U.S. Immigration Station, Angel Island, San Francisco Bay

 

 

Topics on the Page

 

Historical Overview

 

Early Chinese Immigration to the U.S.

 

• Burlingame-Seward Treaty of 1868

 

Chinese Immigrants in the West

 

Chinese Workers and Transcontinental Railroad

 

Chinese Exclusion Act

 

CROSS-LINK: Immigration Gateways and Ports of Entry

 

 

 

Historical Overview

 

Chinese Immigration is a history in two parts:

 

1. From the 1850s to the 1880s before being halted by federal anti-immigration legislation
2. From the 1970s to the present following normalization of U.S./China relations

 

 Timeline of Chinese Immigration and Exclusion Acts (Chinese Historical Society of New England)

https://www.chsne.org/exclusion-timeline/

 

 Primary Sources from Harper's Weekly, The Chinese American Experience, 1857-1892

 

 

Brief overview: Immigration to the United States: 1851-1900

 

 Why Did the first Chinese Immigrants Come to the United States? from KCC Alterna-TV News

 

• Chinese immigrants wanted to come to the US was because they were poor and they wanted to make more money to send back to their poor families.
• Most importantly, Chinese people faced economic hardships in China.

 

 Chinese American Women: A History of Resilience and Resistance, National Women's History Museum

 

Push & Pull: Motives for the Immigration of Chinese Women to America

https://www.dartmouth.edu/~hist32/History/S04%20-%20Chinese%20Women%20Motives.htm

 

Cross-Link to Major Developments in Late 20th Century Chinese History

 

Anson Burlingame and the Burlingame-Seward Treaty of 1868

 Teaching and Learning Resource

 

 

• https://teachers.yale.edu/curriculum/viewer/initiative_06.02.06_u :

 

• This link includes a background of the causes of Chinese immigration, methods of immigration, early forms of discrimination, Chinese workers on railroads, the Chinese and the courts, and life after exclusion. This source also includes teaching strategies and multiple lesson plans.

 

 

 

Early Chinese Immigration to the U.S.

 

• Many of the first Chinese immigrants were wealthy merchants and skilled artisans known for their hard work.
• Well and widely received by Americans

 

• In the 1880's poor unskilled workers came looking for work on railroads, to mine gold, to become cooks, and take other jobs considered 'dirty" or undesirable.
• They worked hard for little pay.
• Unlike the skilled Chinese immigrants who were well received, were treated negatively and attitudes were hostile towards them

 

This is an excellent AP US History video discussing the immigration of Chinese Americans in the 19th Century.

 

Another Great Video from TED-Ed describing the "Dark History of the Chinese Exclusion Act"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K88pWCimZg

 

 

Chinese Immigrants in the West

Chinese Laborers on the Way to the Gold Fields

 

 

For more, see The Chinese and Westward Expansion from the exhibit "The Chinese in California, 1850-1925" from the Library of Congress.


The Unsung Story of Chinese and Japanese Immigrants Who Brought Rice to California from Good Magazine, December 24, 2014.


Chinese in California, 1850 - 1925 from the University of California Berkeley

 

The Story of Ing "Doc" Hay, a Chinese herbalist in a small town in Oregon in the 1880s from Crossing East, a radio program about Asian American History

Chinese Workers and the Transcontinental Railroad

 

CROSS-LINK: Dramatic Event page: The Transcontinental Railroad

 

 

 

 

 Timeline from Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project, Stanford University

 

Chinese-American Contribution to Transcontinental Railroad from the Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum.

 

• Some 80 percent of those involved in building the Transcontinental Railroad were immigrant Chinese workers.

 

The Chinese Workers Strike in June 1867 from PBS American Experience.

 

• Anti-Chinese Sentiment and the 1867 Chinese Workers Strike, Chinese Historical Society of America

 

The Only One Barred Out, Political Cartoon, 1882

 

 

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

 

• The Chinese Exclusion Act was an immigration law passed in 1882 that prevented Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States.

 

• First law in American history to ban a specific racial group from entering the country
• Angel Island Inspection Station was built in 1910

 

 

Paper Sons and Daughters

• Chinese-American Descendants Uncover Forged Family Histories, NPR Code Switch (December 17, 2013)

 

 

Chinese Immigration and the Chinese Exclusion Acts

 

Office of the Historian, United States Department of State

 

• Chinese Immigration and the First U.S. Immigration Laws, University of Texas at Austin as part of its Border Views series

 

• Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940 from University of Washington Press

 

• https://aapf.org/chinese-exclusion-act : This source gives a good summary of the Chinese Exclusion acts. This source also goes into detail on how women were impacted by the Chinese exclusion act. This source has good propaganda and pictures relating to the Chinese exclusion act. It also includes a video.

 

 

 

Chinese Immigrants in Massachusetts

 

• Chinese Workers Arrive in North Adams, June 13, 1870 from MassMoments.

 

 

Present Day Information

 

Asian Immigration to the United States (2016)

 

Chain Migration Created Today's Asian America