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Chinese Immigrants In The 19th Century

Decent Essays

Contemporary fears about immigration and globalization have direct precedents in American History. During the second half of the 19th Century, America’s West Coast faced an influx of Chinese migrants. Because of their willingness to work for low wages and their visible cultural differences, the Chinese were hated wherever they went. In the small coal mining town of Rock Ridge, Wyoming, these prevalent racist attitudes boiled over into an act of extreme violence in 1885. Tensions between whites and Chinese had been building for years before the incident, with the 1875 hiring of Chinese laborers to break a white strike in the coal mines being especially inflammatory. On September 2nd, 1885, a dispute between Chinese and White miners led to

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