Chinese immigrants have made significant contributions in America after the country was developing and recovering from the Civil War. They migrated to United States in the early 1800s and filled in the hard and long laboring jobs. They were also the essential and most important group of immigrants for constructing the railroads in the West. As the economy of United States become more industrial and successful, the numbers of Chinese immigrants and workers also increased. A number of them became entrepreneurs establishing factories and farms, creating many more jobs and contributing a positive influence to the economy of America. Furthermore, their population have grown more than any other immigrant groups during the late 1800s. As their population grow, so did the power of anti-Chinese beliefs among the workers in the American industries. This has caused the legislation to reduce the coming of Chinese working immigrants to the United States which also infuriated the relationships between United States and China.
During the 1850s, many Chinese workers traveled and relocated in the United States due to the great news of the Gold Rush. Most of them were inexperienced male workers that seek for a better life for themselves and families back at home. At first, they mined for gold and worked in dangerous gold mines, but had other harsh and similar opinions such as agricultural jobs and factory jobs. Due to their hard working attitudes, they were willing to take low-wage jobs that
Unlike what were imagined by many immigrants, although American was ideally a potential land with many potential and promises of freedom and a good life can be compensate for hard-work, the country actually did not treated all of the immigrants fairly. The descendants of the first generation immigrants viewed newcomers as a competitive in the work field, and grow even stronger discrimination feel toward them especially for those who look physically different like the Chinese and the Japanese. The Chinese were especially being heavily discriminated by the American society, there were many big and small acts and agreements passed by the government to target the Chinese such as: the Chinese Exclusion Act and Angle Island to eliminate the Chinese immigrants, the China town were built to keep Chinese away from interacting with the White community, and the many different Agreements to prevent Chinese labor in a different working fields. . One of the evidence that the Chinese were treated badly is the People v Hall 1854, when a why men were charged not guilty after he killed a Chinese because
The main reason Chinese immigrants came to America after Civil War was for work. As a
This lithograph depicts a common camp scene at the mines in California. The Gold Rush drew thousands of Chinese workers to America. Besides fleeing from poverty and bad political situations in their home country, the one common goal was to reach economic wealth. But as much as they were searching for a better life, most of the Chinese immigrants did not intend to stay in the country permanently (Daniels 11).
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
Economically, they filled a significant need for cheap labor in booming American industries. The large numbers of immigrants helped keep labor cost down for Big Business and different groups were often put against each other in competition for the cheapest workers. Politically, different immigrant groups became active members of various labor organizations and unions, pushing to change pro-business laws and establish regulations governing working conditions and wages. And socially, American culture as it is known now was formed by this influx of immigrants. People from all over the planet brought with them not only their labor but also their cultures, helping to contribute to the mosaic that is the American way of life. These immigrants, as shown by the prejudice and discrimination directed towards them, were not always welcome. In economic hard times, immigrants were blamed for job shortages and family hardships, used as scapegoats for larger problems. Nativist movements were directed against the Chinese, Japanese, Italians, and others, especially during the 1880s and 90s. As evidenced by the Chinese Exclusion Act and later legislation that limited immigration from Japan and other regions, this anti-immigrant sentiment went as high up as the nation's capital. This history was simply a repeat of the nativism and hatred directed against the Irish and Germans of the 1840s and 1850s and is similar to that experienced in America today by immigrants from Mexico and Latin America. In the area of immigration, history repeats
When they arrived in America most of the Chinese immigrants moved west. Most of the Chinese immigrants moved west because they wanted to get jobs in rural areas and build homes for their families. A lot of Chinese immigrants got jobs working on building railroads. The Chinese immigrants were very good at this job, because they got paid very low wages, and that affected the pay rates of white Americans, European immigrants, and Russian immigrants. In the 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. This act stated that Chinese laborers could not enter the country, because chinese immigrants accepted low wages, and also affected the pay rates of others. However Immigrants from Italy and Russia did not have to go through this. They also had an easier time getting jobs because of
Furthermore, there were many opportunities that the U.S itself presented to Chinese immigrants that were very desirable. For example the United States presented different variety of jobs. Such as Chinese gold miners, this was very exquisitely beneficial to them, because most of the Chinese’s reason for migrating to the United State was because at that time gold was discovered their. The Chinese did not only mind for gold other jobs were also included like, cooks, storekeepers, launderers, railroad workers, and household servants. And the two main jobs that you can find the most variety of numbers of Chinese were miners and railroad workers. In fact of the railroad jobs, for them it was a decent paying job. It was a pretty good amount of number of Chinese immigrants that were railroad workers; it was approximately ten thousand of them. And as I stated before the pay was pretty decent, the average railroad payroll for Chinese immigrants was about thirty five dollars a month. But their pay check would soon decrease during the day. Because the cost of food was about fifteen to eighteen dollars, so basically a Chinese railroad worker would make twenty dollars a month. Even though through the good payments the two main well paying jobs the Chinese had were very dangerous in many conditions. For instance, when they usually work in mines
Many immigrants came into the United States during the nineteenth century; some of them being Chinese. They came here through Angel Island to find better lives than in China, but it did not work out that way for most. These people faced much discrimination in this new country, such as working cheap jobs and being treated unfairly, but eventually they began trying to conquer these unfair acts towards them.
