(American Immigration Law Foundation) .
Chinese immigration to the United States began during the gold rush in the mid 1800's. Most of the Chinese immigrants consisted of young male peasants. They came to the United States because they had heard about the California Gold Rush and wanted to pursue the opportunities of economic success. They arrived in America looking for money to send it back to their poor families. Sadly in the early immigration periods, the Chinese immigrants made little success. Some immigrants wandered around the indefinable Gold Mountain of California without any huge success, others filled the empty space of low paid laborers in America's expanding industries. In the west, the Chinese immigrants soon became a dominated work force, especially since they were primarily male and the wages they received in the escalating 1850's economy were still considerably higher than they could earn at home (Daniels 15). Many Chinese became miners, and some developed the laundry business all around California.
Although the Chinese helped to develop the American West, they became the targets of an anti Chinese movement soon after their arrival in the United States. The Chinese were seen as an inferior people who were unacceptable to become U.S. citizens. White workers, and the labor unions viewed the Chinese immigrants as rivals. Whites saw Chinese as competitors for jobs. In many areas Chinese immigrants were subjected to violence, discrimination, and segregation. Although some missionaries, businessmen, and others defended the Chinese, they were unable to prevent the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, a law that virtually banned further immigration from China.
The Chinese Exclusion Act was basically a policy of prohibiting immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States. It was the outcome of growing numbers of Chinese immigrants to the United States. By 1867 there were some 50,000 Chinese in California, most of them manual laborers.