Chinese American History
Workshop:
Contributions, Racialization,
Legislation & Violence
(1870s -1940s)
Dr. Michael Chang
Asian Pacific American Leadership Institute
ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICANS IN SILICON VALLEY:
HISTORY & COMMUNITY
• 1850s-1890s Building the West
• 1870s-1940s Anti-Asian Exclusion Period
• 1940s-1960s Post-WWII to Asian
American Movement
• 1970s-present Silicon Valley Era
1850s-1890s Building the West
• 1848 California and southwest states were
ceded by Mexico to the U.S. after the
Mexican-American War.
• After gold was discovered in1848,
California’s population grew dramatically
from14,000 who were mostly Mexican.
Chinese immigrants arrived in large
numbers.
Asian American Economic Contributions
• 1850s-1880s Chinese immigrants were employed as
the main source of labor for building California and
the western states’ public works infrastructure and
industries such as mining, agriculture, fishing,
railroad-building, and manufacturing, etc.
• By the1870s, Chinese immigrants were10% of
California’s population and one out of four in the
labor force.
• Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Asian
immigrants including Japanese, Filipino, Korean,
and South Asian provided labor for the
development of the West.
Chinese Economic Contributions
(1850s-1890s)
• MINING: 24,000 Chinese miners in 1860’s.
• RAILROADS: 13,000 Chinese workers making up 90%
of the western crew of the first transcontinental railroad
completed in 1869.
• PUBLIC WORKS: Build roads, government buildings &
infrastructure, reservoirs, dams, tunnels, bridges, etc.
By 1877, reclaimed 5 million acres of land including
Sacramento delta.
• AGRICULTURE: 30,000 Chinese immigrants made up
87% of California’s farm laborers in 1886.
• FISHING: Most fisherman were Chinese until 1870’s.
Chinese Immigrants in Early California
Manufacturing
• Early west coast manufacturing was
centered in San Francisco.
• By 1872, half of San Francisco’s factory
workers were Chinese immigrants.
• Chinese factory workers dominated all four
major manufacturing industries of that era:
manufacturing of clothing, woolen-wear,
shoes, and cigars.
Chinese Population in Santa Clara County: 1860-1900
By 1880, 33% of Santa Clara County’s farm were
Chinese.
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
Chinese Population % of County Population
22
0.2%
1,525
5.8%
2,695
7.7%
2,723
1,738
2.9%
• (Source: U.S. Census; Chan 1986: 49)
San Jose Chinatowns 1850s-1930s
First Chinatown established
1850s at current Fairmont
Hotel site but destroyed by
arson in 1870.
Second Chinatown rebuilt in
1870 at original site. Again
burnt in 1877.
“Heinlenville” Chinatown
(1877-1931) at 6th street and
Jackson in today’s
Japantown.
Taylor Street “Woolen Mill”
Chinatown (1887-1902) east
of Guadalupe River.
Source: Connie Young Yu & CHCP.
Anti-Chinese Public Policies
U.S. & California Anti-Asian Legislations
• What was the 1790 U.S. Naturalization Law?
• What was the California Supreme Court’s 1854
Case of People v. Hall?
• What were the anti-Asian provisions of the 1879
California Constitution?
• What was the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act?
United States Naturalization Law of 1790
provided the first rules to be followed by
the United States in the granting of
national citizenship. This law limited
naturalization to immigrants who were "free
white persons" of "good moral character". It thus
left out American Indians, indentured
servants, slaves, free blacks, and later Asians.
1854 The People of the State of California v. George W. Hall
was an appealed murder case in which the California Supreme Court ruled
that Chinese Americans and Chinese immigrants had no rights to testify
against white citizens.
The ruling effectively freed Hall, a white man, who had been convicted and
sentenced to death for the murder of Ling Sing, a Chinese miner in Nevada
County. Three Chinese witnesses had testified to the killing.
The ruling was an odd extension of California Criminal Procedure's existing
(1850) exclusion, "No black or mulatto person, or Indian, shall be allowed to
give evidence in favor of, or against a white man." It was held that either
"Indian" denoted anyone of the Mongoloid race or that "black" applied to
anyone not white.
The ruling effectively made white violence against Chinese Americans
unprosecutable, arguably leading to more intense white-on-Chinese race
riots, such as the 1877 San Francisco riot.
1879 California Constitution
(Anti-Asian Provisions)
Chinese immigrants:
“Aliens ineligible for citizenship”
“Dangerous to the well-being of the State”
•No companies were allowed to hire Chinese or
“Mongolian” people
•Public works could not hire Chinese or
“Mongolian” people
•Immigration discouraged to keep the Chinese
population at low levels
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
• First U.S. national legislation to exclude
immigration by race, law was later extended to
all Asians, not repealed until 1943.
• It shall not be lawful for any Chinese laborer to
come [to] the United States.
• No state court or court of the United States shall
admit Chinese to citizenship.
Anti-Asian Movement in Santa Clara County: 1860s-1940s
•
1869 Ku Klux Klan burnt Naglee Brandy Distillery and Methodist
Episcopal Church in San Jose.
•
1870 San Jose Chinatown burnt down.
•
1876 San Jose city council declared Chinatown a public nuisance and
passed ordinance against Chinese laundries.
•
1877 San Jose Chinatown burnt down again by arson.
•
1890s San Jose Mercury practiced anti-Asian “yellow journalism”.
•
1942 San Jose Japantown shut down as residents sent to
concentration camps, many to Heart Mountain, Wyoming .
RACIALIZATION
• Racialization refers to processes of the
discursive production of racial identities. It
signifies the extension of dehumanizing and
racial meanings to a previously racially
unclassified relationship, social practice, or
group.
• Racialization is “the portrayal of a large group of
people as inferior.” Aoki 2008: 6
The Notion of “Yellow Peril:”
Racialization of Chinese
Immigrants in 19th Century
News Media
Racist Love:
American Paternalism
Promotion of Anti-Chinese Violence
How do contemporary popular
culture and policy debates
reflect shadows of the past?