Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States
Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States began in the 19th century, shortly after Chinese immigrants first arrived in North America, and continues into the 21st century. It has taken many forms throughout history, including prejudice, racist immigration restrictions, murder, bullying, massacre, and other acts of violence. Anti-Chinese sentiment and violence in the country first manifested in the 1860s, when Chinese people were employed in the building of the world's first transcontinental railroad. Its origins can be traced partly to competition with white people for jobs, and reports of Americans who had lived and worked in China and wrote relentlessly negative and unsubstantiated reports of locals.
1882 editorial cartoon
Comparison of European immigrants, represented in the left panel as virtues, while Chinese immigrants are represented by a serpent representing maladies, The Wasp (San Francisco), Vol. 7, 1881
Cartoon of Uncle Sam warning the imperial powers of awakening the Yellow Peril while fighting over Asian territory, 1904
An 1886 advertisement for "Magic Washer" detergent: The Chinese Must Go
History of Chinese Americans
The history of Chinese Americans or the history of ethnic Chinese in the United States includes three major waves of Chinese immigration to the United States, beginning in the 19th century. Chinese immigrants in the 19th century worked in the California Gold Rush of the 1850s and the Central Pacific Railroad in the 1860s. They also worked as laborers in Western mines. They suffered racial discrimination at every level of White society. Many Americans were stirred to anger by the "Yellow Peril" rhetoric. Despite provisions for equal treatment of Chinese immigrants in the 1868 Burlingame Treaty between the U.S. and China, political and labor organizations rallied against "cheap Chinese labor".
A Chinese American soldier posing alongside a half-track with an M1928A1 Thompson in hand, June 1942.
Canton (Guangzhou) was the trade center of China in that period. Photo from 1895.
Chinese emigration to America: sketch on board the steam-ship Alaska, bound for San Francisco. From "Views of Chinese"" published in The Graphic and Harper's Weekly. April 29, 1876
A tomb for some 400 Chinese laborers who died in 1852 during a rebellion aboard a ship that was carrying them to California. Ishigaki, Ryukyu Islands, Japan