Angel Island
Angel IslandCapitalist's Exploitation of Immigrants
"The two societies can be rather simply characterized: on the American side, as one that stresses individual enterprise, which is expansive; and on the Chinese side, as a society that stresses the collective social order, which is resistant."1 America is said to have been founded by the white settlers and capitalists. In truth, these presumed pioneers used immigrants to fulfill their needs and desires. Capitalists and businesses created deceptive propaganda in order to exploit the Asian and European immigrants to the American Dream.
The American Dream portrayed the Constitution's promise of equal opportunity to all immigrants. To the Chinese, America and most notably California, was known as the "Mountain of Gold or Gold Mountain." Gold Mountain was more of a myth than a fact the American advertisements proclaimed it to be. Advertisements spoke in propaganda of untold riches and stories: great pay, good food, large houses, and most of all, that the Chinamen were welcome. Unfortunately, the Chinese immigrant's dream was shattered when he went searched for Gold Mountain, but found himself washing someone else's dirty clothes.
The initial Chinese to arrive on U.S. soil were treated favorably the American government and were welcomed in California. The Chinese conception then was to immigrate temporarily and return home after reaping the rewards of the American Dream. Most Chinese came from the province called Kwangtung and possessed similar interests and ideas. Immigrants originally traveled to Hong Kong and then to America by way of a ticket-credit system. This was the only way families could afford the expensive journey and essentially the Chinese were becoming indentured servants to buy their passage. A trip to America could cost fifty dollars, but at the pinnacle of the Gold Rush frenzy, captains and agents would price the trip at two-hundred dollars or more. There were less than a hundred people from China by 1853; however, the large influxes began in 1854, where thirteen-thousand immigrants traveled by ship in search of gold. It was not until these great influxes that Americans started to notice their Far East counterparts.
While a mere thousand Chinese immigrated annually, which irritated American workers because of the competition for jobs, eight-hundred-thousand Europeans came to the U.S. per year and nobody gave it a
second thought. Shortly, with all the problems the Chinese were said to have caused, new laws, such as the Exclusion Acts and various taxes, came into being. The Chinese were taken advantage of by the capitalists, the people who stood to benefit the most from the Chinese movement to America. By inventing stories of the land of gold, they captured the hearts of young entrepreneurs to traveled to America. They were then signed on as indentured servants. During American colonial times, indentured servants were used to assist farmers, until the farmers realized the servants would soon become competitors once they fulfilled their required years of work. Chinese, on the other hand, planned to leave once they were finished making some money and would not stay; therefore, the act of employing indentured servants was reestablished.
"Whenever any sizable group of people who share a language and cultural pattern different from the majority enter a country, they tend to congregate. They find a section of a city or a town and make it their own."2 Chinatowns formed in many parts of the United States. The largest, most important one was located in San Francisco. Daily life in the city life was competitive and anxious. Being extremely distinct from other nationalities, Chinese inhabitants were easily picked out of crowds. They wore blue cotton shirts, baggy pants, wooden shoes, big jackets, and huge basket hats with queues hanging down their back. The Chinese stood out like none other in a society dominated by whites. At the beginning, one would see men alone on the streets because Asian women weren't allowed to travel to the United States. Chinatown became known as "the bachelor society." The main reason the American government enacted laws prohibiting Asian women, was the capitalists didn't want the Chinese starting families. Else, the Chinese would start businesses that would compete for American profits.
The few women who did come to America were typically prostitutes. By 1880, there was a 14 to 1 ratio between men and women respectively. The illegal importation of Asian women was a substantial money maker for the white men who controlled the prostitutes because each woman would make considerable amounts of cash daily to satisfy the needs of the Chinese males. The women were also slaves and the white men would take all the profits. To disgrace the Chinese reputation and obscure the fact that the government was denying female immigration, whites would say the Chinese preferred their singsong girls better than their wives and was why no families were being started.
Within Chinatown, another smaller government also prevailed: the Chinese Six Companies. They were not an Asian institution but were an American one instead. The Chinese had their primary requirements met by the Six Companies, such as food, shelter, and jobs. The Six Companies maintained much control over different Chinatowns and tried it's best to fight and protect for Chinese equality. No Chinese could receive a ticket home without the consent of the Companies. When Chinese first started to arrive in California, the Companies recruited the newer immigrants for work and gave them a place to stay until the arrivals found jobs.
