Searching for Gold Mountain

1. Searching for Gold Mountain By Ricky, Daniel, and Austin

2. Who? When did they come to the United States? • The Chinese. • The Chinese started immigrating to the United States in 1849.

3. From where? What are the push factors? • The Chinese immigrants came from China. (isn’t that weird?) • They were fleeing the turmoil caused by constant peasant rebellions. The Taiping Rebellion is a well known example, also a less known rebellion is the fight between the Punti (Local people) and the Hakkas ( Guest people) over the fertile delta land.

4. Pull factors Continued • Economic hardships in China cause many immigrants to come to America. They had all heard of the “Gold Mountain”. They all wanted to come to America to strike it rich.

5. Where in the United States did they settle? • The Chinese mainly settled on the west coast of the United States, predominantly California. They came to California mostly because of the California Gold Rush in 1849. The Chinese came to the United States because they wanted to escape the turmoil in China. Another pull factor was the promise of freedom from oppression, and the fact that Californians welcomed the Chinese with open arms.

6. How did they come to the United States? • Most of the Chinese immigrants came to the United states by boat, across the Pacific ocean.

7. What type of work did they do? • The Chinese immigrants came over to America because they had heard rumors of gold. Most came across to become 49ers and once they realized that gold was not as abundant as previously thought, they became hard working Railroad builders. The Chinese were praised for adapting to the working conditions quickly and for a while, without fuss.

8. How were they treated? • When they first arrived in California, they were welcomed and treated like any other citizen. Over time, the American views of them changed and laws began to be passed, like the second foreign miners tax. Taxed them for being foreign miners who were not able to become citizens. There was generally an idea of whites being the superior race. Viewed as a designated working class. Chinese became scapegoats for white laborers who lost their jobs, similar to Mexicans today. Magazine cartoon in California depicted Chinese as blood sucking vampires. Not allowed to have relationships with white people. Case of People vs. Hall, murderer of two Chinese men was spared execution because Chinese men testified against him. Andrew Kan remembered whites bullying, slandering, and assaulting Chinese people . Ah So Wong, along with many other Chinese women, was forcibly brought here as a prostitute.

9. Assimilation. • There was not a full assimilation of the Chinese people, but they did began to accept some of the culture of America. Chinese children went to American schools and learned about American culture. But, they also kept much of their tradition. Chinatowns are in every major city and they are like being in china. Chinese New Year is celebrated by Chinese Americans. Chinese food is easily attained. They are a part of American culture.

10. Unique experiences, circumstances, facts about your group. • This group of immigrants is very typical: Mostly men, racial tension, and segregation. One of the things that does stick out is how lacking the female population actually was. At one point, only 1/20th of the immigrants were female. Also the fact that so many women were brought over forcibly as prostitutes. And, the San Francisco earthquake helped many Chinese people to immigrate by destroying the monetary records of the area.