19th Century China & America
Since 1644 China had been ruled by the Qing Dynasty. By the 19th century it entered a period of instability as Western nations made increasing demands that it open, accept trade and allow Christian missionaries access to the population. This resulted in internal rebellions such as the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) The rebellion, which started in southeast China, took as many as 20 million Chinese lives. There were external threats that China could not fight off. China’s efforts to suppress the opium trade lead to the two Opium Wars, both of which they lost. The First Opium War (1839-1842) resulted in the British gaining sovereignty over Hong Kong. The results of this war are still being felt in Hong Kong today. Finally, overpopulation, war, floods, and droughts led to famines that killed millions of Chinese during the 19th century. So dire was the situation, that Scott Alan Carson discovered:
The statures of Chinese sojourn workers in American prisons indicate that the biological living conditions of the Chinese who emigrated from southern China compared favorably with those of other Chinese but that they deteriorated throughout the nineteenth century, precisely when China’s population growth was high, agriculture in distress, and the economy in turmoil because of political events. Finally, unlike in other samples, the statures of the Chinese inmates varied little by socioeconomic status. Deteriorating biological conditions affected all of those who fled China during the nineteenth century, regardless of occupation.
The first major wave of immigration from China to the U.S. occurred during the 1849 California Gold Rush. California (Gold Mountain) was not the only location the Chinese flowed into to relieve the pressure of the situation in China. They migrated into Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Australia, Latin America, and Mexico too. Of all the groups that came to California, the Chinese were met with the most hostility when they arrived.
From 1863-1883 the Chinese worked building the three major western railroads. In Arizona they built the Southern Pacific Railroad.
The anti-Chinese prejudice cumulated in 1882 with the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act the first of a series of acts by Congress to keep the Chinese out of the U.S. In 1892 the Exclusion Act was extended by another 10 years. Immigration from China was limited to merchants, teachers, travelers, students, and fathers claiming citizenship for children born in China (paper sons).
In 1902 it was again extended and in 1904 it was extended indefinitely.
Why did the Chinese persist in coming to America for over 60 years in the face of so much resistance? Because of the severe economic conditions in China, men needed to make money to support their families. The U.S. represented opportunity and hope. There was little or no hope to improve their situation in China, but in the U.S., there was opportunity and a chance to better their lives and, by extension, those of their family members. By the time the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882, the Chinese had been coming to the U.S. in large numbers for 33 years, almost 2 generations. They knew what was possible based on the experiences of the earlier Chinese sojourners. It is hard to close a door that has been open for so long.
Resources
Carson, Scott Alan. “The Biological Living Conditions of Nineteenth-Century Chinese Males in America,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 37 no. 2 (Autumn 2006).