Chinese Immigrants 19th Century

For my research project I researched the Chinese Americans or the ethnic Chinese who came to America during the 19th century during the gold rush. During the 1880’s into the 19th century it was especially bad with white people saying things like they were a “yellow peril” and regarded them as downgraded even though there were provisions for equal treatment in the 1868 Burlingame treaty. Things did not get better for Chinese immigrants until the U.S. and China became allies in World War II as restrictions on entering the country, naturalization and mixed marriages were being lessened. Finally in 1943 Chinese immigration was allowed once more but the massive wave of immigrants did not come until 1965. During the construction of the transcontinental railroad thousands of Chinese laborers were used for extremely

Chinese people encountered considerable prejudice especially by those who did the same thing in white society, because Chinese “coolies” were used as a scapegoat for lower wages by politicians and labor leaders. The emerging trade unions, under such leaders as Samuel Gompers,also took an anti-Chinese position, regarding them only as competitors to white laborers who would “steal” the white people’s jobs. Only with the emergence of the international Workers of the World did trade unionists start to accept them as part of the American working class. The racism the Chinese Americans faced varied greatly, and could be anything from name- calling to, full out frontal assault. In the 1909 murder of Elsie Sigel which occurred in New York one of the suspects was Chinese so the newspapers immediately portrayed Chinese men as dangerous. This murder led to a surge of the harassment of Chinese people in communities across the