Migration involves both push and pull factors. For the Chinese who came to the Americas, the push factors included political turmoil and economic instability in China as well as increased population, natural disasters, the opium wars, and the corruption of the Ch’ing Dynasty. Setting the stage for Chinese immigration to the United States were the opium wars which began in 1839. The British relied on the opium trade and when the Chinese tried to stop the import of opium, the British went to war and destabilized the country. Then in 1851, the Taiping Rebellion began which was followed by 25 years of warfare, drought, and famine.
The initial pull factor was the California gold rush of 1849 which attracted people from all over the world to seek their fortunes in the California gold fields. From 1851 to 1900, 250,000 Chinese entered the United States. From 1821 to 1830, in contrast, only 3 Chinese entered the country.
In California, the Chinese encountered the deeply entrenched American values of xenophobia and racism. The Chinese were allowed to work only the mine tailings and to do this they had to pay a $4 per person special permission tax plus a $2 water tax. In addition, they had to pay a personal tax, a hospital tax, a school tax, and a property tax. While they paid taxes, their children were not allowed to attend public schools, they could not vote nor could they obtain citizenship, and they could not testify in a court of law. Americans were free to rob them, beat them, rape them, and kill them without fear of any legal penalty. Historian Stephen Ambrose, in his book on the transcontinental railroad Nothing Like It in the World, writes:
“White men despised the Chinese even as they used them. They constantly compared the Chinese to another subordinate group, white women.”
In 1858, the California legislature attempted to ban Chinese immigration, but it did not stop the flow of immigrants. In California, many Chinese found work as domestics: cooks, housekeepers, gardeners, errand boys, laundrymen, and so on.
By 1865, the Central Pacific Railroad was entering California and encountering a problem: the railroad laborers were finding the gold fields to be more attractive than working on the railroad. Frustrated by their inability to find workers, the railroad reluctantly tried some Chinese workers. Initially, 50 Chinese were employed for a month’s trial. At the end of the first month, management agreed that the Chinese worked well. Stephen Ambrose reports:
“They worked as teams, took almost no breaks, learned how to blast away rocks, stayed healthy, and on the job.”
By the end of 1865, there were 7,000 Chinese working on the railroad. In 1868,
Lippincott’s Magazine ran an article on the Chinese in California which reported:
“The purpose of every Chinaman in coming here is to amass such a sum—trifling in our eyes—in three or four years, as in China will give him support for life.”
By 1880, there were 75,000 Chinese living in California. The Chinese were now found throughout the western states, following the railroads and the mining booms in Montana, Idaho, and Nevada. Outside of California, the Chinese faced xenophobia and racism similar to what they had encountered in California. States and territories passed laws which required special permits for Chinese laundries and prohibiting the Chinese from owning property or working mining claims. There was the unfounded fear that the Chinese would take jobs away from European-Americans.
By 1877 Congress was holding hearings on the Chinese situation. The Joint Special Committee to Investigate Chinese Immigration heard testimony:
"The burden of our accusation against them is that they come in conflict with our labor interests; that they can never assimilate; that they are a perpetual, unchanging, and unchangeable alien element that can never become homogenous; that their civilization is demoralizing and degrading to our people; that they degrade and dishonor labor; and they can never become citizens."
With regard to religion, testimony claimed that few Chinese had been able to become Christians and that:
“Our religion is not broad enough nor our humanity sufficiently comprehensive to be willing to share our country, our civilization, our Government, and our future wealth and welfare with the heathen Chinese.”
The committee’s summary of testimony regarding the Chinese in America concluded that: (1) Chinese brain capacity is not sufficient for self-government, (2) the Chinese lack the superior morals of the European “race”, (3) there should be no intermarriage allowed between the Chinese and people of the European “race,” and (4) that Congress should restrain the great influx of “Asiatics” to this county. Among the groups providing testimony at the committee hearings were the Anti-Chinese Union, the Ninth Ward Anti-Coolie Club, the Seventh Ward Anti-Coolie Club, and the United Brothers Anti-Coolie Club.
In 1882, Congress in its infinite wisdom passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which restricted immigration from China and prohibited Chinese immigrants who were already in the U.S. from becoming citizens. This act began the U.S. policy of restricting immigration explicitly on the basis of race. In 1884, the Act was expanded to include all ethnic Chinese regardless of country of origin. In 1888 the Scott Act expanded the Chinese Exclusion Act by prohibiting reentry when any Chinese person left the U.S. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of exclusion in 1889 in Chae Chan Ping v. United States.
In the 1890s, anti-Chinese hysteria swept through the west, often accompanied by violence.
In 1892, the Geary Act renewed the Chinese Exclusion Act, and an extension of the Act in 1902 required each Chinese resident to register and obtain a certificate of residence. Chinese who did not have a certificate of residence were to be deported. Under the 1892 Geary Act all Chinese in the United States, including those who had been born here, were required to carry photo identification at all times.
Chinese exclusion was supported by the Knights of Labor, a labor union. On the other hand, it was opposed by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWWW).
In the twentieth century American immigration policy was strongly influenced by the pseudo-scientific racism of Madison Grant and others. Grant’s book The Passing of the Great Race put forth the idea that people from Western and Northern Europe were racially superior and that America’s downfall would be brought about by mixing with “inferior” races. Grant advocated a complete end to immigration from East Asia.
The Immigration Act of 1924 extended restriction to other Asian immigrant groups and the National Origins Act of 1924 banned immigration entirely from east Asia. The data used for setting immigration quotas were supplied by Madison Grant. The purpose of these acts was to preserve the ideal of American homogeneity.
The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943 with the Magnuson Act, which permitted Chinese nationals in the U.S. to become citizens and allowed a national quota of 105 Chinese immigrants annually. California continued its prohibition on racial intermarriage with the Chinese until 1948.