The lure of assured gold in 1849 was the sole reason Chinese began journeying to America. Congress prohibited parts of the Sierra Mountains from them and they were usually run off property when they found a likely stream for gold. Unlike other ethnicities, the Chinese dug into the soil for gold instead of panning in the streams. In this way, the Chinese did not compete with other nationalities, but they continued to receive ill treatment for reaping the land of it's resources. When they were assaulted or their claim was jumped by white miners, they were refused the ability to sue. In the Sierras, a Chinese had no protection from the whites because local districts constructed mining laws without the federal government's consent. The legislature launched a foreign mining tax designed to ostracize Mexican miners in 1850 and by 1852, another foreign mining tax was issued and this time directed specifically at the Chinese. Each non-citizen miner had to pay three dollars a month because of this tax, but the catch was that a 1790 federal law reserved natural citizenship for white people alone and denied the right to Chinese. These foreign mining taxes stayed till the 1870 Civil Rights Act where they were declared unconstitutional. By 1870, however, the California government had leeched five million dollars out of the Chinese and did not have to pay a cent back to anybody.3 For protection, Chinese joined into small groups and formed their own companies. Twenty to thirty Chinese inhabited restricted cabins with cramped conditions. The Cubic Air Ordinance was then passed saying each lodger must be provided at least five-hundred cubic feet or be fined five to ten hundred dollars. Constantly under pressure, the Chinese abandoned the gold fields as the profits slowly decreased. Wherever a dollar was to be made, a capitalist was to be found. Capitalists obviously did not have the desire to grant the Chinese what they wanted without reaping any profits, so they created laws to make the Chinese either leave their occupation or pay the tolls.
"Wherever in the world there is an oriental working population, there is no room for a white one."4 was a statement from Chester Rowell, describing the current economic situation. Racial prejudice kept the Asians and Europeans segregated. Children were more accepting to other races than the adults who were not willing to intermix. Racism was taught through specific or unconscious instruction by the adults. White men would not work under or with Chinese because of a current paradigm the two could not exist together in harmony. Even churches and YMCA's did not accept them. During the Civil War, when there was a shortage of labor, Dennis Kearney coined the phrase "The Chinese must go." Chinese became the scapegoats for lower class workers and the Knights of Labor. Anti-Coolie Clubs formed to promote anti-Chinese sentiments and discrimination. Chinese were accused of introducing Small Pox to California because of epidemics in 1870 and 1876. After 1870 the American government began vaccinating every passenger from Asiatic ports. Chinese were referred to as "swarms", "floods of Chinese", or "yellow hordes", but in 1882 there were only a hundred thousand Chinese in a country of sixty-three million people, which was 0.2 percent.5 By keeping the distinct groups separated and against each other, the capitalists are able to keep the work wages to a minimum. Profits were maintained and work continued without complaint.
Labor unions, farmers, merchants, lumbermen, and house wives all opposed Oriental immigration. Advocates of Chinese labor argued that Chinese workers reduced the production costs, and as a result there would be lower prices, which was equivalent to an increase in salary for white workers. Eventually, Chinese labor would upgrade the status of white workers because the white workers became the foremen and directors. By the end of the 19th century, there was an economic crisis that caused unemployment for the first time. The Asian Exclusion League was another group formed for the elimination of Chinese immigrants and immigration. They were affiliated with the American Legion, the State Federation of Labor, and Native Sons and Daughters, who all held political power. Chinese were described as heathen, morally inferior, savage, childlike, and lustful, who fed on dogs, cats, and rats. Political cartoons portrayed Chinese a bloodsucking vampires. White speakers stated that the fight for America from the "red man" would have been in vain if they lost to the horde of Chinese. Capitalists feared offending the Orient because of the fact that it could threaten favorable commercial relations. The Workingmen's Party and anti-Chinese bias kept the Chinese out of the labor market; unions stopped them from being part of organized labor; Alien Land Acts prevented them from owning farms; and Foreign Miners' License taxes hindered them from mining. All this led up to the 1882 Exclusion Act.
