CHINESE ARRIVAL AND ADJUSTMENT IN THE UNITED STATES
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
HST 306 - STUDIES IN UNITED STATES HISTORY
WEEK 5
A. Factors Driving Chinese Arrival in the United States.
There are two main motives for migration: one is economic, which is a response to
different economic opportunities or a response to disappointment or the threat of violence,
and the other is politically motivated (Weyner, 1979: 56). Economic migration characterizes
modern societies and societies undergoing the modern process, and generally reflects the
increasing social mobility of society. It generally involves the voluntary and individualized
movement of young people seeking better jobs and higher incomes, while political migration
can occur in both premodern and modern societies as a result of increased danger or threat of
danger to certain individuals or groups of people.
Chinese migration in the United States is based on two main motives: political
migration and economic migration. In this case, it will describe the political conditions in
imperial China that caused many Chinese to choose to migrate out of the region. And
secondly, it will describe their economic conditions, so that they were encouraged to migrate
in order to improve their economic conditions.
a. Factors Politics
Talking about political factors as one of the factors that encourage Chinese people to
migrate, we will first describe the political conditions of the Chinese empire in the era before
the 1850s and after. This is based on the assumption that unstable political conditions are
caused by certain groups in society who are dissatisfied with the existing government. If the
ruling government wants to maintain the status quo, then it will try to eradicate any actions
of community groups that seek to undermine its power. And if these groups are not strong
enough to resist the government's power, they will flee the threat of violence, or more
cruelly, ethnic cleansing by the authorities. Usually, they will move out of the territory of the
government if they do not want to be crushed by the government.
The basic assumptions above are closely related to China's political conditions several
hundred years ago and even now we still encounter this situation in China, such as the 1989
Tian-An Men field incident, which caused many political fugitives to flee out of PRC
territory, especially to European countries and the United States, and an even greater exodus
of Hong Kong residents out of the country whose characteristics are already visible now
even though the handover of Hong Kong from the British government to the PRC
government will be implemented in 1997.
With the collapse of the Ming Dynasty in 1644, power in China was taken over by the
Manchu Dynasty from North China. Ethnographically, they belonged to the Tugus (Tartar)
tribe and consisted of three main groups, namely:
1. The group that inhabited the Southeast Manchu region, in the Liao river valley, to the
East of the Yalu river, around the border of Mancuria and Korea. This group had the
most to do with Chinese folkways such as agriculture and spinning.
2. The group that inhabits the Amur and Asuri river valleys, in the
China-Siberia border area. This group is often called Jurchet wild because they were
aggressive and savage, in the sense that they did not have writing and did not master
agriculture but only hunted.
3. A group that inhabited the Mancuria-Mongolia border area. Although still a nomadic
tribe, they were able to absorb livestock cultivation from the Mongols (Sukisman, 1993:
2).
The change of the imperial throne from the Ming Dynasty to the Mancu Dynasty
caused political turmoil, namely the cleansing of the remnants of Ming Dynasty power
throughout mainland China, or in other words ethnic cleansing, because the Mancu people
were considered not Chinese. The Chinese regarded them as an uncivilized wild tribe whose
life was only traveling from one region to another, and their main livelihood was hunting,
even if farming, they adopted it from Chinese culture. To avoid the ethnic cleansing of the
Mancunian rule, the remnants of the Ming Dynasty fled to southern China and established
their main military base in 1683. As the Ming Dynasty vassals lost power, opposition groups
formed various illicit organizations such as: first the Heaven and Earth Society. The Chinese
used to regard "heaven" as the symbol of "father" while "earth" as the symbol of "mother",
this association is also called San Ho Hui or San Tian Hui, by westerners it is known as the
Triad, because it reflects the association of the combination of heaven, earth, and humans.
The second is the Elder Brotherhood in Southern China. The third is the teaching of the
white lotus flower in North China (Sukisman, 1993: 35).
The heaven-earth association (triad) was founded in 1670 as a movement aimed at
restoring Ming Dynasty rule, with branches appearing in Taiwan and port cities on China's
southern coast. Its members vowed to settle with the Mancusians over their massacre of the
Chinese population. The Old Brethren Society has an inner bond that more steadfast than the
Triad. While the white lotus teachings were the most violent and disruptive movement
against the Manchu dynasty, they were the most violent. In 1793 they organized a rebellion
in Central China which was suppressed by the Manchu dynasty with considerable human
casualties. The movement then spread to Sen Chuan, Ho Bei, Shan Xi, Gan Shu, and Ho
Nan. The rebellion lasted for nine years and was only put down with great difficulty in 1804
(Sukisman, 1993: 37).
The concentration of opposition groups in southern China made it the main reason for
Chinese migrants to migrate outward, especially in Southeast Asia since the 15th century
and the United States in the mid-19th century. This is evident from Ma Huan's findings
between 1405 and 1443 of a Chinese settlement in Palembang, Sumatra. This community
appears to have been a very active and prosperous one consisting of Southern Chinese who
fled the political turmoil in their homeland and sought refuge across the sea (Ch'ng, 1995:
41). Other written evidence of Chinese working in Southeast Asia is provided by a number
of 18th Century British writers. Richard Walter who accompanied Admiral Lord Anson on a
round-the-world voyage in 1740-1744 recorded in his diary that some small art objects made
by Chinese craftsmen in Manila were transported to the port of Acapulco, Mexico (Ch'ng,
1995: 43). Their migration has thus been ongoing for a long time, coming mainly from the
Southern Chinese provinces of Kwatung and Fukien. This migration intensified from the
17th century when opposition to the Mancu Dynasty was centered in these provinces
(Skinner, 1957: 27).
Resistance to the Mancunian rule intensified in the mid-19th century, especially in the
southern provinces which were sensitive to feelings of resentment and disaffection with the
Mancunian rule. Mancu dynasty. The reasons for this are: 1) the southern provinces were
very far from the central government, and in the history of the Mancu Dynasty, these areas
were the last to be subdued, 2) the people experienced the most direct pressure from
foreigners, 3) the arrival of tribes from Central China to the South to make a living, and take
refuge from political massacres, such as the Hakka tribe. (Sukisman, 1993: 69)
As a result of old grudges and dissatisfaction with the rule of the Mancu dynasty, there
was a violent rebellion that almost brought down the Mancu dynasty, namely the Tai Ping
rebellion from January 11, 1851 to August 7, 1864. This rebellion started in Kwantung
province and spread throughout China, with Hung Xiu Chuan, a Hakka farmer's son from
Jin Tian village about 50 kilometers north of Canton City, as the main leader (Sukisman,
1993). The rebellion was successfully suppressed by the Mancu Dynasty and the result was
the start of a manhunt for the remaining followers of the rebellion, some of whom were
caught and sentenced to be hanged or beheaded, and some fled abroad as political refugees.
According to Linda Ching Sledge (1995) in her novel Empire of Heave, Tai Ping's rebellion
involved hundreds of thousands of soldiers and citizens who passed through his troops and
other groups of people who were dissatisfied with the government, such as the illegal
opposition groups mentioned above. However, with the success of the Mancu Dynasty in
suppressing this rebellion, many members of the army and their families tried to escape the
pursuit of government troops by migrating out of China, some to the Hawaiian islands and
some to California, as well as other places that allowed them to get a better life and escape
the threat of violence and pursuit from the Mancu dynasty.
