Chinese Immigration and Labor in the 19 th century America

1. Chinese Immigration and Labor in the 19th century America Takaki Chapter 3 Forced to become “strangers” by economic interests and white society Professor Estella Habal

2. Chinese Immigration and Labor in the 19th century • Pull - Demands of capitalists for a colonized labor force • Push – English imperialism • White worker - economic competition resulting in ethnic antagonism • Racial ideology of America - homogenous white society • Pattern of discriminatory treatment set as racialized group, unassimilability, “aliens ineligible for citizenship”

3. Chinese Labor in Gold • First major wave Asians to come to America, 1849 • Called themselves “Gam Saan Haak” travelers to Gold Mountain • Independent gold prospectors, placer mining, low tech • 20,026 in 1852 • 2/3 Chinese in California mines

4. Chinese Labor in Gold

5. Chinese Labor in railroads • 1865 Central Pacific Railroad, 1869 completed employed • 15,000 Chinese; 90% of entire workforce • Cheaper labor than white workers • Hard labor, clear trees, handle explosives for boring tunnels, lay track • Struck for higher wages, e.g. 8hr/day • Lost strike; Starved into submission

6. Chinese Labor in railroads

7. Chinese Labor in cities • 1860s-1870s moved to cities like San Francisco, refuge, segregation • 46% in S.F. labor force Chinese worked in manufacturing, boots and shoes, cigars and garment, wool mills during civil war • Ethnic enclaves (served in own communities): retail (food), service and vice (laundries, gambling and prostitution) • By 1900, 45% of all Chinese lived in S.F. Bay Area

10. Chinese Labor in agriculture • Settled in rural areas • Cultivated, planting, harvesting in vineyards, orchards, fruits and vegetables • Substitute for freed slaves

11. Chinese fought backClaims of civil rights • Chan Yong (1855 SF federal district court), applied for citizenship on basis of his whiteness in appearance. (1790 Naturalization law restricted to “whites.”) Denied based on classification Mongoloid. • Ling Sing v. Washburn (1862) ruled that Chinese could not be taxed as special subjects – violated US Constitution • 1885: Tape v. Hurley, school discrimination, but results in separate schools for Asians • 1886: Yick Wo v. Hopkins, San Francisco laundry-licensing board engaged in discrimination

12. Chinese fought backClaims of civil rights • 1868 Burlingame Treaty, Chinese Six Companies “free migration and emigration” of the Chinese as visitors, traders, and rights of Chinese to “enjoy same privileges…in respect to travel or residence..” • 1870 Civil rights acts extended to Chinese “all persons“ same right to enforce, make contracts, sue, be parties, give evidence and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for security of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens.

13. Chinese community organizations (forms of agency) • Chinatowns “ethnic enclaves” cities SF and rural towns of Sacramento, Stockton • Secret societies – Tongs • District Associations based on regions helped migrants, housing, employment • Chinese Six companies (6) settled differences, dealt with white world, gave health and education services • Chinese stores catered to community. Post office, foods, books, herb, etc.

14. Gender and Chinese women • Chinese men trapped in womanless world. Anti-miscegenation laws. • Few Chinese families, fishing industry in Monterey • 1870 census, 61% of 3,536 women listed as prostitutes, debt peonage, 1880-24% Page Act of 1875. • 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act