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19th-century Chinese immigration to America

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Newly constructed entrance gate to the historic Chinese section of Evergreen Cemetery in Santa Cruz, California

Chinese immigration to America in the 19th century is commonly referred to as the first wave of Chinese Americans, and are mainly Cantonese and Taishanese speaking people.

About half or more of the Chinese ethnic people in the United States in the 1980s had roots in Taishan, Guangdong, a city in southern China near the major city of Guangzhou. In general, much of the Chinese population before the 1990s consisted of Cantonese or Taishanese-speaking people from southern China, predominately from Guangdong province.

This is specifically in contrast to post-1980s Chinese Americans. During the 1980s, more Mandarin-speaking immigrants from northern China and Taiwan immigrated to the United States. The Chinese population in much of the 1800s and 1990s was almost entirely contained to the Western United States, especially California and Nevada, as well as New York City. Chinese immigrants and their descendants generally lived in Chinatowns (especially the ones in San Francisco and New York), or Chinese populated districts in downtowns of major cities.

19th-century arrivals, cause for migration

According to US government records, the first Chinese immigrants arrived in 1820. Three hundred and twenty-five men are known to have arrived before the 1849 California gold rush, which drew a high number of laborers from China who mined for gold and performed menial labor. There were 25,000 immigrants by 1852, and 105,465 by 1880, most of whom lived on the West Coast. They formed over a tenth of California's population. Nearly all of the early Chinese immigrants were young men with varied educational levels from rural villages of Toisan as well as the eight districts in Guangdong Province.

The Guangdong province, especially Toisan, experienced extreme floods and famine in the mid-nineteenth century, as well as mass political unrest such as the Red Turban unrest. This prompted many people to migrate to America.

The vast majority of the 19th-century Chinese immigrants to the US came from a small area of eight districts on the west side of the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province. The eight districts consist of three subgroups—the four districts of Sze Yup, the district of Chung Shan, and the three districts of Sam Yup—each subgroup speaking a distinct dialect of Cantonese. In the US, people from Sze Yup generally worked as laborers; Chung Shan people specialized in agriculture; and Sam Yup people worked as entrepreneurs.

In the 1850s, Chinese workers migrated to the United States, first to work in the gold mines, but also to take agricultural jobs, and factory work, especially in the garment industry. Chinese immigrants were particularly instrumental in building railroads in the American West, and as Chinese laborers grew successful in the United States, a number of them became entrepreneurs in their own right. As the numbers of Chinese laborers increased, so did the strength of anti-Chinese attitude among other workers in the US economy. This finally resulted in legislation that aimed to limit future immigration of Chinese workers to the United States, and threatened to sour diplomatic relations between the United States and China through the Chinese Exclusion Act.

By 1900, only 4,522 of the 89,837 Chinese migrants that lived in the US were women. The lack of women migrants was largely due to the passage of US anti-immigration laws. The Page Act of 1875 prevented the immigration of all women prostitutes from China. This law was used to limit the immigration of all Chinese women, not just prostitutes. Upon arrival to the US, Chinese men and women were separated from each other as they awaited hearings on their immigration status, which often took weeks. During this time the women were subjected to lengthy questioning that focused on their family life and origins. Their responses were then cross examined with others from their village, and any discrepancies were used to justify denial of entry. The stress of being separated from family caused many women to fall ill while they waited for a hearing. Some even committed suicide as they feared being denied access to the country. Once they were approved and allowed into the country, Chinese women migrants faced additional challenges. Many were coerced into prostitution, with over 60% of the adult Chinese women living in California in 1870 working in the trade. Some women were lured to the US with the promise of marriage only to become sex slaves, while others went to the US in order to reunite with their families. Ninety percent of the Chinese women who immigrated to the US between 1898 and 1908 did so to join a husband or father. Chinese women migrants, similarly to men, immigrated for economic opportunities as well.

California gold rush, Central Pacific Railroad construction

The Chinese came to California in large numbers during the California gold rush, with 40,400 being recorded as arriving from 1851 to 1860, and again in the 1860s, when the Central Pacific Railroad recruited large labor gangs, many on five-year contracts, to build its portion of the first transcontinental railroad. The Chinese laborers worked out well and thousands more were recruited until the railroad's completion in 1869. Chinese labor provided the massive workforce needed to build the majority of the Central Pacific's difficult route through the Sierra Nevada mountains and across Nevada. By 1869, the ethnic Chinese population in the US numbered at least 100,000.