Ching Yun Bezine (1995) in his novel Children of the Pearl suggests that the impetus
for the migration of people along the pearl river in Kwantung province to the United States
was due to the political atmosphere, the revolution against the Ching Dynasty and the Queen
Dowager, the power of the landlords who were too powerful and influenced the state
apparatus making many people feel the need to flee. The strictness of the arts and traditions
also made people want to leave for the land of gold mountains.
b. Economic Factors
As mentioned earlier, China's political situation was unstable, with chaos everywhere
and rebellions springing up all over the country. As a result, the government was only
preoccupied with the business of putting down rebellions while economic affairs were
neglected, not to mention the unfriendly natural environment, especially in the Kwantung
province where the land consists of barren land so it is not very profitable when growing
crops. As a result, many people in this region migrated to the United States, Southeast Asia,
and Australia. Ching Yun Bezine (1995) illustrates that the impetus for the migration of
people along the Pearl River in Kwantung Province was due to the fact that the river was
sometimes calm, but at other times it could be very violent and destroy the future of the
fishermen. They left their families in the hope of returning with enough gold, but many were
stranded in Sanfransisko's Chinatown. Hard work and continuous saving for so long that
they lose their entire family back home, and they may never return. The ideals of improving
the family economy and the futility of hard work make people sometimes insignificant.
Joseph Hraba (1979: 229) says that poverty drove peasants out of southern China, and
conversely it drew them back to their homeland. Migration is an escape from poverty in
China, but it is also an escape from poverty means that migrants who have savings earned
elsewhere can return to China and prosper.
Skinner, however, revealed that economic pressures were a bigger factor in causing
them to become migrants. During the larger waves of migration from 1850 to 1930, the
Hakka people from the interior of Kwantung province, whose territory consisted of rocky
and infertile hills, were the most destitute migrants from China (Ta, 1979: 7). Skiner further
argues that not all Chinese migrants were poor farmers, but some came with greater capital
and also exceptional skills in carpentry and industry. These came from the area around
Canton.
In addition to domestic political conditions, such as the existence of rebellions, and a
less fertile natural environment (especially South China where the main migrants came
from) that caused the social and economic conditions of the community to become unequal,
it was also caused by the dominance of Westerners in Chinese economic affairs. In the
Opium War (1796-1842), for example, the West as the victorious party demanded that the
Chinese government pay war reparations. The Treaty of Nangking (August 29, 1842)
between the West and the Chinese government stipulated:
1. Pampasa War
a) $12 million troop cost
b) $6 million replacement for opium confiscated by the Qing Dynasty government
c) $3 million in reimbursement of losses suffered by the UK in its trade with cohong
Total $21 Million
2. Abolition of the Cohong monopoly system
3. The opening of 5 cities (canton, amoy, foochow, ningpo, and shanghai for residential
trade, and the opening of the British consulta
4. The release of the island of Hong Kong from Qing Dynasty rule to become a British
possession
5. There is a definite customs tariff (Sukisma, 1993: 58)
The interference of foreign countries such as Britain, France, Russia, the United
States, Portugal, and finally Japan, made this country powerless not only in political terms,
but also in economic terms. It is therefore not surprising that the Chinese people experienced
economic pressure because the government was faced with political problems, not only
domestic political problems, but also foreign political problems. In this case, facing foreign
forces that want to divide China, both economically and politically. as a result, the
government's attention to improving the welfare of the people has been neglected. Because
of this, many Chinese people tried to migrate to the United States and other areas where it
was possible to make a decent living, both for themselves and their families.
Starting from this description, it can be argued that the factors that encourage
Chinese people to migrate are due to socio-economic reasons and some are due to political
reasons, which accumulate in creating classic push conditions that encourage migration.
B. Factors Attractors
Speaking of pull factors, it cannot be separated from the existence of Western nations,
because from them the Chinese were attracted to migrate on a large scale. The first
influences were the Dutch Empire, the British Empire, other European countries and finally
the United States. Chinese migration in numbers The large Chinese population in Indonesia
was brought in by the Dutch colonial government in the 1600s. As stated by Ch'ng (1993:
42), the Chinese population in Batavia increased from two thousand people in 1629 to ten
thousand people in 1725. This was followed by a sharp increase to eighty thousand people in
1733.
The eighteenth century was a time of trade and political rivalry between Britain and
the Netherlands. Both European powers sought control of the Strait of Malacca. From India
the powerful EOC expanded eastward and in 1786 captured Penang. As the island was
sparsely populated, the British attracted Chinese migrants from the southern provinces of
China to develop Penang Island as a British colony. These Chinese migrants were a source
of labor and taxes for the colonial government. Within twenty-five years, more than seven
thousand Chinese settled on the island. Most of the men were attracted by the prospect of
employment, but a small number were fleeing ethnic cleansing by the Chinese government
(Ch'ng, 1993: 42).
Furthermore, this pull is also exerted by the United States or more precisely California.
The influence of pull is reflected in the Chinese description of California as "Golden
Mountain". California, which had been captured from Mexico in the 1846-1848 war, began
a massive economic boom based on the discovery of the gold mines in 1848. This attracted
migration from across the region, so that by 1849 there were perhaps 100,000 mainly male
migrants flocking to California. In 1851 gold production reached a value of $55 million.
This economic boom created a massive labor shortage. These labor shortages were endemic
to the frontier regions with the highest wage rates in the world. General laborers in San
Francisco received $1 an hour, carpenters received $14 a day, laundry cost $20 a dozen, and
some Californians actually had to send their laundry (by sailing) to Honolulu (Daniels,
1993: 12). It was this economic boom that attracted the Chinese to California first and
almost simultaneously to Australia. Some Chinese left in both places. A historian of Chinese
in Australia reported that "one man in Victoria in the early 1860s, known in local records as
Lee Hong, served as an interpreter and was a former member of the California gold rush"
(Cronin, 1982: 86).
The means used by the Chinese to cross the Pacific Ocean were also exclusively
Western. During the nineteenth century migration to the south (Nanyang) was done by
mostly people owning and riding canoes, but migration to West India, North America and
the United States was done by boat from the west, first by sailboat, then by steamship using
the credit ticket system. According to Gunther Barth, the credit system was the most
dominant means, (Daniels, 1993: 13). Economic exploitation was involved in bringing the
Chinese people to California. Exploitation that made profits for both the western shipowners
and the Chinese middlemen. Similar exploitation was a factor common to most migrants in
America.
The time spent on the trip is approximately two months and costs $50. This amount is
certainly not beyond the economic means of the migrants. Many Chinese borrowed money
on a credit ticket system, requiring them to repay larger amounts. A British officer in China
as early as 1850 reported that for a down payment of $70 ($50 for travel expenses and $20
for other costs), some migrants had a repayment obligation of $200 (Daniels, 1993: 15).
Others used the long-standing rotational credit association known as hui in China. Other
migrants may also raise resources from their own families. Common to each of these
ventures was the expectation that the person receiving the advance would earn enough to
repay the debt, plus interest, in a relatively short period of time. The fact that informal credit
mechanisms continued to be used by both legal and illegal Chinese migrants well into the
nineteenth century is evidence that most lenders eventually accepted repayment.
C. Arrival and Settlement Patterns
Chinese migration in the United States in the last few centuries
The Chinese were then part of a larger movement of humanity. On the path of European
expansion, where Europeans settled all over the world, including the Pacific mainland, they
used the Chinese alongside others in building their settlements. Eventually, Chinese
migrants occupied the Pacific Ocean. The Chinese are in Canada, the United States in the
western hemisphere and live throughout Southeast Asia in the eastern hemisphere. In the
United States, the Chinese joined other migrant groups in building America.
According to Light (1972: 294), principally all the early Chinese migrants who came
to this country came from seven districts in South China, Kwantung province and in the area
around Canton city. These consisted of the Sze-yup people who came from four districts in
the southwestern Pearl River region, which included the towns of Emping, Kaiping,
Toishan, and Xinhui. The second, an important minority group, came from Chungshan or
the so-called San-yup people whose native areas were three districts in the suburbs of
Kwanchow, namely Nanhai, Panyu, and Shunde townships (Bezine, 1995: 234). The
majority of them speak the Cantonese dialect, although some speak Hakka and are also from
areas of the Chungshan district that differ from the Min dialect. South (Thenstrom, 1980:
218). Southern China as the main origin of Chinese migrants to the United States.
