Chinese immigrants were exotic curiosities, targets of racism and violence—and an essential part of the labor force that settled the West. They left little written history, but dozens upon dozens of archaeological sites and collections are now enriching our understanding of how the first Chinese Americans negotiated life in a strange and sometimes hostile land. Most of the nineteenth-century Chinese immigrants came from an area the size of Rhode Island—Taishan County, in the southern province of Guangdong, which had suffered the dual indignities of the Opium Wars and the Taiping Rebellion in the s and s.
The opening of trade relations between China and the United States, and the discovery of gold in California, spurred the first surge of immigration. Many found relative safety, comfort, and job opportunities in Chinatowns, which grew first in the cities and then appeared on the frontier as Chinese laborers pursued work in railroad construction, mining, lumber, agriculture, and other industries.
Their population in the United States declined following the Chinese Exclusion Act of , which prohibited new immigration, and would not rebound until the restrictions were lifted 60 years later, starting a second wave of Chinese immigration that has since brought their numbers north of three million.
Archaeological investigation of Chinatowns and Chinese neighborhoods began in the s, with digs at sites such as Ventura, California, and Lovelock, Nevada. The success and survival of Chinatown depended a great deal on the family and district benevolent associations which served as political and social support systems to newcomers.
The members strove to meet the basic needs of the community, and represented a united voice in the fight against discriminatory legislation process. In twenty thousand Chinese were suddenly out of work. Many traditional means of wage earning were inaccessible to the Chinese. Their farm laboring skills produced superior varieties of rice, oranges, apples, cherries and peaches. The Chinese filled the need for domestic services in white homes and developed laundry businesses.
They became successfully involved in the restaurant business, fishing and shrimping industries, and leather goods manufacturing. As soon as their new businesses flourished, they were targeted as unwelcome competition to the struggling economy of San Francisco. The Burlingame Treaty of encouraged the Chinese to emigrate to the United States in greater numbers.
More than thirty anti-Chinese legislations were enacted during the l's at both the state and local levels. See legislation section The result of this codified racism was to exclude Chinese from many occupations and to deprive them of full participation in a society they had helped to build.
Culmination of this discriminatory legislation resulted in the Chinese Exclusion Act of May 6, l This act suspended the immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years. The small frontier town rapidly grew into a city after the discovery of gold. Portsmouth Square, served as a cow pen, surrounded by tents and adobe huts in , and by brick and stone buildings, hotels, business offices, shops, gambling places and restaurants by the late 's.
At that time hundreds of Chinese strategically chose to locate their laundries, restaurants and shops close to the center of the city, Portsmouth Square to cater to mining related needs. They were established on or within a block of the square, and gradually branched out to Dupont present-day Grant and Kearny Streets. In the neighborhood was given the name "Chinatown" by the press.
The first Chinese hand laundry was started on the corner of Washington Dupont Streets in By some 2, Chinese laundries were in the trade growing to 7, in Merchants and peddlers provided fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers. As San Francisco became a recreation center, the Chinese seized opportunities to provide festive activities.
In addition an entire theater building was imported from China and erected in Chinatown to house the Chinese theatrical troupe. Chinatown's twelve blocks of crowded wooden and brick houses, businesses, temples, family associations, rooming houses for the bachelor majority, in the ratio of men to women was 20 to 1 opium dens, gambling halls was home to 22, people. As a result of exclusion, Nihonmachis — which often developed adjacent to Chinatowns and Little Manilas — also became important social hubs for Japanese immigrants.
In addition to traditional Japanese organizations, such as Buddhist temples and judo clubs, larger enclaves also developed institutions parallel to those found in mainstream American society, such as Nisei Boy Scout troops and Christian churches, Hirabayashi said.
But with the forced removal and incarceration of people of Japanese descent during World War II, and later post-war resettlement, which dispersed Japanese Americans throughout the country, Nihonmachis declined or disappeared. By , Hirabayashi said, Little Tokyo was reduced to one-third its former size. IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.
Politics Covid U. News World Opinion Business. Share this —. Follow NBC News.
0コメント