Objections to Chinese immigration, 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act

See also: Chinese Exclusion Act

Nativist objections to Chinese immigration generally stemmed from economic and cultural tensions, as well as ethnic discrimination. Most Chinese laborers who came to the United States did so in order to send money back to China to support their families. Many also had to repay loans to the Chinese merchants who paid their passage to North America. These financial pressures left them little choice but to work for whatever wages they could. Non-Chinese laborers often required much higher wages to support their wives and children in the United States, and also generally had a stronger political standing to bargain for higher wages. Therefore, many of the non-Chinese workers in the United States came to resent the Chinese laborers, who might squeeze them out of their jobs through offering cheaper labor. Furthermore, many Chinese settled in their own neighborhoods called Chinatowns, and tales spread of Chinatowns as places where large numbers of Chinese men congregated to visit prostitutes, smoke tobacco, or gamble. Some advocates of anti-Chinese legislation argued that admitting Chinese into the United States lowered the cultural and moral standards of American society. Others used a more overtly racist argument for limiting immigration from East Asia, and expressed concern about the integrity of American racial composition.

From the 1850s through the 1870s, the California state government passed a series of measures aimed at Chinese residents, such as requiring special licenses for Chinese businesses or workers to prevent naturalization. Because anti-Chinese discrimination and efforts to stop Chinese immigration violated the 1868 Burlingame–Seward Treaty with China, the federal government was able to negate much of this legislation.

The Chinese population rose from 2,716 in 1851 to 63,000 by 1871. In the decade 1861–1870, 64,301 were recorded as arriving, followed by 123,201 in 1871–80 and 61,711 in 1881–1890. 77% were located in California, with the rest scattered across the American West, the South, and New England. Most came from Toisan looking for a better life to escape starvation and economic hardships.

In 1879, advocates of immigration restriction succeeded in introducing and passing legislation in Congress to limit the number of Chinese arriving to fifteen per ship or vessel. Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes vetoed the bill because it violated US treaty agreements with China. Nevertheless, it was still an important victory for advocates of exclusion. Democrats, led by supporters in the West, advocated for all-out exclusion of Chinese immigrants. Although Republicans were largely sympathetic to western concerns, they were committed to a platform of free immigration. In order to placate the western states without offending China, President Hayes sought a revision of the Burlingame-Seward Treaty in which China agreed to limit immigration to the United States.

In 1880, the Hayes administration appointed US diplomat James B. Angell to negotiate a new treaty with China. The resulting Angell Treaty permitted the United States to restrict, but not completely prohibit, Chinese immigration. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which, per the terms of the Angell Treaty, suspended the immigration of Chinese laborers (skilled or unskilled) for a period of 10 years. The Act also required every Chinese person traveling in or out of the country to carry a certificate identifying his or her status as a laborer, scholar, diplomat, or merchant. The 1882 Act was the first in American history to place broad restrictions on immigration.

For American presidents and congressmen addressing the question of Chinese exclusion, the challenge was to balance domestic attitudes and politics, which dictated an anti-Chinese policy, while maintaining good diplomatic relations with China, where exclusion would be seen as an affront and a violation of treaty promises. The domestic factors ultimately trumped international concerns. In 1888, Congress passed the Scott Act to make reentry to the United States after a visit to China illegal, even for long-term legal residents. The Chinese government considered this act a direct insult, but was unable to prevent its passage. In 1892, Congress voted to renew exclusion for ten years in the Geary Act, and in 1902, the prohibition was expanded to cover Hawaii and the Philippines, all over strong objections from the Chinese government and people. Congress later extended the Chinese Exclusion Act indefinitely.

The initial immigration group may have been as high as 90% male due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, resulting in most immigrants coming with the thought of earning money, and then returning to China to start a family. Due to the gender ratio imbalance caused by the Chinese Exclusion Act, many isolated and mostly bachelor communities slowly aged in place with very low Chinese birth rates. Later, as a result of the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment and the 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court decision, ethnic Chinese born in the United States became American citizens.

The Chinese Exclusion Acts were part of the law until 1943. With relations already complicated by the Treaties of Wangxia and Tianjian, the increasingly harsh restrictions on Chinese immigration, combined with the rising discrimination against Chinese living in the United States in the 1870s-early 1900s, placed additional strain on the diplomatic relationship between the United States and China.

Integration, interracial marriage

Chinese American fisherman, circa 1917

In the mid-1850s, 70 to 150 Chinese were living in New York City and 11 of them married Irish women. In 1906, The New York Times reported that 300 Irish American women were married to Chinese men in New York, with many more cohabited. In 1900, based on Liang research, of the 120,000 men in more than 20 Chinese communities in the United States, he estimated that one out of every twenty Chinese (Cantonese) men was married to white women. In the 1960s census showed 3,500 Chinese men married to white women and 2,900 Chinese women married to white men. Originally at the start of the 20th century there was a 55% rate of Chinese men in New York engaging in interracial marriage which was maintained in the 1920s but in the 1930s it slid to 20%.

During and after World War II, severe immigration restrictions were eased as the United States allied with China against Japanese expansionism. Later reforms in the 1960s placed increasing value on family unification, allowing relatives of US citizens to receive preference in immigration.

See also

References

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