1. The Chinese in 19th Century America

2. Tell you neighbor
What do you remember about Chinese-Americans from 8th grade?

3. Homework Write a 1-page response to the following prompt:
How would you resist transformatively?
Remember that transformative resistance:
Identifies what oppression existed.
Identifies who was responsible for that oppression.
Identifies who did what to resist that oppression.
Reduces or eradicates the oppression.

4. Why they came Poor economic opportunities at home Gold Rush
After, many worked on railroads or laundries
Almost all men
Came to earn money and return to China
Many highly educated

5. How they were treated Viewed as “aliens”, unlike European immigrants
Personal, city, state, and federal discrimination
Seen as a labor threat
Worked too hard and “stole” “American” jobs
Seen as a sexual threat
Anti-miscegenation laws passed to stop ALL race-mixing

6. Rock Springs Massacre, Wyoming Territory

7. Personal Discrimination
Chinese workers refuse to join white strike
150 white miners attack Chinese and kill 28 and injure 15
No penalties
People of color forbidden to testify
Police don’t investigate
Sparks similar violence in Washington and California
UDHR 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

8. Laundry Ordinance

9. City Discrimination
Laws and bias in other jobs force Chinese to own laundries
SF Board of Supervisors requires fire marshall inspections of laundries
Chinese laundries almost always refused
White laundries almost always granted
UDHR 23.1: Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment … and to protection against unemployment.

10. Foreign Miner’s Tax

11. State Discrimination
California: all non-native miners must pay $20/month; later only Chinese miners
Huge burden on poor laborers
White miners have financial advantage
UDHR 7: All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law.

12. Chinese Exclusion Act

13. Federal Discrimination
USA: No Chinese immigrants allowed
Exception for sons of those already here
Only complete ban on national immigration EVER
Precedent for future racist immigration law
1906 Earthquake
Fire destroys records kept in San Francisco
Chinese immigrants claim to be relatives
Tested on all information on all people in home village
UDHR 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

14. Homework Write a 1-page response to the following prompt:
How would you resist transformatively?
Remember that transformative resistance:
Identifies what oppression existed.
Identifies who was responsible for that oppression.
Identifies who did what to resist that oppression.
Reduces or eradicates the oppression.