Most of these migrants are men who were farmers in China, whose lives are formed
into social networks of kinship, village and dialect groups. These social networks are
reconstructed by Chinese migrants in the United States, and eventually each migrant is
integrated into an ethnic moral, a form of migrant brotherhood. In the face of their exclusion
from the larger American society. An era that began several centuries ago and continues
today. The Chinese entered into their migrant brotherhoods or bonds. Through this
communal network they incorporate the wage labor class into the middle class minority, and
eventually into the larger society.
Early Chinese migrants traveled to the United States as sojourners in search of jobs
and salaries with the desire to quickly return to China and bring back their savings. Between
1820-1977, 513,272 Chinese migrated to the United States, although not all of these
migrants stayed. The peak years of Chinese migration were between 1848-1882, a period
that began with the Gold Rush in California, continued with the construction of railroads,
wage labor in agriculture. Their migration in the country was restricted by the Chinese
Exclusion Act of 1882. This was a temporary law that lasted for ten years, and was renewed
in 1892 and made permanent in 1904. This law was contrary to the agreement between the
United States Government and the Chinese Empire in 1858, and was later revised again in
1868 which in principle granted privileges, immunities, and exemptions for residence, trade
or travel to countries on both sides. Everyone is free to migrate as long as it is done with
voluntary way.
In addition, the law had weaknesses that allowed certain groups of Chinese to enter
America. Therefore, in order to avoid these problems, the Immigration Act of 1924 was
enacted, which in principle applied without hindrance until 1965. With the recent changes in
the immigration law in 1965, Chinese migration to the US skyrocketed year on year, as can
be seen in the number of Chinese migrants between 1965-1977.
The table above shows that even though the Chinese Exclusion Act was enacted in
1882, Chinese migration continued despite a decline in numbers. This is because the law had
weaknesses that allowed Chinese to enter the United States. The law did not state that
skilled or unskilled Chinese or Chinese miners could enter the United States for ten years,
but it did exempt certified Chinese merchants or laborers, students, and travelers. In
addition, there was also smuggling of Chinese into the United States, which became a major
activity after the issuance of the strict migration ban. Some were smuggled on the grounds of
ordinary migration (many were women), others were voluntary prostitutes and/or forced
prostitutes (Sowell, 1989: 191).
As a result of the massive Chinese migration in the United States, the Chinese
became dispersed throughout the United States.
The above data shows that the Chinese are concentrated in the western states in
general and in California in particular, although in other states in the United States since
1870 there has been a steady increase. However, it is still below the concentration in
California.
The Chinese community that developed in the United States since the 1850s shares
similarities with most other American migrant communities. Most migrant groups in the
United States are geographically and occupationally centralized, as can be seen in the
residence and workplace patterns of Irish, German and Scandinavian migrants (Daniels,
1993: 17).
The concentration of Chinese in California and other parts of the United States follows
the pattern of migrant group settlements with the development of distinct districts or
neighboring areas with members of one or more ethnic groups dominating at the exclusion of
others, and the resultant ghetto. Allan H. Spear argues that although the various migrant
groups try to cope with the problems of American life in their own ways, they all strive to
retain some part of their ancestral heritage for the sake of group identity and solidarity,
either by establishing community institutions or maintaining traditional family structures
(Davis, 1991: 281). Thus the reasons for clustering are both economic and cultural. Most
migrants need to stay in the cheapest possible living area; most have a natural desire to live
among people who are like them, they can use the language of origin, obtain familiar foods,
and create a familiar social organization if modified. In addition, the pressures of the larger
community are usually encouraging, sometimes forces different ethnic groups to live in
rather strictly defined areas.
Chinese migrants in the United States conformed to these patterns. In the first decade
of Chinese presence in San Francisco, for example, a community of migrants formed in a
rundown urban area centered on the intersection of Dupont Street and Stockton Street. The
larger community that came later called this area "Chinatown". With very little change in
geographic emphasis, San Francisco Chinatown has survived to the present day, and similar
Chinatowns exist in most urban centers with large Chinese populations as far away as
Boston (Nee and Nee, 1973: xxi-xxvii).
D. Pattern Work
Chinese people go to the United States to work with filling the need for labor, especially on
the West Coast, particularly in the mining, railroad construction, and agricultural wage labor
sectors. The demand for labor was great and the supply was low when the Chinese entered
the California economy in the nineteenth century. In 1870-1880, Treasury Department
figures show that approximately 15,000 Chinese were employed in California, representing
between one-third and one-fifth of all male Chinese workers. During the construction of the
Central Pacific transcontinental railroad, 10,000 Chinese were employed in construction;
and almost all were retired when the road was completed in 1869. Based on the 1880 census
manuscript, one scholar tabulated occupations for nearly 75% of all Chinese in California.
Of this group about one-fifth were miners, one-fifth were common laborers, one-seventh
were in agriculture, and one-seventh were in various fields of manufacturing, one-seventh
were domestic servants, and in laundries. Outside of California nearly 30,000 Chinese men
were reported, the uses of the Chinese were less varied and centered on mining, general
labor, and service establishments (The Annals of America, 1979: 696).
Chinese workers gained a good reputation from employers for being quick learners,
even more importantly as reliable and non-striking and they also worked for relatively less
money than white laborers. In the construction of the railroad in the late 1860s, for example,
the wage rate of white laborers was at least two-thirds higher than that of the Chinese.
Except for a few skilled women workers, most Chinese were eventually paid $35 a month by
Central Pacific, as food costs were estimated at $15 to $18 a month, and housing was
provided by the railroad. Male workers can earn a net income of close to $20 a month.
Hence the debt incurred in the initial migration that had to be repaid could be paid (The
Annals of America, 1979: 615).
Not all Chinese are manual laborers, although many come as manual laborers. From
the beginning, migration has involved traders and other entrepreneurs whose income is
derived from skills and capital investment rather than physical labor (Daniels, 1993: 21).
Besides being traders and labor contractors, Chinese entrepreneurs are involved in
agriculture as sharecroppers, tenants and sellers. They were in manufacturing and mining,
and they were owners and operators of retail businesses that catered to an increasingly large
ethnic community and to white customers. Census results cited by Ping Chiu show that
Chinese farmers in California increased in number from 8 in 1860 to 1,434 in 1880, while
those active in plantations grew from 472 to 1,783 in the same period (Daniels, 1993: 15).
By being excluded from the wider society, the Chinese became a minority of the
middle class, and as such, for generations maintained a distance within the wider American
society. In this regard, Bonacich (1973: 583) says that the middle class minority tended to
concentrate in certain occupations, especially trade and commerce, as well as other
occupations such as agents, labor contractors, rent collectors, intermediary traders, and
money lenders. They play the role of intermediaries between consumers and producers,
employers and employees, owners and tenants, the elite and the masses. He also states that
the common denominator for the minority status of the middle class is the liquidity of
occupations chosen by people in this group. They are concentrated in occupations that
provide the possibility of an easily executed and easily liquidated life, as personified by the
merchant, the truck farmer, and the independent professional.
The Chinese began to concentrate in the commercial and service sectors in the late
nineteenth century, as Chinese laborers withdrew from mining, railroad construction, and
wage agricultural labor, they entered middle-class occupations and became segregated in
Chinatown. Lee (1960) refers to this period as a reconcentration of Chinese migrants in the
country's larger cities and established a sub-economy in Chinatown. Between 1870 and 1920
there was a 280 percent increase in domestic and service jobs, and a fantastic 960 percent
increase in the number of Chinese merchants and dealers (Yuan, 1963: 345). In such a
process, a group of Chinese financiers emerged who gave Chinese Americans jobs without
prejudice and discrimination. The establishment of ethnic sub-economies and opportunity
structures was an event of important in the evolutionary process of ethnic groups, especially
those facing constrained opportunities in the wider society.
