Questions | Capital District | Chinese Communities
The Push of Prejudice: Chinese Migration to New York
Document 4
Vocabulary
Cultivated: Tilled and prepared to raise crops.
Remunerative: Financial reward.
Vile: Disgusting.
Hoodlum: Gangster, bully.
"In several counties in this State, the Chinese population outnumber the voting portion of the Americans. This is especially true of the mining counties, where the Chinamen have gathered to work over the dirt of the old Placer Mines…
CHEAP LABOR.
That is what California wants, and that is what is developing the agricultural resources of the State. Take the 70,000 Chinamen out of California, its industries would be ruined, and the lands, now so productive, would be cultivated without remunerative results. They supply, by their toil, nearly all the vegetables and much of the poultry. They are doing a large share of the farm-work, and build all the railroads and irrigating canals and ditches. They do much of the cooking, and nearly all the washing and ironing. It is said they send the money they save back to China. Why? Because they are not safe, either in person or property, here. Were they protected as citizens are, they would soon own lands, town lots and houses. As it is now, the low, the vile, the idle, brutal hoodlum, in San Francisco, and all other large towns in this State, may attack the Chinaman's house, smash his windows, and break up his furniture and beat him, and he is--only a Chinaman.”
SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., Jan. 25, 1876."
Document 4: Excerpt from D. L. Phillips, Letter No. XVI, “Letters from California: its mountains, valleys, plains, lakes, rivers, climate and productions. Also its railroads, cities, towns and people, as seen in 1876.” "California as I Saw It": First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900; American Memory, Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/index.html.
Document 4 Short-Answer Questions
- In the first paragraph, what is the population comparison the writer makes about the mining counties of California?
- What does the writer think would happen to California without the labor of Chinese?
- Why does the writer think that Chinese are not safe in California?
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