Anti-Chinese Sentiment
Throughout history, stereotypes have swayed from good to bad and back. Such was the case with the Chinese. The first Chinese workers arrived in California in 1849. As the Gold Rush went on, the Chinese gained respect. It was said a Chinese worker could procure gold out of claims that had ran dry and that they could not be discouraged from doing their job. However, following the classic pattern, the thought soon swayed. America hit an economic depression in the 1870s. It was during this time period that the Chinese sentiment went sour. As exemplified by the cartoons below, Chinese immigrants were ostracized as well as portrayed in a negative light.
![Picture](/uploads/2/3/8/2/23820125/3349380.jpg?878)
This cartoon plays with stereotypes on both sides of the cartoon. On the left side, at least 12 Chinese men live in an opium den. Two are eating rats. On the right side, an American family welcomes the man of the house home. Note how the right side seems pleasant and normal, using warm colors, while the left side uses cool colors, implying an unnatural and strange setting.
Another common stereotype was that all Chinese carried diseases and Chinatown was infected with never-before-seen diseases. In this picture, three vaguely Chinese ghosts rise above ships and Chinatown. Each one bears the name of a disease: malarium (probably malaria), smallpox, and leprosy.
A Statue for our harbor
One of the most famous political cartoons of the 19th century, this one depicts a Chinese man in a pose similar to that of the Statue of Liberty in the harbor of San Francisco. This cartoon pokes (overly racist) fun at the influx of Chinese into San Francisco. The statue is holding an opium pipe in his left hand. His right foot rests on a skull, and there are rats at his feet. The rays emanating from his head read (from left) Labor, White, Ruin to (i. e. Ruin to White Labor), Diseases, Immorality, and Filth.
"He’s too filthy, the moon-eyed leper. He lives in one room of a tenement shanty, with twenty others as nasty as himself. He has a bad, fishy smell. As to morality, he makes himself tipsy with opium, and—look at his joss-house."
-Harper's Weekly, 1879 |
Chinese workers often worked for much less pay than most Americans did. Because of this, employers often hired Chinese workers to do grunt work. By the 1870s, Chinese workers constituted 25% of the Californian workforce. Naturally, this angered many Americans.
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Next page: The Chinese Exclusion Act