The minority position of the Chinese middle class was established in Chinatown
around the turn of the century. Self-employed Chinese at that time were concentrated in
manual washing, import channels, restaurants, and retail vegetable stalls. Outside their sub-
economy, Chinese laborers were domestic servants and gardeners. Chinese participation in
the labor force is dramatically illustrated by the fact that 50 percent of the country's salaried,
self-employed Chinese in 1920 worked in manual laundry or in restaurants (Light, 1972:
305).
E. Social Network
Chinese people in the United States maintain a tightly knit social structure that allows
for extensive and informal relationships among its members. Social relationships begin at
the family level and extend to non-family kinships linked by a common surname, a common
region of origin or a common dialect. These non-family networks are similar to extended
families. In addition, the loose network system of clan associations and personal
relationships transcends national boundaries. In general, overseas Chinese associations can
be categorized into four parts: clan associations, hui-kuans, language associations, and
gildas.
a. Association
Extensive non-family networks are organized according to four principles; kinship,
residence, livelihood or skill, and language. These voluntary social organizations are known
as associations. The table above illustrates the four types of overseas Chinese associations.
Clan associations are formed on the basis of the surnames of their members, although
surname similarity does not necessarily imply lineage similarity, the possibility of family
ties is self-evident when members of the same surname come from the same area of China.
According to Daniels (1993:24), for most migrant Chinese, family or clan associations (i.e.,
all those with a common last name and therefore a putative common ancestor), are the focus
of primary associations. In line with this, Joseph Hraba (1979: 306) suggests that clans are
the original name associations that originated in Southeast Chinese communities. They
support endogamy until now and are specifically organized around the shops of leading
merchants. The clan has a definitive economic function, its main goal being brotherhood and
prosperity. It is the clan that reminds them of their village and family obligations to return to
China and therefore they act in loco parentis. However, for third and fourth generation
Chinese Americans, these obligations have become less prominent, and the clan functions
have diminished, (Lyman, 1974).
In addition to belonging to a clan, every Chinese belongs to Hui Kuans, which are
ethnic divisions within larger Chinese groups, consisting of people of the same dialect and
from the same region. Lyman (1974) writes that the Hui Kuans were most important in
integrating migrants into American Chinatowns, which functioned as caravan lodging, loan
centers, and employment agencies. Members of the Hui Kuans usually employed only their
own kind as trade unions and commercial centers were organized around dialect groups. The
Hui Kuans exercise control over the economy in Chinatown, and the integration of migrants
into this sub-economy is absolute.
Trade guilds drew their membership not only from people active in the same trade, but
also from specialized clans or Hui Kuans. Trade guilds represented an extension of the
economic control of powerful clans and Hui Kuans. Washers, cigarette makers, restaurant
waiters, dressmakers, from one clan or Hui Kuan or another, all had trade unions. Internal
competition was regulated, location and compensation rules were enforced, and violators of
these rules would be punished through the trade union (Hraba, 1979: 308). Paternalism
between Chinese financiers and Chinese laborers is rooted in Old World (Chinese) blood
ties and communal obligations. It has been mentioned above that in addition to being a
member of a clan, every Chinese was, at least in theory, a member of the Hui Kuans or
belonged to a district association. These district associations were originally based on the
regional districts of Kwantung Province because that is where almost all Chinese migrants
came from, eventually governed by a protective organization called the "Chinese
Consolidated Benevolent Association" but were more Known as the "Chine Six Companies",
headquartered in San Francisco, these district associations are spread throughout Chinese
America (Nee and Nee, 1973: 272). Their role is essentially dualistic. On the one hand, they
function similarly to the kinds of mutually protective migrant associations developed by all
ethnic groups in America. On the other hand, they are also the most influential organs of
social and economic control in the Chinese American community. In the former capacity,
the Six Companies function as community spokespersons who play a corresponding role as
Chinese diplomatic or consular representatives when the government has a say in migrant
protection activities. Since 1853 the heads of the four companies appeared as representatives
of the Chinese community before a Chinese legislative committee. During times of
dangerous anti-Chinese movements, the Six Companies hired prominent Caucasus lawyers
to represent the Chinese community as a whole. While the companies performed many
purely benevolent and protective functions within the community, their agents met incoming
ships and arranged for initial housing and employment of migrants. They organized medical
treatment for the sick and performed other welfare functions, they helped plan the shipment
of the bones of the dead to ancestral burial grounds in China, and they mediated disputes
between individuals. Despite the specialized nature of their welfare functions, Six
Companies exist to exercise a degree of control over the lives of Chinese Americans,
perhaps greater than that achieved by any other migrant, regardless of nationality, (Daniels,
1993: 25).
Along with the establishment of social organizations, an anti-establishment of social
organizations centered around the tong was developed. Secret societies or vats are voluntary
associations whose membership is based solely on mutual interest Reverse. Tong recruited
its membership from the privileged or disenfranchised of the Chinatown and Hui Kuan
clans. The economic function of these secret societies revolved around the provision of illicit
goods and services such as prostitutes for homeless Chinese men (Hraba, 1979: 308). Some
observers believe that there were as many as 30 vats in San Francisco in 1900, although a
government survey at the same time listed only 16 vats in the entire country (Light, 1972:
313).
The existence of tong in the United States is inextricably linked to the Old World
(China), because in China secret societies have been a traditional way of forming illegal
opposition. The tong has direct ties to the anti-Mancu Triad society. Its members vowed to
reckon with the Mancusians over their massacre of the Chinese population (Sukisman, 1992:
36). This secret society, also anti-foreigner, emerged in Kwantung in response to foreign
interference that had torn apart Chinese sovereignty. This can be seen in the 1839 Candu
War, which ended in victory for the foreigners (Sukisman, 1993: 54). In China, organized
political opposition is considered subversion. Therefore, secret societies have both criminal
and political functions. This is in line with what Sukisman (1992: 36) stated that the Triad
society used to function politically against the Mancu Dynasty, but due to the moral
degeneration of its followers, it turned into a mere crime mafia. This organization was also
applied in the United States. Since the Chinese in America were exempted from political
life, the criminal aspect of the barrels became more prominent although it is also clear that
they played an anti-establishment political role in Chinese American society, (Daniels, 1993:
26).
b. Family:
According to Tan (1984), family and clan are the most important human groupings
among overseas Chinese. Family is the core of Chinese existence. Having no family means
having no social status or identity in traditional Chinese society.
A child raised in a Chinese family experiences an intensive socialization process
through the family group, which includes not only parents and siblings, but also the entire
extended family, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. These family members
are sorted by age, gender and generation. The latter is often identified by its middle Chinese
name, which is the name of the generation. The male member closest to the founding elder is
considered the most senior in the family.
c. Language:
Language is the most important communication tool in dealing with other people, with
language we can also understand the culture of other nations, because without understanding
the language used by other people or other nations, it is difficult to be able to adjust to their
customs and habits and culture.
In light of the above, the Chinese who went to the United States had very little or no
knowledge of English. Therefore, the language factor is a major difficulty for Chinese
people in adjusting to American society. In addition, they also expect that their stay in
America is only temporary and that they will return to China after accumulating a lot of
money, and they usually live separately in their own ethnic communities. This does not
mean that they are passive, or that there is no effort to learn English as the main means of
communication in the country, but there are efforts to learn the language efforts to learn
English and efforts to understand American customs. Ching Yun Bezine (1995) in his novel
Children of the Pearl describes the lives of four Chinese migrants in America, three men and
a woman, one of whom worked for a white-owned fish cannery, but because of his
ignorance of English, he dropped out and was stranded in Chinatown. Another worked for
his uncle's import-export company while learning English from a former missionary in
China and quickly mastered the language. Another became a painter, and the woman worked
for a prostitute house owner in Chinatown while learning English from white customers.