During the year of 1882, Congress passed an act known as the Exclusion Act that abolished Asian immigration altogether. The arguments for the Exclusion Act were that Chinese were unassailable, lowered the standards of living labor, came merely to drain the country of it's wealth, and would endanger the public tranquillity and injure the interests of people. The following years afterwards, numerous laws were passed in order to oppress the already dwindling Chinese population. Chinese were prevented the ownership of land by the Alien Land Act of 1870 and the miscegenation law forbade the intermarriage between Asians and Americans. In 1855, the State Legislature enacted a head tax law of $55 on every Chinese immigrant. Not only was the government becoming extremely wealthy with this tax, but for the Chinese it was almost like doubling the fare for overseas travel. To break a Chinese will, the government fabricated a Queue Ordinance where any Chinese that went to prison would have his queue cut off. This was against everything a Chinese believed in because to cut ones queue off was to surrender loyalty to the emperor. The state government began taxing all Chinese with a nonagricultural occupation as well and failure to pay was a harsh punishment. Tax collectors hunted Chinese down and forced them to pay or else they were tied down, beaten, and the taxes were doubled. What was ironic about the law and taxes were that they were against everything the American Dream had stood for and the idea America has tried to promote for other races.
"A great army laying siege to Nature in her strongest citadel. The rugged mountains looked like stupendous ant-hills. They swarmed with Celestials shoveling, wheeling, carting, drilling, and blasting rocks and earth."6 Once mining became unprofitable for the Chinese, entire waves of Chinese flocked to work at Central Pacific Railroads, which was started by Charles Crocker, Collis P. Huntington, and Leland Stanford. The railroad being constructed was to connect with Union Pacific, somewhere east of the Sierra Nevada. Aaron H. Palmer suggested that the Chinese be utilized to erect the transcontinental railroad and bring California under cultivation since the beginning. For the company superintendent Charles Crocker, time was money because of the pressure he received from the government. At first, there were few Chinese working for the railroads but when it was discovered that they were equally capable and more reliable than white men, they formed 90% of the entire work force. Pressed for time, the Chinese workers were forced to work through the winter of 1866 when no white man would think of doing such a thing. Snow drifts over 60 feet covered the construction operations and the Chinese had to live and work under the snow, digging shafts for air and using lanterns for light. Here, the Chinese were being taken advantage of when others races with the same jobs refused to follow orders.
In the spring, the Chinese went on strike demanding wages and work hours similar to the white men. 5 thousand workers walked out "as one man" claiming "eight hours a day good for white men, all the same good for Chinamen." Crocker decided to take actions into his own hands by stopping provision shipments. Virtually imprisoned in camps in the Sierras and starving, the strikers gave up within a week and were forced back to work. Railroad construction was similar to indentured servitude in that you had no civil rights. Basically, you did what you were told and you were forbidden to quit work. Nearly thirty thousand workers were said to be injured and estimates of five hundred to a thousand Chinese died; however, Central Pacific Railroads kept no record in fear of discouraging potential laborers. The cheap couplers that the company used could easily maim you, but the capitalists who didn't care about the worker's benefit simply saw it as most profitable. The pay between the white men and Chinese men was the same, but the white men were provided with free food and lodging, easily cutting half their "bills". In 1869, the Central Pacific Railroad was completed and the following years afterwards, two other railroads were also finished. This put thousands of Chinese out of work and in competition with other Americans. Also, after Central Pacific Railroad was completed there was an economic depression instead of the trade expansion that was expected.
With unemployment in the United States for the first time, Chinese became the targets of resentment. The Workingmen's Party was the group that became most responsible for violent acts toward the Chinese. Chinese received no protection from the state, federal, or even their own government. The most serious attack was in Rock Springs, Wyoming, where 28 Chinese were murdered and hundreds were wounded and shipped out of the state by trains.7 The lack of job employment and persecution scattered Chinese all over the country. During 1873, a mob formed in Los Angeles and lynched every Chinese they could find. White men even had their ten year old kids hang a Chinese boy. Throughout the three hour massacre, the local police did nothing. By teaching ones kids to hate, the prejudice and discrimination continued on throughout generations.
