Essay on Three Contributions Of Chinese Immigrants

“This was the routine of the old China trade. These were the commodities traditionally brought to China and traditionally carried away. And at the heart of the trade was tea. It came from no other place. India did not then produce any, nor Ceylon, Java, or Formosa; Japan was inaccessible; the world perforce drank China teas. Above all, the English drank them” (17).

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).

how to process and grow tea or it would be useless to get the thousands of

The Chinese immigrants also contributed to us a whole new culture of which we had not been familiar with before. They brought their religious beliefs, prompting a Chinese Temple to be built in 1863 in Oroville, which provided a place of worship for Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism (Bancroft). They also brought their traditions, like the celebrations that they’d have for certain holidays like the Lunar New Year. These celebrations entailed festivals, parades, partying and all of the Chinese community coming together in the streets. Another one of the traditions they held dear to their culture was theatre, and so they continued these performances and even built their own Chinese theatre in 1852 (Bancroft). They

Saberi, H. (2010). Tea Comes to the West. In Tea:A Global History. [Adobe Digital Editions Version]. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/

Tea became a mainstream drink in Asia around 100 BCE. It then became a mainstream drink in Europe around 1610 CE.

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

When the Gold Rush ended in 1860, many Chinese immigrants found jobs with the nations railroad industry. When the Union Pacific Railroad began its construction of its western part in 1864, thousands of Chinese laborers were hired. It was the Chinese who the Central Pacific Railroad Company hired to build a railroad over the harsh western land that would eventually link America's east and west coasts together. The Chinese were extremely hard workers, conquering the granite mountains and gorges of the Sierra Nevada and Rockies. They also encountered dangerous working conditions, such as being lowered from mere rope held baskets, suspended between earth and sky, and sustaining the harsh winter of 1865-1865, which was recorded as one of the worst winters. The Chinese were meager in their way of life, dressing poorly and having simple living quarters. They also were willing to sacrifice less pay than White workers in order to earn a nominal amount of money. Thanks to the work of the Chinese the railroad was completed in an incredible amount of time.

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

Some left to become one of the “Forty Niners” searching to strike rich with gold but was attacked with the foreign miners’ tax that forced them to pay 3 dollars. If they couldn’t pay, they would have to become a citizen which makes it difficult to go back home. Other jobs that they were offered were high risked jobs in the railroads, agricultures, and manufacturing. The jobs that they were offered were working in the railroad, agriculture, manufacturing, and work that is usually for women. The Chinese were recognized by their cheap hard labor and was hired to work on the Central Pacific Railroad. After the railroad was done, they were pushed towards

The cartoon “Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner” by Thomas Nast published in 1869 expresses the benefit of including immigrant populations into American society. At the time, Chinese immigrants were utilized for their cheap labor: allowing for the completion of the First

The author talks about the historic importance of tea in China. It had started out as a medicinal good, but then as a trade team on the Silk Road along with Buddhism. During the Tang dynasty tea became a national drink. tea was easy to prepare and was known to kill bacteria. Even though its popularity went down during Mongol rule, tea had already spread to Japan. There tea evolved as a sign of status and culture. Tea was introduced to Europe before coffee, but it was expensive so it was seen as a luxury and was used mainly as a medicinal drink. By the 18th century, Britain was won over by tea because of the role it played by the British East India Trading company. Marriages, tea shops, tea parties, afternoon tea, and tea gardens all became

The infamous tea trade started in 1604 with the first British East India Company import of tea from China. The British rapidly acquired a taste for Chinese tea and within just years of tea hitting the market, the British could not get enough. This proposed a couple of problems for the BEIC. The first being, the lower class of Britain could not afford the tea due to high tariffs imposed on the luxury good so they started smuggling it in to Britain. Soon thereafter, the trend of smuggling tea into the docks Britain grew exponentially. Since smuggling was drastically hurting the profits of the BEIC simply because people were getting around the tariffs so easily, they looked elsewhere for profits. The BEIC was granted permission by the throne to export tea directly to their colonies in America. In doing so, Britain put outrageous tariffs on

The first merchant to sell tea was Thomas Garway who offered it in both a dry and liquid form at his coffeehouse in Exchange Alley in London. The popularity of the coffeehouse grew quickly and there were more than 500 in London by 1700. By the middle 18th century, tea replaced ale and gin as the nation’s drink.

While the Chinese were initially welcomed as a source of low-wage labor, they experienced a severe backlash in the 1870s. By that time, the Gold Rush had ended and the transcontinental railroad was complete, leaving a large population of Chinese immigrants and American settlers in their wake. Job competition between these two groups became fierce, particularly after the Panic of 1873 that triggered a long economic depression. Chinese workers, who were often willing to work for less than their American counterparts, increasingly