Thus it can be said that although Chinese migrants at the beginning of their arrival did not
know and understand English, but thanks to perseverance and hard work, they were able to
master English even though some failed. This is not only monopolized by the Chinese, but
also includes those from other countries, such as Germany, Italy, France and Poland. Roger
Daniels (1993: 26) points out that some people become literate quickly, others slowly, and
still others cannot become literate at all. It is true that Chinese migrants wear their "ugliness"
on their skin, but millions of European migrants carry their "Germanness", "Italianness",
"Polishness" on the tip of their tongues throughout their lives.
AMERICANS' REACTION TO THE ARRIVAL OF THE CHINESE:
The problem of migration is generally seen as a problem of "absorption" or
"assimilation" and even a problem of population interaction with problems of adjustment
and change. Another problem that arises is the reaction of the migrant population to
migrants because their existence feels threatened by the arrival of these migrants, which
often results in conflict.
In relation to the problem of conflict, American sociologists build conflict theories
based on Charles Darwin's famous evolutionary theory, "survival of the fittest theories", or
natural selection theory, stating that "the strongest are the luckiest in the struggle for
survival". Darwin's idea was applied to the social order and social ideology of Darwinism
(Vago, 1980: 33). The first to apply it were Herbert Spenser and W.G. Sumner. They
provided what came to be recognized as scientific justification for the ruthless business
tactics of the captains of industry in the 19th century. The captains of industry were "the
strongest" and the less able "incompetent" should accept their fate for the sake of society's
well-being (Bailey and Kennedy, 1994: 549). This idea flourished in American society,
because Americans saw themselves in the grip of the "natural selection" view and because
dominant groups were able to dramatize this view of competition as inherently good (Lauer,
1993: 279).
So social evolution was envisioned to go hand in hand with biological evolution.
Those who survive prove to be the strong ones. In 19th-century America, captains of
industry were the strong, the winners of the struggle to survive in the business world. This
pattern also applies to white people's efforts to oppose migrants, especially Chinese
migrants, as an ethnic group of social, economic and political actors.
Gumplowicz states that social and cultural evolution is the result of intergroup
conflict. Intergroup warfare can be likened to a struggle for survival, and the strongest wins
in social life. The great hatred inherent between different groups, races, and people makes
conflict inevitable. That is, "conquest and gratification through the extortion of labor"
(Lauer, 1993: 280).
There are a number of reasons why locals may feel threatened by strong migrant
flows. Migrants may be competing for the same jobs, and if those migrants are willing to
work for lower wages then the threat is not impossible. If the government and private sector
are unable to provide new housing, more health facilities, educational facilities, and other
improved social programs then the local population will feel the decline of services in the
area. If migrants organize among themselves and seek support from the local government,
this is a threat to the local population. And if the migrants speak a different language, have a
different religion or feel a different cultural identity, belong to a different race, these
differences may pose a threat to the natives. Finally, the indigenous population feels that
migrants are destroying the sense of community inherited from the ancestors, that is, the
sense of a people who share a common outlook and understand each other.
Faced with the above conditions, the dominant group tries to maintain and defend its
position; power is the most important factor in maintaining stability. Violence may be
necessary to restore the social state if the balance is disturbed. Violence does not require
moral justification, as it has a renewing quality, freeing humans to follow the irrational
dictates of their own innate nature (Lauer, 1993: 281). This state of affairs was inherent in
white American society in the mid-19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
20. White workers organized themselves against the power of capital owners, also
manifested in opposition to migrants, especially Chinese migrants.
In addition to the above, migration can also lead to changes in the composition of the
population, which in turn leads to competition for jobs and other social problems, all of
which lead to conflict. Aristotle, in his observation of the forms of government change,
considered the relationship between population increase and the increase in poverty, which
in turn leads to strife in society (Weiner, 1979: 2).
The emergence of a sense of superiority among Westerners towards people of color
stems from the results of research conducted by Western European anthropological scientists
in the 18th century on the peoples of Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Indians in the Americas.
Three conflicting attitudes towards people of color emerged from this work: First, some
Europeans saw the ugly nature of these distant peoples, and said that they were not really
human; that they were savages, descendants of the devil and so on. Thus terms such as
savages, primitives, were coined by Europeans to refer to these peoples. Secondly, some
Europeans saw these good qualities, Thirdly, some Europeans were attracted by the strange
customs and began to collect cultural objects from the tribes of Africa, Asia, Oceania and
the Native Americas, some of which were gathered together in order to make a collection.
Third, some Europeans were interested in strange customs, and began to collect cultural
objects from the tribes of Africa, Asia, Oceania and Native America. Some of these private
collections were gathered together, so that they could be seen by the public, thus the first
museums about the cultures of nations outside Europe emerged (Koentjaraningrat, 1990: 2).
In the mid-19th century, a frame of mind emerged among Europeans that the highest
forms of human society and culture were those that existed in Western Europe. All forms of
society and culture from nations outside Europe, which Europeans called primitive, were
considered examples of lower levels of culture (Koentjaraningrat, 1990: 3).
This frame of mind shaped the character and personality of European and American
society, that only their nation was the most civilized, while those outside them were
considered uncivilized. Therefore, it is their duty to civilize these uncivilized societies, and
this is one of the factors that influenced the European colonization of the colored nations.
So, it is not surprising that the arrival of the Chinese in the United States led to such
assumptions among white people. The migration of the Chinese in the United States led to
reactions from white people, which manifested in the form of actions that led to prejudice
and discrimination in various aspects of life. The emergence of the concept of yellow peril,
is part of the prejudice against people of color. Yellow. Throughout the history of the
Chinese people in the United States, they have been treated unfairly, even though the
Declaration of Independence and the constitution states that "Ours shall be a land of liberty
and an asylum for the oppressed of all nations" (Mann, 1990: 90), but not for the Chinese
people, for there they were oppressed, humiliated, and so on. As a result, the Chinese
became marginalized. According to Robert Park, marginalized people are: Living and being
part of the cultural life and traditions of two different societies; never wishing to break away
from them, even though one's own past life and traditions allow one to break away. In the
new society in which the is now tries to find a place, it is not fully accepted due to racial
prejudice (Lauer, 1993: 325).
A. Rejection:
It has been stated in the previous chapter that Chinese migrants worked in a variety
of occupations, although initially concentrated in mining, railroad construction, and wage
labor in agriculture. At first there was no competition in these businesses, so Chinese
workers were able to establish good relations with white workers. However, this did not last
long as migration flows were so strong from various countries that competition in mining
increased, railroad construction was hampered, and eventually the Chinese faced
competition from white labor unions and migrants from Japan and Mexico (Hraba, 1979:
301). To avoid conflict with workers from other ethnic groups, especially white workers, the
Chinese adopted a non-competitive attitude. They shifted their work to services such as
working in laundries, firewood collectors in the goldfields or replacing unwanted white
workers employed in the area. This was the initial stage of Chinese ethnic stratification
within the mines.
As mining evolved from a collection of small businesses to large-scale, capital-
intensive ventures into deep mines, the miners also changed. The white miners organized
themselves into unions, from which they excluded the Chinese, thus excluding the Chinese
from the gold mines themselves. According to Daniels (1993: 30) labor leaders from Dennis
Kearney to Samuel Gompers, and almost all American socialist leaders, emphasized that the
Chinese should be expelled and returned to their homelands. As a result in 1870 there were
27,045 Chinese miners and laborers in the country by 1920 only 121 Chinese miners
remained (Yuan, 1963: 255).
As the Chinese were pushed out of mining and railroad construction declined after
1869, the Chinese began to pursue other fields of work. As experienced miners and railroad
construction workers, many Chinese began developing agricultural areas in California. The
arrival of the Chinese was first welcomed by California farmers and ranchers as a source of
experienced and relatively cheap labor, but as Chinese workers dwindled as a result of
restrictions on Chinese migrants, Chinese workers became more militant in their demands
for wage levels and working conditions. According to Threnstrom (1980: 334) after the
enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese labor became more valuable than ever as
agricultural employers depended on their skills as fruit tree pruners and fruit packers. This
left American agricultural employers cold, and they began to look elsewhere for labor. At
some point, in 1884, the employers The farm agreed to bring in blacks to replace the
Chinese as "hop" fruit pickers who were on strike in Kern County. However, after some
thought they did not do so because they considered it a dangerous experiment (Chan, 1986:
332). Lyman (1974) further observed that the series of strikes that occurred from 1893 to
1894 was the final blow to the extensive use of Chinese in agriculture, and eventually the
Chinese moved out of agriculture.