During the early 1860s, Crocker advertised in Ireland newspapers to come to America and escape the depression their homeland was going through. These advertisements were similar to the Gold Mountain illusions that were promised to the Chinese. When the Irish first began coming to America, people said they were overrunning the country. Irish came because of rapid population growth and major agricultural depression. The European industrial depression was mainly due to the United States competition of the time. Irish were beaten and mobbed and for protection they joined together in the Land League. Irish laborers worked on the railroad for Union Pacific and so became rivals of the Chinese. It is no surprise then that the Irish attacked, beaten, and looted Chinese whenever they came in contact. The Irish and blacks worked in a segregated environment when working on the Brunswick canal in Georgia. The excuse for the segregation was that violence would break out between the two groups. In essence, this created competition and tension between the two groups. The Irish were Catholics, so they were shunned by Protestants, the group in power; but Irish had several advantages over the Chinese: they were white, could speak and understand a bit of English, and included women from their homeland. Other immigrants included the Germans, Englishmen, Italians, and Japanese. These different groups were separated by occupation. Italians worked in California agriculture and Greek laborers worked in Utah mining camps.
In 1849, California was a wild, inhospitable land, and what would have taken a half century to populate, California boomed in only a few years, thanks to the Chinese. "No people in all the East are so well adapted for clearing wild lands and raising every species of agricultural product... as the Chinese."8 said Aaron H. Palmer. Between 1860 to 1880, 100s of Chinese became farmers through tenancy because it was the easiest way to enter the farming business without too much capital. The Chinese were responsible for changing California's wheat industry to fruit. These farmers were experienced from the Pearl River Delta and taught white people how to plant, cultivate, and harvest orchard and garden crops. The only land the Chinese received were the marshes and rainless land because they were valueless. Chinese had to dig six miles of irrigation canals and ditches. Overnight work to get the job done, the hard work boosted twenty-eight dollars per acre land in 1875 to a hundred dollars per acre two years later.
When the Chinese first started arriving in California, they discovered that the waters were abundant with seafood. Chinese fishing camps began appearing along the shoreline. Fishermen caught salmon, sole, rock cod, barracuda, shrimp, clams, crabs, and various other forms of sea life. Abalone was gathered like gold. At that time, white people didn't even know abalone was edible and since California had no preexisting fishing industry it was not as if Chinese were stealing any jobs. Soon, Congress passed new laws in 1876 that limited the size of Chinese nets. In 1880 a fishing tax on Chinese came into being, which was similar to the Miners' Tax that immigrants had faced in the Sierras. Later, Chinese were then prohibited in the Pacific coastal waters, which ended abalone fishing. Year after year new laws were created banning the Chinese from newer more efficient kinds of nets. Eventually they were banned from fishing salmon altogether, they were allowed to can the salmon in the canneries.
Thousands of Chinese went to San Francisco after the railroads were completed to become part of the manufacturing business. Urban Chinese community and industrial development of San Francisco soon
paralleled each other. In 1860, there were 200 manufacturing firms with 1500 workers and 10 years later the number of laborers had increased to 12,000.9 Chinese worked in 4 key industries: boot and shoe, woolens, cigar and tobacco, and sewing. These laborers concentrated in low-wage jobs and even though the work was the same as the white men, the pay was less. Cigar workers earned $287 in annual wages and Chinese made up 92% of the industry. On the other hand, tailors and seamsters earned $588 each year, but only 9% of the industry was Chinese. This shows how the Chinese were discriminated out of jobs, not
because of their skill but because of their race. Chinese were not found in big, well-unionized industries: industrial construction, steel, shipbuilding, engineering, and assembly-line production.
One occupation that Chinese dominated was the washing of laundry. Because of all the ethnic antagonism in mines, factories, and fields, 1,000s of Chinese were forced into self-employment. There was no such thing as laundry in China so the Chinese had to learn from the women of America when working
as domestic servants. A laundry establishment could be opened with only seventy-five to two hundred dollars. All one needed was a stove, trough, dry-room, sleeping apartment, and a sign. Little language was also needed and a new immigrant could get by with just "yes" or "no". The Chinese were pushed into this business, because it was either laundrymen or vegetable peddlers.
