, vicious, immoral, and heathenish”, and, “Coolie, slave, pauper, rat-eater.” These harsh comments affected the image of the Chinese. Americans made the immigrants appear inhumane and cold-hearted. Because the immigrants were stereotyped to the point they were called the “lowest and vilest of the human race,” Americans were influenced to pass the Chinese Exclusion
Once the Chang family moved into Los Angeles and had their herbalist shop and asparagus farm under way, they realized the need for more laborers. In order to support their wives and kids with groceries, clothing, and education, the Chang’s needed to find the cheapest labor possible while still establishing the farm as a business that could support their income. The cheapest laborers were relatives, and they were for the most part thankful to come and work for Yitang, even if it was not their ideal working situation. One frustration Sam expressed in the book that may correlate to the continuing poor treatment and vision of the Chinese, is that within the Chinese workforce, most hard-working laborers in the railroad, farming, mining, and
To make it worse, the Chinese’s exotic culture, language, and dress, surprised many Americans, and at that time period, to be different was considered bad. They were given dangerous and lowlife jobs even the hard working Irish didn’t want. The building of the transcontinental railroad required the use of explosives to carve a way through the Rocky Mountains and this job fell to the Chinese. Thousands of Chinese lives were lost. Another job was the laundry shops.
“Know nothing” Movement vs. Anti-Chinese campaign Both the Anti-bellum nativist movement and the Anti-Chinese movement post-Civil War shared the concept “anti-immigrants,” and the fear that the foreigners would threaten American society’s well-being as a republican society and an ideally “white” society. Religiously, the United States was predominantly a protestant nation and had a long tradition of anti-Catholicism. Racially, and lots of native-born American “whites” recognized the Anglo-Saxon whites as the truly “white” race, and placed every other “race” in an inferior place. Although the targets of the Know Nothings were primarily European Catholic immigrants, whereas the Anti-Chinese nativists targeted exclusively Chinese, both movements
In 1879 an anti-Chinese play was created by Henry Grimm; the point of the document was the problem of Chinese people taking over American jobs, this was written in San Francisco, CA. In 1879 there was an anti-Chinese sentiment, the railroad was completed, and a high number act of violence against the Chinese. The document targets the government figures and the America public. This document has a bias towards an argument against Chinese and the
Alien in their language, clothing, appearance, and social customs, the Chinese were rejected and harassed by every other nationality on the goldfields. The issue was not that they were not accepted, it was that they refused to be accepted. Only a small minority of the Chinese prospectors chose to adopt a western style of dress and way of life. They worked much harder and more efficiently than other prospectors did, a fact that the latter party resented. All this resulted in many racially fuelled riots and fights breaking out all over the country. Even people associated with Chinese prospectors were persecuted and mistreated.
Immigration was a crucial aspect of the Gilded Age although it brought many issues to the USA. The large influx of Chinese brought out America’s racist views and caused the economy to be affected negatively. To begin with in the California gold rush, the large number of Chinese were blamed for taking all the gold and they were forcefully relocated to the city to work labor jobs. This large growth of laborers caused businesses to lower their average wages and non-immigrant Americans were unable to find jobs. Ones that did already have jobs were angered by the lower wages. Since the economy in the 1870s was in decline, Anti-Chinese groups, such as the Supreme Order of Caucasians, formed to protest against Chinese immigrants all across USA. Labor
When gold was discovered in California in 1848, a shortage of labor for the new mining industry prompted mine operators to look to China for source of workers. Inexpensive transportation across the ocean, a willingness to tackle dangerous jobs for low wages, and a strong work ethic made the Chinese attractive as workers. 95% of the Chinese workers were men. Business owners paid transportation fees for the Chinese workers and later pay back the debt from their
In 1849, an inundation of Chinese immigrants came to the United States to take part in the California gold rush. Relations between the Chinese and Americans started off neutral, but soon conflicts arose. White workers saw Chinese as a threat to their status and tried to solve this issue by passing the Chinese Exclusion Act; this severely limited the number of Chinese allowed to immigrate into the country at the time. Although this compromise satisfied the white protests, it only lead to more conflicts with how the Chinese were treated during immigration. These conflicts would not be resolved for another 61 years.
When thousands of Chinese migrated to California after the gold rush the presence caused concern and debate from other Californians. This discussion, popularly called the “Chinese Question,” featured in many of the contemporary accounts of the time. In the American Memory Project’s “California: As I Saw It” online collection, which preserves books written in California from 1849-1900, this topic is debated, especially in conjunction with the Chinese Exclusion Act. The nine authors selected offer varying analyses on Chinese discrimination and this culminating act. Some give racist explanations, but the majority point towards the perceived economic competition between
Sui Sin Far’s short story, “In the Land of the Free” touches on the reality of being a Chinese immigrant in late-19th century America. The story revolves around a Chinese couple. The husband is ready for his wife, Lae Choo, to arrive from China with their new son, later named Kim. However, due to policies on immigration, the American government was forced to take possession of the child due to a lack of paperwork. However, Far’s short-story has a deeper meaning than just focusing on unfair immigration policies. She takes advantage of the story’s ending to symbolize a rejection of immigrant culture, most especially Chinese immigrant culture, by taking advantage of Kim’s change in behaviors, appearance, and dialect.