The American Dream of success and happiness during the Gold Rush started to fade away for the Chinese immigrants as striking rich overnight was not easy as they thought. The land of gold did not welcome them on account of the white men excluding them. Chinese men were unaccompanied and abandoned in a dissimilar area than what they were accustomed to, yet alone did not have any communication with their families and relatives. Nevertheless, these complications that they encountered did not stop the Chinese to pursuing their dream. The Chinese were very passionate workers, even if it was arduous to work as a miner. They found alternative approaches on their burdensome lifestyle, such as constructing railroads, being laundrymen, and becoming servants for the rich ( ).These Chinese men experienced abundant ways of living even if it was very difficult for them just so they can live and provide for their families. They had life threatening jobs such
In the decades following the Civil War, the United States emerged as an industrial giant. Chinese factory workers- Some immigrants accepted jobs at factories because they had skills that were useful to industry developers and factory owners. Most joined factories because they needed money for food and necessities as they settled into their new lives in
The Chinese Exclusion Act was established in 1882, in which the first time United States prevent a group of immigrants with nationality (Lee 4), marked United States’ from welcoming nation to an enclosed and discriminative nation, has monumental impact on each Chinese immigrants and culture of the entire American Chinese community (6). The poor conditions and lack of opportunities in the 19th century China and the Chinese’s hope of accumulating wealth to support their families in China fostered the huge influx of Chinese immigrants to United States. The discovery of gold in California also fuelled many Chinese’s dream of fast wealth (112). Due to the need for mass labour stemming from industrialization and high productivity of Chinese labours, employers would enthusiastically hire Chinese labour, which in turn sparked the increasing competition with the local workers and a growing anti-Chinese sentiment (114).
While thousands of European immigrants came into the United States on the East Coast, Chinese immigrants arrived on the West coast in smaller numbers. Approximately 200,00 Chinese immigrants arrived between 1851-1883. Beginning in 1910, Chinese immigrants entered the United States through the Angel Island Immigration Station, where they might be detained in barracks for weeks or months. Pull factors for Chinese immigrants included the California Gold Rush in 1848 and jobs working on the construction of the transcontinental railroad (1862-1869) and other railroads in the West. In the later years of this wave of immigration, Chinese immigrants worked as “stoop laborers” in farming, mining and also domestic service such as laundering. Friction
After the first wave of Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States in the early 1840s during the California Gold Rush, many Chinese people continued to travel across the Pacific, escaping poor conditions in China with hopes and ambitions for a better life in America. Many more Chinese immigrants began arriving into the 1860s on the Pacific coast for work in other areas such as the railroad industry. The immigrants noticed an increasing demand for their labor because of their readiness to work for low wages. Many of those who arrived did not plan to stay long, and therefore there was no push for their naturalization. The immigrants left a country with thousands of years of a “decaying feudal system,” corruption, a growing
I believe that Chinese immigration during the period after the Civil War was a very big issue because it showed just how unwilling ordinary, white citizens were to let another “inferior race” into the country. Chinese immigrants had been arriving in large quantities starting during the mid-19th century. Most of worked as laborers, usually on the transcontinental railroad (such as the Central Pacific Railroad) and in the mines. They suffered racial discrimination for a long time due to industrial employers being eager to get this new and cheap labor, but the ordinary white public being angered by the oncoming of the so-called "yellow peril." Political party gatherings, labor unions, and other organizations rallied against the immigration of yet another
1. From the very beginnings of their presence in the country, Chinese people were regarded as dangerous foreigners who took jobs and opportunities away from hardworking Americans. The 1870s saw the formation of the Workingmen’s Party of California, whose motto was simply and succinctly “The Chinese Must Go!”The Chinese Exclusion Act is also similaer to what Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump proposed when he called for a "total and complete shutdown" of Muslims entering the United States. Since it was repealed in 1943, the Chinese Exclusion Act has been remembered as a dark period in American history, when Chinese immigration all but halted for several years. Trump’s ban on Muslims would be an even more extreme iteration of this