While Chinese workers were pushed to the bottom of the labor hierarchy, their
migration to the country was also restricted. The first Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by
Congress in 1882 and was renewed twice and made permanent between 1904 and 1965.
Through politics, the main enemy of the Chinese succeeded in pushing them out of desirable
jobs (Daniel, 1993: 56). Only the roughest, dirtiest and lowest jobs were open to them
(Sowell, 1989: 189).
In the 1870s, America was experiencing an economic depression after a long war and
the issue of Chinese labor competition was a serious political problem, especially on the
West Coast. Political parties advocated anti-Chinese in pulpits, and the California
Constitutional Convention in its articles expressed sentiments for the expulsion of the
Chinese, due to the pressure of white labor unions, as stated by Daniels (1993: 38), that anti-
Chinese demonstrations in June 1870 and a number of mass meetings were held in San
Francisco by whites marching with banners with slogans:
WE WANT NO SLAVES OR ARISTOCRATS
THE COOLIE LABOR SYSTEM LEAVES US NO ALTERNATIVE- STARVATION OR
DISGRACE
MARK THE MAN WHO WOULD CRUSH US TO THE LEVEL OF THE MONGOLIAN
SLAVE-WE ALL VOTE
WOMEW.5 RIGHT AND NO MORE CHINESE CHAMBERMAIDS
(WE DON'T NEED SLAVES OR ARISTOCRATS THE COOLIE LABOR
SYSTEM DOES NOT PROVIDE ALTERNATIVES.
HUNGER OR HUMILIATION LOOK AT THE PEOPLE WHO CRUSH US AT THE
LEVEL OF MONGOL SLAVES WE ALL HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE RIGHTS
WOMEN AND NO MORE CHINESE MAIDS)
It can thus be said that the Chinese have historically been excluded from American
society. On the one hand they were forced to occupy a lower position in the country's ethnic
stratification, on the other hand they were restricted from entering the country. The
competition between the Chinese and white workers, the demands of the Chinese on
California's white agricultural employers and the higher political power wielded by their
Sinophobic adversaries, especially on the West Coast, all functioned within the powers to
exclude the Chinese. Whites control the political and legislative process, and through that
process they can win the conflict against the Chinese presence.
B. Exploitation
From 1850 to 1934 employers in Hawaii and the West Coast sourced labor from
China, Japan, Korea and the Philippines respectively. They preferred bachelor men who
could certainly work hard, fast and cheaply to do even the most menial work (Fuchs, 1994:
125). Chinese workers quickly gained a good name among employers as reliable. This is
because they work with cost relatively less than white workers. In the construction of the
railroad in the late 1860s, for example, the wage rate of white laborers was at least two-
thirds higher than that of the Chinese (Daniels, 1993: 19). Daniels further argues that most
Chinese were eventually paid $35 a month by Central Pacific; as food costs are estimated at
$15 to $18 a month and housing provided by the railroad ministry, male workers can expect
a net income of nearly $20 a month.
The low wage levels of Chinese workers compared to white wages, in itself, creates
competition among workers, as it cuts into the working conditions and wage levels of other
ethnic groups. Lyman (1974: 75) argues that workers tend to identify Chinese migrants as
tools of the monopoly capital consortium that will push white workers into lower
degradation. At the very least, the actions of Chinese migrant workers give the impression of
an alliance with capital. Realistically, Chinese migrants degrade the economic position of
whites unconsciously, as they are usually unaware of West Coast wage levels. They often
enter into fixed-term contracts to get paid while they are still in China. Moreover, Chinese
migrants or Chinese laborers themselves were in no position to complain about the
exploitation of Chinese labor by American employers. China's poverty makes the country
and its emigrants powerless to prevent such exploitation in America.
Early critics of the Chinese alleged that they were slave laborers; most who wrote
about the Chinese both hostilely and sympathetically echoed that early charge. Essentially
the model argument was that they were actually coolies bound by illegitimate obligations
rather than free laborers. Alexander Saxon (1966: 151) describes the unique skills of
Chinese workers as follows:
The Chinese laborer could not escape his Chinese-ness in America. He had knowledge
neither of the language nor of the law. In effect, he was at the mercy of the Chinese
merchants, the associations, agents, contractors, who had fetched him over from Canton,
who arranged for his employment, collected his wages, fed him, "protected" him, and
determined when, or if, he would ever return to his homeland. Chinese laborers may have
been better off in the Sirra Nevada than their fellows elsewhere; but it is unlikely they were
much better off. (The Chinese laborer cannot shake off his humiliation in America. He had
no knowledge of the language or of the law. As a result, he is pitied by merchants,
associations, agents, contractors, who have picked them up from Canton, who line up to find
work, collect his wages, feed him, "protect" him, keep him quiet and determine when, or if,
he will return to his country. Chinese workers are more profitable in the Sierra Nevada than
workers elsewhere; but it is unlikely that they are much more prosperous).
In fact, most of these workers are seemingly widespread coolies, their line of work,
and their apparent mobility, as those involved in manufacturing; mostly in textiles,
shoemaking, and cigarette making are workers who have to sweat a lot to earn a dollar a day
or less. This is in line with what Daniels (1993: 21) states, that Chinese cigarette workers in
San Francisco in 1880, for example, exhibited almost the so-called sweatshop level.
C. Negative image of Chinese neighborhoods
From the very beginning of their arrival in the United States, the Chinese formed their
own communities separate from other migrant communities. This was also the case with
other migrants, such as Irish, Italian and Jewish migrants. It is from this village (commonly
referred to as Chinatown) that they carry out socio-economic activities, both legal and
illegal. Legal activities include working in mining, railroad construction, agriculture, and
manufacturing, as well as domestic services, while illegal ones include prostitution,
gambling, and the opium trade.
Benjamin R. Renger (1983: 582), points out that a state senate investigator in
California reported that in 1876 five or six Chinese were sleeping in a room only five feet
wide and six feet long in rooms at the Globe Hotel. A policeman who reported seeing
seventy-five people in one room also told of two hundred whorehouses and numerous
gambling houses in a six by eight block area. Furthermore, Fuchs (1994: 126) mentions that
a San Francisco resident testified that he had been in places so disgusting and filthy that I
don't know how anyone could live there. In closing he said that the houses were not fit for
white people to live in, for I do not know how to clean them, except by burning everything,
and even then, I doubt if the filth can be removed.
The nineteenth-century San Francisco Chinatown was a dirty urban neighborhood, as
revealed by Charles Nordhoff (1873) in Daniels (1993: 19), that an Eastern journalist in the
early 1870s found Francisco Chinatown to be a dirty area, but not as dirty as Five Points,
perhaps the area where the most dirty people lived.
worst in New York City.
In the last quarter of the 19th century Chinatown became a center of lewdness, not
only for the Chinese but also for whites seeking prostitution, liquor, and gambling. These
Chinese introduced opium to the United States. The white clientele of the Chinatown
districts often consisted of criminals and land crocodiles, which increased the state of danger
in the area. Barrel violence could occur at any time. In this era Chinatown was shabby, full
of lewd acts, and fights (Sowell, 1989: 196).
The filthy condition of the Chinese villages, along with other social ills, is due to the
fact that the Chinese often live in overcrowded places to try to create an extension of their
own families. They use opium and prostitutes, just as white men use liquor and prostitutes to
ease the burden of suffering caused by separation from their families. It can thus be argued
that it was the aforementioned conditions that gave rise to the prejudice or negative image
that the whites had of the Chinese settlements.
