Race And Gender Discrimination In China During The 1800's

Race and Gender During the 1800’s, the immigration rate of Asians was at its peak when the Chinese began to immigrate to the United States. At this time, America was facing race and gender discrimination along with miscegenation and Chinese were the ones who endured all this. Chinese males and females suffered both mentally and physically trying to survive in America. America’s government and legislative system could not do much to support the Chinese because Caucasians made up the majority and they wished to rid of the Chinese. Despite the long and violent clashes between the whites and Chinese, the Chinese endured in order to be acknowledged and to change the white’s views and perceptions of them. The early 1800’s was the time of the Gold

A brawl broke out resulting in the death of Ling Sing and Hall arrested and taken to court. A Chinese witness gave her testimony which initially sentenced Hall to be hanged but a Supreme Court judge ruled her testimony as invalid due to being Chinese. This sparked resistance from the Chinese who kept insisting that it was unjust to accept testimony. Still, the Chinese persevered and 5 years later the Supreme Court allowed for Chinese to testify claiming that skin color should not be used as a measure for a person’s competence to serve as a witness. Right after this ban was lifted, Chinese men began to hire white lawyers and most were successful. One of them was the Quam vs Sales and Johnson case where a Chinese merchant man demanded tax collectors to give back his money after being mistaken as a miner. The Los Angeles Massacre, which took newspaper headlines, was an event that involved the lynching of a huge number of Chinese immigrants. Despite the massive lynching, the Chinese did not budge. Unable to remove the Chinese from Los Angeles, working men convinced the city to enforce extra taxes on the Chinese. For farmers, an extra 20 dollars was to be paid per wagon carrying vegetables. Farmers pooled together their money to hire a lawyer and refused to provide any of their produce. A judge ruled it was unjust at first

Instead, they were kidnapped and sent in boxes for prostitution and sexual slavery. Chinese women were viewed as commodities that could be easily sold and moved around for profit. The cost of the women was fairly low due to their anatomical difference compared to a white woman. The number of immigrant Chinese women started to decline as white homeowners feared that Chinese women were infecting their family and children with syphilis. Whites had a distorted perception that because they were affected it must be because of the presence of a Chinese woman. The women were kicked out of the homes and sold off to Chinese merchants or other white homeowners. Unlike the Chinese men who could find work, women could not seek jobs. Their only purpose in America was to serve as prostitutes. In 1875, the immigration rate of Chinese women greatly declined due to the Page Act which prohibited women from immigrating for prostitution. The only women allowed were those who were married to a merchant. Women back in China had to obey 3 rules and they were to listen to their father, their husband, and their eldest son. They thought immigrating and obeying their husband would be better than taking on the title of being abandoned by their husbands who went to America. In America, they faced the stereotype of being just temporary and returning to China along with the funds earned by their husbands and