When there was something Asians wanted, they would find clever ways of obtaining it. In most districts, rent for Asians were often very high. To get a lease, they would offer a very high rent that no landlord could refuse. Once they had a space rented out, the Orientals would pack the house with tenants and space is improvised to make more room. The bath tub goes to the backyard, the bathroom becomes a bedroom, the shoe repair shop goes into the basement, the laundry in the rear end, and a sign for house cleaners goes in one of the front windows. Next door neighbors who are white, get tired of their Oriental counterparts and move out. Once the district is free of white families, the Asians can bargain whatever they feel like for rent. This was just one of the few ways that Asians used a system against them for their own benefit.
The Chinese did not take the discrimination they received sitting down during their entire existence in America. Their civil rights cases were taken to court whenever possible and the 1790 Naturalization Law was the most sought after law to abolish because it denied Chinese citizenship. The Chinese Six Companies fought for federal protection of Chinese and in 1868, the Companies won the Burlingame Treaty, which recognized free migration and emigration of Chinese as visitors, traders, or permanent residents along with the same privileges as other citizens. Although a great achievement, these guarantees of equal protection by treaty and federal law did little to effect what happened in actual society. The Chinese were still vulnerable to racial violence.
The white man had different motives for bringing the Chinese over for the white man's benefit instead of thinking of the Chinese as equals. The year after the Civil War, blacks were thought to have too much freedom among the whites. Southern planters saw Chinese as models for black workers and so the Chinese were brought to the South and pitted against the black workers. The motive was more to punish the blacks for leaving their masters and the Chinese labor brought about "Work nigger or starve." By 1880
the southern planters had regained power over the blacks once again and so they lost interest in the Chinese labor.
The same discrimination that went about in the 1800s, still existed in the 1900s. By 1930, about four-hundred thousand Chinese had crossed to America and half stayed as permanent residents. Asians still faced the same anti-alien agricultural land laws and in 1923 a third land law was passed saying "Cropping" will be enforced. "Cropping" was an agreement where tenants work the land and give a fixed percent to the landowner. Since Chinese couldn't own land they were reduced to tenants and suffered greatly from the new land laws. The newer generation of Chinese however didn't want to return to their old ways of farming or agricultural work. Their American Dream rested in the cities and white collared jobs. Chinese men that graduated from SFSU in engineering could not get the positions of white men and graduates of law school and teacher-training institutions were taking positions as filling-station men and household servants.
The construction of Angel Island started in 1905 and was finished in 1910. Chinese immigrants were held for days, weeks, months, or even years for inspection and over twenty-thousand Chinese went through Angel Island in 1920 alone. Unlike Ellis Island and Naturalization Service, which were gateways to America, Angel Island's main purpose was to keep Chinese out of America. People were mistreated, held detention without bail, and had their rights violated even though they were not citizens. Angel Island was a way for capitalists to make a group of people feel weak and desperate and easier to control.
Supreme Court Judge Bartlett was quoted saying "It is questionable if on the whole the work of the Chinese did any damage to the country or its people. The grounds mined by them had been usually abandoned by the white miners, they were patrons of the stores and other places of business where they resided and worked, and they afforded the large bodies of unskilled laborers required for the building of roads and water ditches in many parts of the country, which no other body of the residents of the county could furnish."
The Chinese came to America in search of a Gold Mountain that did not exist and was created in order to lure them to a land where they could be exploited. Every time Chinese found a new industry that could be profitable, the government created new obstacles to hinder their progress. America's Supreme Court had to violate their own constitution multiple times to be able to put down the civil rights cases that America faced. Asian women were not allowed to be brought over so that the men would leave;
yet, since the beginning the Orientals have shown signs of settling down. San Francisco Chinatown started out with thirty-three general merchandise stores, fifteen apothecaries, and numerous restaurants and other miscellaneous stores. Lee Chew was quoted saying "The Chinese were persecuted, not for their vices, but for their virtues."11
The Chinese were denied their basic rights in America, the right to vote, the right to protest, the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and most of all, denied the right of equality. Crocker was a capitalist who was willing to do anything to make a bit of profit. Ross Perot stated, "Most corporate executives in the United States don't understand their product at all. Guys running huge companies don't understand their product: They're financial men, they're lawyers, you name it."12 It was the immigrants who came over to America and created the land with their bare hands while overcoming great obstacles for the capitalists who were the ones to gain from the immigration. Historians can conclude that capitalists' and businesses' resistance to Darwinism was due to it's fear of other people benefiting without profits.