D. Prejudice against Social Patterns of Chinese People :
It has been described in the previous chapter that Chinese social patterns are based on
Old World (Chinese) social patterns. The social patterns or networks consist of four
categories, namely clan associations based on kinship or clan, Hui-Kuan, which is based on
place of residence or region of origin, language associations based on the same dialect and
gilda based on skills possessed, and the last is Tong. These social patterns were transposed
in the New World' (America).
Among the Chinese in America, as in their home regions, the clan function remains
strong. Clan leaders have social power as well as economic. A Chinese merchant usually
became the leader of his clan, building dormitories around his shop for his fellow
countrymen, providing help, relationships, and shelter (Sowell, 1989: 195). Alongside the
clan, various mutual aid organizations emerged to act as employment agencies, credit-
churning organizations, middlemen, and social organizations. Because of their many
functions, clans gained the respect or obedience of individual Chinese, who without them
would not have obtained the necessary services and comforts of life in a foreign land. The
various Chinese American mutual aid organizations eventually merged into the Chinese
Consolidated Benevolent Association, commonly known as the Six Companies, acting as a
unified voice for Chinatown and also generally speaking on behalf of Chinese Americans
(Sowell, 1989: 196).
The social, economic and moral pressures of the clans, the Six Companies and the
Tong (both working independently and brokering relationships for other groups) made
Chinatowns very closed communities. Within these enclosed areas, they remained alive and
an intact culture, a set of traditions and values that stemmed from China itself (Sowell, 1989:
193).
The source of power for America's Chinatown leaders was not political popularity, but
wealth and the ability to utilize power. The Chinese employers who dominated local
government organizations could get rid of radical politicians and unionists by the simple
expedient of refusing to provide jobs or credit. This proved particularly effective at a time
when the larger society offered few economic opportunities and even fewer social
opportunities for Chinese descendants. Internal Chinese organizations could determine who
could work and where, as well as who could open a business somewhere, and finance it with
what. Socio-economic pressure coupled with coercion Physical. Secret or tong
organizations, emerging in China and other overseas Chinese communities, also existed in
the United States. Their use of narrow cages as weapons in the nineteenth century led to the
term cagesmiths (Sowell, 1989: 194).
Tong's organization divided up specific areas where prostitution, gambling, and opium
use were common activities among the homeless and womanless men who formed the initial
group of Chinatown's larger population. The tong often rebelled sporadically. There were
many very bloody tong battles in Chinatown in the 19th and 20th centuries. The war
between the tong is described by Ivan Light (1972: 23) as follows:
Chinatown vice resorts operated under the authorization of rival syndicates of Chinese
criminals. In 1900 a journalist enumerated thirty of these syndicates or tongs in San
Francisco's Chinatown. The largest tongs were the Hip Sing, the On Leong, the Bing Kung
and the Suey Sing. The major tongs had brances in every American Chinatown. Each tong
operated its own whorehouses, gambling joints, and opium dens-or it sold protection to
Chinese specializing in these illegal services. The tongs also claimed territory in which each
insisted upon a monopoly of any commercial activities. In New York City's Chinatown, for
example, Mutt Street was reserved for the On Leongs while the Rip Sings claimed Pell and
Doyer streets. Each tong employed hired gunmen (boo how doy) to enforce its claims agains
rival tong, to extend armed protection to member businesses, and to intimidate or kill hostile
witnesses in criminal proceedings. The tongs also smuggled in women slaves from China to
serve as prostitutes in their bordellos. Disputes between tongs often resulted in pitched
battles, or wars of attrition in which gangs shot up on each other's bravos and the premises
of the local merchants. The last great tong war occurred in 1924-1927 between the On
Leong and the ffip Sing and their allies. In this war, fought in every major Chinatown, some
seventy Chinese were killed. (The representative areas of Chinatown under the
authorization of Chinese criminal syndicate rivalry. In 1900 a journalist described the
existence of thirty syndicates evil or tong in San Francisco's Chinatown. The largest vats are
Hip Sing, On Leong, Ning Kung, and Suey Sing. The big vats have branches all over
American Chinatowns. Each tong operates its own warehouse, gambling ring, opium den, or
sells protection to Chinese who specialize in these illegal services. The barrels also claim in
which areas each operates a monopoly system over commercial activities. In New York's
Chinatown for example, Mott Street is reserved for On Leong while Hip Sing demands Pell
and Doyer Streets. Each tong employs gunmen (boo how doy) to support its claims against
rival tong, extend armed protection to business members, and to intimidate or kill enemy
witnesses in criminal cases. The tong also imported Chinese servant women who functioned
as prostitutes in its bordellos. Disputes between barrels led to battles or wars in which
opponents exhausted their manpower, gang members shot other good people and local
merchants in the area. The last major tong war took place in 1924-1927, between Ong
Leong and Hip Sing and their allies. In this war, they fought in every major Chinatown,
about seventy Chinese were killed).
As a result of these social patterns, the Chinese were considered to be a hotbed of all
kinds of social depravity and crime, and as such were considered to be outsiders. The
Chinese were, as the Democratic party program of 1884 put it, "unsuited by custom,
training, religion or family affinity", to the citizenship conferred by our laws (Fuchs, 1994:
125).
Chan (1986: 403), suggests that public readings, political speeches and government
reports tend to label the Chinese as immoral. "Angels", Mongols-Mongols", "coolies", and
"chinks", they were portrayed as an unusually dirty, diseased race, was the theme
emphasized in half a dozen popular magazines in the 1850s and 1860s. A California senator
asked: "can we withstand all the rot, all the disease, all the evil that infects mankind
throughout the world" and still maintain American civilization? It is my mature opinion, said
a popular author, "that the Chinese are morally the most despicable people on earth" (Fuchs,
1994: 126).
It can be inferred from the above that the Chinese social values, customs, practices,
and religion, which are inherited from their country of origin, are considered by whites to be
the culprit of all social decay, of all evil, so it is not surprising that among whites there is a
negative prejudice against Chinese social patterns.
E. Crime and violence
Chinese migrants coming to the United States were not welcomed well and often
violently. The Chinese were neither white nor Christian, coming at a time when both
characteristics were seriously lacking. They looked different, ate differently, and had
customs that were completely unfamiliar to Americans. They were considered incapable of
assimilation, both biologically and culturally. As rivals they were feared because they
worked harder and longer for less pay, thus lowering the standard of living of laborers
(Sowell, 1989: 189). It was not surprising that white people committed crime and violence
against the Chinese. In 1869, 350 members of the Mining Workers Union in Gold Hill,
Nevada, ransacked the residences of Chinese workers at the railroad company, the sheriff
(local chief of security) making no attempt to arrest them stop them. Another Sheriff told the
white people in the neighborhood of a factory that they were free to take the law into their
own hands if they suspected Chinese men of robbery, which they did. They hung two
Chinese men from a hoist until they were both near death, and then because they didn't get a
confession, they kicked them out of the area (Fuchs, 1994: 127).
Deliberate interruptions were a common occurrence in between the more dramatic
attacks. Cutting off a Chinese man's long pigtails was the most favored form of mockery,
although it resulted in a series of consequences for the man as he could not return to China
without them as required by Manchu Dynasty law (Sowell, 1989: 190). Chinese migrants
arriving in San Francisco were herded into Chinatown by street vandals while being taunted,
beaten, stoned, and rotten fruit in a boisterous atmosphere reminiscent of the drunken Irish
(Sowell, 1989: 1990). Behind the disorder, however, was the constant threat of more serious
violence that could erupt at any moment. White mobs sporadically burned and ravaged West
Coast and Rocky Mountain Chinatowns, killing residents as they passed. In Los Angeles in
1871, twenty-one Chinese were shot, hanged, or buried by a mob of whites (Daniels, 1993:
59). Many murders were committed by whites against Chinese on the West Coast. In Idaho,
between 1866-1867 over one hundred Chinese were killed. The following decade, in 1879,
Indians killed five Chinese, calling it the Sheepeater war (Peterson, 1976: 60). Further
disturbances in California, by Elmer Sandmeyer (1973: 60), included in his list thirty-one
people, from Los Angeles in the South to Red Bluff in the North, who set fire to stores and
vandalized residences. China. In line with this Hraba (1979: 302), suggests that Chinese in
the mining regions of California, the Pacific Northwest, and the Rockies were beaten,
burned, tortured and shot by gangs in the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1886 in
Rock Springs, Wyoming, a night raid by 150 armed white men robbed and burned the
homes of Chinese workers who broke a strike and killed twenty-eight people (Fuchs, 1994:
127). At the same time, Seattle, Tacoma, and Washington, evicted their Chinese residents.
