Chinese Racism in California

Chinese Racism in California

The Chinese Question

When thousands of Chinese migrated to California after the gold rush the presence caused concern and debate from other Californians. This discussion, popularly called the “Chinese Question,” featured in many of the contemporary accounts of the time. In the American Memory Project’s “California: As I Saw It” online collection, which preserves books written in California from 1849-1900, this topic is debated, especially in conjunction with the Chinese Exclusion Act. The nine authors selected offer varying analyses on Chinese discrimination and this culminating act. Some give racist explanations, but the majority point towards the perceived economic competition between the Chinese and the lower class led to distrust and animosity.

Two of the nine authors surveyed are particularly anti-Chinese. The first, William Brewer, was a Professor of Chemistry at Washington College in Pennsylvania and later Professor of Agriculture at Yale. He came to California when he joined the first State Geologist, Josiah Whitney in 1860. He published Up and Down California in 1860-1864 in 1930, which was a review of his geological work and a social, agricultural, and economic discussion of life in California. Brewer makes moral and religious diatribes against the Chinese giving racist motivations for the problems with the Chinese. He states, “What the "Nigger Question" is at home, the "Mongolian Question" is here.” He also believes “The morals of this class are anything but pure. All the vices of heathendom are practiced.”[1] While Brewer does not call for the removal or the Chinese, he certainly believes that they should be treated like African Americans because of...

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... As I Saw It: First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900” website at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/cbhome.html. Search by keyword using the title of the appropriate book for the search.

[2] Davis, Williams. Seventy-five years in California; a history of events and life in California. Part 67

[3] Ibid.

[4] Evans, Colonel Albert Evans. À la California: Sketch of Life in the Golden State.

[5] Twain, Mark. Roughing It. Part 54.

[6] Ellis, Henry. From the Kennebec to California; Reminiscences of a California Pioneer. Part 5.

[7] Ibid

[8] Huntley, Sir Henry Veel. California: Its Gold and Its Inhabitants. Chapter IV.

[9] Fisher, Walter. The Californians Chapter 4.

[10] Ibid and Huntley

[11] Phillips, D.L. Letters from California. Part 16

[12] Briggs, Lloyd. California and the West, 1881, and Later. Part 2