The same happened in Vancouver and Alaska (Sowell, 1989: 190).
Another bloody incident that decade in the area, on the Snake River in 1887, was one
of the most severe examples of the viciousness of Chinese resistance in America. Thirty-one
Chinese miners were robbed, killed, and mauled by a group of young white men in a remote
ravine in Canyon, Oregon (Daniels, 1993: 61).
Cruelty after cruelty over time may have led the Chinese to withdraw from the larger
American community, preferring to stay in their own closed communities, where they may
find a comfortable life and greater economic opportunities, and where they can engage in
their social activities, customs, practices, and religion without inviting white suspicion.
F. Discrimination
Discrimination in all its forms is a source of catastrophe for human civilization, this
can be seen from events or incidents that often hit countries or nations around the world,
which usually give birth to conflicts, wars between one tribe, race, group, religion, with
others, the oppression of one nation over another, and even more tragic is the elimination or
extinction of the existence of a nation.
The United States, as a great nation, faces problems of discrimination that are a major
problem of the nation inf. The result is multiracial, multinational, socially triggered
conflicts, for example because it is not due to the policy of equal opportunity of its founders
who made the United States open to migrants from all over the world, the United States
emerged as a country so that the possibility of occurrence could be due to the jealousy of
Pekonomics, skin color, for example between whites and blacks, between whites and yellow
skins, Protestant Christianity and Catholic Christianity, and so on.
The United States when it was settled by the Chinese in 1850 was a country faced with
the problem of racism as a serious problem. The two most important aspects of the
development of American racism were the disenfranchisement of Indians and the
enslavement of Africans (Daniels, 1993: 31). The white sense of superiority is a belief that
grew from below over two centuries of history, which saw whites enslave Negroes and
subjugate Indians (Mann, 1990: 104).
The arrival of the Chinese in the United States since the 1850s led to the same thing as
mentioned above, namely the existence of concerns or fears among whites against yellow-
skinned people, as stated by Steinfield (1970: 116) that the concept of "yellow peril", as a
symbol of the answer to white racism against migrants from Asia. White people's fear of the
yellow peril has led to the exclusion of their rights as well as those of whites.
The censure of the Chinese because of race left an exception to the existing legal
system. An old California law prohibiting blacks, mulattoes, or Indians from testifying for or
against whites was interpreted by the California Supreme Court in 1854 as applying to all
non-whites, including the Chinese. For, said the chief justice, if the Chinese were allowed to
testify "we may soon meet them at elections, as jurors in our courts, as advocates, and in our
legislative chambers" (Fuchs, 1994-127). As a result, an open witch-hunt began against
Chinese descendants who had no right to sue if robbed, vandalized or killed.
Not only were the Chinese forbidden to testify in court, but they were also denied the
right to become citizens. The Chinese expulsion law approved by Congress in 1882, greatly
reduced their migration within the country, the new law first barred existing Chinese through
naturalization, after which it made citizenship a condition of admission to many jobs or even
land ownership (Sowell, 1989: 192).
The almost completely banned Chinese migration had a lasting impact on Chinese
Americans. Since the earlier Chinese migration was almost entirely composed of men, all
hopes of a normal family or social life for the majority of the Chinese population in the
United States were dashed. Many of the Chinese men had wives back home, wives they
would only see again after many decades, if ever. Severe restrictions on economic
opportunities mean that many cannot even afford to return to China to make a decent living
there. Many of those who once traveled to the United States for exploratory purposes end up
going to the United States to live in China stranded there. Others who aspired to settle in
America with their families were prevented from bringing their children and wives, and
were unable to become citizens themselves (Sowell, 1989: 191).
Various laws were passed by Congress in an attempt to prevent them from becoming
citizens. In 1907, Congress decreed that any American woman who married a foreigner,
keeping in mind that only Asians were not eligible to become Americans, would
automatically follow her husband's citizenship. Although the law was repealed in 1922,
female citizens who married foreigners who were not eligible to become citizens lost their
citizenship until 1931; this regulation decreased women's desire to marry Asians (Fuchs,
1994: 129). As the Chinese were Asians, they were themselves subject to these laws. Such
legislation discouraged many newcomers, and thus prevented them from becoming parents
of American-born children (Hutcingson, 1981: 269).
Such discriminatory treatment is the greatest tragedy for early Chinese migrants that a
nation so dedicated to family denies them the opportunity to have a family in America.
Chinese men are often trapped in the United States without the opportunity to live a normal
life, and at the same time are unable to return to their home country because of the poverty
they suffer. Thousands of them came to America with no intention of settling down, and are
now living alone as permanent residents of the country. They were not wanted, nor did they
want to be.
Blatant racism among whites is becoming more and more conspicuous. "California
was given by God to the white man," said the head of the Native Sons of the Golden West.
Golden West) in 1920," and by the power of God we will keep it as He has given it to us
(Fuchs. 1994: 130). Fuchs further notes that the Attorney General of California warned a
committee of the United States Senate, that if Negroes had the ability, efficiency, ambition,
energy, and power to accomplish things that the Chinese and Japanese have, everything
south of the Mason-Dixon would have long ago become completely black. White Americans
will not live on equal terms with Negroes, nor with Je- pangs, Chinese, and Hindus.
The Chinese people who came to the United States were aiming for economic
opportunities that were not available in their home regions. However, what they found in
America was something they did not expect. This was due to the racism of the white people.
The only jobs that the Chinese could engage in were those that the whites did not like, as
Sowell (1989: 192) argues, that where the Chinese gained tolerance, there were jobs that
were indispensable and that the whites did not want to do, such as cooks and laundresses in
mining camps or as domestic servants in cities.
Chinese working in the mines also faced discriminatory measures from the authorities,
such as the compulsion to pay a foreign miners' tax originally intended to prevent the influx
of Mexican and Chilean miners, which was later imposed only on the Chinese (Fuchs, 1994:
143). Special taxes and levies were applied to businesses conducted by Chinese or
conducted in a Chinese manner. For example, in nineteenth-century San Francisco, laundries
that did not use horse-drawn carriages to transport clothes were subject to higher license
fees, and baskets were carried on shoulders (the Chinese way of carrying goods) was
considered a minor offense (Sowell, 1989: 193). In addition, they also faced discrimination
in education, such as the segregation of public schools, and other public places between
white and colored children, which was also imposed on Chinese children (Thernstrom,
1980: 225).
In light of the foregoing, it is clear that the theories presented at the beginning of this
chapter have had a profound effect on the treatment of white society, not only of Chinese
Americans, but also of people of color in America as a whole. The nature of the Western
nation has been formed with negative prejudices against people outside Europe, so that
Americans of color in general and the Chinese in particular are excluded, on the one hand,
they have left their country for so long that returning to their ancestral land is impossible,
and on the other hand, they are not accepted in America because of racial prejudice. All of
this has been accumulating for several centuries and at any time these racial prejudices could
explode to the surface, and if that happens, it could destabilize the security, socio-political
and economic stability of America. A lot of hard work awaits the American people if racial
problems are not addressed early on.
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